Love & Cheese

If you're like me, then Valentine's Day is an excuse to encourage your inner glutton with an indulgent, yet guilt-free, meal. You know, like President's Day, Labor Day, Arbor Day, Remembrance Day...Guy Fawkes Day? Okay, so if you're really like me, you don't need an excuse for a truly memorable food experience -- be it a fresh, greasy one-of-a-kind burger or an innovative multi-course meal. In fact, most of you probably don't find much romance in bloating, tight pants, and pushing yourself to the brink of eating stamina. For me, love is a judgment-free belly rub.

On Valentine's Day, however, romance truly is universally expressed in indulgence. Elaborate flowers, jewelry, an expensive dinner, chocolates -- each plays its part as an aphrodisiac. A means to your evening's happy end. Now you can add cheese into the love mix. Just ask the Italian women who ate Islay Dunlop cheese. Aphrodisiac qualities from phenylethylamine are even more potent in cheese than chocolate. Chemically the compound affects brain stems of cheese fiends and non-fiends, the fatties and the restrained all the same. It's not just me this time. Cheese is love. Science says so.

Maybe a big block of blue cheese doesn't scream allure, especially if you're a cheese-hater. Yet, for those with a stronger sense of culinary adventure and tolerance for your date's milk-breath and mild flatulence, nothing says I love you like a good lust-worthy cheese course.

Cheese is usually best suited for a dessert course, or immediately following or preceding a more traditional dessert course. Cheese and chocolate are also an ideal pairing (perhaps with a sweeter firm Alpine cheese or a nutty sheep cheese like Manchego), and can be accompanied by a good red wine. If you're really adventurous, try a stronger stand-alone course. Get a really good blue cheese for a match made in heaven with Sauternes, a French dessert wine available in mid-range quality at about $40 a bottle. Add some honey and dried figs into the flavor experience--both also believed to have aphrodisiac qualities. And thank your taste buds for existing. Rogue River makes some of my favorite blue cheese. There is also an Italian blue cheese washed in a dessert wine called Basajo. If you can find it, then paired with a sweet wine, honey, fig combo, it is one of the best desserts I've ever had. There is a French blue cheese that is washed in Sauternes that would also be an ideal fit.

Sure, I have a personal and peculiar love affair with cheese. It was, after all, last Valentine's Day weekend, encouraged by my real life human love, that I visited Connecticut for my first ever cheesemaking experience. And it has been my motto since college that "cheese is my first love; bacon is my mistress."  Still, the chemical power and creative potential of cheese and other foods like it is truly universal. Even if you're single, with a group of friends, or a general hater of the holiday of love with some principled vendetta against Hallmark, recognize this day as an opportunity to experience and experiment with the joy and pleasure of food and flavors. Cheese is there for you for this purpose. Just like it has always been there for me.

I'm in Ur Kitchin, Makin Ur Curdz: Super Bowl Edition

Pizza and football!!

Mozzarella holds a lofty position shared by very few of its colleagues in the cheese pantheon. It is a cheese even cheese-haters will admit to liking. It exists in a realm similar to the cheese ambassador role to which I previously appointed cheddar. Unlike cheddar, which can excel to great heights of flavor intensity, mozzarella is safer, tiptoeing over your taste buds with its soothing creaminess. When I was working the farmers markets, one out of five people would compare a sample to cheddar or ask if I had any cheddar. ("Do you have any cheddar?" was the second most annoying question about the product, runner-up to "Is that soap?".) The second most requested cheese was mozzarella to accompany the fresh herbs and vegetables people had purchased at the market. Bottom line: both are examples of cheese that are well-liked and equally ubiquitous. Cheddar can make a good hamburger great. But Mozzarella is often needed, not just desired. What's a caprese salad without mozzarella? Who wants of a slice of pizza without cheese (unless you're on a diet and you hate freedom)?  Sure, mozzarella is a relatively bland cheese, but it serves a host of delicious purposes. More importantly for me, it's really fun to make.

