Wednesday, August 17, 2005

transitions

God, I'm exhausted. I still have to stretch the mozzarella. This is crazy. The pasteurizing has to be moved to the farm as well. I cannot have people standing over me looking at what I am doing. I cannot have them telling others what I am doing. I also have to establish boundaries and stand up for myself more. I have to me more confident in my cheesemaking. I am good. I know that. I just have this fear of letting everyone down lately. This is just when I am getting help from some really great people. I need to finish the mozz and go to bed. I need to go back to the plant in the morning and see what I missed. Put things away on the drain table. Pick up my calander. Wash the floor under the wash vat better... missed some curd Tuesday and it needs some better attention. Take my cheese home and do Wednesday's deliveries. I missed them.

I hope Claire doesn't mind being woken up early again. Poor "Bear". At least she is humoured by playing with elbows and gaskets under the drain table. She even made a neat structure involving a glass beaker, an elbow, a pint filler part and some other odd bits. Had to wash them again, but she didn't go near the steam line again. Good thing that is insulated. She is in the "don't do that" - do that mode.

Mozz.....

Tuesday, August 09, 2005

CNY Cheesemaking Adventure II: Italian Cheeses

October 13,14 &15th, 8am - ?
Morrisville Dairy Incubator
Morrisville, NY
Cost: $300/ea.
Peter Dixon will come out at teach us how to make Italian cheeses. A purist cheesemaking class. No lectures on the business of cheesemaking, etc. Goats and cows milk cheeses! People can take the cheeses home with them!

It'll be awsome!

Sunday, August 07, 2005

OK, so it was easier...

I just went ahead and told Harry to go ahead and set up the slide-on. Asside from needing a door handle and lock in place of a 2 x 6 and a cement block, it is holding temperature pretty well. Humidity is still too low. Will have to do something about that. Will dry things out too much otherwise.

Still trying to finish the b.plan templates for Steve. When the "to-do" list is 8 pages - two sided- it takes a lot to concentrate. I should just give up on the idea of turning all of them in at the same time and just give him the two that are done and then the others on the 19th. Boy, could I use the cash to finish these little things like aging capacity and sinks (for Bob).

Dave suprised me and went with Claire (aka co-piolet) and I to Regional Access to drop the cheese off. He did need to get away and we all needed that rare "family time". We also went to the Kirby picnic. Got to see Joanne and Travis from Syracuse Real Foods and ate good food. They had the bon-fire and there was good conversation all of the way around. Traded fresh moz, triple creme quark and moz curd for grass-fed beef. I also eye-balled the lamb I want (since my rams were too young to go beyond hoof-holding and giggling this fall). I need a good lamb stew and some kebabs on the grill!

Have more people interested in the Italian Cheese class. Have to finalize everything and get fliers out. Making Colwick and moz curd tomorrow. Woohoo!