Cheesemaking Class Dates

Cheesemaking: From Cow to Curd
Whether you've always longed to make your own dairy products, or simply love cows and eating cheese, this class is a perfect introduction to the world of cheese. Culinary Institute of America graduate Kelsey Kozak will guide you through the entire cheesemaking process, from milking a Jersey cow to aging wheels of cheese.
Learn how to transform milk into a wide variety of dairy products, including real butter, cream cheese, mozzarella, ricotta, and aged cheeses.
Participants will sample the bounty of their day's work in addition to enjoying a full lunch.
Approximately 6 hours of learning and eating; $125.

Class Dates
Sunday, October 2
Saturday, October 8 - SOLD OUT
Sunday, October 23
Sunday, October 30

More dates will be added. If you cannot make it to one of these classes, let me know what days work for you and I will set up another class. Private classes for you and your friends can also be arranged.

Please call (206-463-1317) or email to sign up.

Cheese

One of the nice things about milking at 6 in the morning is that, by the time I'm done, it's not too late to go back to bed! I don't often do it, but it was unavoidable today. Makes me feel like a cheater of a milkmaid though.


Iris, looking majestic.


Iris, looking more normal.


New-Cow. She becomes concerned when I take her picture.






But not for long.

I made a batch of mozzarella today - the first with New-Cow's milk. It tastes fantastic, but I need to modify the recipe - the texture wasn't quite smooth enough. I also have some cream souring for cultured butter and tomorrow I'll make a wheel of cheddar-style cheese, or feta.

Cow Quest 2010

The search for a new cow continues. At some times of the year there are cows for sale everywhere you look; now they're quite sparse. But I'm waiting to hear from a farm - hopefully I'll be bringing home a cow next Sunday! In preparation of the cheesemaking to come, I'm setting up two fridges in my room (dorm-size) for aging. My plan is to have one for harder wheels and cured meats, the other for soft, mold ripened cheeses. My biggest obstacle with making cheese in the past was ripening. A wheel of cheddar will grow a multi-hued patchwork of mold - which is just fine because it can just be trimmed off. But a piece of cheese such as camembert needs an exact temperature and humidity. Otherwise the delicate mold will grow inconsistently, or dry up, or just die. But even the hard cheeses will benefit from a better environment. With enough airflow and the proper temperature and humidity, the mold will be more manageable, able to be brushed down to form a thin natural rind.



Here is the new and improved fridge: I bought a switch timer, so the fridge turns on and off in 30 minute intervals, keeping the temperature at an average of 55 degrees. Two computer fans provide air circulation. And I'm taking it for a test drive with an experimental piece of charcuterie. On the 4th of July I smoked a bunch of meat over a wood fire - most of it barbecue for that night's dinner - but when the heat died down I cold smoked a flank steak (courtesy of Mac...). This I cured with salt, sugar, juniper, rosemary, and thyme. After four days of curing I dried it off, rolled and tied it, and moved it into the fridge. Only time will tell!

The Comeback Cow

Yippee! Spring is just around the corner - one month, to be exact. And today is a decidedly spring-like day, warm (43 degrees!) and sunny and the birds are out. Of course snow is still on the ground and not one speck of new green is to be found (I looked carefully - no crocuses or forsythia), but it looks promising.

I've been thinking a lot about what to do with my life upon graduation in June. Unlike most students here, I will not be looking for a restaurant job - been there, done that, and it's not my idea of fun. So I think it's time to start up the Creamery again and continue teaching cheesemaking classes.

I did this back in 2008. The class, Cheesemaking: From Cow to Curd, was six hours long. Participants learned what really goes into making dairy products through a hands-on class that started with the cow and ended in a bountiful, dairy-laden feast. Each class consisted of six to eight people. We would start off by milking Lil, my Jersey cow, and then carry the warm milk back to the house. Using a total of eight gallons of milk, I would go through the processes of skimming cream, culturing milk, making butter and buttermilk, fresh mozzarella, a basic cheddar-style pressed cheese, ricotta, fromage blanc, and yogurt. While we waited for the milk to culture, students could sample the freshly made cultured raw butter and aged cheeses from past classes. After stretching the mozzarella and packing the cheddar curds into the mold, we would all sit down for lunch - which went something like this: backyard salad greens with olive-oil and rosemary aged feta, platters of still-warm mozzarella layered with basil and our neighbor's tomatoes and pools of excellent olive oil, herb and garlic fromage blanc, and fresh mascarpone on walnut bread. The main event might be ricotta gnudi with brown butter, butternut squash, currants and pinenuts, or homemade pappardelle with mushrooms foraged by yours truly and ridiculous amounts of Lil's golden cream (among other things). My favorite dessert was a meyer lemon mascarpone ice cream. Wine and raw milk were the libations of choice - of course!



So Vashon, prepare yourself. The cows are coming home to Fort Bantam Creamery.

P.S. I already have a waiting list for classes. If you're interested, send an email to kelsey@feralfeast.com

Goodbye Baking and Pastry...

