Last Saturday, I spent the day at the San Antonio Zoo celebrating Mother’s Day in true cheesy style! My friendly brand ambassadors helped spread the Tillamook Loaf Love by sharing cheesy samples and taking photos. In honor of Mother’s Day, the first 100 moms who came to the zoo dressed in orange even got in free! Visitors played bingo all across the zoo and shared their photos on Instagram for a chance to win a year’s supply of Tillamook Cheese!

Here are some photos from the Instagram contest and my day at the zoo!

The Loaf Love Tour will be in San Antonio until May 23 giving out samples, coupons, and smiles to everyone they meet – so don’t miss out! Be sure to check out the tour schedule to see if there are stops near you!

I’ll be hanging out on Twitter and Facebook if you want to say hi!

By Loafy

Breakfast in Bed is a classic Mother’s Day move. Don’t fret if your standard pancakes and eggs just won’t cut it this year – I’ve got some delicious ideas. Here’s my top 5 recipes for treating your Tillamama on Mother’s Day this year!

Tri-Berry Parfait with Granola and Tillamook Oregon Strawberry Yogurt
Start the morning off on a berry good note! This super-easy and delicious parfait is the perfect companion to a morning spent lounging in bed. Just top Tillamook Oregon Strawberry Yogurt with strawberries, blueberries, blackberries and your favorite granola. Then lean back and dig in!

Almond Poppy Seed Muffins
If your mom’s got a sweet tooth, these almond poppy seed muffins from the blog Your Cup of Cake are sure to hit the spot. Don’t forget to use Tillamook Butter! Spoiler alert, there’s a delicious almond filling surprise when you bite in the middle.

Cheesy Frittata
Frittata – it’s a brunch classic! A hearty cheesy breakfast chock full of veggies and flavor that will set a great tone on the morning. Be sure to use lots of her favorite Tillamook Cheese!

Mixed Berry Tartlets made with Tillamook Light Lemon Squeeze Yogurt
This recipe comes from the blog Patty’s Food. These beautiful tartlets with Tillamook Light Lemon Squeeze Yogurt mixed into the pastry crème make for a delicious fruity tartlet perfect to treat your Tillamama. Top it off with your mom’s favorite fruit for an extra special breakfast.

Cheddar Bacon Waffles
These waffles from the American Grilled Cheese Kitchen are a dangerous combination of sweet and savory. This is a special treatment we could all get used to!

By Amalya

Moms are the best! They take care of us when we’re sick, tuck us into bed at night, give great hugs…sometimes, they’re even our best friends! The best gifts aren’t always the ones that cost the most. Showing mom you care can be easy! You can give your Tillamama a coupon for anything you want! Just print this homemade coupon page and fill in whatever will make your mom smile!

Here are some ideas
• One bedtime story
• Breakfast in bed
• Car washing
• A picnic in the park
• Laundry folding
• One bike ride
• One very long hug
• Sweeping the floor
• One neck massage
• A homemade meal

What will you treat your mom to for Mother’s Day this year!?!

And don’t forget to enter the Tillamama & Me Photo Contest on Facebook!

By Loafy

From Austin to Dallas to Houston, the Loaf Love Tour has been soaking up as much of Texas as possible! The Texas fun continues on Saturday, May 11 with Loaf Love Tour at the San Antonio Zoo! Stop by to see us between 9am and 5pm to enjoy some cheese samples, play games, and get Tillamook goodies!

The first 100 moms who come to the zoo wearing Tillamook Orange will get in to the zoo for free*! Inside the zoo, there will be sampling cubes of our yummy natural cheeses and bingo cards that you and your family can take around the zoo to find fun animals and Tillamook Cheese! For every bingo spot you find, snap a photo with your Smile Sticks and share it with @Tillamook on Instagram to be entered to win a year’s supply of Tillamook Cheese!

See the official rules here.

I can’t wait to see you at the San Antonio Zoo on Saturday, May 11!!!

*Free entry for the first 100 eligible participants (moms) only. Free entry starting a 9am until limit reached. Participating fans may check-in at the Tillamook Baby Loaf bus located outside the San Antonio Zoo main entrance. To win, moms must be wearing orange. Limit one free entry per person, no monetary value.

By Loafy

Mother’s Day is around the corner, but have no fear! There are plenty of great gifts to treat your Tillamama in the Online Shop!

Don’t forget to enter the Tillamama & Me Look-Alike photo contest on Facebook!

What’ll you treat your Tillamama to!?

By Tillamook

May is for moms and we’re celebrating everything they give us—including their good looks. Send us your best mother-and-child look-alike photo and you could win a $300 shopping spree in the Tillamook Online Shop!

How to Enter:
1) “Like” Tillamook on Facebook!
2) Pose for a snapshot with your son, daughter, mom, or furry friend and show off your matching genes!
3) Upload your photo through the Tillamama & Me tab on Facebook.
4) Make sure to send us your entries between May 1 and May 23, 2013.

Vote for the winner:

After we pick 10 finalists, vote for your favorite look-alike photo from May 24 to May 30. Remember to cast a new vote every day to give your favorite look-alike photo the best chance of winning. The pic with the most votes will win $300 to spend on the Tillamook Online Shop! We’ll announce the winner on May 31, so stay tuned!

Please see the Official Rules for more details, or contact us with any comments or questions.

By Tillamook

Meet Doris and Karen!

As a kid, packaging operator Karen Robitsch remembers coming to the Cheese Factory with her family, being treated to an ice cream cone and heading upstairs to watch her mom, packaging operator Doris Clark, work.

For Doris, who retired in 2000, the 25 years she spent working on the line in packaging hold a lot of wonderful memories.  While it was the good pay and benefits that drew her to the job, it was her co-workers, who were like a tight-knit family, that kept her.

In the late 70’s Tillamook Cheese was still dipped in wax and hand wrapped – very different from how Karen, who has worked here since 2005, works. Technology and advances in packaging materials have led to more automation.

One thing that hasn’t changed is the pride both women feel when talking about their jobs and products we make.  Doris says she was always so proud to work at Tillamook. She would proudly wear her whites into the grocery store after work; “when you are in whites, everyone knew exactly where you worked,” she said.

Karen says she liked telling people she’s from Tillamook, Oregon when she is out of town.  She says people always say “Oh, like the cheese.” And she gets to say “Yes!  That’s where I work!”

The tradition of getting a cone and watching the packaging line run from the windows has now shifted.  It’s Doris who comes in, often with her great-grandchildren, to watch Karen work.

Karen is happy to be following in her mom’s footsteps and thinks that matching her mom’s 25 years on the line is a possibility.  Doris says that “I knew Karen would be happy here. I’m happy for her.”

By Aimee

My New Mama Care Package!

I don’t know about you, but it’s baby time amongst my circle of friends. And a lot of the women that I love are becoming moms for the very first time.

I’ve been racking my brain trying to figure out how to make this new life experience just a bit easier. Now, I don’t know a thing about being a mom, but I do know a thing or two about food. Specifically, you can always use more and you can always use it delivered to your door!

So, I decided to put together a little New Mama Care Package, and it actually only took about an hour to shop, pack it up, and deliver. My care package included:

• Tillamook Cheese, of course! 3 snack bars that are easy to slice (or heck, even unwrap and gnaw on!) – Sharp, Smoked, and Special Reserve Extra Sharp
• Crackers, or something to slow down the cheese consumption
• Lots of fresh fruit (I hear new moms crave it?) – apples, oranges, pears, grapes
• A loaf of freshly baked french bread
• A big ole jug of fresh orange juice
• And finally, a 6-pack of Guinness (this could be for the new mom OR the new dad, but I hear it can actually help nursing mothers)

I packed it all up in a cooler, drove it over to my friend’s house, and sent a text message that there was something on her doorstep and that she didn’t need to call or txt me back. It’s important to note that a full meal is probably even more appreciated, but I’m much more of an “eater” than a “cook” so this was the best way for me to show my love.

Some other tools and ideas that I’ve come across since I started thinking about this:

MealBaby.com is an online tool where your friends can sign up to bring you meals right after you’ve had a baby. Great idea as an alternative to baby shower gifts, etc. And an added bonus is that when you drop off the food you get to meet the new baby!

I just love how pretty the New Baby Taco Box is that the folks over at the Kitchn Blog put together (they gave me the idea for the Guinness!)

These recipes would be great for a box delivery: Savory Bread Pudding (great for breakfast or dinner!), Apple Cheddar Salad, pack up all the fixins for Carne Asada Tacos, or Smoked Chicken Enchiladas, or even make a grilled cheese themed care package and fix up some Sharp Cheddar and Apple Chutney Grilled Cheese.

And finally, here are 5 tips on how to deliver food to new families.

What would you put in a friend’s New Mama Care Package? Or what would you want in your own?

