Neil and I have both made cheese before but who would pass up a chance to go to Hawaii for a Cheesemaking Retreat? We first made cheese from a kit we purchased online and it came out great, https://wineandcheesefriday.com/making-goat-cheese/. Our friends didn’t even believe it was handmade. The second time we used the kit, the results weren’t so spectacular so we took time off from making cheese.
I think we can all agree that things have been different during Coronavirus. Maybe not for everyone but for those of us staying home to stay safe. What does that mean for wine and cheese pairing? Well, we’re not running out to pick up a cheese we just heard about since we have to carefully plan our trips to the grocery store. Also we’re rationing our wine so that we can still have some next week before we go back out to the store.
And regarding social media? In the beginning, I couldn’t find many people talking wine, mainly just the newly brewing pandemic. Now that we’re three months in, I figured I’d create an entry with how our wine and cheese pairings have changed.
Well I promised you a cheese adventure so here goes!
We left Longmont, CO with our cheese in hand on the morning of September 30. We’d be riding the Amtrak train all day (11 hours) heading to Grand Junction, CO so we put our camembert into a lunch bag with some ice. We had already declared it ready to eat but our last few days were a bit hectic so we didn’t get around to eating it.
My second class at The Art of Cheese was the Cheesemaking Bootcamp. We covered brining your cheese, piercing a blue cheese, aging your cheese with rubs, washes and leaf wraps, an introduction to alpine and swiss cheeses as well as the process of cheddaring. For your sanity, and mine, we’ll be limiting todays entry to the cheddaring process and the cheeses we tasted that day. Did you know that there’s a separate process involved to make cheddar cheese than other cheeses, well you’ll get to learn all about it today!
When we chose to come out to Longmont, CO, we had no idea that there would be a cheese school 15 minutes from our rental. What an amazing bonus for our stay here! Neil and I have “dipped our toes” into cheesemaking but just handful of times so when we found out we could attend Cheesemaking classes, we figured it was our duty as cheeselovers. Our friend Jinnee was in town when the class occurred, so we all attended together. Jinnee said, “I love hanging out with you guys, we always eat so well!”