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We were in Vermont for a few days over Spring Break, during which time we visited Taylor Farm, as we always do when we’re up there. In addition to their excellent Gouda–their aged is my favorite–they also sell raw milk, and sometimes cream. For whatever reason, Milo got it into his head that he was going to make butter, so he did. I guided him through the process, but the work was all his doing. I’m all about better living though child labor. Keep reading It’s Like Butter, Baby… 
As I settle into a routine here at Bachelor Central, I finally treated myself to the sort of caveman meal that my wife assumes I pretty much always eat when they’re away. It’s not true, of course; lately I’ve been eating bread and cheese and salads, with nibblings of chorizo thrown in for balance. But today saw a bunch of errands run, and a long-neglected repair project finally crossed off the list, so my reward was taking myself in to dinner for a thoroughly decadent treat. Keep reading Yes! Yes! In The Face!…
I made the big sausage stuffing dinner tonight, but I don’t quite have it in me to write about it right now. I’ll get to it on the morrow when I have a bit more energy. Meantime, here’s something we made yesterday, using entirely homemade ingredients, for a truly special and yet incredibly everyday treat. Keep reading The Culture War? Winning!…
I finally finished the painting and now I have to wait three days until it’s fully dry so I can assemble the hundreds of pieces and put it in the crate (which I get to build in the meantime). There have actually been some foodular developments here at cookblog HQ, but they’re of various other process-heavy things and as such not ripe for the posting. But not very much visually dramatic is going to happen to this cheese over the next six months, even though the interior will be undergoing all sorts of cheesy alchemy as it transforms into sharp, crumbly cheddar, so I figured I write about it now. Keep reading It’s All About The Cheddar…
Easter was a simple affair, but still a good dinner. It centered around a Flintstonian slab of lamb–a whole shoulder–that I rubbed with spices (cumin, 5-spice, coffee, coriander) and slit and stuffed with copious ramp bulbs. Keep reading Nobody’s Fault But Mine…
Enough time has elapsed since the beginning of my beautiful friendship with the local raw milk source for me to finally show the evolution of one of my more impressively successful DIY endeavors: Camembert. It could have aged a bit longer to reach its peak, but we had a special guest on Friday night and I needed to break it out to complete the meal (with homemade bread, of course).
An inevitable result of making cheese is having lots of whey on hand, which can be either a curse or a blessing depending on how well you can dispatch it in ways that are more useful and nutritious than pouring it down the drain. If you have pigs, you’re in luck; they love it and will reward you with excellent proscutto. Otherwise, after extracting fluffy, gorgeous ricotta–which is ludicrously easy compared to making whatever the first cheese was–you’ve got to use it up or the ghosts of your peasant ancestors will torture you with heavily-accented guilt and spectral finger-wagging. To spare you that Dickensian horror, here’s a list of some things I’ve been using it for.
Feta is one of the easiest cheeses to make at home. It uses a low-maintenance culture, stays at one temperature, and ferments in brine in the fridge where most adverse beasts cannot thrive. As I ease in to the practice of regular cheese making, feta is already a fixture in the rotation. I was lucky enough to have stumbled onto an invitation to a cheesemaking demonstration at a nearby home today. It was great, and perfectly timed; despite my familiarity with various forms of old school kitchen arcana, cheese has been something I have had no hands-on experience with. Until today. We made cheddar, which will be ready in six or so weeks. I’m going to order some cultures and rennet as soon as the kitchen is done, but in the meantime a happy byproduct of today’s class was a half gallon of (raw, local) whey which I got to bring home. I spent much of the class extolling the virtues of whey as an ingredient, specifically as a sous-vide vehicle for meat. Since I didn’t have time to cook sous-vide tonight (and the water bath is half taken apart for maintenance) I made do with marinating a lamb leg steak in whey, salt, rosemary, garlic, and 5-spice for an hour or so while I got other things together. We had some nice sweet potato purée from Friday, so I whisked in some already hydrated Methocel F50 from the fridge and sort of knocked spoonfuls of it into simmering water to make free-form gnocchi that ended up being pretty appealing contemporary teardrop shapes by complete accident. I left them in the hot water until it was time to serve. In another pan, I melted some pâté fat that sits in a little jar in the fridge next to similar jars of goose, duck, smoked duck, . . . → Read More: Whey Cool The August Chronogram is out, and within it another article- this time on our outstanding . . . → Read More: Blessed Are The Cheesemakers |
I'm a painter who happens to also spend a lot of time growing, making, and writing about food. I'm particularly interested in the intersection of frugal peasant cooking techniques and haute improvisation. And I have a really great personality.   |
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