Reading the Cheese Curds

Reading the cheese curd is a bit like reading the tea leaves for a cheese nerd. Actually, cheese makers really do read the cheese curds looking for signs of acidification and coagulation, dialing in texture, moisture and general deliciousness. But, that is not what I am talking about, I am talking about reading the cheese curds for some kind of existential guidance – more precisely, a compass for my own life direction.

This weekend, I had the pleasure of attending Jasper Hill Farm and Cellars’ 15th Anniversary celebration in Greensboro, Vermont. Its an artisan cheese producer nestled in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont. They are mere 40 miles from the Canadian border. Greensboro boasts a population just under 800 people and Jasper Hill Farm and Cellars employs about 10% of them. This year, Harbison, their oozy, gooey, spruce-bark-wrapped, bloomy rind cheese won Best in Show at the American Cheese Society’s 2018 Competition. Oh, they also got second place with Calderwood, their hay-aged, alpine-style cheese sold only at Saxelby Cheesemongers. This on the heels of several years of strong showings. Think about that. It’s pretty impressive.

I admit it, Jasper Hill’s story constantly sweeps me. Two brothers, tired of making vacation homes for the rich New York set that frequent the region, wanted to do something to make a difference in their region. Small, family-owned dairies are rapidly disappearing. They are unable to make enough on commodity dairy prices to feed their cows, so they are slowly being gobbled up by big dairy or quietly shutting down. So, the Kehler brothers, Mateo and Andy, against industry trends, decide to open a dairy. They learn to milk cows and make award winning cheese. And viola, 15 years later, there I am in awe and celebrating this feat.

I both swoon and sigh the fairy tale. At once, my own crazy ideas seem both possible and unobtainable.

I have this idea that lingers in my brain to start making my own artisan cheese. To that end, I took a two week long cheesemaking class in January. I have yet to go beyond home kitchen experiments and a mental plan to convert a spare room into a clean cheese make room. When, I left the class that same possible yet unobtainable feeling infects me. I felt inspired to make cheese, overstuffed with too much new information and a frozen about the million things I needed to learn. That was 6 months ago and I’ve not made much progress on my own cheese empire.

What’s stopping me? Well, it’s me.

I sometimes envy those people who proclaim having found their calling as a child. They single-mindedly pursue that one thing their whole life, satisfied. There was such person at my cheesemaking class. She loved cheesemaking. She was enthusiastic, driven, excited and young. You know the type. They interrupt a presentation with a question they already know the answer to with hopes of both showing off their knowledge, but also skipping forward to get to the information they really want. I imagine I was exactly like that 15 years ago evangelizing how much I loved engineering. So, my envy of these sorts is tempered by my cynical thinking. She too will burn out on this some day too.

Really, not that many people actually pursue that one thing their whole life. Those that do, are pretty exceptional. The rest of us schmucks wake up one morning realizing we’ve fucked it up and start looking around for something new. That’s me, frantically throwing spaghetti against the wall watching for something to stick.

Spaghetti that looks like a jumble of many crazy ideas and all of them have a little bit of stickiness, but none of them are really sticking. Along with the cheese making idea, there is the cookbook store idea, the recreational culinary school idea, the cheese shop idea, the mobile cookbook store idea, the jam making idea, the restaurant idea, the back to engineering idea, the write a book idea, the write a cookbook idea, the other food products idea and a bunch of other ideas that pop up and take hold for a few days here and a few days there.

That is all muddied up with my insecurities.

My Insecurities

• What happens when I bore with this?
• What if I pick the wrong one?
• What if there is a better one?
• What if I can’t figure this shit out?
• What if I fuck this up?

Wait, scratch the recreational culinary school idea. It only took me 5 years of teaching culinary classes to realize I don’t like teaching culinary classes all that much. Add “I am too stubborn” to my list of insecurities. This particular insecurity is probably the worst for me. Considering, I already signed on to teach cooking classes through February. Apparently, I haven’t yet properly given up on this idea. Well, I have, but another of my insecurities is “I can’t admit I am making cheese in my spare room and have no real job until I figure out how to make cheese.” I only just openly admitted I was a culinary instructor (after 5 years!) to the blogosphere in February.

So, with that, I am a culinary instructor who, basking in the infectious enthusiasm of 15 year cheesemaking celebration, is going to go work on my cheese make room this week.

Happy Cooking and Throwing Spaghetti.