2011 — The Year Of Cheese
It occurred to me one night as I was sitting up, listening to The Bass make his nightly round of groans, squawks, and shrieks as he tried to pass gas in his sleep, that I definitely need a hobby. The more kids we have, the better we seem to get at doing things at home (and the more rewarding we seem to find creating things ourselves rather than buy them at the store), and that the things that we really like turn into things that we truly love once we begin the process of making them ourselves.
Last year I discovered homemade bread, and soon after Steve started brewing in the basement. We’ve made bread, we’ve made beer (and, this winter, mead), so making cheese seemed like the next logical step.
In the hours of endless rocking (or the 15 minutes alone in bed before I fall into an exhausted sleep) I’ve managed to work my way through the cheesemaker’s bible. Now, waiting for the supplies I’ve ordered to come in the mail (the starters, the salts, the enzymes and molds), I’ve become fascinated with every aspect of the craft — I’ve started reading cheesemaker blogs, searched for message boards, even started bookmarking pages with homemade cheese press instructions so I can move on to hard cheeses once I master the soft.
I’m hoping to do my first cheesemaking experiment – a simple chevre — as soon as next week. My goal is to then move on to mozzarella by March. If all goes well, maybe I can make a press and have a farmhouse cheddar ready by summer.
Now, to get Steve to start brewing a batch of wine…
