Cheese, Glorious Cheese!

Cheese is one of those divine foods that have been around for centuries and of course the finer the quality of product used to make it and the longer it ages, the finer and more expensive it is deemed. Really not unlike wines - well I guess that is why wine and cheese go so well together. Rich aromas to tease the nose while liquid gold pours across the tongue bringing the world to a momentary stop while you enjoy the barrage of emotions. Ok, that might be a little over the top, but seriously, who doesn't love a good cheese?!

I, for one, LOVE cheese. Not that I am in anyway a turophile that can tell you the name, age, and region the rennet used came from...but more of an everyday cheese lover. I enjoy trying the new flavors and trying to mix them with different sweet, sour, or fresh herb mixtures to bring out their greatest potential. A piece of sharp aged cheddar makes the best snack especially when combined with a savory black forest ham slice but my favorite is to combine blue cheese with rosemary and grilled chicken breast. See, simple, normal kind of cheese love!

But just loving cheese wasn't enough. I wanted to MAKE my cheese and to learn about the different processes and cultured needed to grow a specific cheese. Does weather affect the process? Does it matter if you use cultured or processed milk? (I mean afterall, not everyone has access to a raw milk dairy farm - I am lucky, I do) Can a cheese age too long? Soft cheese, hard cheese, cheese curds, fresh cheese, aged cheese!!! There are just way, whey, WHEY too many options! Oh yeah, and the whey.... Little Miss Moffit seems to think its ok in her breakfast cereal...but seriously, what is it...it looks strange and smells...stranger. And I will let you in on a little secret...the stuff in our workout protein powder...is NOT the same. Im sorry, I cannot explain it right now...and I love my protein shakes so I may not even want to disillusion myself with that kind of research.

So, I have decided to make cheese...but I have no idea where to start! We already established that there are SO MANY kinds of cheese and beyond "its made from milk" I knew nothing. PINTEREST! Such a lovely time-suck filled with unending knowledge, complete with little pictures, that are linked to other little pictures that have even more information on the related topic. Ok, I am going to start easy and work my way up. A simple, easy cheese with a short turn around time - after-all, sometimes we need to see progress in order to believe in the success of the long term. So now I have my shopping list! Let us make CHEESE!!

Evolving Resolutions

Its a new year - time to make those resolutions and fight to achieve them until you get all fed up and just quit. Year after year I was making same resolutions, you know, the usual - loose weight, find new ways of coping with depression, work out more... and year after year, I was good for a few months and I would grow weary of the extensive amount of energy that it required! Part of learning daily to live with Fibromyalgia and Chronic Depression...is learning that you cant do everything - and I have a very hard time admitting that I am not Wonder Woman.

So this year, I decided to try something different. I wasn't going to go with the old usual resolutions. I was going to be different and perhaps more realistic.  I was going to learn a new art form and use it to further my goal of living a healthier and happier lifestyle. Only problem was...I couldn't choose just one...and so I settled on two. I was going to learn the age old art of Cheesemaking AND Wood Burning!

I was worried at first that I might be biting off more than I can chew, and may yet discover that I had, but the beautify of these two art forms is that I could actually be working on both at the very same time! Cheese is a long and slow process and only needs short periods of monitoring and babying while Wood Burning, unlike my painting, can be gotten out and put away with relative ease and unless I am working on something quite large, which I don't foresee in the near future, it will be portable and organized.

So why these two projects? They do see a bit mix matched but really they fit me to a T. I really enjoy learning old art forms and bring back "the old ways" and I love to make beautiful and enjoyable things. The best part of these two crafts is that there is no way I can get in a hurry and expect results right away. The BEST cheeses are aged and I enjoy putting time into artwork to get it just right and because they are more projects, I can fit them into my unique lifestyle without them disrupting the family. And best of all, I am Excited! Not just about learning something new, but learning something I can SHARE with others! Who knows, maybe I will one day be packaging my homemade cheeses in specially designed boxes with beautiful burned art on them! Sounds Magical to me!