Do you oil your hair? 

To me, it always seemed counterintuitive since the whole reason for washing hair was to get rid of the grease, but a long time ago at a girlfriend’s behest I bought some oil, and then, for whatever reason, I kinda forgot about it.

dry and poofy

However, the other week, probably about three days after I’d last washed it, my hair was feeling super dry and wiry, so I squirted some Moroccan oil on my hands and ran my fingers through my hair, paying special attention to the ends and using my palms to press down the more frizzy out layer of hair.

The transformation — felt, more than seen — was astonishing.

oiled

My hair went from brittle and crispy-frizzy to shiny, soft, and curly. I could practically hear the hair sucking up the moisture and sighing with contentment.

I don’t need to do this all the time — maybe once every couple weeks — but it’s a real treat when I do. 

Makes me feel fancy.

***

This summer I finally figured out how to use the pressure canner that I’ve had for about 15 years. I canned green beans and nothing exploded (though it turns out my kids prefer frozen green beans to canned; the canned ones do have a different flavor), so now I’m getting into bone broth. I’d always bought cases of boxed broth from Costco, but the homemade stuff is much richer and more flavorful.

And then on a walk the other day when I mentioned my blossoming love affair with pressure canned bone broth to a girlfriend, she said, “You know the trick with onions, right?” I didn’t, so she enlightened me: add some onion skins along with the other veggies and it’ll turn the broth a gorgeous rich bronzy-brown.

And what do you know, she was right. 

without onion skin, with onion skin

with onion skin, and without

It doesn’t take much — just a single layer of onion paper from a couple onions is enough to make the magic happen.

And then some friends butchered a hog and gave us a five-gallon bucket heaped with bones. 

My pressure canner is getting quite the workout.

***

There’s a new little bookstore coming to town! It’s called Parentheses and it’s gonna live right across the road from the bakery where I work, in an old abandoned warehouse that Magpie’s owner leased.

See the “for lease” sign on the warehouse on the left? That’s the place.
^{(photo from 2020)}

A few days ago I saw on Facebook that the bookstore owner (her name is Amanda) has a kickstarter campaign to raise the money to buy the stock. I pledged 10 bucks — a bookstore next door to where I work? cool! — and went on with my life. 

But then this week, Sofia, a local writer I-kinda-but-don’t-really-know but I’ll call her my girlfriend for the sake of this post’s title, popped into the bakery and we started talking about the bookstore. The deadline is next week, she said, and if they don’t meet their goal, then they don’t get any of the money. Get your friends to pledge!

As of today they’ve got 6 days left and they’re only halfway to their goal of fifty thousand dollars, YIKES.

Door to Parentheses is on the left; big door in the middle will be the entrance to the shops.
^{photo credit: Kirsten Moore}

So listen up, people. If you’re local and like to read (we all like to read, right?), consider chipping in five bucks — or fifty!

And if you’re not local but wish you were, or simply want to support female-owned, independent bookstores, then do. Who knows, maybe some day you’ll find yourself in the Shenandoah Valley, and you’ll decide to drop by the bakery for a croissant and then mosey across the road to the browse the stacks in a sunny bookstore next to the train tracks, and it will be as lovely as it sounds.

This same time, years previous: cheese tasting, round two, change, spiced applesauce cake with caramel glaze, the quotidian (11.17.14), sock curls, lemony lentil goodness.

I got it into my head that I wanted a super-creamy slicing cheese, so… I developed one!

Fat Cow is a variation of Butterkäse, that crowd-pleasing, semi-soft, washed-curd German cheese. My changes included culturing the milk with homemade yogurt and boosting it with an entire half gallon of cream because: if you want a creamier cheese, add more cream! Also, I tried to handle the curds less than normal: cutting them larger, cooking them more slowly, and stirring them less. 

The result?

It was exactly what I was going for: a sliceable — yet spreadable! — snacking cheese that’s mild with a bit of tang (think: cream cheese), ready in only 4 weeks, and enormously high-yielding.

sliceable AND spreadable

My six-and-a-half gallons of milk and cream yielded a 10-pound monster. ROAR.

