1) I was once ticketed for underage drinking at a bar in college.

2) I was featured on some radio spots for a local fast food joint when I was 10 years old.

3) I once killed my pet bird by accidentally dropping a dictionary on it.

Now, we just need to get a rousing game of “I Never” running on the blogs. Who’s got the beer?

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My initial attempt was to make my own chevre, a type of soft, spreadable cheese made of goats milk.  I purchased 4 quarts of goats milk at the local Cub, at $4.32 a quart, assuming “Yes, sort of expensive, but I’m making TWO POUNDS OF CHEESE!  What an investment!”

Chevre is allegedly one of the easiest cheeses to make, especially if you purchase chevre starter like I did.  Bring your milk up to 86 degrees, stir in some starter, remove the milk from the heat and keep it covered for 6-12 hours, then pour into a butter muslin lined colander.  Tie the muslin shut and hang it from the cupboard above the sink, and let drain for 12 hours.

I purchased a candy thermometer at Cub as well, figuring it had the range of temps I needed to make the cheese, so it was fine to use instead of a dairy thermometer.  Maybe it would have been, had I not gotten a $3 thermometer from Cub.  I sterilized the thermometer before using, and it leaked water inside the tube, which I later learned must have made the temperature not read properly.  That’s the only reason I can come up with for the utter failure of my milk, which never formed curd.

Refusing to admit I really didn’t have cheese, I still went through the motions, even draining for 12 hours, not admitting there was almost nothing inside my cloth.  Final yield?  Maybe an ounce of cheese.  Yes, I created $17 an ounce cheese.

The initial taste was wonderful, though — tangy and almost exactly like the chevre from the store, although a little creamier.  I then managed to ruin it completely by adding too much salt (which you will understand a little further into the story), reducing my one ounce of cheese to a literal spoonful of edible end product.

Having realized early on that I had likely failed in my attempt to make goat cheese, I decided to attempt buttermilk cheese instead, using a buttermilk starter I had purchased as well.  The technique is the same as the chevre – heat milk to 90 degrees, add starter, stir, let sit, strain.  I thought it would be a good way to test my chevre making ability — it was basically chevre, but with regular (ie: cheap) milk.  It was also only a quart recipe, so if I messed up the recipe I was out a total of $2 for supplies.

I purchased a new thermometer, this one a $10 meat thermometer from Target.  It covered all the temps of a dairy thermometer, but unfortunately did not have any clip or way to hold it up in the pot on its own.  After trying to jimmy a few solutions, all of which were thrown off by the top-heavy thermometer and just kept flipping over, I had to just hold with one hand and stir with the other.  Once I hit 90 degrees, I stirred in the culture then poured the milk into a thermos and closed it up to sit for 12 hours or so.

By this point, though, I REALLY wanted to make some real cheese.  I flipped to the 30 minute mozzarella recipe in my cheese bible and went to work.  Other than the awkwardness of holding the thermometer with one hand and stirring with the other, the recipe was simple.  I learned quickly that next time I need to premix my citric acid mix in one bowl and my rennant in another bowl and have them ready to use when I get to each step to cut down any additional stress, but other than that, it was fairly simple.  I was overly cautious with my milk heating, which made the recipe take much more than 30 minutes to finish, but otherwise was easily doable in an hour, tops.

This was my first creation of real curd, and I have to admit I was pretty proud to see them form.  Once I had the curd drained and in the bowl, I started the microwaving process.  It soon pulled just like taffy and formed a beautiful stretchy cheese.  I decided against adding the “salt to taste” that was suggested in the recipe, and then Vi, who had woken up by then, helped me form tiny mozzarella balls.

The texture was gorgeous.  The taste?  Meh. It was like a very thin, watery version of the store bought cheese, and very much needed the salt that I didn’t add (Now you know why I accidentally oversalted my goats milk cheese later that day).  Still, I had made cheese!  We ate a little, put the rest in the fridge, and I swore I would make more as soon as I had more milk — this time with salt.

Since I had my mother’s helper the next day, I went out for a long walk, and came home with another gallon of whole milk — this one purchased at the seedy convenience store on the corner.  I went straight into the 30 minute mozz recipe again, with my citric acid and rennant ready to go. 

Once I got to the curd stage, and did the “gentle stir” I was horrified.  Instead of my somewhat large, firmish, jellylike curd, mine disintegrated into tiny curd like small curd cottage cheese.  I started swearing at the pot — the bible states that if your cheese curd breaks up into a ricotta-like consistancy, you likely have ultra-pasteurized milk, a type of flash pasteurized milk that can’t be made into cheese because it was heated at such a high temperature that the protein is destroyed (usually from cheap milk, which is shipped further and can have a longer shelf life).

Despite my bad milk, I figured I’d go ahead and finish the process to work on my technique.  The curd was a mess, and took forever to strain out of the whey, but once I got to the hand-kneading process, it did end up coming together, and I had another stretchy, lovely mozzarella (this time, lightly salty).  I put the cheese in the refrigerator while we went to Vi’s daycare for Valentine’s Day, and when I got home I cut it into strips and used it on our homemade pizza.