On my second full day at Brazos Valley Cheese, I caught wind that there were many pounds of mozzarella waiting to be stretched. I kept eyeing the buckets of milled cheese, salted and ready to be formed into smooth mozzarella. I had never played with mozzarella before,--yes, it's actually playing, like a child set loose on a giant ball of Gak--so I wanted to make sure I didn't miss out on the action. Finally, an hour before I leave the fun started. The cheese curd was made the previous day. The next day it is milled and salted. As with cheddar, milling the mozzarella is slicing larger blocks of cheese into smaller pieces, and mixing those smaller pieces with salt. At this point, you could just eat the salted cheese curds plain. To make mozzarella those curds need to be melted into one giant mass and stretched. Hot water, near 185 degrees Fahrenheit, poured into trays of curd enables the melting and stretching. With rubber gloves to protect our hands from the scalding heat, we start mashing and kneading the curd pieces together in the trays. The flowing steam and physical exertion brought back memories from the summer at Cato Corner. Back then, my my only frame of reference was the serious cheese work-out of stirring a 120-degree vat of nearly 4000lbs of curds and whey. Cheesemaking has gotten progressively less sweaty.

As we knead, we watch the pliability of the curd. The water may loose too much heat before the mozzarella is ready to stretch. For this batch we drained the trays and filled them with a new batch of hot water twice. On the second attempt, the curds began to really knit together and form an elastic mass. The cheese is folded over again and again until the curds have sufficiently melted together and are no longer individual lumps. At this point, the cheese has enough elasticity to stretch repeatedly like taffy until it becomes smooth and shiny. The entire blob can molded into one giant block; broken off into smaller pieces to stretch and twist into braids; ripped apart and rolled into balls; or molded for any purpose or shape you desire. If you are making something like a ball or braid, then once you from the shape, it is immediately dumped in cold water to ensure it holds the shape.

My hooped and drained grainy mess.
This is NOT what the
curd should look like. 

My first foray into mozzarella was a good lesson on what how the cheese should behave and look. So I was ready to try it on my own in the kitchen. On Super Bowl Sunday, Tad and I had grand plans to make homemade pizza with our own homemade dough, sauce, and mozzarella. The cheese was my assignment, but my kitchen variety would be slightly different from the style I had made at work.

I was making the quicker homemade version with citric acid to acidify the milk instead of cultures. The entire process should be under an hour versus the two-day process I described above. Acidification is the key to the elasticity in the stretch phase, and thus the smooth texture. The two-day version uses only cultures without any citric acid; the curd acidifies for a few hours until the end of the work day and is refrigerated overnight so it can be milled, salted, and stretched the next day. I have also seen a citric acid and culture combination that would give you the benefit of a quicker version, but with the flavor from the cultures.

Looking better and ready to stretch

I started with my store-bought whole milk, heated it, and added the citric acid and rennet. I also added lipase, an enzyme that provides a stronger flavor, especially in Italian cheese, but is destroyed during pasteurization. I hoped this would help add some complexity that would be missing due to the quality of the milk and the absence of a true starter culture. Unfortunately, several things seemed like they were going wrong. One, I didn't read the instructions on my lipase powder and failed to add it correctly or at the correct moment. I have no idea what that actually did. At the very least, it was ineffective because the mozzarella just tasted like cooked milk. Second, likely because of the quality of the milk, the curd did not form as well as it should have. It was too grainy and fragile. Adding calcium chloride may have helped form a firmer curd with the milk I was using. Next time.

Stretching under its weight.
A better curd would have
made a more elastic stretch.

This time, however, I was afraid the cheese was too grainy to knit together and stretch. Despite my insistence that we pick up some "back-up" mozzarella at the store in the event of a mozzarella-fail on my part, Tad refused to do so--I assume to prove a point about confidence. There would be no cheese-less, freedom-hating pizza under my roof! So I plodded ahead.

Oh hey! That actually looks like
mozzarella!

I assumed the best way to stretch the curd and get the right texture would be to heat water or whey to 180 degrees on the stove and immerse the drained curd in a bowl. An alternate method was provided in the recipe that allowed for a quicker stretch by using the microwave. I needed to see if I could salvage my curd as quickly as possible. I opted for the microwave method. I threw my hooped and drained curd into a bowl, microwaved for 30 seconds, and it was almost immediately ready to stretch. The grainy consistency was, thankfully, melting together nicely into a smooth, elastic mass that seemed readily identifiable as mozzarella. I repeated the microwave step one more time and was able to form a ball. I set the balls in a cold salt brine, which I had opted for instead of salting the curd directly. I assumed the pizza would have enough salt and I wanted the milder flavor I hoped the brine would achieve. It may have been a little too mild, highlighting the boring milkiness of the flavor. Next time I would try to remedy the taste by salting the curd and experimenting with starter culture.