By Gillian

Marshall Allen, 8 years old

You would think working at Tillamook gives us working moms a leg up in the Tillamama movement: We would never run out of hugs or Tillamook products. (OK – who are we kidding, we would never run out of Tillamook on purpose, but we are human, and we are busy moms!).

At home, our Dairy Products Quality Manager, Jill Allen, keeps up with three very busy kids. Her oldest, Marshall, is an active eight year old, and I wondered what he thinks about what his mom does at work (and home):

What does your mom do for a job?

She tastes the cheese.

What does your mom do at home?

Takes me swimming and cleans.

What makes your mom special?

She takes me swimming and bike riding and we love her.

What is your favorite thing that your mom makes with Tillamook cheese?

Melted cheese sandwich and cheese and crackers.

What is your favorite Tillamook product?

Grandmas Cake Batter Ice Cream.

Can you tell Marshall likes to swim?  He is a member of the Tillamook Sharks swim team.

And he’s right, his mom does taste the cheese.  She actually tastes Tillamook Cheese, Ice Cream, Sour Cream, Cutter and Yogurt and manages the technical staff of other “cheese tasters” through our sensory program, ensuring that all of our products meet the high Tillamook quality standards.

Thanks Marshall for telling us about your Tillamama!

By Aimee

Hooray! We received more than 80 amazing entries for our Tillamama Contest, and after much deliberation, we’ve selected our winners!

• 1st place: Jane, who was nominated by her daughter Stephanie Sabin Galusha
• 2nd place: Marian Scadden, who was nominated by her daughter Erin Scadden Tate
• 3rd place: Antoinette Brunton, who was nominated by her husband Jonathan and daughter Natalia

Thanks to everyone who entered, and congratulations again to our winners!

First Place Winner:

First place winner Jane and her daughter Stephanie

“Tradition, tradition! Tradition!” My Tillamama, Jane, is all about tradition! My mother raised her six children as a single mother, and so a trip to the beach was a grand and exciting adventure for all of us. I do not remember the first time we stopped in Tillamook and went to the cheese factory, but I know it stayed with me! It was so exciting to walk through the cheese-making process, get in line to sample all the different cheeses, pick out a special treat to take home with us, get some yummy ice cream! Of course, I cannot forget the “squeaky cheese!” It is my mother’s favorite treat from Tillamook and we always return home with a bag of it (or sometimes two!) Honestly, I do not recall a trip to the Oregon Coast where my family has not stopped at the Tillamook Cheese Factory. It is tradition for my family to stop there every time, and it is a tradition that we never want to break! We even made the trip to Tillamook just after my brother had passed away because the memories there made us feel closer to him (I had even bought a Tillamook beef stick for his birthday just before he died, no joke.) My most recent trip to Tillamook, in March 2012, was one week before I delivered my second baby. I just HAD to go before he arrived so I could get some cheese and a waffle cone! My neighbor came with me because she had never been there! When I asked my mother what she wanted me to bring home to her, she replied in a text message, “get me some squeaky cheese!” :-)

I love my Mom! She deserves to win the title of Tillamama not only because of her loyalty to Tillamook cheese, but because of her love and loyalty to her family. She has always been there for all of us, has always worked so incredibly hard without being rewarded. She deserves to win the title of Tillamama because she is the most wonderful mother in the world and I would love to see her be publicly rewarded for being such a great mother. I would love to see her excitement at winning something; especially something she would put to good use. My Tillamama deserves the very best, and believe me, my family thinks Tillamook cheese is the very best!

Second Place Winner:

Erin's creative entry for her mom, Marian

3rd Place Winner:

Third place winner Antoinette Brunton!

My mom is THE Tillamama and Biggest Fan!
Each week she has a shopping and cooking plan!
She fills her shopping cart with Tillamook Galore!
Each day we tell her “we want MORE!”
Tillamook butter for morning toast
and Tillamook yogurt is what I like the most!
Tillamook sour cream and Colby omelet
or maybe my mom will make nachos, I’ll bet!
Tillamook cheddar slices on hamburgers for lunch
the taste is the BEST and “Loaf” a whole bunch!
Tillamook shredded mozzarella on pizza a winner
I’m happy my mom will make it for dinner!
The best part of all is the Tillamook ice cream
our favorite Oregon Strawberry, Chocolate Peanutbutter, and Marionberry Pie are a heavenly dream!
Please, oh please crown my mom the ultimate Tillamama Queen!
Because she feeds us Tillamook for breakfast, supper, and all day in between!

By Loafy