So you think you want to be a cheesemaker...

So did I.

VIAC instructors do such a thorough job of telling you the reality of cheese making, that if you aren’t 200% in love with the idea or planning on saving the family farm, you quickly go from the dreaming stage to hitting the cold, hard stainless steal reality. Start with launch costs. I’ve been told by someone who has been making cheese in the Finger Lakes for about a year, maybe longer, that he spent around $100,000. Think low end, folks.

Then, talk with the big boys. Those folks from companies who for a fee, of course, will entertain the idea of coming to talk with an artisan cheese maker, trick you out in the most advanced, “clean” make room for (and here’s where my new ability to take an educated guess comes in) somewhere in the vicinity of $250,00 to $300,000.

They will design your creamery with all of today’s best of the best cheese making equipment, including but not limited to: specific vats (please do yourself a favor… avoid the round vats!), that have the water temp set so that when the vat is three degrees from the temp you want to hold your milk at, it automatically shuts off to avoid any chance of overheating the milk.

Or, if you’re interested, special doors for vestibules. Specially designed air flow systems. Just the right materials for your drainage system. pH, moisture, temperature meters and readers.

Then, if you’re still considering the idea of cheese making, having pondered the cost and build out time; if you can manage the logs you'll be required to keep; if you have what it takes beyond all the chemistry, the science, the trial and error, the MAGIC, in essence, of cheese making; please now consider whether you will pasteurize or be a raw milk cheese maker. Consider an additional set of hoops and hurdles you'll be required to navigate. Think about how much the FDA loves raw milk cheese makers. Uh… they don’t. And, when it comes to the health and safety and welfare of the American people, they are just doing their job. But, there is a ton of stuff you better be certain you can keep far, far, far away from your plant, your equipment, and your cheese. Think listeria. Think e-coli. Think things that love heat. Or others that love refrigeration.

So, here I am. End of session one. Five days left to go. More to love. More to learn. But one thing I’ve already learned… I’m going to totally enjoy educating you about artisan and farmstead cheese and not making it myself.

Originally Posted September 15, 2011 on The Little Bleu Cheese Shop Web Site

What more do I know today?

Day three at VIAC and I felt as though I was floating in a different dimension. Some things have gelled. Some things are more confusing. My future in cheese making comes with a huge commitment to this lifestyle. That is clear. That is what needed to become clear to me. Retirement, Phase One for hubby, finances, lifestyle changes. All things worthy of serious consideration.

The two worlds, that of becoming a cheese maker (no, becoming an exceptional cheese maker!) and being a top cheesemonger, are so close to what I love, yet are on opposite ends of the Universe, really.

For me I’ve learned that I don’t have the temperament to make cheese. I don’t want to wake up every day and say, “Hey. I wonder how today’s cheese make will go. Will I get it right? Will today be the day I get close to making the type of cheese I want to make and have it resemble what the World thinks of when conjuring up a vision of brie, or chevre or gouda?"

Standards are the bane of my existence but I can’t live without them. I love them as much as I hate them. As much as I love and hate rules. But when it comes to food (safety and sanitation are pretty important, don’t you think?) or decorating, what works and what doesn’t work on the color pallet, there’s a right way and a wrong way. Humbled by my cheese education, cheese lovers know this – I will always do right by my, by our, cheese. To that I committed a long time ago. I just don’t have to torture myself by adding another completely excruciating dimension of self-deprecation by not “getting it right” time after time to the process.

On to retail!

Originally Posted September 15, 2011 on The Little Bleu Cheese Shop Web Site

The Hills are Alive and I'm in Vermont

You know the family, the story, and that the song says, “the hills are alive with the sound of music.” It’s true. I’ve been singing since I got to Burlington on Sunday, 9/11/11, the day before I started my cheese making certification program at the Vermont Institute for Artisan Cheese, University of Vermont.

OK, OK. I had to use the first day of intense class work and just a slip of time in the lab to get oriented. Kill off the nerves and savor where I was. With whom I was sharing classroom space with, and what this would mean three or six months from now, remains unknown. Where this will take me I’m not 100% sure. All I know is that a very large door has opened. It’s no longer a useful metaphor to say that the window is slowly being pushed up, inch by inch. The whole freakishly monster-sized door has just swung open. The threshold is feet high and yards wide. I’m climbing and jumping through the door that opens up into the marvelous world of cheese making. Of cheese makers. Of cheese talk. Of issues. Of nights lost wondering if I did the right thing; of checking records, logs, feeling water logged and loving the result of the incredible, beautiful world of cultures, rennet, casein, proteins, pH checks, whey, curds, mold – cheese!!