Tasting video coming soon…

I do realize this isn’t a recipe most people will attempt, and I try to reserve the intricacies of cheesemaking for my YouTube channel, but since this blog is where I compile all my recipes — including the cheesy ones, haha — here we are.

Fat Cow Cheese
Recipe inspiration from Gavin Webber, Venison for Dinner, and Cheese 52.

If starting the cheese in the early morning, it should be ready to go into the brine at bedtime. If started late afternoon, it will be ready for the long press right at bedtime, and then can be popped into the brine first thing the next morning. 

To watch the recipe in development, go here.

6½ gallons whole milk
2 quarts heavy whipping cream
1½ teaspoons calcium chloride
1½ teaspoons rennet
1 generous cup yogurt
saturated salt brine

Milk-To-Curds
Heat the milk and cream to 102 degrees. 

Thin the yogurt with some of the warm milk and add it to the milk. Stir gently for about a minute. Lid the kettle and let the milk ripen for 40 minutes.

Dilute the calcium chloride with a little water and stir into the milk. Dilute the rennet with a little water and add to the milk. Stir gently (in an up-and-down motion) for no more than one minute. Lid the kettle and let rest for 40 minutes. 

Check for a clean break. (If not yet ready, let rest for another 10 minutes.) Cut the curds into ½-inch cubes. Let them rest (heal) for 5 minutes. 

Gently stir the curds for 20 minutes. Cut/break any curds that are still too large. Allow the curds to rest for 5 minutes to settle to the bottom.

Washing the Curd
Remove half of the whey. (I couldn’t get half of the whey because the curds kept popping up. I could’ve held the curds at bay with a strainer and scooped the whey out of that, but instead I choose to start washing the curds and then, once I had more liquid, I removed more. Either way! Just make sure you don’t stir too much or too hard — be gentle!)

Over the course of 5-10 minutes, add warm water (about 140 degrees) until the temperature reaches 108 degrees, stirring gently all the while. (If you didn’t get half of the whey removed the first time around, do it during this part.) 

Once the curds reach 108 degrees, turn off the heat and continue to stir gently for 10 minutes. The goal is to poach the curds — they should be cooked through, with no whey trapped inside. (Trapped whey damages the cheese during the aging process, resulting in a more acidic, crumbly cheese.) If you find curds that are too juicy-wet, simply tear/cut them in half, or remove them.

To test if the curds are done, squeeze them in your fist. The curds should knit together in a solid mass that can roll around in your hand, or dangle from your fingertips without falling apart, and will then separate back into curds when you rub them. 

Let the curds rest in the whey for 10 minutes. 

Pressing and Brining
Pour off the whey. Transfer the curds to a cheesecloth-lined mold and top with a follower. Press lightly for the first hour, flipping every 30 minutes. Increase the pressure to 20-30 pounds (this is still fairly light) and press for 9 hours. Flip as needed.

Weigh the cheese and then brine it in a saturated salt brine, about 4 hours for every pound. (For example, my cheese weighed 10 pounds so I brined it for 40 hours.) Flip halfway through. Dry-salt the exposed surface.

Air Drying and Aging
Air dry the cheese for 2-3 days, flipping twice a day. Vac-pack and age at 55 degrees for 4 weeks, flipping twice a week. 

This same time, years previous: the quotidian (11.15.21), sourdough English muffins, guayaba bars, success!, Thai chicken curry, the quotidian (11.16.15), lessons from a shopping trip, official, the quotidian (11.16.11).

Quotidian: daily, usual or customary;
everyday; ordinary; commonplace

For cheese. (No, really!)

He said it was a bit much.

Pretty, yes. Precise, no.

The variety, the abundance, the flavors — it never gets old.

Test bake: blueberry and lemon.

Meal delivery x 2.

The morning after a MEHPoeting reading.

Discrepancy.

Ee-i-ee-i-o.

Car shopping.

Deer in headlights.

The Crucible.

A new release.

This same time, years previous: perimenopause: Laura, age 48, my new kitchen: the refrigerator, Shakespeare behind bars, enough, for now, gravity, refrigerator bran muffins, the wiggles, chicken salad.