Jet-setter Jennie Hobbs is making me hungry with this post.  Thanks for sharing!

The Start Of Cheese Making

There are nine children in my house right now. Eight of them are about the size of my fist and they are very high maintenance. To make things even weirder, I plan to eat them one by one over the next twelve months. My eight babies are various cheeses. (There is actually one living, breathing, toddler in my household.) A few weeks ago, I dedicated an entire weekend to a cheesemaking course in Sydney, Australia. I like to eat cheese and drink wine, and I also love to cook, so I thought, “Hey! How hard can it be?” After all, there aren’t many ingredients in cheese, you don’t really have to cook it, and it’s the perfect accompaniment to just about anything. Plus, Australia is known for great wine and gourmet food, so what better place to do it in? The Cheesemaking Course is held at various locations throughout Australia every month and it books up quickly. I registered for the class about two months in advance and then, out of sheer coincidence, discovered that my friend, Rachel, was doing the class the month before. I thought I’d get a huge leg up on my fellow classmates with Rachel’s inside knowledge on my side. Instead, I just got a huge warning. “The class is VERY intense”, said Rachel with a serious look in her eyes. But then, she opened the fridge and revealed eight delicious looking cheeses all made over two days. I was scared, excited, intrigued, and hungry all at once.

Making Some Cheddar

The Master At Work

At 8am a few Saturdays later, I walked into my first cheesemaking class. My fellow students ranged in age from 30s to 60s and were a combination of friends, couples, foodies, and everyday cheese lovers like me. Thankfully, we all seemed to have about the same level of experience, which wasn’t much. After a quick cup of tea, we were greeted by Graham Redhead, the Master Cheesemaker. Graham grew up milking cows on a dairy farm in Queensland, studied food technology, and worked as a dairy advisor for many different companies including the Queensland government. Ten years ago, he started running the course simply because he gets a buzz from teaching people his trade. I equate him to the Albert Einstein of Cheesemaking. Imagine a [Read more...]