I didn’t know what I would love, or if I would love this work. But as soon as the books opened to today’s section, Day 2, I couldn’t stop smiling. It’s an intimate world, the world of cheese making. I’ve been bitten by the cheese making bug. The idea that I can take something in one form and create something with it.

Truly — it’s the ability to modify the molecular structure of milk to make cheese that amazes me.

Originally Posted September 14, 2011 on The Little Bleu Cheese Shop Web Site

I know where I am and I know how I got here

I’ve been looking at my diary, my road map, containing all the things I added to my TLBCS (The Little Bleu Cheese Shop) To Do list when I set out in February to simply speak to our accountant and sell cheese at the Rochester Public Market. Happily, I review all the things I’m proud to have crossed off that list, and the remnants from a busy seven months of pure enjoyment.

And still – things to check off. Larger, more concrete things, like decision-making around for instance … do I really want to consider having a TLBCS On Wheels. Food trucks are so hot right now, as evidenced by the Food Network’s 2011 call for votes on your favorite food truck – you pick the city, state, region and place your vote. Check it out http://www.foodnetwork.com/the-great-food-truck-race/index.html.

A cheese shop on wheels, as a first step – rather a primer, I suppose – before my brick and mortar existence. I can load her up, drive to events, not worry about a tarp or a tent, and even sleep in it if I absolutely have to! Big plus is not paying rent and utilities. Or, dealing with a landlord. I can more easily decide to “move my business” too – wow, how easy that would be. Lot’s of options exist. Let’s imagine her (because you know it would have to be a female vehicle… Not sure what that means and frankly it sounds kind of weird) all tricked out, jazzed up and ready to greet eager cheese lovers and TLBCS fans. Oh yeah. Great visual.

So, all that by way of saying that I believe in being faith-filled. It’s worked for me. Pick your religion or don’t; I believe that faith transcends all religions and that it's there for those who don’t subscribe to any of it. What do I know? Except that I know that it works when you know what you want, and then you politely place your request with God… the Universe… any deity you honor. And then you wait. You wait and you listen. You listen for the response because lots of times you can’t see it… the big neon arrow may be in for repair or bulb replacement or the power goes out and the path grows very dark.

Listening takes you to a different place and you have to work a little harder. It may come in a conversation you have one afternoon in your accountant’s office. Or at a farm market with a guy who has a fascination and interest in your ideas. And don’t forget all those late night, midday or early morning conversations with yourself, wherever you were, doing whatever you were doing. Listen.

From a brief conversation with that guy in the Union Street Bakery at the Rochester Public Market – a cavernous indoor space with great light and well-worn hardwood floors – a great old market dame holding open to you all the sights and sounds and aromas of all she offers… coffee, and breakfast sandwiches, pizza, freshly baked goods (right there), meat products and cold cuts, incredible authentic Mexican food. From that first meeting the ground got solid, my feet got planted and I began to run.

Originally Posted September 2, 2011 on The Little Bleu Cheese Shop Web Site

So now you know

Well, I’ve been out of touch with you for uh… let’s see… more than three months. Stellar beginning in this thing we call a relationship. I can’t even begin to wonder what you’ve been thinking.

Forgive, me, please. It’s not that I wasn’t interested. It’s not that I didn’t find the entire idea of you getting to know me, me getting to know you, highly exciting. And sharing those 28 days of development with you was my plan, after all.

But so many things got in the way. New relationships. My job. My sister’s wedding. Being pulled in so many directions. Yet, the biggest issue was simply feeling what I think all budding bloggers feel: the fear of commitment.

The thrill of having jumped on the blog bandwagon worked itself into a downward spiral of feeling that fear. The self-imposed expectation that something witty, funny, insightful must come spilling forth from some inner wellspring regularly.

