Spring Renewal

In dreaded anticipation of the dawn of my personal hell -- summer in Del Rio's 100+ degree heat -- I'm sucking the life out of one of our last few temperate days. (I know those of you still covered in snow and ice hate me right now.). I'll be spending the next hour on my stoop eating some homemade ricotta, honey, and berries, swatting bees away like a madwoman.

After a month of intense yardwork at the new house, recovering from a recklessly bad case of poison ivy, traveling for friends' special occasions, and the futile search for a day-job in the sad state of affairs Del Rio calls a local "economy," this little homemade ricotta snack is my detox. I'm wiping the slate clean and renewing my goals and objectives in time for spring.

This ricotta is from a test batch, and only the second batch of cheese since moving into the new house. Yes, I'm ashamed.  I made it in anticipation of my first cheesemaking class at the local arts center in a week. I made a couple varieties with different acid coagulants (lemon juice, vinegar, buttermilk) and with different ratios of added cream (from one cup to zero), to find the consistency appropriate for a given culinary purpose. Berries and honey, in case you were wondering, demand a 4:1cup milk to cream ratio with either a vinegar or citric coagulant. Okay, okay, it's less of a test batch and more of a proving-to-myself-that-I-still-enjoy-it batch.

Boy WILL I ever enjoy it....Tad's still at work, so this batch and this bottle is all for me. Boom! Happy Friday!

Straight Outta Comte

On Valentine's Day last year, I was earning my bones working one of the busiest days I had seen at any retail store much less a cheese shop. I recounted in last year's post how an unyielding 6 hours of cheeses sales was my sink-or-swim introduction to real cheesemongering. Since leaving the retail cheese world, there have been a lot of weird tasks and rituals that my muscle memory misses.

Pulling the cling wrap tightly around an oddly shaped wedge to create a perfect wrinkle-and-bubble-free display for the case (I imagine the cheese thinking it's getting tightly tucked into bed). Creating the perfect crisp folds in the butcher paper to neatly wrap a purchased slice like a Christmas present. Wielding a giant knife cleanly and straightly down a firm aged wheel with the weight of your whole body to cut a (nearly) perfect quarter-pound. Tasting the first nibble from a freshly cut wheel, the insides of which haven't seen the light of day in months or years, yet which nature intended to go directly into the darkness of my belly after their first seconds of freedom. Processing the first waft of controlled dairy spoilage that hits you when opening a refrigerator filled to the brim with cheese.

Even then I knew this year would be much...quieter, but equally exciting. While I might not have many delicious cheeses to spend my evening with, I'd have my real life human forever-Valentine. I was wrong. I got to have both.

Thanks to...
THIS:

And THIS: 

I had ALL this cheese in my fridge because of some very special friends I'm lucky to have made over the last three cheese-filled years. An entire shelf stuffed with cheese from Cato Corner, Black Sheep Creamery, and Bedford Cheese Shop. A package at my doorstep with whole wheels set aside from larger batches especially for me. Another shipment containing a curated-with-love selection of four delicious slices of domestic and European cheeses I could never find within 1,000 miles of here. A whole loaf that someone (maybe everyone) remembered was my most favorite bread ever (Amy's Bakery Potato Onion Rye), which I would always poach to take home at the end of the night's wastage.

That's love.

Once again, I could wield giant knives to cut open wheels and taste the first slice. I could trace back the creases a friend had used to meticulously fold a wedge of cheese. I could pull that saran wrap tightly around the remaining portion of bread. I could let my tastebuds have their very own Valentine's day, romancing an amazing piece of three-year-old raw milk Comte that I'd be hard pressed to find again for a long while. Best of all, my fridge smells like cheese -- and love -- when I open it.

The Dream Crusher

For those who know the comfort and profitability of an office job, who fantasize about how following your unconventional dreams would be a world replete with gumdrops, unicorns and self-satisfaction, this is the post that will kill those dreams. Sorry.

You might have noticed (if you still check this page) a significant period of radio silence from me since I left New York, got married, and moved back long-term to the borderlands of desert and brush. That's because I seriously have nothing to tell you.

Del Rio was an adventure when I first came here in 2010 after a year of cheesemaking and on the tail-end of an epic road trip. That was before I left for a year of cheesemongering in New York. On my return, the Rio Grande desert has lost a substantial amount of luster. I won't pretend like the sentiment contained in the preceding two sentences is anything but completely pretentious and fully cliched: Itinerant Midwestern girl moves to the big city with bright lights and everything else seems a little more dull and far less cosmopolitan on her return. Yeah I sound like a jackass. I know.

