Among other truly exciting events that just now happened, like finally closing on the deal that gives us lifelong custodianship over an additional two and a half acres of magical land and a charming maisonette de vigne soon to be turned into Ivory’s solitary domain, where he can escape chatterbox-giant-me in style, regularly making cheese again has catapulted itself into my list of current favorites and yes, those two are very much naturally connected and lauded by the French when they speak of terroir, and they rightly do speak of it a lot.
A vast amount of magic
Of all the traditional skills I’ve adapted myself to over the years in my own forever flawed way, harvesting knowledge from wherever I could find it as one does when true interest enunciates ones life and obsession sounds invitingly like the party to join, the process of preserving raw milk into a wide variety of cheeses through a number of techniques, a vast amount of magic and most fascinating of all, smartly utilizing the impeccable healing properties of time, has once again given me more joy than anything else.
Bewildered as I am
There’s a deja-vu segment in me that screams it will probably fade when the veggie garden takes over again and I’m just keeping myself busy until, stereotypically pretending I can handle it all if need be, but those who know me know that wedge does not reign my heart and thus deserves no spotlight.
Although we are very fortunate to have easy access to local raw milk (do not shiver if you have not, because even though I believe the criminalization of raw milk sales has resulted in the criminalization of sustainable and small-scale dairy farming, using kefir as a culture could bring the ecology of raw back to pasteurized milk, broadening your options considerably. If you are as bewildered as I am, I do urge you to read David Asher’s book on Natural Cheesemaking and I very much underline his Manifesto, it makes sense), getting it at the local épicerie still resembles cheating, regardless of the ordering process that out-datedly involves them writing my name in some sort of notebook, no matter how many times I insure them this is a weekly affair.
Gaining momentum
As much as I’ve confiscated this new land surrounding Ivory’s office-in-creation with my vision of producing saffron, root vegetables, squashes and other delights, I am pragmatic enough to acknowledge its commonsensical shortcomings when it comes to housing potential dairy animals: it’s just not going to work that way. I won’t give up this dream though, obviously, as we have options closer to Les Pierres that could eventually, in the right time, evolve into a more favorable situation gaining momentum, when common sense and traditional dedication finally prevail.
Similar frivolities
For now, I agree with Ivory that it doesn’t really help that he has written about our neighbors, recurrently even as in a consecutive serial in a Dutch newspaper, potently describing our conflict with them when they build the Woesome Wall that ended friendliness, while they still own the land I am looking keenly to, assuming they don’t read Dutch anyway, foolishly ignoring any existence of Google Translate or similar frivolities. And yes, I very much knowingly don’t want to validate us not being invited to this year’s annual neighborhood party as related whatsoever, naif as that may appear to sound.
Like in general life, the distinct choices you have in the various stages of turning milk into cheese, soft or hard, may feel overwhelming and irreversible but if you stick to its initial purpose, a most tasteful future, you can’t really go wrong, can you?
