Daily Details, Part 1: Packaging Market and Wholesale Orders

In the last few weeks, some things haven't changed. Many of the tasks I described from my first week were repeated in the exact same manner. The sanitation steps are always the same. The recipes stay the same and all involve some form of cutting, raking, stirring, hooping, and usually pressing in the air press. The clean-up still involves the same steps of scrubbing the room wall-to-floor, scrubbing the equipment multiple times, removing all curd remnants hiding in any corner, and washing all the molds and dishes in hot soapy water twice.

Of course, there are some new things that have been added to my routine. Plus, I've had enough experience under my belt to perform a few simple tasks on my own.

1)  Preparing for market: The weekend farmers markets are growing as the summer gets into full-swing. When I first arrived, the New York City markets and the Farm's cheese store were the biggest responsibilities. But now the major Connecticut markets have opened for the season as well. Preparing the cheese to take to markets can begin as early as Wednesday, but it's all wrapped up and loaded into the cheese van by Friday afternoon. First, we tally what's left from the previous week's markets. Then, Mark works some sort of math voodoo in his brain and chooses the number of wheels to pull for each market from his mental inventory. The numbers often change slightly as the prepping proceeds, but somehow in the midst of thousands of pounds of cheese, Mark has a keen awareness for how much goes where and when. My role comes in making several trips up and down the stairs to the aging cellars and pulling cheese from the shelves. Mark regularly tests upcoming batches by using a coring instrument to periodically take a tasting sample out of one or two wheels from each batch. The cheeses are aged for different amounts of time, but they must by law be aged at least 60 days.

All cheese operations are set up differently. At Cato Corner, the cheeses are all aged in the same 800 square-foot cellar, and grouped geographically by cheese types in various numbered shelving sections. Blue cheeses, for example, are generally in one section and washed rinds are in their own section. If I had an aging cellar, I'd label the sections by country or animal...like at the zoo or Epcot center. But like I said, everyone sets it up differently.

I look up the date of the batch that's ready from that week's list of ready cheeses, find the correct shelf (which are labeled with the cheese type and batch date), and start lugging cheese up the stairs. I usually carry two to three small wheels or one big wheel at a time. I could probably carry more, but it makes me nervous. I've been known to have a knack for falling. 

Then, I help clean and groom the cheese by scraping off the dust and various debris that collects from months in a cellar. If needed, the cheese is cut into halves, thirds, or quarter wheels. The wheels and wheel pieces are wrapped, labeled and placed in the cooler for the correct market. At the end of each Friday, the coolers are loaded into the cheese van. There are generally two or three people working together to perform these various steps. 

2) Packaging wholesale orders: Knowing how to ship cheese is a life skill that I believe will come in very handy. You never know when you or someone you love will be trapped in some remote location with a dire hankering for good cheese. Bam! Cheese at your doorstep in the Arizona desert. Nom Nom.

Wholesale orders for cheese stores, restaurants, and mail-order customers flow in throughout the week. Tuesdays are the biggest days for putting together these orders to ship. It starts with the same process of pulling cheese from the aging room, as well as cleaning and wrapping the cheese. Of course, the wrapping is done more carefully and always involves using cheese paper, which helps the cheese breathe and keep for longer. Also, printed labels are added to each wheel, versus market cheese, which gets labeled with a Sharpie in various short-hand and symbols. Then, the cheese is loaded into boxes, insulated, surrounded by ice packs, and weighed. About what you'd expect. On particularly busy weeks when many orders come in at once, the front room becomes a frenzy of boxes, paper, foam, ice packs, tape and cheese. I stay focused by imagining the journey the cheese will make from aging room to box to someone's cheese plate...like a montage in the world's greatest music video. Seriously why hasn't anyone made a radio jam about cheese? 

(Because the mundane details of my week are informative of the full picture, but I'm sure are also quite boring, I'm breaking this post into three parts so you don't lose interest completely. Stay tuned for what's new in the aging room and cheese room!! Woot Woot!)