It appeared that a crisis was averted. Still, I wasn't completely satisfied. The flavor was uninspired. Also, despite not being grainy in appearance, there was a little bit of grain left in the bite. Graininess became less relevant when the cheese was melted on the pizza. At least this cheese melted unlike the NASA rubber experiment that resulted form my first home cheesemaking attempt. I called it a partial success and a good lesson in what to change next time.

I'm in Ur Kitchin, Makin Ur Curdz

While I let various iterations of the future of Cheesy Street steep in my brain during my Texas cheese limbo, I'm grasping at ways to stay motivated, connected, and focused. Shipping off to Waco one day a week to make cheese has alleviated some of my lethargy. At the very least, it's removed a large chunk of free time where I would be otherwise brooding on my what-am-I-going-to-do-with-my-life confusion. Minus travel time, that still leaves 5 full days to play with. I'm slowly training myself to start every morning with some educational reading from the array of cheese books I've collected over time -- treating every morning as if I was studying for the bar exam again. This time the cheese bar. Reading chapters of The Cheese Primer is far less mindbendingly painful than practicing essay answers on the priority of claims under the Uniform Commercial Code.

Oh hai, can I offer you cheese?

My newest project is finally making cheese at home. This is usually a first step for hardcore cheese enthusiasts, and one that I should have tried sooner. I was one of only two students in my first cheese school class in Vermont who had never experimented making their own cheese in the kitchen. Almost a full year later, sure, I've made giant batches of cheese by recipe and under varying degrees of supervision. Yet, I've never attempted to muddle through the process on my own. Find and buy my own cultures. Research recipes. Figure out what can go wrong and why.

At first, I will be limited by a few things. Raw milk sale is legal in Texas. But Texas is big. Oh and I'm practically in Mexico. The dairies that sell raw milk aren't widespread or nearby. I've had enough of driving hours and hours to get what I need. At least at the outset, I will settle for store-bought, pasteurized, roughly-handled milk that will affect the success and flavor of the recipes. Maybe if I start to get better at this or more adventurous, I'll travel to a dairy farm to pick up some fresh milk and re-unite with my love for baby cows. Also, I don't have an aging cave. Most home cheesemakers can outfit a basic wine cooler or mini-fridge to serve the same purposes. I'm not ready to make that investment until I know I'm not ruining every batch or cooking up a disgusting mess. So, for now, I will primarily be making fresh cheeses, basic cheese curds, and yogurt.

Second cheese heats while
 first cheese presses

My first attempt was a batch of cheese curds that we could hopefully eat salted, seasoned or fried. The make process is very similar to what I've been describing to date, but on a smaller scale. I heat the milk in a stock pot on my stove, add cultures and rennet by teaspoons, cut the curd with a kitchen knife, stir, and drain the whey in a basic colander. No giant wheels of cheese here yet, so the hooped curds don't go into big molds. But I do press them lightly in the colander using a jug of milk (approximately 8 pounds) to further some whey release.

Kitchen cheesemaking is not as fast and easy as I assumed. First step is cleaning. Keeping my kitchen completely sanitary is futile. I try to wipe, clean and sanitize as much as possible. But my kitchen isn't the sterile haven of most cheese rooms. I'm not that concerned for the time being because I'm working with pasteurized milk in small private batches. For now, if anyone gets violently ill, it will be either me or Tad. My intestines are prepared for battle. Keeping the temperature in my stock pot constant is also much trickier than using a cheese vat. I'm constantly shifting the temperature settings on my electric burners. I imagine with practice I'll have a better idea of how the heating elements work. For now, the make involved ten-minute intervals between wide-eyed shrieks at the thermometer and violent back and forth flinging of the burner dial.

Hooping

So much destroyed potential

I'll blame the stove for its temperature spikes, but it was likely my own fault for stirring the curd a few minutes too long. Either because it was too hot or cooked for too long, the curd turned out rubbery and dry. My first bite was underwhelming and alarmingly squeaky. After I salted them, the curds saw their first use as topping on hot soup for dinner that night...and they didn't melt. What the hell kind of cheese doesn't melt?! They just stayed solid, squeaky balls. Softer. But unmoved in their refusal to melt. I like my cheese melted and completely covering other food items, so I was disappointed. During the make, the curd felt moist and perfect in my hands. Sometimes, however, a small mistake in the recipe is not very noticeable until the final product. I played it fast and loose with my milk and learned my lesson. I abandoned my first trial to the depths of the fridge. I think Tad used them once or twice and claimed they were delicious on salad. But I was unmoved in my refusal to accept them as a cheese I'd want to eat.

