I only sort of like cheese. It has a tendancy to complicate my life.

Yes, cheese. You may think of it as some docile condiment or additive to your daily diet. I consider it the harbinger of lifelong complications. I tried explaining this once before. It leads to a lot of looks I'd rather not see pointed my direction, especially when I am trying to explain my most recent (but looking to be life-long) dilemma. Just wait. You'll understand soon enough. Then you will give me "the look" the next time you see me, and remember this blog, and how many screws you think I have lost. It's ok. I have come to terms with it.

CHEESE.

This is where it starts.

Any cheese. It doesn't matter what kind. You name it. On any given day, or menu, or recipe (especially those recipes! Naughty little things just staring at me! Taunting me! Calling out for me to make them!) (But I digress,) when I see "cheese" an entire world of complication spills under my feet.

I blame it on my first year at USU. My Garde Manger (Yes, that is spelled correctly. Look it up.) class spent some time making cheese. (I feel an apology should be made to my roommates, who at the time put up with all the cheese at our apartment, but I think they got enough entertainment out of it, so we'll call it even.) It wasn't a very detailed or prolonged study of cheesemaking, but enough to have done the damage.

You're still waiting for it. The explanation. The crazy. I know. This information helps. Just wait..

So now, every time I see a reference for cheese, I know that I can make it. So, I look in my cheesemaking book to see what it would take. (Yes, I have a book. Clearly, I am obsessed.) I weigh the options to see if the effort is worth the outcome, or if I should just go to Costco. Usually Costco wins. But every once in a while, this happens:

I will be hovering over the thought of making cheese (Mascarpone, Parmesean, Ricotta, Guyere, even just yogurt! etc..) when I think, "You know, if I am going to make cheese, really make it, I should get the right equipment." Then I will look at intense cheesemaking equipment online. Cheese presses, blueprints for making them, molds, starters, etc. Then I think, "I'll need a place to put all this cheese I am going to make! Plus a place to store it and let it age!" (The crazy has started, fyi) Then I think, "Man, I am going to need a ton of milk! I need a cow!" It goes on and on. Eventually, (I will save you the looooooong thought process behind it,) I end up with a farm. A place where I can grow all the herbs, grains, fruits, and vegetables I need, and raise all the livestock and such for meat (and the dairy cows of course!) Isn't being totally self sustaining fun?

Then, and only then do I remember that I am crazy. How much work would that be??? I would be so tired from maintaining 1/100th of a farm, I would never even get to the cheese! I'm tired just thinking about all the things I need to make cheese!
At this point I usually back away from the cheese, breathe, and try to forget the farm. So, in short, for me: Making cheese= buying farm. And being exhausted.





You may be wondering why, at this point I would even care to make my own cheese. I hoped you wouldn't ask. Because the answer, is what led me to "farm".




Fresh cheese = A moment of one of life's great mysteries unfolding. Pure bliss. And I'm not sorry.





But then the farm happens.