A few nights ago, on my drive home from my once-a-week Tuesday gig in Waco, Texas, it occurred to me how ridiculous the lengths to which I had gone to be a productive member of cheese society seemed. At 10 p.m. I was on a desolate stretch of West Texas highway pushing hour-five of my 5.5-hour commute. This would be like living at my parents house in Omaha, bored and tired of wearing clothes that smelled like my mother's curry, and suddenly announcing "what say I drive on down to Wichita for my part-time job at Boeing today." Even more ridiculous is the thought that if I worked in New York City part-time and lived in DC for a lower cost of living, the commute with normal traffic would be about the same as or less than what I was doing now.
Maybe because of my nomadic, living-out-of-my-car, lifestyle, I had misjudged the substantial size of this kind of mileage. After all, I was the only one who seemed unphased by the feat of my weekly trek. I quickly consoled myself, realizing that this drive wouldn't be worthwhile just to kill time at any old bootleg cheese operation. Sure it beats sitting around in the afternoon watching Leprechaun: Back 2 the Hood on cable television and feeling IQ points quietly slip away. But more importantly, the drive is reasonable for the value I get in exchange: a sense of worth in a job I love and in a field I'm proud to make my life. I got lucky once again and found a wonderful cheesemaker to work with.
My first day at Brazos Valley Cheese was a couple weeks ago. Somehow my mere six months of experience gave them the impression that I knew what I was doing. Right from the start Rebeccah, the head cheesemaker, put me in charge of my own mini batch of brie. She showed me where to find equipment and cultures and how to heat the vat. Other than periodically answering my questions about the recipe and where to find things, I was set loose on my own.
Brie is a cheese I had never made before. The cheese room has a large vat and a small vat. My batch was in the small vat, so the potential for disaster would only affect 50 gallons of milk -- only mildly reassuring. The milk is brought in from an outside source every morning by others, so I don't bother with the mechanics of pumping the milk. Plus, there's always extra muscle to help with cutting and hooping. So honestly, supervising my own batch does not make me any kind of cheese badass. Most everything is spelled out in their recipe. I simply watch the temperature, add the correct amount of cultures and rennet per the recipe, periodically check the pH and stir. After hooping, I watch the time for flipping, flip, and with this particular batch of brie, sprinkle vegetable ash in the center. If I hadn't figured out these basics by this point, I would make a far worse cheesemaker than I was lawyer. And that is a dismal thought. Yet, having someone set me loose on their product and so quickly trust my abilities, basic as they might be, made me feel like I had actually reached the point of being worthy of the job title, cheesemaker.
I was also encouraged to chime in with any suggestions I might have on methods and techniques based on my experience. This request came on the heels of a friend from cheese school calling me to look for advice on washing a washed-rind cheese he was developing. What alternative universe was I in? When the hell did I go from someone who just liked melting piles of cheese on everything I ate to being a source for cheesemaking advice?! This feels different. I was hesitant to adjust someone's long-standing methods by introducing my own style of, say, hand-salting or hooping. But my confidence received a boost knowing that at least a couple things I mentioned were well-received and potentially helpful...or else they were just being really nice to me. Either way, win for my ego!
Despite having developed some knowledge about the craft, there are still techniques and cheeses I've never experienced. My newest cheese job is also providing me with learning opportunities, such as wrapping my first wheel of cloth-bound cheddar. Aging the wheel in cloth, as opposed to letting a natural rind develop in the open-air, provides a different flavor profile in cheddar. To bind the wheels they are wrapped in several pieces of cotton muslin, which are adhered to the wheel with vegetable shortening. Maybe I just really like dumping my hands in a tub of Crisco, but I thoroughly enjoyed the experience. I've never worked with brie or mozzarella before, so I have volumes to learn there. I'm also continually learning more about the science of the cheesemaking process from Rebeccah and her crew: pH levels, aging temperatures, what have you.
Let's not forget, I'm a fatty, and I couldn't be more pleased that they treat me to lunch at their community's cafe. I mentioned before that the cheesemakers are a self-sustaining homesteading community, which opens itself and its crafts to the public for visits, classes and purchase. Everything at the cafe is freshly made using their own beef, veggies, and homemade bread. Best food in Waco!!...for what that's worth to any of you.
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