Thermophilic culture and calcium
chloride (helps store-bought milk coagulate)

Another issue for which I really can't be blamed is the flavor. Most flavor development in cheese comes from the starter cultures and their role in the aging process. Plus, I don't have the facilities to age anything. The cultures for the curd were a very basic thermophilic culture. Even my home mozzarella recipe that I would be trying soon simply uses citric acid, not bacterial cultures, to drop the pH. Neither will add much flavor to the final product. So, the cheese I make in the kitchen sort of just taste likes mildly sweet, cooked store-bought milk. When I get bolder with the cultures and rig up an aging apparatus, my cheese should take on a more interesting flavor.

Watchin some football,
hangin some cheese.

I moved on the next day to Fromage Blanc, which is a soft, tangy fresh cheese. It can be flavored as either savory or sweet and have uses comparable to a spreadable cream cheese. This cheese is not cooked. Also, it would require much longer make and draining times. Fromage blanc takes up to 12 hours to fully coagulate because there is less rennet activity. At that point, the curd is simply scooped, not cut. The ladled curd is placed in a butter muslin or cheese cloth to hang for another 6 to 12 hours, depending on desired moisture and consistency.

Fromage blanc curd

The fromage blanc was a success. I drained it for a little over 12 hours and periodically shifted and squeezed the bags to drain a little more moisture. The final product was a thick, tangy, creamy spread that I used on sandwiches with tomato, basil and pepper. For a sweeter version I spread it on angel food cake, topped with caramel and strawberries. In your face, failed cheese curd!

Next up in the kitchen: mozzarella and yogurt.

Wearing the Title

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.

In the Meantime: In Search of Something Cheesy

No cheese, but plenty of natural beauty

During the month or two after my Black Sheep internship and the end of my roadtrip, I slowly began to have a meltdown -- not of the delicious melty cheese variety, but more of the metaphysical "what am I supposed to do with my life now" variety. Cheese and I had physically, not emotionally, grown apart while in Del Rio, which left me with a lot of searching on my hands. I could feast on all the Queso Fresco I wanted, or take it back to old school college days with Wal-Mart brand cheddar and Easy Cheese galore. That was about it, at least until I drove the 2.5 hours to the nearest cheese counter. Potential cheese employment would require just as much searching and driving. I was in some sort of cheese-free purgatory, with great experiences behind me and hopeful optimism for the future. But until that future arrived, I'd have to figure out how to gain more knowledge while in Del Rio for the next year or so.

I started emailing cheesemakers and cheese stores in (relatively) nearby and bigger Texas cities. The response rate was low. Most that did respond didn't have any open positions. The response from one cheesemaker in Waco was promising. I soon thereafter arranged a follow-up visit with them on my way up north to visit friends and family in the Midwest. On the same trip, I arranged to visit a cheesemonger in Dallas who didn't have any open positions on staff but was kind enough to speak with me anyway. Like I've always said, unlike legal "networking," cheese "networking" is actually enjoyable and not at all humiliating. On the way, I also made a point to pop into Whole Foods, Central Markets, and cheese stores in Dallas and Austin with a more personal employment inquiry.

My first stop was Brazos Valley Cheese (BVC) in Waco. I had heard of a few of their cheeses through the ACS awards, where they placed in a couple categories. I had never tried their cheese. Actually, I had never tried any Texas cheesemakers' cheeses. The BVC cheesemakers are part of a larger self-sustaining craft community, which includes services such as a blacksmith, pottery studio, grist mill, and cafe. They offer classes to the public in these and many other skilled trades. I got the grand tour and sampled several of their delicious freshly-made food stuffs...including handmade ice cream, which remains the fastest way to win me over. Still, when I described the opportunity to others, and the words "Waco, Texas" and "self-sustaining agrarian religious community" were placed in combination, it elicited some understandably curious reactions and half-joking queries regarding stereotypical media images. I know what you're thinking, but there is no such thing as a cheese cult. Though I could see myself starting one. Everyone was very kind and I enjoyed the cheese I tasted. I was surprised to hear that nobody had ever asked to come on staff and help out with cheesemaking. I actually discovered in my searching process that most Texas cheesemakers didn't have a hiring or internship program. The cheese scene was growing but relatively new here, and cheesemakers seemed used to doing it on their own. BVC, however, seemed receptive to my help. A part-time opportunity that would allow me to go back and forth from Del Rio was available to me if I could manage the driving. More on that soon.