I guess you could call it the
 best most awful thing 

But it's the truth. After all, isn't ambition as much pretension as it is courage? Doesn't it contain an equal part of narcissism as it does creativity? If you wanted something really bad and find yourself in a dead end, doesn't all that selfishness sour into a fermented pot of self-pity and existential questioning? I had a life in New York. I had friends, new and old. I had a job with money for rent and fun. I had activities and exploration at my fingertips. I had a gym and amazing surroundings when things got stressful. I had food options when things got hungry. I was learning and bettering myself. I had a sense of purpose. I had cheese! Now I find myself without any of those things.

I've seen some places in my day and knew how Del Rio compared to most other big cities and small towns long before I moved to New York. So perhaps my cheerier outlook during my 2010 stint here was due to other factors. Maybe my two-day cheesemaking gig in Waco distracted me (an 11-hour commute I refuse to do again for safety, monetary and sanity reasons). Or maybe it was because I knew my stay would be much more temporary that time. Maybe I will feel better now if we had a house with a real kitchen for home cheesemaking and teaching cheesemaking classes, or a yard for some goats.

This image, my friends, is what the literati like to call
Juxtaposition

In any event, the transition of going from a whole lot of something to a whole lot of nothing has been, in a word, lame. I find myself rage-eating an entire tub of wine-infused cheese spread (glorified Easy Cheese) from a Holiday basket. Or standing over the sink while I devour a tub of pre-crumbled blue cheese that tastes like plastic. Just to get a fix.

But the worst part is the self-doubt. The wondering if my original plan was really such a genius idea. I've already realized in the last year that opening a retail store-front would force me back into the office doing administrative nonsense. And have I told you how much I freaking hate paperwork? But is cheesemaking much better for me? Sure it's more hands-on work, but I'm also a social creature. Would I really enjoy working completely alone over a pot or vat of cheese all day? Or did I love it so much ONLY because of the people I was able to work with and befriend?  I have met with a few goat breeders in the area, but do I really know how to handle an animal? My only pet in life has been a goldfish.

I have no idea what 2013 will have in store for me life-wise or cheese-wise. All I know, is that Jay-Z is full of crap. It is wholly false that making it in New York means you can make it anywhere. I'd like to see him try to start his career here. Jerk.

A Dairytale Honeymoon

On the first day of a honeymoon on a tropical island, most people do romantic crap like gaze into each others' eyes and hold hands on the beach. I asked my newlywed spouse to drive a rental car through treacherous Puerto Rican election-week traffic to a small town an hour outside of San Juan to visit the island's only artisanal cheesemaking facility. It's cool. He knew what he was getting into with me.

When vetting honeymoon locations, one of the first things I did was look for a local cheesemaker to visit in the area (there are cheesemakers in both Kenya and South Africa, for those interested). I defend this as a completely justifiable occasion for a cheese adventure. After all, as I've noted before, cheese is a known aphrodisiac.

I discovered Quesos Vaca Negra while perusing through Culture Magazine many months ago while we were still in honeymoon discussions. So, when we decided on a Caribbean destination with a two-day layover in Puerto Rico, the first thing I did before booking anything was contact the ladies in charge of the cheese operation at QVN and beg them to let me visit.  Rosa and Wanda graciously obliged. 

We dragged ourselves out of our comfortable hotel room early that first morning, hopped in our rental car and navigated ourselves through a rural area just outside of Arecibo, Puerto Rico. In a converted house, we found an immaculate cheesemaking room, aging facility, milk-quality testing lab, and Rosa, our kind host for the morning.

Since their start as full-time cheesemakers about four years ago, the ladies of Quesos Vaca Negra have become local celebrities and the only destination for quality aged raw milk cheeses in Puerto Rico. The operation started off as a milk testing lab that helped local dairy farmers determine their milk quality. Soon, Rosa and Wanda began dabbling in some home cheesemaking with the milk that their farmer-clients supplied in trade for lab tests. These two bold, confident, intelligent ladies decided to turn it into something more; something that the Puerto Rican market lacked, yet craved. Four years later they are getting big-time attention from the North American cheese market, and at least one over-eager cheese girl from Texas pounding on their doors to make a new cheese friend.

They have about a half dozen cheeses in their repertoire, ranging from Gruyere-style to Cheddar, and the occasional experiment with adding spices, herbs, and flavors to some of their standards. Their cheeses appear on the Puerto Rican market in local grocery stores as well as through their farmers market presence in Old San Juan.