The end of Baking and Pastry, and a sad day. Well, not horribly sad, but it was definitely the end of a very good thing and I will miss Chef Knaster.

Here's what I've been up to the last several days:

Wednesday, I was on bread team, so I made whole wheat pitas. It's actually a very simple bread - just combine and mix/knead the flours, water, yeast, salt and a touch of sugar and olive oil. Let the dough proof for an hour, then shape and bake. Actually, the shaping was a bit involved, owing to the fact that each of the 35 pitas were first rolled into a seamless ball, then flattened and partially rolled, then rolled out to a nine-inch circle. I slid them off the wood peels and into a 500 degree oven. They're done in just four minutes - puffed into a sphere, slightly brown on the bottom, delicious. I mixed up a huge batch of hummus and it made a fine lunch.

Thursday I made Armagnac Prune and Walnut Galettes - rustic tarts made with a flaky butter pastry, a layer of sweet walnut filling, and topped with prunes rehydrated in Armagnac and vanilla syrup. Life doesn't get much better than a slice of this tart, served warm from the oven with a dollop of creme fraiche. Thanks for the recipe, Chris!

In preparation for today's pizza, I brought in five quarts of fresh raw milk to class and made real mozzarella. Illegal cheese...! It's true; you can't buy fresh, milky mozzarella like this anywhere in the country. Italy, yes. But it's sad how most people don't know what mozzarella should taste like - all they know is the rubbery, plastic-tasting mass one finds in the grocery store. Mmmm! Plastic and rubber! For the pizza today we also had to use cheese curd mozzarella because I just couldn't make enough from the five quarts. I thought it might actually be good, but no. Sure, it melts. But it has no flavor, and is way too chewy. The handmade one tasted like fresh, sweet milk, and oozed rich cream when bitten.

I must say, though - the Italian stuff is even better. I experienced Mozzarella di bufala for the first (and only, regretfully) time in Florence about five years ago. What I make at home has the ability to transport me back to that sunny piazza where we devoured a whole ball of the luxurious cheese with perfect tomatoes and basil and olive oil, and slurped down handmade goat cheese tortelloni with shaved truffles. I must go back. Though I wouldn't say no to buying and milking my own water buffalo....

Back to the pizza. It was very good, though our ovens just aren't hot enough to produce the ideal crust. Better go to Italy or Stroll-Inn (McKees Rocks, Pittsburgh) for the really good stuff!

I worked with Kendall and Amanda today for our chocolate truffles. We made two types: Port (enlisting the use of a half bottle of port, reduced to a syrup), and Bourbon and Coke. We used Coke syrup in place of glucose, and added a healthy dose of Makers Mark, albeit over Chef's recommended 10% of the chocolate's weight - try 20-25% !!! Pretty awesome, I must say. They were visually stunning too, since I used colored cocoa butters to pattern the molds - purple swirls for the port truffles, red and gold splatters for the Bourbon and Cokes. I ate way too many.

Please Read - Important...

Today, something very important happened.

I ate a piece of cheese that ranks in my Top 5 Cheeses, ever.

Imagine the best sheep milk cheese you have ever had - the kind that's well-aged, nutty, caramely and rich - such as Ossau-Iraty. This was a Manchego, however, which isn't usually known to be that good. But it was, and so much better even then. It could be attributed to Yuval Sterer's expert aging - he buys young, promising cheeses, then tends them for many years in his warehouse (he's got some nine year old Fiscalini Cheddar...).

Whatever it was, this was one heck of a cheese. And the rind had gone all soft and funky and amazingly tasted like black truffles. We could have sworn the cheese was aged on a bed of them.

Oh, and we also snatched up a whole (mid-size/2.2 pound) Brie - for $5. Cheese party tomorrow!

We made it out to the farm for our weekly dose of raw milk - 4.5 gallons for us, friends, and making cheese. They were out of eggs, though.

All in all, a great day, dairy-wise. We'll be back, Mr. Sterer!


The Big Cheese
402 Main Street
Rosendale, NY 12472
(845) 658-7175

Sunday Snow and Ricotta

Well, not the most exciting day, but we did get some snow and sleet. And I had been hoping winter was over! Bummer.

Actually, the weather was bad enough that we couldn't make it out to the farm for fresh milk. We'll go tomorrow.

I did go for a walk in the snow, and saw the herd of 14 deer. They're a lively bunch.

In my fridge I had a gallon of raw milk that turned (someone hadn't properly washed the bottles). So, when life gives you sour milk - make ricotta! And it was delicious. I made ricotta gnudi for dinner - little pasta-less dumplings (hence the "gnudi" or "naked") of fresh ricotta and grated aged goat cheese, just barely held together with an egg or two and some gluten-free flour mix. We ate them with browned butter and sauteed dice of local butternut squash. I would have liked to serve it with currants and pinenuts (a la Lark), but a college budget doesn't really allow for $20 per pound nuts!

Sorry that's it for tonight. Back to the bakeshop tomorrow!