I checked in with larger chains that have full cheese counters like Whole Foods to no avail. If it wasn't posted on their online job bank, it didn't exist. Cheese stores, likewise, were fully staffed. Nevertheless, I enjoyed scoping out the cheese store scene here. If Cheesy Street were to open in Texas in one of many potential business models I have schemed up, I started to get an idea of what would work and where. First, direct cheese retail competition with the bigger natural foods chain stores like Whole Foods and Central Market seems rough here. Their cheese counters are baller. The natural food stores with which I'm familiar never had cheese counters that could be their own free-standing cheese store like the ones here.  As for free-standing cheese stores, Antonelli's in Austin and Scardello's in Dallas are amazing. Both had a great selection and friendly, helpful cheesemongers. They have now been added to my list of cheese store heroes. In any city where my cheese heroes exist, I would have a hard time opening up anything unless we could all be friends. A non-competitive spirit might be my downfall in business.

Mozzarella Company in Dallas is probably the most well-known and highly regarded cheesemaker in Texas. They have many non-mozzarella style cheeses, but the mozzarella itself is amazing. It's so rich and creamy that I've never felt so guilty eating mozzarella. I decided to check out their store to discover it's not really a store at all. It's just a small room with a cooler full of cheese and a viewing area of their production room. Making cheese there seemed just as awesome as selling their cheese. Unfortunately, staff turnover is almost nonexistent. I was told most of their cheesemakers had been there for decades.

While it seemed next to impossible to get anyone in this state to let me help make or sell cheese, I had a wonderful time making the rounds and starting to re-establish my cheese knowledge.

There was only one major fail: a cheese store in Dallas that shall remain nameless. I'll just say it was in an area of town that upon driving into, I knew before even seeing the shop that it would not be the right fit for me. The store itself was across the way from a Jimmy Choo store and down the street from SMU (where rich kids keep it classy). My car was the most busted looking thing in a two mile radius. I suspected the clientele would fill me with throat-punching frustration on a daily basis.  Let's be real, I'm not gonna hate on money. Sure my dirty, road warrior CR-V could eat your stupid Lexus SUV for dinner. But some disposable income is necessary to buy artisanal cheese and for a cheese store to survive. And, sure, I'd like to be able to afford a nice house someday too. Yet, the complete sterility of the place was discomforting. Upon walking into the store, I was not greeted with the same warmth as I get in most other great cheese stores. The display and selection was depressing. It was obvious that shopping for a $400 shirt was the main goal of the retail area. Cheese was just an afterthought. Anything European seemed fancy enough for this place to survive with its customers I suppose. I entered, not wanting to judge a book by its cover, but left even more disappointed than I had expected. It was the type of store that makes artisanal cheese experimentation seem like a useless and snobbish exercise to cheese lovers and cheese novices alike. Promptly casting aside all pretensions, I used the application to pick a feather, which must have drifted off some roadkill on my long journey, out of my outcast-car's grill. The diseased-looking scrap and application thereafter went in the trash.

It became quickly apparent that I would have to find a way to self-educate while in Del Rio and make multi-hour trips to buy cheese or make cheese commercially. I'm okay making some adjustments to get things done. And, it turns out, I'm starting to really like long-distance driving (cheese trucking business here I come). In the meantime, I just received some home cheesemaking supplies in the mail! Here's to hoping that in search of something cheesy I don't make all our furniture smell like spoiled milk....

Road Trip v.2 (Part 12): Carlsbad and Texas, and What's Next

Is it just me or do those cavern walls
form a monster face?

