Bread, Wine, Cheese



A poetic, sensual instinct is necessary to 'feel' the needs of the creatures. The cooperation between humanoid and microorganism to create such delicious foods is like herding a flock of the imperceptible. There is magic in working with the invisible.

Essence: bacteria, yeast, mold. I have my first cheese in the refrigerator. I have been making fromage blanc for a while now but this is my first hard cheese - a farmhouse cheddar. "My cheese", I call it. It is bandaged and "larded" (actually vegetable shortening) and sitting on a wood slab in my refrigerator. I have turned the temperature as high as possible and still it is not warm enough. The range for cheese is similar to wine - 46 - 60 degrees F. The best my refrigerator can do is 43.8 degrees F.

So, yesterday, after doing some research on the web, I went to Home Depot and bought a Magic Chef 64 bottle wine refrigerator for $149. I bought this one because it has many slots for adjusting rack position. I plan to cut wood slabs to fit. I will monitor the humidity (somehow) and if need be put a vessel of water in the bottom to bring it up to the desired level. I wish I had a basement - I could make a cave. If I lived someplace where excavating my yard was possible (here it is rock had clay) or a little hillside I could dig into, I would be out there now with a pick and shovel. I need a larder, cool and a little dank.

I have a few bottles of wine I would like to get into a better storage state, too. The garage can hold a fairly constant temperature of 69 or 70 degrees (I know, not ideal but it is constant) and this is ok for wine as long as I don't have bottles to hold for a long time. It is not ok for cheese.

"My Cheese" will be the wine refrigerator's first resident. It will be there for one month. In the meantime, I have to find a bigger stainless steel pot, one that will hold 4 gallons of milk. The next cheese will be a traditional cheddar.

The new Wallace and Gromit movie is coming to a theatre near me just in time!