A weekend of cheese

I've made no secret of my failures in the hard / aged cheese department. Soft / fresh cheeses, no problem. Feta, ricotta, mozzerella, queso fresco, no problem. Aged cheese = smells like ass. And death. Late last year a friend and I decided to take a class to help unravel the mystery. At first we were tempted by locale, it would certainly be more fun to make cheese at the beach, or maybe in New England or the Pacific Northwest, but it seemed most appropriate to stay in the midwest considering techniques, etc may vary.

This is Merryl Winstein, our fearless leader who welcomed us into her home for a day of cheesemaking. We really enjoyed spending the day with the other members of our class, it was fun to share our cheese-disaster stories and talk about our future plans. Merryl's approach to cheesemaking was calm and casual, her vast knowledge about the process as well as the science behind it was impressive. She simplified the process in such a way that our fear of failure dissipated through the day. She talked about the many intensive courses she has attended as well as the many more she plans to attend. We learned that many of our cheesemaking bibles just aren't correct and by breaking the process down by pH and texture alone, we will be eating a perfect goats milk tomme in no time. We also were encouraged to stop panicking about smells and visuals and were encouraged to see each cheese through till the end, because chances are they will turn out just fine. I hope my days of rotten ass-cheese are behind me...

Milo looks on in wonder...

We stopped at each step so every member of the class could feel the texture, the firmness and the smell as the cheese was born. We found out quickly that many recipes have very important 'missing links'...

Merryl was gracious enough to allow us to sample many of her cheeses, some aged only a week and others, many months. Most were cow's milk cheeses and included cloth-bound cheddar, a fresh basic tomme as well as an aged basic tomme, fresh soft cheese, camembert, toscano pepato, kefalotyri and 2 varieties of bleu. From the whey created during class, we made a basket of creamy, warm fresh ricotta which we enjoyed with dried cherries, figs and pineapple that magically appeared in someone's bag...*ahem*

We met Merryl's lovely goats, became green with envy while hearing about the lax milk sale laws in Missouri, and started emphatically planning meals around this spring's many perfectly aged cheeses. Thank you very much, Merryl, we look forward to reading your upcoming book.

It can't be all work and no play, naturally, so we set off to find the best of St. Louis.

We spent a lovely morning at the Art Museum in Forest Park.

First we found a bag of $9.00 potato chips. For the record, they were worth every penny, and come on! What goat girls could resist that label?

I also discovered my new favorite beer. A grapefruit ale. Now the search begins in Ohio...

This is a church adjacent to the Gateway Arch. I don't know anything about it except that its parking lot clearly stated "NO ARCH PARKING" so I stealthily took a picture to hide my true intent.

And here is the picture I was really intending to get. This particular parking lot was the only place we could get a picture of the whole thing so we had to risk it. We soon decided there was no way in hell we were going up to the top of it and that a photo from the ground would suffice.

We took recommendations from the locals in our class and had a late dinner at a fabulous restaurant called The Shaved Duck, where we ate piggy and ducky, and cow and chick-y too. So good, in fact, that our leftovers made an excellent breakfast with organic cheddar bunny crackers.

We are the cheese masters!!!!! Or so we think...after the exceptional beer...