Farmhouse Cheddar is Not Illegal (unless you do it right)

I am making cheese tonight: farmhouse cheddar. I have had some success with this cheese before and Nate suggested I try it again instead of attempting parmesan (which I have not tried before) since I did not have the right starter.

As I do every time I attempt cheese making, I went through all of the different books I have and reviewed the basics of hard cheese and cheddar processes, etc. There is a very big difference between the books and it is obvious that: #1, some cheese makers take themselves a lot more seriously than others; #2, I am a lazy cheese maker; and #3, the best ways to make cheese are illegal.

I will first go over point #3: illegal cheese. I am talking, of course, about the fact that it is illegal in most of America (if not all?) to buy or sell raw milk. You can own your own animals and use their milk but you cannot sell it to others. I am not even sure you can give it to others as a gift. Can others drink it when they visit you? I just don't know. What I do know is that I don't own any dairy animals and I am not allowed to buy raw milk. One of the very few things that my cheese books agree on is that raw milk makes the best cheese. So, alas, until I buy goats, the best way to make cheese is illegal. It reminds me of an article in the current issue of Mother Earth News called Everything He Wants to Do is Illegal. The article was written by Joel Salatin, who authored a book called Everything I Want to Do is Illegal. The book and the article talk about the many ways that government has made it more difficult for people who want to make and raise their own food. I plan to pick up the book or maybe buy it for the library.

Backtracking to point #1: some cheese makers take themselves much more seriously than others. I love Ricki Carroll's book Home Cheese Making. That being said, everything but her most basic recipes scare the hell out of me and at once point nearly made me cry. Directions for some of the cheeses call for cutting the curd into very specific cubes, including 1/4" inch, 1/2" inch, or even 3/8". 3/8"??? I mean, come on. I can't even keep my sewing at 3/8" with the little guide next to the needle. My favortie directions, though, all involve bringing temperature up. Try this one from the emmental recipe: [by putting the pot in a large sink full of hot water] heat the curds one degree every two minutes until the temperature reaches 114 degrees." Right. On the other side of the fence are books like Max Alth's Making Your Own Cheese & Yogurt and the Sunburst Farm Family Cookbook. These books are very, um, laid-back about cheese making. One of Max's recipes actually says "raise the temperature as high as your hands can take it." The funny thing about that is not the inaccuracy, but the fact that I'm fairly sure Ricki Carroll would wince on hearing that Max is using his hands to stir the milk and cheese. The Sunburst Farm book goes even farther away from sanitary and measured cheese making with its "Sun Cheese" recipe, wherein you--yes--leave a jar of milk out in the sun. Needless to say, I have learned to come in somewhere in the middle. As with Nate's brewing methods, I have learned not to be so terrified that I did not sanitize up to my shoulders or that I was 2 degrees off when I pitched the starter. Most of the time it works out.

#2 should be self-explanatory. Lazy cheese maker. A clear example is that I am blogging instead of sanitizing equipment of hovering over my warm milk. I will go do that in a minute. A final note: to everyone who has wanted to make cheese, or yogurt, or beer, or anything, but didn't because they thought that it was terrifying after reading the directions, just remember that the Sunburst Farm Family has been eating cheese made from milk they leave out in the sun and they lived long enough to write a cookbook. It (probably) won't kill you to try your hand at a new kitchen skill one of these days.

New Hive in, Old Hive Out (Sadly)

Well, the new colony that we got on Monday from Western Bee in Polson appears to be thriving in their new hive. As you can see in the photo (the bee on the left of the entrance), the bees were busy cleaning some of the grass we lay on the upper bars out of the hive. They do this in teams and it is super neat to watch. This one just kept carrying it and then finally dropped it off to the side of the hive. Most of the time they just pitch it out the door (you can see a small pile of loose grass under the entrance.

The sad news here is that one of our other two hives has died. Or, I should say, is dying. They were acting strange last week, disoriented and crawling on the ground near the entrance and then they stopped clustering in the hive (we were watching through the hive windows). We thought it might be tracheal mites so we gave them a patty of sugar and shortening but we may have been too late, whether or not that was the cause-they are just too far gone and their numbers are too low for them to go much longer. This being our first actual bee problem, I have done a ton of reading in books and online and have narrowed it to three possibilities: Nosema, Tracheal Mites, or pesticides. We will be talking to our extension agent on Tuesday about having some of them tested and we may have to dissect a few. I would really like to know if there was something we could have done better and, obviously, I want to know how to avoid losing another hive in the future.

Libraries Using Twitter: time-waster or effective tool?

This post has been moved to a new location at melodycondron.com.

The Beekeeping Librarian will continue to have posts, photos, and resources pertaining to gardening, urban homesteading, beekeeping, and cooking. Library-specific posts and things for librarians can be found at the new site.

Where is the Kaltbach La Gruyere clone?

So last night I made cheese again. I do this from time to time in an effort to get good at doing weird things from scratch. It is not a cost-saving measure--it is about the same cost to make cheese as it is to buy most kinds of cheese. More expensive if I want to do fancy things. So I do it mainly out of the need to know that I can make things from scratch if I need or want to.

The cheese I am making is a farmhouse cheddar, a hard cheese that is supposed to be like cheddar but you don't have to wait 3-12 months to eat it. I have tried hard cheeses occasionally and am always intimidated by them. You won't know if you failed horribly until nearly a year later when you find out "wow, this tastes horrible." Then again, you could be lucky and find out that it is bad because it is bulging out of the wax or smelling horrible. Why do I do this to myself? They are also more involved than soft cheeses like cottage or ricotta, both of which I have actually made successfully.

My dream in all of this is to maybe, someday, make a cheese that is on-par with Kaltbach La Gruyere, a swiss (from Switzerland, not the holey kind) cheese made in awesome cheese-making caves. I will probably never have cheese-making caves to call my own. However, a cheese just as good would be awesome. Unlike with our brewing experiments, however, there is NO "clone" cheese recipe to follow. I did however find an explanation of how they make it at www.swissworld.org/en/switzerland/swiss_specials/swiss_cheese/making_cheese/. Still, it is very unlikely I will ever make something as good. If you have never has La Gruyere, I suggest you march to your local supermarket and get it. Perhaps it will inspire cheese-making desires in you, too. It's pretty damn good.

Surprise! Mushrooms.

The following article appeared in the Tobacco Valley News in Eureka, Montana:

"When Eureka Librarian Esther Brandt arrived at work Thursday morning, over 100 whimsical paper mushrooms had mysteriously appeared in the library lawn overnight. Brandt did not know who made them or where they came from. “They have been a real source of interest,” she said. The mushrooms are made out of paper bags. One mushroom, said Brandt, had a website written on its cap: www.dougrhodehamel.com/spore_project.php."

Click here to see the picture of the Eureka mushrooms.

I duly visited the site and learned that the mushrooms are part of an ongoing, international art project created by Doug Rhodehamel to "promote awareness for the support for art in schools and creativity in day-to-day life." According to his myspace page he has done this all over the world, including London, Germany, and Taiwan.

Holy cow. That is so supurbly random. Why Eureka, Montana? Why the Library? Who knows. However, any library attention is good attention. And public art is wonderful for the community. Thanks Doug!

Here are some Flickr photos of Doug's past work: