eG Foodblog: placebo - The secret life of milk and cheese.

[Placebo]

Did you have to make any major adjustments in your life when you made the switch from tech to food?  I am referring to the loss of the comfort option...    moolah!

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Well, the pay hit definitely hurt but I've spent enough time out of work in our delightful economy that I can live pretty decently on not too much though of course I prefer the option of more extravagant living. I've also recently moved to a much cheaper abode. I can no longer walk to work but I'm paying $300 a month less than I was at my old place.

Additionally, the Market itself makes things a bit cheaper. I can generally get better produce for less money there than at the stupidmarket. Additionally Market workers generally get a discount at other shops in the market and in general the folks working around Pike Place, well aware of how low the pay tends to be, tend to be pretty generous with the rest of the Market community. Once again, my perception of Pike Place Market has changed quite a bit since I started working there. Up till this job I thought of it as purely a tourist area, just there to pull some cash from visiting travellers. Now, don't get me wrong, in many ways that is very much the case, especially as the general hours of operation there preclude most working Seattleites from actually being able to shop there. But beneath that, there's a pretty interesting and varied community, very much like a small town of its own. There have been a couple of nasty vehicle accidents over the last year that have left a couple of market workers or their immediate family in the hospital for extended stays. Both times the whole market rallied together to raise funds to help them with their living and medical expenses.

I realize that I'm digressing here but I guess what I'm getting at is that it's greatly improved my quality of life. I love what I do and get to work with people who feel the same way. The job is very physical and very active. I'm in much better physical condition than I was a year ago (from cheese - who knew). I also just enjoy this a lot more than the computer work. A few months after I started this job my father remarked that I sounded happier than he'd heard me in many years.

So, there are trade-offs, certainly, but it's been well worth it to me.

[Pan]

I'll add my own comment about how interesting I'm finding it to read about your life in Seattle as a cheesemaker. You'll tell us what's so strenuous about it, won't you?

[andiesenji]

I too am looking forward to your blog. I love cheese and have been making my own, in small amounts, for many years.

I also lived in Wisconsin for a few years back in the 50s and our village had a cheese factory which allowed visits when one went to purchase a supply. My mom owned a bakery, in which I worked, and we purchased the dry cheese curds, and other products for bakery use as well as home use.

The only think I miss about Wisconsin is the brick cheese, which I have to order as no one seems to export it to the rest of the states.

I am endlessly fascinated with the amazing variety in cheeses.

[Placebo]

Today was pretty relaxed at work. Two of the other guys made cheese while I dealt with packaging with another coworker. We packaged flavored cheese curds and Blank Slate for use in our store as well as for distribution to Pasta & Co., PCC and Zoopans.

Lunch was a roast beef sandwich and a cup of french onion soup, both from the Beecher's cafe. Dinner tonight consisted of taking some leftover cheap chicken teriyaki from a couple of nights ago and turning it into cteriyaki chicken fried rice. Also tossed in a handful of chopped mizuna, some shoyu, rice vinegar and Sriracha hot sauce. Tasty and easy. I had planned on some pretty extensive ravioli-making for this evening but when I returned home from work I discovered a huge puddle of water in the basement where it seems the water heater had been leaking for quite some time. By the time this was dealt with there was no way I was geting into an extensive pasta project. That will have to wait a night or two.

Tomorrow and Saturday I have off. I'll be spending a bunch of the former hitting some fun food spots around town and doing more cooking, though the details of my plans won't be finalized until I know when the work on the radiator will be happening [note to LEdlund - Dale is my hero].

[Placebo]

I'll add my own comment about how interesting I'm finding it to read about your life in Seattle as a cheesemaker. You'll tell us what's so strenuous about it, won't you? 

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Well, it's hard actual work. I'm generally on my feet all day and on days that we make cheese I'm lucky to catch more than a 5 minute break here and there through the day. Lunch tends to be scarfed down whenever I can find a few minutes to do so. On days where I run the cheese-make I'm in the door at 6 am and working non-stop until probably 9:30 before I can even take 5 minutes to relax. It involves a lot of multitasking. I've become very sensitive to the sounds of all of our equipment and can generally tell each pump by the particular hum it makes and have to consantly be listening for the doudns of any sort of problems with any of the equipment. Additionally, as the production room is walled on 3 sides by nearly floor-to-ceiling plate glass (we are a display facility as well as an actual production shop) the place has to look immaculate at all times. So whenever we aren't doing other stuff we're usually hosing down the floor, scrubbing equipment, etc.

There's also a good deal of straight-up manual labor. Stirring a vat full of curds and whey with a large stainless rake, flipping, stacking and tossing 15-20 pound slabs of curd, carrying cheese molds (called hoops) that between the stainless of the hoop and the cheese itself weigh in the neighborhood of 60 pounds a piece. There are days where I've carried and moved 1600 pounds of cheese in 40 pound blocks before 7 am. Ove tthe first six months I slept very soundly when I got home. In the first month I pretty much went to bed within an hour or two of getting home because I was so exhausted. Sore as hell too, at first. It's quite different fromt he desk jobs I'd held the previous ten years. There was a second apprentice who started with me and she had to quit after a month because her wrists couldn't take it. Even so she was in wrist braces for 3 weeks after leaving. It's just downright strenuous. People who saw me 3 or more months after I started the job consistently told me that I lookd fantastic - much stronger and leaner. I felt it too. At this point I've reached something of an equilibrium and need to start seeking out more exercise.

I too am looking forward to your blog.  I love cheese and have been making my own, in small amounts, for many years. 

I also lived in Wisconsin for a few years back in the 50s and our village had a cheese factory which allowed visits when one went to purchase a supply.  My mom owned a bakery, in which I worked, and we purchased the dry cheese curds, and other products for bakery use as well as home use. 

The only think I miss about Wisconsin is the brick cheese, which I have to order as no one seems to export it to the rest of the states. 

I am endlessly fascinated with the amazing variety in cheeses.

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What sorts of cheese have you made? I'm always curious to hear about people's home cheesemaking experiments. I was jsut brought some cheese curds from Wisconsin last wekend. They were not, in my opnion and those of my coworkers, as tasty as ours. They were also bright frickin orange. I've gotten so used to cheeses that have no added coloring that suddenly being handed this piece of annato-colored cheddar curd was very strange. Like it was radioactive or something.

[bleudauvergne]

A few months after I started this job my father remarked that I sounded happier than he'd heard me in many years.

So, there are trade-offs, certainly, but it's been well worth it to me.

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Your father's remark really says a great deal about your situation. The lifestyle change and the physical activity must have paid off handsomely in terms of your overall health. (gears are churning here)

It's good now that you have reached a point where you have the stamina to work this job and also communicate with us.

What is the subject of the photo after the two of the curds in their packaging?

[momlovestocook]

Hi

Very interesting blog!

I live about 5 minutes away from a cheese factory in eastern ontario. I have family from about 5 hours away who when they visit, go home with many huge blocks of the cheese from this factory. It is just packed on the weekends with people making a special trip to this tiny village just for the cheese. They are most famous for the cheese curds. They do not add any flavors to the curds. What kind of flavors to you add to yours-sounds like an interesting concept. Also there was a problem a few years ago when the government decided that ALL cheese has to be kept in the fridge which is a problem for curds since they are best served at room temp. Has there been any issues in Seattle about how the cheese is kept?

Again, great blog

Sandra

[sequim]

This is such an great blog, as I can live vicariously. I'm a tech worker, lulled into complacency by the nice living it provides, but dream of someday doing something I really love. Something other than sitting in a cube all day! But I figure, well, if my contract ends and I can't find work, then I'll be forced to make the leap. . .

I also love your take on being in the Market community - feel free to digress! It's very appealing, this close community... and argh, I hate the hours as I live in West Seattle and I'd love to be able to go down there in the evening to shop.

[Basilgirl]

Blessed are the cheesemakers

[jhlurie]

Blessed are the cheesemakers 

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Cheese IS God. We'd have a lot less wars if people just recognized that.

GREAT running start to the blog.

[andiesenji]

What sorts of cheese have you made? I'm always curious to hear about people's home cheesemaking experiments. I was jsut brought some cheese curds from Wisconsin last wekend. They were not, in my opnion and those of my coworkers, as tasty as ours. They were also bright frickin orange. I've gotten so used to cheeses that have no added coloring that suddenly being handed this piece of annato-colored cheddar curd was very strange. Like it was radioactive or something.

The cheese curds we got at the factory were white - it was much like what is known as "hoop" or "farmers" cheese, dry cottage cheese.

The "squeeky" cheese curds sold in many places in Wisconsin are not used for making regular cheeses but are sold as-is for immediate consumption.

I have a friend who used to live in this area and raised sheep for milk and I would buy milk from her and a local source for cow and goat milk and make fresh cheeses like chevre, ricotta, mozzarella, feta, and also some aged cheeses similar to, jack, fontina, cheddar, colby as well as cheeses like camembert, brie. I get my cultures and molds from Dairy Connection

Now I mostly make fresh cheeses as I don't have quite enough time to devote to the cheese making as I need to prepare a truly good product. I have a wine cooler in the garage that I used for aging the cheeses as it maintains the higher temperature that is needed for the cheese during the aging.

I have a neat cheese press that forms a wheel a little over 6 inches in diameter which is perfect for my needs.

For the draining trays, I found some neat silicone surfaced draining trays (for crystal) at a restaurant supply place. Much better than the wooden grids I used to use and which had to be bleached and steamed after every use.

I use butter muslin - I found a bolt-end of the stuff about 10 years ago when I was poking around in the garment district in L.A. and got it for practically nothing because the jobber didn't know what it was for and hadn't been able to sell it.

I put it folded on the top shelf of my dishwasher (a Hobart) with a rack to hold it in place, and run the sterilizing cycle. If I am going to use it for a wrap - I stretch it on a stretcher made for silk, rub it with beeswax and iron the wax into the cloth. It works better than any of the new wrapping materials - the natural resistance of the beeswax to molds and spores and bacteria keeps the cheese nicely.

I have a home pasturizing appliance because I am using raw milk and need to process it all prior to use. I have it calibrated at least once a year to make sure it is maintaining the correct temperature and time.

I would love to get a cheese to taste like my all time favorite, Caerphilly, but so far I have not been able to get that perfect taste that goes so well with fresh fruit.

Your photos are awesome.

[jgarner53]

Great start to this blog! I love cheese.

Between you and lil ms foodie, I'm almost wishing I lived in Seattle. Maybe it's time for another visit...

[bbqer]

If you've ever enjoyed plain cheese curds, Beecher's flavored cheese curds would make you a hopeless addict. Hopefully Amir will share the flavor names...I remember a nice herb blend but I know there are at least 2-3 varieties. Delicious!

Nice job, Placebo, on the blog. Will have to stop by Beecher's again soon.

[Placebo]

Yesterday I started my morning by heading out to Capitol Hill to hit Victrola, which is my favorite coffee shop in town. My friend Tony roasts coffee there and I've been meaning for a while now to make it over in time to watch the roasting process and yesterday I finally managed to do so.

Before the roasting began we first did a cupping of nearly a dozen roasts of different varieties of coffee. Cupping is essentially a tasting to determine what sorts of qualities have come out during the roast, how future roasts of those beans might be adjusted to better optimize the flavor profiles of the beans and how the beans might best be used in final products. Tony brought me to a previous cupping a few weeks ago so I felt a bit better prepared for this one. The flavors and moutfeel charateristics that one is looking for with coffee are rather different from those for cheese so despite the amount of tasting I do at work, this was essentially starting from scratch for me.

The cupping starts by grinding up samples of all the beans to be tested and putting the grounds of each in their own cups. The beans we were cupping came from Inidia, Sumatra, Ethiopia, Brazil, Uganda, El Salvador and Mexico. Each person picks up each cup, gives it a little shake to release the aroma and takes a good sniff to get a general sense of the bean. Often large problems witht he bean or the roast can be picked up at this point. Each cup is then filled with water and steeped for a few minutes. The grounds generally float to the top so after the steeping time is done a spoon is used to break the crust of floating grounds. They'll then sink to the bottoms of the cups over the course of a minute or two. Another aroma check is done at this point to see how it smells freshly-steeped. The tasters then go from cup to cup tasting spoonfuls of each one and evaluating the flavors, slurping them to spread them across the whole palate and mouth, much like one might swish around a wine sample. The tasting is reapeated over and over to get a sense of how the coffee tastes as it cools and sits for a few more minutes. Much like wine or cheese tasting, coffee cupping has its own terminology for describing flavor and aroma with talk of flavors like caramel, tobacco, pepper and suchlike.

After the cupping we proceeded on to the roasting. Yesterday morning the roasting list was decaf, Indian and Central American beans. The first round of beans were dumped into the hopper and the roaster fired up and brought to its starting temperature.

The beans were dumped into the roaster and off we go. The roasting process involves pretty careful temperature control and Tony tracks the temperature in pretty tight intervals. Periodically through the roast he'd pull some beans out of the drum with a trier to check their color and aroma.

Once the first round of beans was done, they were dumped out o the roasting drum into the cooling tray below and the next batch is started.

While roasting I snacked on a delicious rosemary and cheese scone and had a lovely little macchiato that Tony pulled for me. If only there was coffee of this caliber (and baristas who know how to pull it properly) near my home or workplace.

For more detailed information on coffee roasting I recommend starting with this post of Tony's. The above pics are a mostly Tony's plus a few of mine.

From Victrola I hopped on the bus and headed downtown to Salumi. I'll go easy on the Salumi description since little ms foodie did such a great job of it a couple of weeks back. Suffice to say, I <heart> Salumi. Armandino and the whole crew there are just the nicest folks and make such wonderful wonderful food. As luck would have it I ran into heyjude there, along with cookbook author Joyce Goldstein, whom she was taking around town for the day. Had me a porchetta sandwich (as seen in little ms. foodie's post) and some wine and took home a bit of lamb prosciutto, which I suspect I'll use once I pick up some more chanterelles on Sunday.

I had other food-related plans (I tend to do much foodie stuff on my days off) but they were cut short due to having to get home to finish dealing witht he water heater, which sprung a leak the previous night. Dinner was leftover porchetta sandwich and some fantastic chard and mozzarella quiche that my housemate (a consummate cook in her own right).

Now I'm off to make some lunch and start on a food project I've been meaning to get rolling for days. Details as they come in, film at 11.

Edited December 4, 2004 by Placebo (log)

[Placebo]

What is the subject of the photo after the two of the curds in their packaging?

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The photo after the packaged curds is Blank Slate (aka fromage blanc) with dill and chives added, ready to be mixed and packaged.

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They are most famous for the cheese curds.  They do not add any flavors to the curds.  What kind of flavors to you add to yours-sounds like an interesting concept.

[...]

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We add flavored oils to our curds at packaging time (though we also sell them plain). Right now there are 3 flavors: Market Herb, Italian Herb and Chipotle.

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The "squeeky" cheese curds sold in many places in Wisconsin are not used for making regular cheeses but are sold as-is for immediate consumption. 

I have a friend who used to live in this area and raised sheep for milk and I would buy milk from her and a local source for cow and goat milk and make fresh cheeses like chevre, ricotta, mozzarella, feta, and also some aged cheeses similar to, jack, fontina, cheddar, colby as well as cheeses like camembert, brie.  I get my cultures and molds from Dairy Connection

[...]

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Interesting. We make the curds as part of the process of making our Flagship and flavored cheeses and just pull them out before flavoring or hooping. That said I know there are a few places that make curds on their show floors and keep actual hard cheese production seperate. I would love to get my hands on some sheep's milk as I love sheep cheese.

[Placebo]

Sorry for the lag in posting. I've not had the combination of available time and net access to post in the last day and a half. I have quite a bit to catch up now and will get as much done as I can tonight before I keel over.

Stay tuned...

[Placebo]

So far, this foodblog hasn't really dealt with cooking as such too much. First a bit about my kitchen setup. After far too many years of narrow galley type one-ass kitchens I've recently moved into a friend's house which, along with being just geenrally a lot larger and nicer than my previous apt, also has a nice roomy kitchen.

My housemate is a foodie as well and between the two of us we have a pretty decent array of cookware and books. The knife situation pretty rapidly got out of hand and at this point there's pretty much a full pair of 12" magnetic strips devoted to them. There's some overlap as well, including a pair of 8" Wusthof Grand Prix chef's knives, a pair of 6.5" santokus (hers a scallopped Wusthof, mine a Shun) plus some nice complements (I have a 10" Wusthof chef's knife and she has a little Wusthofd paring knife), plus some extras like my two japanese knives shown above. This means we pretty much have 2 prep areas that each has a solid set of knives within arm's reach. Tres handy. We're pretty well stocked for appliances either and I am overjoyed at once again having a KitchenAid mixer on hand (for the first time in nearly a dozen years).

Yesterday's first kitchen project was a breakfast of scrambled eggs with finnochiona from salumi and some nice chanterelles.

First I peeled the chanterelles into strips (I'm continually amazed at how meaty their texture is) and coursely chopped the salami. Tossed em into my daily use non-stick pan with a bit of butter and started em cooking. Onve the chaterelels felt cooked enough I tossed in the eggs along with some half and half, salt and pepper. Nummy.

After breakfast I started on making some ravioli. Ever since I first read the eGCI course on stuffed pastas I've been making them once a month or so. My last ravioli were stuffed with fresh porcinis and year-old gorgonzola made by my boss. This time it was to be spinach, roasted red pepper and year-old Rogue Creamery Crater Lake Blue gorg.

The idea was inspired by some similarly-stuffed fatastic crepes at a cafe called the Joe Bar near my old apt. I adore the crepes and ravioli seemed like a reasonable step to take with the idea. In the food processor I made a half batch of the basic dough from the eGCI course and then put it aside in the fridge. The filling was about a pound of fresh spinach, 4 roasted red peppers and gorgonzola to taste. I needed to add a fair quantity of bread crumbs to make it a biut less wet as the spinach and peppers add a lot of moisture. I used a ravioli shaping tray to make a dozen ravioli at a time. On the occasion of my first ravioli attempt a few months ago I tried doing it all by hand with a rolling cutter but found it very difficult to do decently. The tray makes all the difference. We have not one but 2 hand-cranked pasta rollers in the house. I have a Marcato and my housemate has an Imperia. I definitely lkike my Marcato better - feels like I have more granular control over the process.

Filled my little ravioli, sealed em, rolled them in coarsly-ground corn flour and then wrapped them a dozen at a time in parchment paper and tucked them into the freezer.

The last set ended up only having enough filling to make 7 or so. Thise, after a quick frying in sage butter, became dinner.

More cooking will be happening tomorrow and Tuesday evenings. Next, however, is cheesemaking...

Edited December 6, 2004 by Placebo (log)

[little ms foodie]

Placebo, have you ever tried a pasta attachment for the kitchenaid? just wondering as we have played around with the idea of getting one. I haven't had a hand crank type either.

[Placebo]

Placebo, have you ever tried a pasta attachment for the kitchenaid? just wondering as we have played around with the idea of getting one. I haven't had a hand crank type either.

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I haven't but have not heard any positive first-hand reports on it. I find it pretty quick and easy to just use the tray dealie that I have. Roll out the dough, slip the base under half the sheet, indent it with the plastic insert, pop a heaping teaspoon of filling into each one, fold the other half of the sheet of pasta over it and hit it with the rolling pin. Takes me less than 5 minutes per dozen to form, fill and seal them. Add a couple minutes to roll the dough out first and that's it. I think that whole project, start-to-finish, took me less than 2 hours and a fair amount of that time was spent actually making and adjusting the flavor of the filling.

[Misa]

Those ravioli look very delicious!

I live in Capitol Hill (just barely... I'm right on the other side of the freeway) and I keep saying that I want to go down to shop at the market instead of shopping at the grocery stores that we have up here... it really isn't that much farther. But, alas, I never do.

[jhlurie]

For some reason, the existance of something like this is simultaneously annoying and fascinating.

[sequim]

I haven't but have not heard any positive first-hand reports on it.  I find it pretty quick and easy to just use the tray dealie that I have.  Roll out the dough, slip the base under half the sheet, indent it with the plastic insert, pop a heaping teaspoon of filling into each  one, fold the other half of the sheet of pasta over it and hit it with the rolling pin. Takes me less than 5 minutes per dozen to form, fill and seal them.  Add a couple minutes to roll the dough out first and that's it. I think that whole project, start-to-finish, took me less than 2 hours and a fair amount of that time was spent actually making and adjusting the flavor of the filling.

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Do you happen to remember where you got the little template thing? I think that would be handy for me to have as I have a real problem with quality control in making my raviolis, some small, some large....

[Placebo]

Do you happen to remember where you got the little template thing?  I think that would be handy for me to have as I have a real problem with quality control in making my raviolis, some small, some large....

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I got mine at Sur la Table. I think that the kitchen place at Pike Place that's having the going out of business sale has some as well.

[reesek]

placebo -

great blog!

i was at PCC on saturday and bought some beecher's butter - it was wonderful. very delicate, but cooks wonderfully.

i can't wait to see more of this terrific blog.

[Susan in FL]

I was late finding your blog and just had a chance to catch up on it. It is very interesting, and thank you!