I was a little sad to put Roswell behind me. It was unexpectedly the most cozy and comfortable place I had visited. Nobody could ever have guessed that Roswell of all places would be the homiest stop of all. Those aliens were on to something. Two hours away, Carlsbad Caverns would be the last stop on the trip. I arrived late enough in the morning that I couldn't take any of the guided tours through the caverns, which are slightly more expensive but seemed worth it for a more rigorous spelunking experience. Instead, I did a self-guided tour through the main area with most of the large formations. The Big Room loop was a paved trail through almost 1.25 miles of cave. The path was an easy walk so I was surprised to hear it would be an almost 1.5 hour trip. It took me over 2 hours. A lot of gape-mouthed staring and picture-taking slowed me down considerably. Many formations were still living; active dripping water drops, forming stalactites and stalagmites, were difficult to see in the dim lighting but easy to hear. Several park rangers were wandering about and often offered interesting information on some of the formations, illuminating activity you might have missed with their flashlights. The caves were lit as much as possible with hundreds of lightbulbs. Backup generators help prevent total darkness if there was ever a power outage. I would be curious to go on a more intimate tour someday and ask for the lights to be shut off to "see" what total darkness feels like.

Eventually the pathways, formations, and puddles in the caves started to look like cartoon monsters. At each turn, I started to name creatures . I would look down at each picture I took and see a menacing face I hadn't seen before. That was my signal to get back to surface-level before I lost my mind. 

After adjusting to the blinding light of the sun, I started out on desolate New Mexico and West Texas roads. Southern New Mexico and West Texas were a beautiful mix of rocky hills and flat cactus-filled dessert. My directions had me going down a county road for 16 miles from the Caverns. The road had no lanes and went through faux civilizations that the signs referred to as "villages." To me they seemed more like rusty truck graveyards. I choked on some trail mix at one point and wondered when my body would be found out there, if at all. Driving into West Texas leads you through a few reasonably sized towns, so at least getting stranded without gas wasn't a concern. I just filled up in every town no matter how far I had gone. The road led me parallel to the Mexico border just as the sun set. I couldn't focus on the lovely sunset over the hills because I was too fascinated by the Border Patrol trucks staked out on dirt access roads every few miles. The border is intriguing to me. Yet, I have an irrational Yankee-Midwest (Midwankee?) fear of it. My first thought when I looked at the Atlas: "I sure would like to get north of the border near Comstock before it gets dark, so that I don't accidentally drive into Mexico." It took me at least a few weeks in Del Rio to resolve the fear of unintentionally ending up in Mexico. Yes, my brain recognized how stupid and mildly xenophobic the fear was. Just to be clear, you cannot accidentally drive across an international border. My rational side always realized how impossible that would be unless you take your car off-roading, run through fields, or ford the Rio Grande. All roads lead to checkpoints. The cars with Mexican license plates I see at Wal-Mart didn't accidentally end up in Del Rio and decide to pick up some Sam's Choice cookies while they were here. You have to cross the border on purpose.

I believe those hills yonder belong to Mexico

I suppose it's the natural reaction toward what you don't know or understand. When I first heard about Del Rio, I was excited to embark on an adventure in a random place I would have no reason to visit. I would usually, however, get an unenthusiastic response from others when I would describe it as a place where I can see the lights of Mexico from our apartment patio. "Oh, uhh, have fun with that," people would say, accompanied by a half-serious joke about getting killed. You only run a real risk of death here if you are a deer.

The border: not scary at all on this side. I get that.

In case you didn't know, West Texas is really beautiful and friendly, and Del Rio is very safe. It's actually East Texas that's the stereotypically scary and unattractive part of the state. I blame it on Louisiana. In fact, being in small towns along the Louisiana border is probably exponentially more dangerous than the U.S. side of the Mexico border, at least if you carry some pigment in your skin like me. West Texas is actually an extension of the lovely landscape and friendliness of the Southwest. I really like West Texas. To me, that was the bigger surprise.

Nothing says Merry Christmas like
holiday lowriders in your parade

Christmas parade in surprisingly
cute San Angelo

I was won over on my first night in town when Tad took me to a greasy-spoon diner and the drive-through beer barn called Easy Access. Then again, I'm easily pleased. Since then, we have explored other areas in West Texas. Maybe it's just the excitement I get from the towns' Christmas displays, but I've enjoyed each place we've seen. Towns in this part of the state have a charm that is similar to what I love about small-town Kansas. The only problem is that everything here is so sooo far apart that it can get isolating and difficult to get much accomplished.  I can get restless at times, but I'm glad to have this experience and an opportunity to spend time with Tad after six months of being in far corners of the country.

