Candying… my own orange rinds that I scrounged from the diner’s juicer. (Don’t worry, Mom! I haven’t lost all my sense of thriftiness.)
Struggling… to accept that I can’t do all the things I want to. When the kids were little the days dragged endlessly, but now that they’re older the days are all mine for the having. I wish they were twice as long.
Keeping a running tally… of all the projects I wish I had more time for, such as cookie baking, book writing, cheesemaking, filming, blogging, acting, bakery shifts, kickboxing, homeschooling, reading, teaching (via filming/in-person classes), listening to podcasts, business development (based on one or more of the above-mentioned projects), and learning new things like watercoloring and cake decorating.
Dreaming… of a personal assistant to do all the little tasks that suck up my time like video editing, graphic design, recipe writing, and proofing. Wouldn’t it be awesome to have a creativity support person?
Considering… getting a living (potted) Christmas tree instead of cutting down a live one. Our local tree farm has been short on trees lately, and I kinda like the idea of creating a little evergreen forest with a collection of our used Christmas trees. At $80 a tree, they’re pretty expensive, but look at it this way: since a cut farm tree is $50, we’d actually be getting a brand new, live-forever tree for the rock-bottom price of $30.
Discovering… cool, new kitchen tools thanks to my day of staging at Cou Cou Rachou, a French bakery in Charlottesville that is TOTALLY worth a food pilgrimage, if you dig that sort of thing (check out the English muffins!). They used this cool little dohicky to core apples — I had no idea such a thing existed and it’s exactly what I’ve been wanting — and I was all sorts of enamored by their little tart pans (they don’t use the bottom piece), shallow sieves for sifting spices, and plastic lids for sheet pans.
Savoring… my leisurely (yet highly structured!) days in front of the fire working on all my various projects.
Boycotting… putting my clothes away. Since we have no good space for storing off-season clothing, I’ve been begging my husband to build a bed box with drawers — but he won’t. So now all my summer clothes are in a neat pile on the floor, waiting for him to put them away. My theory is that he’s more likely to fix the problem if it bothers him.
Hoping… that this last visit from Mr. Big Balls has been profitable. My husband injected both Emma and Butterscotch with Estrumate to bring them into heat, and we’re keeping the bull for an extra month to follow up, hoping that if if the magic didn’t happen the first time, he’ll make it right when they cycle round again.
Questioning… the value of our choice in piggies. This breed was supposed to be grazers, not rooters, but turns out they dig things up a-plenty, making a huge mess of the field and putting my husband in a foul temper. That they’re slow growers means we’ll have to tolerate their rooty behavior and throw food scraps at them for just that much longer. Would it be more profitable and efficient to raise regular meat pigs? Or will the flavor of these wee-uns be noticeably better? We’ll see….
Pondering…the new cinnamon roll hack that involves pouring heavy cream over the cinnamon rolls prior to baking. Have you tried it? Should I?
Recently, when making Jarlsberg-style cheese, I’ve been ending up with tiny, random eyes, or none at all — so last time I made it, I decided to skip the vac-packing. Maybe the tight bag was hindering proper eye development? (Never mind that all my earlier successful Jarlsbergs had been vac-packed. Stick with me here.) Since I was making my Full Moon Blue at the same time I was making the Jarlsberg, I popped the Jarlsberg in one of my plastic tubs and stuck it in the bottom of the cheezer, as far away from the Blue as possible.
However — problem number one — it got contaminated anyway.
I let it go for a bit, and then after a few weeks I gave it a good scrubbing with a (clean) toothbrush, diluted apple cider vinegar, and salt. And then I placed the cheese on the dresser in the downstairs bedroom — on a cheese mat with a food tent over top — to air dry.
Everything was fine and dandy for a few weeks, until one day I noticed that the tent cover was askew. Weird, I thought as I straightened it. But the next day it was once again wonky. This time I looked more closely and (problem number two) — A MOUSE.
Or signs of a mouse, rather. The little critter had chewed a hole through the netting, chowed down on the cheese, and left turds on the dresser. I was indignant.
(And also a little bit delighted because: mice really do like cheese! How cute!)
I trimmed out all the cheese-munched parts and, once again, scrubbed the whole thing with vinegar and salt, and then I tasted it and — problem number three — the rind tasted like a scented pineapple candle! I’d had a pineapple scented candle sitting atop the dresser beside the cheese, and the scent had leached into the cheese. The inside of the cheese, however, tasted absolutely magnificent — nutty and sweet, mildly Swissy, and just generally more complex than most of my cheeses — so I cut the rind off the entire cheese, vac-packed the wedges, and popped them into the cheese fridge.
And there you have it: the story of a cheese that battled mold, mice, and scented candles and emerged victorious.
Cheese: it’s tougher than it looks. Be like cheese.
