Our shop was recently featured in the New England Cheesemaking article about Homestead Stores. Gayle Starbuck from Curds on the Whey teaches our cheesemaking classes and sells kits at the shop. While the article gave a nod to homestead stores in Ohio and California, they mentioned us and the Urban Farm Store as sources for Portland. The article also included some great photos of the shop. Check it out if you have the chance. And thanks New England Cheesemaking!

Here’s a little excerpt from the blog:

By Elaine Johnson, Sunset associate food editor

If you’re interested in canning, fermenting, cheesemaking, sourdough baking, butchering, knife sharpening, animal rearing (chickens, goats, rabbits), beekeeping, gardening, not to mention making your own yogurt, kombucha, freshly ground grain, charcuterie, soap, natural cleaning products (even toothpaste!), dog food, wine, beer, cider, and candles (phew–did I forget anything?), then be sure to stop at Portland Homestead Supply next time you’re in the City of Roses.

I swung by recently and the friendly owners, Kristl and Doug Bridge, showed me around. I’m ready to take up about 12 new hobbies! And with all their classes, I really could.

Portland Homestead Supply Co., located in Sellwood, opened June 14. Bridge hopes it will serve as a one-stop shop for Portlanders wishing to get back to the basics. The store carries supplies for canning and pickling food and for making soap, candles and laundry-soap. It also carries natural cleaning supplies, garden tools, bulk animal feed, and soil nutrients such as jersey greensand and blood meal.

The store also hosts a range of classes on canning, tool sharpening, butchering, cheese making, and “bath bombs,” orbs of bath salts that immediately start fizzing and disintegrating when they hit the water (they happen to be particularly popular with kids, Bridge reports).

Bridge, who co-owns the business with her husband Doug, estimates that about 100 people visit the shop each day. “We’ve had a wonderful response,” Kristl Bridge says. “More come through the door than we anticipated.”