Now that the epic trip is over, what's next on cheese front you say? That's a damn fine question. I'm only half-sure of that myself.  Stay tuned for more random cheese musings and updates in the next few weeks on my next moves. I planned to spend a month here until New Years, visit family in Omaha, and then try to get back into action. I'm already starting to feel rather useless. There is a possibility for an east coast opportunity at a retail cheese shop in the summer. Until then, I would like to get some retail or additional cheesemaking experience in Texas. Once Tad's year in Del Rio is over, we'll look for a final destination. Depending on where that is and what would work there, I might have to adjust my cheese goals. As I mused in a previous post, I'm starting to recognize the necessity of adjusting to where life goes and relinquishing some control over it. I, for one, certainly did not anticipate it taking me to a border town. But here I am!

Welcome home!

Road Trip v.2 (Part 11): Albuquerque and Roswell

The next morning I woke up at 5 a.m. to my first fresh snow of the season (not counting what we had seen on the ground in Oregon). It was thick enough that I had to scrape my car. I had no idea Santa Fe got so cold. My early morning was due to my unreasonable desire to keep my schedule as insane as possible. On a whim the day before, I booked a hot air balloon flight in Albuquerque. Because it was off-season and insanely cold, the prices for flights had dropped to a level I could afford as my last trip splurge. I arrived at the dirt parking lot around 6:30 a.m. Several groups of friends and couples arrived as well. After the crew inflated the two balloons, they crammed us all into the baskets. I was shoved in a corner with a few other groups. It was a tight fit, but it was better than riding in a hot air balloon all by myself. We lifted off and I silently oooh-ed to myself. When we crossed the Rio Grande, the pilot dropped us down to skim the river and lifted us back up with a long blast of ignited gas. The balloon ride was very calming, but I would have preferred a less urban location. We passed over neighborhoods, industrial complexes, and what I believed to be a scrap yard. The sunrise over the mountains behind Albuquerque was lovely, but I seemed only able focus on the chorus of barking dogs in the neighborhoods below. I'm likely the only one who noticed the dog symphony in my solitary corner.

We landed in a parking lot near a Sam's Club. The pilot explained that they usually have no control over where the wind takes the balloon and have to spot places to land while they are in the sky. We all helped pack up the balloon and the vans took us back to the original parking lot. There we were given a champagne "breakfast." The pilot explained the historical tradition behind having champagne after a hot air balloon ride, which I immediately forgot as I choked down a plastic-wrapped bear claw.

Fox! (I think). (Note: I've been informed
that I'm an idiot and this is a coyote. I
am obviously no Jack Hannah.)

I was on the road again by 9:30am and on the way to some alien adventures in Roswell. Just outside of Roswell, I first stopped at the Bitter Lakes Wildlife Refuge. I'm not certain what the place really does because they do allow hunting. If you let people run around shooting at animals, I don't really see what the refuge part is. I drove the eight-mile loop around the refuge, which took me past a large wetlands area filled with cranes, ducks, geese and other birds. The right time to visit the refuge is at dusk or dawn to see the large flocks of migratory birds flying in and out. At least that's what the guy at the frozen custard stand where I stopped that night told me. His mom and other locals enjoy seeing the birds swooping in, covering the sunset in the sky. He lamented that I had not seen the same. Instead, I just saw them chilling in the distance, being boring. The trip was worth it, however, because on the way out I was just a few feet away from the cutest fox, coyote or fuzzy desert creature staring at me from the side of the road. I know that doesn't sound that thrilling, but compared to a bunch of do-nothing birds, he or she was awesome.

In town, my first stop was the International UFO Museum. It wasn't nearly as sensational and exaggerated as I thought it would be. I actually learned a little. While the exhibits seemed hastily curated, they were well sourced and packed a punch of legitimate information. I was impressed. The exhibits told various stories of sightings, encounters, investigations, and, of course, a lengthy narrative of the Roswell UFO crash incident. It was a fairly objective and very thorough approach to the story. In addition to pictures and their own descriptions, the museum had collected and posted affidavits from those involved in the incident, newspaper and radio clippings, and other research findings. The museum actually hopes to expand and include an even stronger focus on research objectives. There was actually a research library in the back that was free to visit. The library stocked hundreds of books on astronomy, alien encounters, scientific musings on aliens and UFOs, and various conspiratorial books. There was a bona fide librarian in there and a local resident perusing the card catalog. The guy looking around seemed to be a regular. He was comfortable in the library, wearing a fluffy hat and sweatpants. The librarian called him by name and mentioned seeing him later. Hilariously cliche conspiracy freaks are alive and well in Roswell, using the UFO research library. And it filled me with such unexplainable happiness.