Student cheese in the brine
from a recent class

They also hold cheesemaking classes for local cheese-o-philes. In most cheesemaking classes that I've seen, you pay a solid Benjamin to get a twenty minute lecture on cultures, rennet, and dairy science, stretch some mozzarella, stir some vinegar into warm milk (Bam! Ricotta.), and peace out with your standard homemade concoctions. These ladies, on the other hand, do it right. At the end of their class, each participant has a full wheel of raw milk cheese that will be aged for them at the QVN facility for two months. The students can bring their own spices to set their cheese apart from their classmates' creations. After the cheese has aged, they come back and pick up their handmade dairy delight. It's a lot more post-event effort on the teachers' end, but that's a cheesemaking class worth dropping some cheddar on.

All of QVN'a milk comes from various local dairy farmers on the island. Each cheese is named after the local region from which its milk originates. The milk travels from the farms to the QVN facility in a giant dairy tank that they welded to the back of a standard size pick up truck. One glance at their makeshift dairy muscle truck solidified Rosa and Wanda's position in my cannon of dairy heroes.

In Old San Juan, Rosa owns another slice of heaven -- a bright pink waterfront townhome in the colorful architectural style of the neighborhood. She hopes to turn it into a cheese and charcuterie shop. It would be the first of its kind in that area for locals and tourists alike. If it were open for our visit, it would have been the ideal spot to get some honeymoon picnic provisions. Every town needs the perfect cheese shop.

During our two-hour visit, we toured their facility, talked cheese, ate cheese. And like the cheese pros who helped them get on their feet, Rosa, now a certifiable pro herself, gave me advice and the offer of future troubleshooting help in getting started with my own cheesemaking operation.

I had the singular experience of making a cheese friend on vacation. On my honeymoon, no less. And with all the goodwill Tad had earned for taking me out there and stuffing his face with cheese, there was still plenty of time left over for all the romantic crap too.

With this Cheese, I Thee Wed

After a self-imposed hiatus from Cheesy Street to take care of a little business, namely getting married, I'm back. This serves as a brief but much needed reminder -- mostly for myself -- that the cheese dream is alive and well.

This isn't a wedding blog so I'll keep the recap brief: the wedding weekend was more fun than I could have hoped; it was an unforgettable way to begin a life with my biggest fan who has encouraged me through pounds of cheese dreams; and it made me wish I could round up all the beautiful people we have been given in our lives and force them to live closer to me. Oh and we had a cheese sculpture.

Actually we served a lot of cheese. Thanks to the three farms where I started off making cheese, I was able to curate a legit cheese plate. None of my cheese heroes were able to make it to the big day, but they were more than represented in spirit with the cheeses they sent me. It warmed my guests' bellies and it warmed my heart to know that I'd worked with such amazing, supportive people. There was a soft, bloomy offering with the raw milk brie and fig leaf-wrapped Eden from Brazos Valley Cheese. We had the firm, nutty sheep's milk Queso de Oveja from Black Sheep Creamery. And for the adventurous guests there was the soft, pungent Hooligan from Cato Corner. Along with the cheeses I threw out some staple accompaniments like mustard, fig jam, dried pears, and candied nuts.

There was also the safe option of mild Wisconsin cheddar cubes, which was no less awe-inspiring because it came from a cheese sculpture representing our KS+TX theme by depicting Tad's alma mater with a Texas Longhorn mascot marrying my beloved KU Jayhawk mascot (in a more feminine rendition). It was, in a word, badass. The sculpture was carved and shipped by the sweet and talented, Sarah Kaufmann, who is currently a Guinness World Record holder as sculptor of the largest cheese carving ever. Plus, we're basically best friends forever now. She doesn't know it yet.

My homies at Bedford Cheese Shop were also represented with the cheese wall I made with cheese label art I collected while I was there. It might attract its fair share of flies, but this thing is getting hung up on proud display when we get a new house.

There was almost no cheese leftover at the end of the night. Guests of varying cheese experience and comfort levels devoured it all. Seeing how much everyone enjoyed and talked about the cheese drove home the point that you can really get crazy with the cheeses you cater to big events. It doesn't have to be boring to please everyone. If it's a diverse group of people, a diverse array of cheeses will have something for everyone.

Now, I'm back in the heart of West Texas, trying to set up my own cheese world. First my plan involves contacting goat cheese makers and goat breeders in the area, which I've already started doing (updates on that shortly). Then...we'll see. For now, it's good to be back!

From One Empire to My Own: So Begins A Cheese Career

A little over three weeks ago I had an apartment in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn. A little over four weeks ago, I had a job in an amazing, well-respected cheese shop in NYC, learning from supremely knowledgeable cheesemongers. Today, I've put almost 2,000 miles on the road as I sit in a small border town looking for a house in city limits that will let me keep a would-be pet goat in the backyard.

Soon, you will be mine. 