The fact of the matter is that this thing I call my new career direction – becoming a cheese maker, owning my own shop(s), this absolute freakish obsession around all things cheese – has indeed become a very large ball of yarn, with a thread I keep pulling that only increases the size of the ball of yarn.

I owe you so much more than excuses.

So, as I’ve been moving through the last few months of what have turned out to be the most intensely gratifying and well, satisfying (there, now I’ve said it!) period of my life, there has been someone else involved. An incredible cheese maker in her own right.

Intrigued? I hope so.

Originally posted August 24, 2011 on The Little Bleu Cheese Shop Web Site

28 days of cheese... where to begin?

It’s new. It’s fresh. Like the whey slipping from the just born, recently formed curds – it really is all about what’s left behind after a good soaking.

What I realized after I got things rolling in February was that, aside from the fact that it’s a beastly month in Upstate New York with some of the most unpredictable weather found on the continental US, February is the shortest month of the year. Why I continue to shortchange myself by launching things in February is beyond me. I’m recalling a particularly rough year in the decade of my thirties when I deemed the month of February the “Month of Ann”. That month was filled with a smattering of special treats I’d leave by my bedside, a tea cup placed out the night before in order to surprise myself the following morning first thing, and of course the days I’d pick up a bouquet of my favorite flowers to brighten my day… all in a sad attempt to lift my spirits over a particularly rough patch in my personal life. How pathetic.

I deserve more. I deserve better. Yet, here I am keeping a diary of each days events through the shortest, meanest, most unkind month known to Upstate New Yorkers.

What began as a preliminary discussion with our accountant to ask some basic questions about the next steps for my husband and I as he approaches pre-retirement, turned into a list of things to do that became as dizzying as a run-on sentence … get a DBA, open a checking account, send out an e-mail to the New York State Farmstead and Artisan Cheese Makers Guild, call the Health Department, register a trade mark, call your attorney, contact the Rochester Public Market, call Cornell Cooperative.

But what a delightful time! So many hours of my life have been consumed with dreaming of, thinking about, talking through and hoping for my own cheese business that suddenly it all started to take shape.

So this is my diary of the people I meet and the things I experience along the way (or whey… because hey, I simply can’t resist interjecting the sadly anticipated dorky and ridiculous pun).

I hope that something you read here helps you get a little closer to your dream. Where there’s a will, there’s lots of whey.

Originally posted May 17, 2011 on The Little Bleu Cheese Shop Web Site

A guide along the way

Where would we be without those who love us unconditionally? My guide in this lifetime, the lovely woman on the left, my daughter Adrienne Stiles, and her good friend Lucile are two incredible human beings. It doesn’t matter if I’m talking about cheese or family or food. If I’m fed up with the world or am ready to dive in to humanity again – Adrienne listens. She experiences. She lightens. She loves.

This journey has been made all the more enjoyable because of her. From dreaming a little dream about a cheese shop to taking steps to make it tangible, mountains of thanks go to Adi. From a fantastical afternoon years ago in our family kitchen with a beautiful piece of blue cheese (my favorite, did you know?) to plotting and planning and pulling textures and colors together in business meetings – somehow those colors go right back to the creamiest yummiest part of that hunk of blue cheese – I can’t look to anyone else but her for making it happen.

Creative. Inspirational. Supportive. Do you know who your muse is?

Originally posted April 17, 2011 on The Little Bleu Cheese Shop Web Site

What's next? So the last 12 months have been a ride worth remembering - most of the time.

The struggle lies in staying focused. Pumped. Eye on the finish line (though the day the doors open will be a new game beginning). The more you get into it the more you need to do. Like pulling a huge fuzzy string from a mountain size ball of yarn, you just never get to the end.

Writing a business plan kicks your ass. Sucks the breath out of you. Brings tears of frustration to already red and puffy eyes. Brings doubt – the constant lurker in deep shadows – to the surface again and again, during the day and in the middle of the night.

So, test me. See if I really want to be an artisan cheese shop owner. Go ahead. I’ve had no other thought in my head for five years. Well, five years, you say! Do you wonder why I haven’t stopped my moaning about it and simply opened up the shop? Ahhhhhh. Responsiblity. A pay check. Thinking it’s a crazy idea. It won’t fly.

Let’s just see how crazy it is.

Originally posted April 13, 2011 on The Little Bleu Cheese Shop Web Site