The flavor was better with the salt, but still not fantastic.  I’ve realized 30 minute mozzarella is more party trick than good cheese, although it was a good one to do to learn the ropes.

Then there was the buttermilk cheese….

Yesterday morning I opened my thermos and found properly curdled milk, which I drained all day yesterday.  This morning, I had a rich, creamy cheese the consistency of a cream cheese.  The flavor is much like a solid sour cream, and with a little minced garlic, chive and dill, it made a ridiculously tasty herb cream cheese.

I’m ready to try chevre again now.  If only I could find more goats milk that isn’t $17 a gallon.

Who has the best margarita in Fridley? Three women make finding that out their Friday night adventure.

It will come as a shock to few that I don’t get out of the house often. In fact, in the two months since Bass (short for Sebastian) was born, I’ve made it out of the house for a social reason exactly once. I was overdue for a night out with the girls—and a good drink.

We all agreed that we wanted to get a good margarita, and that for once we would go out in my neck of the woods instead of northeast or downtown Minneapolis like we usually do. But who has the best margarita in Fridley? Since we didn’t know, we realized we had a mission on our hands.

Yes, we drank margaritas, many, many margaritas—all in the name of research, of course.

Read the rest here…

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…

Are you and the kids already tired of winter? Here are three freebie activities that may tide you over until spring. What are your favorite freebies?

Moms Talk is a new feature on Fridley Patch that is part of a new initiative on  Patch sites to reach out to moms and families. Fridley Patch invites you and your circle of friends to help build a community of support for mothers and their families.

Each week in Moms Talk, a Moms Council of experts and smart moms will take your questions, give advice and share solutions. Moms, dads, grandparents and the diverse families who make up our community will have a new resource for questions about local neighborhood schools, the best pediatricians, 24-hour pharmacies and the thousands of other issues that arise while raising children.

Moms Talk will also be the place to drop in for a talk about hot topics in parenting. Do you know local moms raising their children in the Tiger Mother’s way and is it the best way? Where can we get information on local flu shot clinics for children? How do we talk to our children about the Tucson shootings? How can we help our children’s schools weather budget cutbacks?

So grab a cup of coffee and settle in as we start the conversation today with a question (and a few possible answers):

How do you fight cabin fever, entertain the little ones, and not spend a dime? The groundhog is already back in his hole, and we’re preparing for six more weeks of winter. If your family is anything like mine, you’ve maxed out on snow angels, sledding and bundling up. I recommend these three local outings, each one a freebie if you play them properly.

The Hampster Maze at Chuck E. Cheese’s. Okay, yes, the blinking lights and noises just scream, “Put a token in the machine!” But back in the corner, tucked next to the booths, is a world of fun for any kid small enough to wedge him or herself into the tubes, where they can then travel up and over many of the games on the floor.  Yes, there is only one path, but frankly, a three year old can make that trip 15 or 20 times and never get bored as long as mom or dad go to various see through points in the maze and wave at them.  Cost: Free, if you don’t succumb to pizza.

read the rest here…

Yesterday was my first column, which you can find here. And a little excerpt is below:

Two Kids, No Sleep: Taking Comfort in the Smallest Victories
A work-at-home mom does two jobs simultaneously—and neither includes a lunch break.

The happiest day of 2010 for me was the day that our new son was born.

The happiest day of 2011?  The day he finally slept all night without somebody having to hold him.

It never occurred to me that the littlest things, like actually sleeping in the same bed at the same time for the first time in more than six weeks, would become such huge victories. But life has completely changed after having our second child, and in ways we never really expected.

No one tells you that two kids isn’t really twice the work, that it somehow magnifies by a power of 10 or 20. That naps are never going to mesh correctly, and one child is almost always awake at any given moment.  There is no hand-off or quiet moment.  One kid will always be screaming, just as surely as you can guarantee that anytime a pacifier pops out of a baby’s mouth it will roll directly underneath the couch…

(Read the rest here)

First it was waiting to hear a heartbeat at the doctor. Then it was making it past the first trimester. Then it was feeling movement. But really, what we were waiting for once we knew that this baby would actually grow, was a sign that this one should be healthy.

Today I got back the results from our quad screening, a blood test diagnostic that evaluates likelihood of issues like neural tube disorders, down syndrome, spina biffida and possible other possible chromosomal issues. And the results were very good. As in, less than 1 in 10,000 for most of them, and less than 1 in 3900 for another (“normal” results are anything above 1 and 150, and just based on my age average results are closer to 1 in 400/500).

So, we can finally talk about things now. We are having a baby. It is due sometime shortly after Violet’s 3rd birthday, in mid December. We are elated. We are terrified. And Violet has named her future sibling “Lulu.”

Of course there are still things that could go wrong. We have our final scan on July 30th in 2 weeks. But we are finally starting to feel confident that “Lulu” will be here before the end of the year.