Drastic changes are no stranger to me, but this time it's a little scarier. I'm back in Del Rio, starting the long arduous process of constructing a career for myself where one doesn't exist. As much as I loved making cheese in Waco the last time I was here, the 10-hour commute is off the table now. Have you seen the price of gas?! Have you seen the miles I've put on my 14-year-old Honda in the last two years?!

I'm excited that we're here on a protracted-temporary basis for a very good reason (the soon-to-be husband landed his dream job here for the next 3 years, give or take a few months). But it also means I officially begin choosing paths that carry real consequence. Grown-up financial investments and long-term plans no longer take a back seat to temporary gigs that allow me to educate myself about the industry and the product. I've made cheese for a year and mongered cheese for a year. I will always be learning, but my training is officially over. I'm on my own now.

I discovered a lot in New York that will help guide me as I move forward in earnest. One, the cheese business is not pure. The first job I had in New York, which shall remain nameless (but is easily discovered by perusing earlier posts), was awful. It was the law firm of cheese. Nay, it was worse. I respect law firms for what they are -- a necessary cog in the corporate marketplace, where I just didn't happen to fit in. At least they own up to what they are and compensate you accordingly. An evil, mismanaged cheese shop is like a PT Cruiser -- a mutant monstrosity with no business existing and ruining a perfectly fine and joy-inducing industry.

From the cheese empire that almost ruined my time in the Empire State, I learned how NOT to run a shop. I'm thankful for that. And despite dreading every work-day within the first two months there, I did learn how to be a good manager and met some life-long friends in my co-workers. I'm also thankful that it led me to New York, which I loved in its own right, and where I moved on to a magical place in Brooklyn known as the Bedford Cheese Shop. It was there I learned to really be a cheesemonger. I was introduced to hundreds of imported and domestic cheeses and learned to navigate through them all in order to satisfy customers' often passive and indecisive desires. I met some amazing cheesemongers, who taught me so much about good cheese, good food, and good times. Plus, I got pretty confident at cutting pieces off giant wheels with just a knife and brute force.

I really miss Bedford and my co-workers from both shops. I've lived in alot of places, but I've never been immediately homesick for anywhere other than my actual home in Kansas...until now. Even the good mongering experiences taught me something unexpected about my end-goal of owning a cheese business:  Unless it's really small, I don't think I want to run a true cheese shop. In the end, owning and running a storefront leaves little time to actually work with customers and the cheese. Most of your time is spent sitting in a back room on the computer or phone, which is exactly the reason I ran away from the professional world.

I would miss working with my hands and on my feet. Even behind the counter, I kind of missed getting my hands in the vat and working on the farm. Plus, as much as meeting a great customers is rewarding, the horrible ones can cancel out the day. Retail, much like law, will drive you to the bottle.

The last year re-calibrated my desires back to pursuits like cheese production and cheese education, where I can sell in small doses at farmers markets, work directly with the product, and meet interested consumers. Del Rio still has the opportunity to be a fun adventure and a blank slate of opportunities, as it was during my last stint here. This time I just I have to construct that opportunity on my own and stick with it. So begins the adventure: getting married, getting a house, getting a goat, and getting the balls to start on a career path that will cause me to loose money for years before I can make any.

Cheesemonger Hunger Games

Last month, I witnessed the WWE smackdown of the cheesemonger world. You had staged attire...adrenaline-fueled battling...rowdy yelling...drunks. Substitute a rink with a cold-storage warehouse in Queens, elbow drops with wrapping contests, and hot dogs with a Raclette machine. Cheese elite from everywhere gathered to let loose for a little "friendly" competition. Behold the 3rd Annual Cheesemonger Invitational. 

For the last three years, cheesefolk have gathered in New York every summer for what some of us call the cheesemonger Hunger Games. Nobody dies, but everyone takes it VERY seriously...and knives are involved. Each cheesemonger showcases their skills in various levels of competition: blind taste-test cheese identification, written exam, quarter-pound cutting skills, wrapping skills, marketing/selling skills, and cheese plate pairings. 

The crowd of cheesemongers, makers and enthusiasts get to really nerd out, wildly cheering for a cheesemonger's consecutive perfect quarter-pound cuts as if a hologram of Tupac just appeared onstage. Except at the end of the day nobody understands how cool that was except for us. It's the little things in cheese. 

The eventual victor hailed from Cowgirl Creamery in my old hood of Washington, D.C. The multi-hour competition concluded, and a dairy-fueled dance party ensued. 

It was an opportunity to hang out with old cheese friends (the awesome Cato Corner crew and Bedford Cheese Shop homies) and make new cheese friends (who will probably never remember my name after their last trip to the open bar). As the excitement for cheese grows in this country, so do the creative, celebratory events that allow us to come together and really enjoy each other and what we do. Next year, though, I'd like to see more headbutts and clotheslining.