On To The Next

After logging almost 11,000 miles of commute, plus one windshield replacement from an errant flying boulder on highway 90, two late-night near deer-to-hood encounters, several incidents of suppressed road rage, countless rendezvous with swerving semis, too many protein-bar-dinners on the road, and five or six gas-price hikes later, I bid adieu to another chapter in my cheese life. My last week at Waco's Brazos Valley Cheese was bittersweet. I wouldn't have made that trek if I didn't also really enjoy the people and the job that awaited me at the end. At the same time, there sure as hell will be no love lost between me and that 5pm to 11pm drive home to Del Rio every week.

Making the commute for almost five months is respectable, right? A part of me felt like a punk bitch when I had to explain that I would be leaving something I love because the drive had gotten too hard. It's not you, it's me. Never mind the emboldened sense of achievement I had each time someone questioned my sanity for making that commute in the first place. Anything for you, cheese.

It was time, though. Deep down I knew when I started that I couldn't make that commute forever. Hopefully I can parlay everything I learned with BVC and all my other cheese teachers in the last year (a little over a year to this day that I started this journey) to an equally wonderful and fortunate next chapter.

The next move will likely involve continuing to improve my home cheesemaking (and pies) while resuming my nomadic ways. Del Rio has few cheese ties to keep me here for long, so I'm following leads for the next opportunity elsewhere. At some point, Tad and I will be in the same city for more than a few months, and I'll finally be able to figure out what CheesyStreet actually is or will be. For now and the near future, I'm still living out of suitcases.

But before I move on, a tribute to the job that gave me my cheese swagger.

Big vat, dutch press in the background,
and my mini vat in the left foreground.

I've mentioned that my job at BVC made me feel more like a real cheesemaker. I started to list "cheesemaker" without hesitation in the occupation blanks for profile data, surveys, and doctors' office forms. The good people at BVC gave me more responsibility than I expected for having only six months of legitimate cheese experience. Are you sure you want to put me in charge of my own batch, I kept thinking? It seemed hasty, but I was thankful they unintentionally pushed me further. I hope I didn't let them down.

I've mentioned a few notable events at BVC, but I haven't gone into great detail about my daily tasks. The reasons are several-fold. First, a lot of the basics would be repetitive with slight variations in procedural technique. Too many details would have been a lot like listing the different varieties of high-fiber cereal I've eaten this month. Second, my new hobby of home cheesemaking and related mishaps became a big part of my cheese life in Del Rio and needed some introduction to the spotlight. But, most importantly, there was no true schedule at BVC that lent itself to an easy description of a day in the life.

Milk delivery in the morning. Milk
was purchased from nearby farms.

On a daily basis, there was rarely a moment to pause and nothing seemed compartmentalized. Everyone was shuttling back and forth between cheesemaking, flipping, pressing, affinage, packaging, doing inventory, checking pHs, stretching mozzarella, marinating cheeses, mixing ingredients for flavored cheese, and cleaning.  There were general duties; one person manned the big batch of cheese while another (usually me) manned the smaller second batch. And certain tasks had to be done on certain days; bries blooming mold needed flipping daily, munster needed washing every Wednesday, mozzarella needed stretching every other Tuesday. But there was no set course plotted for any given day of the week.

The particular nature of a cheesemaker's day-to-day routine is usually a factor of both workplace preferences and differences in production between cheese operations.

The hairnets weren't
my favorite part

The notable difference that I targeted as the big reason for the fast-paced BVC work-day was the variety of cheese. Taking into account the types of cheese (Cheddar, Brie, Havarti, Mozzarella, Feta etc.) and the flavors or variations for each type of cheese (Horseradish Pecan Cheddar, Brie with vegetable ash, Blueberry Havarti, marinated Feta, multiple flavors of cheese spreads etc.), there were more than two dozen cheeses for us to make and tend after. There was always a cheese, sometimes multiple cheeses, that needed attention at any given moment.

Yet, never was there a neglected cheese if someone could help it. It takes dedication, and a village, to care for that much cheese. BVC was nothing if not dedicated. It was always an 8am to question-mark sort of day. If the cheese or pH isn't ready on your timeline, then you wait. Or if more than one cheese is ready at the same time...well, then, god help you. Patience and fortitude is key when you're awake early making two batches, caring for a dozen more, and returning at 9pm that evening to work with whatever got left behind. If an order of 500 jars of marinated feta needs to be packaged and ready, then everyone comes to work and pitches in until the job is done at midnight. I slept-over on Tuesday nights for my two-day stint, so I wasn't exempt by the commute. We were doctors of cheese, always on-call.

At first I was a little nervous about what to expect when I started working at BVC. The commute would be difficult. My wages would be shoved directly back into my gas tank. Waco was...well, Waco. And I was the only person working there who wasn't part of their homesteading community.

I worked with interesting, warm people, who welcomed me in two days each week to basically live with them. I was given agency over my responsibilities, never bored, always on my feet, and continually learning. Until BVC, I had never wrapped cloth-bound cheddar (a simple task involving layers of muslin plastered to the cheese with a lubricant like Crisco). There were cheeses I had never made that involved new recipes with different temperatures, cultures, and affinage techniques. I had never stretched mozzarella or used a hand-milling machine (for milling cheddar or other curds into long strips). As I left, I was thankful that I found them during my time in Texas. I was able to stay a productive and active member of cheese society despite being in a sleep border town in West Texas. I made friends and gained confidence in my abilities as a cheesemaker. Plus, I convinced myself that if I can fashion a cheese life for myself in Del Rio (or even Waco), even temporarily, I can probably make this endeavor of mine work for me just about anywhere.

BVC's larger homesteading community specializes in restoring and relocating historic barns and turning them into houses. The guest house where I stayed on Tuesday nights was one such impressive and cozy structure.