Because 2 days is never enough.

We celebrated the one-year anniversary of 3DayWeekend with a vocation vacation – cheesemaking! (Happy birthday, 3DayWeekend!) The entire photo album can be viewed here.

Jess, Erik, Amy, Daniel and I managed to do some “leaf peeping” on our road trip to Western Massachusetts in the peak of October for a one-day cheesemaking course with Ricki Carroll, the cheese queen. (You may know Ricki from such books as Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver.)

We learned to make Farmhouse Cheddar, Queso Blanco, Whole Milk Ricotta, Whey Ricotta, Fromage Blanc, Creme Fraiche, and a 30 Minute Mozzarella. Ricki led us through step-by-step demonstrations and also gave us the opportunity to do hands-on work in small groups throughout the day. It was a lot of information to absorb in a single day, but we took copious notes.

Naturally, we had to taste the cheeses we made as we went along. The Fromage Blanc was a huge hit in our group – naturally sweet and creamy. We were also impressed with the Queso Blanco, which doesn’t melt and was pan-fried to a nice golden brown (similar to paneer). The Farmhouse Cheddar was the most complex of the cheeses we made, and we kept revisiting the process throughout the day while we made the other cheeses. (This led to a little bit of confusion in our group since the instruction tended to jump around from one cheese to the other in quick succession.) The cheddar requires a mold and a cheese press, so it’s not a top candidate for cheeses you can make in your small Brooklyn apartment, but I think Amy and Daniel will be able to replicate the process quite nicely in their Connecticut home – especially after Daniel turns the basement into a cheese cave for aging.

We enjoyed a lovely lunch of farm fresh foods that included a fantastic squash soup that Ricki’s partner Jamie made along with many varieties of cheese, of course. I had to force myself to stop eating the Fromage Blanc slathered on figs, and I promised myself that I will make them at home the first opportunity I get.

After the class ended, we made our way down to Ricki’s basement to purchase the necessary cheesemaking supplies along with a few containers of fresh yogurt Jamie had on hand from the farm nearby. (I’m using those cultures in my homemade yogurt – yum!)

The five of us piled back into the car – a little bit wiser and a little bit heavier – and headed to Northampton for dinner. As we were leaving Ashfield, we spotted the most spectacular double rainbow that any of has ever seen! It was such a rare and amazing sight, that every car on the road simultaneously careened over to get a better look. Both rainbows spanned a perfectly green field full of grazing cows with a backdrop of autumn trees. If you looked carefully you could tell that one end of the rainbow was directly over Ricki’s house, which proved to us that there is CHEESE at the end of the rainbow.

View all the cheesemaking photos>

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I went to visit my sister, Kate, at Vassar College last weekend. She and her roommates joined a cooperative run by the Vassar farm and she was eager to show me her weekly harvest. And it was a bounty. There is something so much more satisfying about picking up your CSA veggies on an actual farm, as opposed to a church basement in Harlem, but I digress.
Like good little kibbutzim, Kate and her friends rose early and bright eyed, arriving at the farm at 12:30pm, some faces still dented from their sheets. They then took to their labors, picking green beans with curiosity and chewing them raw, handfuls a time, happily bovine as partially chewed beans hung from their lips.
Here’s Kate with her colorful flowers and leafy greens:

And here is Comrade Blake, a model for the Soviet propaganda poster for the Vassar Cooperative Farm. (He’s a professional: has been in two soundless films!)

It was a pretty farm, tucked right next to my old rugby field against a few acres of undeveloped mid-Hudsdon woods. Kate and her darling friends returned home and planned for a farm co-op potluck, carefully arranged sage leaves into a decorative candle holder, and put out their pretty flowers.
Oh sure they were all hung-over and patching together the spotty bits in their memory of the evening before. And yes, we did eat at the same charming greasy spoon diner where the wall paper alone is probably predates the civil war. But still, I couldn’t help but admire how much more wholesome these kids were, with their kale, fresh air, beets, peppers, lettuce, than we ever were back in the olden days.

I love checking out farmer’s markets in other cities. In addition to the famous Pike Place Market, Seattle has farmer’s markets all week in different neighborhoods. We checked out the Finney Ridge Market one afternoon. The farmer’s were all quick to suggest we taste the goods, and they were good. And heirloom tomatoes at $2.50lb ?

As Hardy said, “those are no Brooklyn prices!”

I bought some Woodrings’s gooseberry and wild golden raspberry jam for Karl that tasted so yummy I even checked my luggage to bring it back to New York.

Silk was first created in China between 6000 BC - 3000 BC, so it only made sense for Erik and I to visit a silk factory while we traveling in China this March. The silk factory and mini-museum we visited was in Suzhou, which has been an important center for the Chinese silk industry since the Song Dynasty (960-1279 AD).

Silk comes from the larva of the bombyx mori moth (silkworm), which feeds almost exclusively on mulberry tree leaves.

The silk strand is generated from a filament spun into a cocoon by the silkworm and can be up to 600 meters in length. The strand is attached to a large machine that “unwinds” the cocoon and then “rewinds” the strands into a spool like thread. The machine typically unwinds and rewinds about 8 cocoons at a time.

The spool of silk thread is then woven into cloth by large looms that create patterns from punch cards.

Suzhou is also home to classical gardens, which are a UNESCO World Heritage site, and the Suzhou Museum designed by native-son IM Pei.

View all of our China/Japan photos>