"So I says to Mable, I says"

After the UFO museum, I did some souvenir shopping in one of many kitschy alien stores. Yes, Roswell totally milks the alien thing. At least in the touristy downtown area, they lay it on thick. The alien stores all started to blend together, much like the trinket stores in San Francisco's Chinatown, except the hilarity of Roswell made me much less frustrated. I took some pictures, bought some souvenirs and gifts, and headed to the only other "museum" to visit. The Alien Zone & Area 51 Museum was more like a fun house than a legit learning experience like the UFO museum. They had a gift shop, arcade area, and several bizarre staged areas where they had set up alien mannequins in various lifelike scenes. I went nuts in there. I spent a good thirty minutes shamelessly staging, self-timed pictures with the alien mannequins. I left feeling an odd mix of embarrassed and proud of what I had accomplished. Finally, I hit up a wine tasting room downtown. My goals here were two-fold, 1) get some hilarious alien wine and beer, and 2) ask a local business person about the good places to eat. I figured the guy working in a run-of-the-mill business might have more wits about him to give better advice than the lady sitting in the dimly lit alien store with her chihuahua. The alien wine and beer was surprisingly decent, and I left with a few food recommendations.

Rough night

The top recommendation was pub food at Billy Ray's. I had also read about good Italian food at Portofino. Billy Ray's was closer, so that's where I headed. The parking area was a a dark dirt lot without marked spaces. The entrance was so dimly lit that I feared my string of nightly "not assaulted" confirmation texts to Kim would end here. I called both Kim and Tad to ask them to do some Internet reconnaissance on the place. They confirmed that people had come here and left alive enough to post positive things about it. Billy Ray's is the textbook divey jem. Yes, the bar and dining area were dimly lit and low maintenance. But everyone was incredibly friendly and eager to strike up conversations. They had their own chef--who seemed like he was the only one doing all of the cooking. Nobody had ordered food yet, so at first the chef was hanging out at the bar, chatting with us. After I ordered, a group of regulars came in to dine and he disappeared in the back. The menu seemed low on choices. The bartender mentioned, however, that the chef will cook up pretty much anything guests requested off the menu as well. Nevertheless, I had decided to have a mini-Roswell food tour. I ordered a small a la carte plate of chile relleno and planned to head to Portofino to try a small plate there as well. The chile relleno was amazing. Maybe best ever. I might just be saying that because it was swimming in cheese. But I also wanted to lick the chef's green chile sauce off the plate.

I left for Portofino, excited to see what they had to offer. I walked in and the gruff woman at the door seemed annoyed that I simply wanted to order some take-out (even though they had a to-go counter area). She came to the counter and responded to my two menu questions like I was an idiot. I tried to ask her a friendly question about their Spumoni, an Italian ice cream dessert that is rare to find in its proper delicious form. Again, she responded as if she wanted to throw hot pasta in my face. My response: "Actually, nevermind, I'm all set on food. Have a nice night," followed by walking out. That wench beast wasn't getting any of my money. Instead, I went back to Billy Ray's, where everyone knows your name and is happy to be alive, and ordered another Chile Relleno to go. I picked up dessert at the frozen custard stand where the older gentleman chatted me up about the wildlife refuge and other things to do in Roswell. I loved that everyone in Roswell was so incredibly welcoming and friendly, despite living in such a oddly-themed little town....well everyone except the people at Portofino; they can suck it.

I had always wanted to visit Roswell. Hey, I used to watch the X-Files; I appreciate the historical value of the whole Roswell incident. Mostly I just love towns that are able to capitalize on really obscure popular culture phenomena. It was kind of like that time I visited the town in North Carolina on which Mayberry was modeled....but different. I'm fascinated by the residents who build normal lives around a town of unique gimmicks and odd tourists. I know it's likely not the case, but it seems like every day has the potential to be an adventure.

Roswell was my last overnight stop on the trip. The next day was the end. Carlsbad Caverns would be my last activity. I was a little disappointed that the amazing road trip was over. At the same time, I happy to stop bleeding money and incredibly excited to finally get to Del Rio and see Tad.

Roswell doesn't mess around with aliens: