Because 2 days is never enough.

Jess and I managed to be productive on the train to and from Connecticut for cheesemaking weekend by turning the ride into a knitting circle. I used the time to finish a matching hat and scarf that I started many months ago - just in time for the cold weather. Alas, I have developed a mild allergy to wool (the worst news you could receive as a knitter), so I have been experimenting with other blends of yarn. This hat and scarf is knitted using 6 skeins of Blue Sky Alpacas from Peru (color 009; lot 3412), which is extremely warm and soft to the touch. I used the following patterns that I made up (both use seed stitch):

Hat
#10 circular + #10 douple pointed needles

CO 65 stitches - doublestrand

seed stitch in the round (k1, *p1, k1 - repeat from * to end; knit the purls and purl the knits)

once the hat measures the length you want, reduce by knit 7, knit 2tog and try to alternate knits and purl to retain the seed stitch (do this for one round)

then knit 6, knit 2tog for one round
then knit 5, knit 2tog for one round … reduce by one each round until knit 2, knit 2tog
bind off!

Scarf
#10 straight needles

CO 21 stitches

seed stitch (k1, *p1, k1 - repeat from * to end; knit the purls and purl the knits)
repeat until the scarf is the length you want…
bind off!

Urban life doesn’t really accommodate some really cool DIY pursuits. Tending a vegetable garden, canning, etc… are all kind of out of reach in my one bedroom apartment. But the one out of reach hobby that really stings these days, so to speak, is beekeeping.

I adore honey; I eat it almost every morning in my yogurt. And once I started reading reports about Colony Collapse Disorder I was, naturally, pretty alarmed. Elizabeth Kolbert had a great article in the New Yorker back in August about CCD and about keeping her own bees. The article was full of all these amazing and strange facts about bees that had me riveted:

Honeybees are the only animals besides humans known to have a representational language: they convey to one another the location of food by dancing. When the queen lays an egg, she is able to choose its sex. Males, known as drones, perform no useful function except to mate. They are loutish and filthy, and the workers—sterile females—tolerate their presence for a few months a year, then systematically murder them. A single pound of clover honey represents the distilled nectar of some 8.7 million flowers. In a week, a productive hive can add seventy pounds of honey to its stores.

How could one NOT be fascinated by such creatures? She also describes the unsustainable practice in large scale agriculture of renting out large hives to pollinate often pesticide treated mono-culture crops. No wonder the bees are in trouble. Is it my moral obligation as a honey lover to try to save the bees?

So, my irrational desire to have my own apiary grew. Let’s be honest, what I really want is one that I shared with some other, more responsible people, because I probably don’t want to keep bees, like, every day. Anyway, my obsession reached a fever pitch when my friend Shana, who lives in Nevada City, California where she runs a peace education program, came to visit.

Shana is a lovely house guest and came bearing thoughtful thank you gifts. First, she gave us a bag of yummy apples from the orchard behind her house. I was so pleased, but when she pulled out a jar of honey that she harvested herself from her own hive I was so jealous I could hardly stand it. Why can’t I harvest my own honey?

My the dull ache of desire for my own bees has subsided some. I am not crazy like these people. Shana laughed at me that I’m trying live in little house on the prairie in the city. But is that really so much to ask? Can’t I be walking distance from good restaurants and subway stops and have room for bees and a vegetable garden. Is it so much to ask?

Dear Tomato Plant,

Thank you for hanging in there, in the bathroom, with probably less light that you might have wanted, maybe not enough room to stretch out, probably a couple days here and there where you wondered where the hell your water was. Thank you for forgiving me for infanticide on your littlest budding tomatoes (in hopes of channeling all your energy to a few great tomatoes). Thank you for producing the sweetest, juiciest, most delicious cherry tomatoes I’ve ever eaten, even if there were only five of them and Karl and I had to split them on top of our omelettes.

In gratitude to your service, I promise to take much better care of the tomato plant I plant in my bathroom next summer.

A few weekends ago we had a potluck dinner to make lasagna completely from scratch. It was a good way to put our pastamaking and cheesemaking skills to the test. (This potluck involved everyone bringing an ingredient instead of a dish.) Jess and Karl cranked out some beautifully thin fresh lasagna noodles. Erik made the veggie filling, which included spinach and purple cauliflower from the farmer’s market.

I was tasked with making two kinds of cheese–ricotta and mozarella–which we learned in our cheesemaking class the weekend before. I used Natural by Nature organic milk from grass-fed cows in Pennsylvania. (Their milk is not ultrapastuerized, an important quality for cheesemaking.) I made the ricotta first so that the whey could drain while I made the mozarella. It was an instant success and instantly boosted my cheesemaking confidence. Unfortunately something went terribly awry during the mozarella process resulting in a curdy mess that had to be discarded. For some reason, the curds never properly separated from the whey during the milk heating phase. I ladled the curds out anyway and tried to separate the whey even more before before heating them a second and third time. It was no use, the curds were not holding together and were not exhibiting the characteristics of cheese. Hardy and I took a quick trip to the food co-op to buy some fresh mozarella and the lasagna meal was saved. Needless to say, my cheesemaking confidence has suffered.

Jess and I teamed up for the salad. I provided greens, making my own mix from the amazing selection the farmer’s had on hand. Jess tossed in veggies from the Union Square Green Market including large radishes and exotic items such as purple peppers and three colors of carrots (red, white and orange). Hardy brought a tasty loaf from the farmer’s market that she turned into crunchy garlic bread, and also kept the wine flowing as much as the conversation.

The meal was delicious! It tasted especially great because we knew how important our individual contributions were, and that we couldn’t have done it alone.

View the photos>

Lasagna Night Oct 07

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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