Sad Cheese

This past weekend I picked up making cheese again, something that tends to fall off during throwing season as it requires parts of a full day to complete.  The result was less than exciting:

This is meant to be English Farmhouse Cheese, something I have made several times with good results.  As you can see on the left, the results were not quite what I was hoping for.  For some reason the curd was not as firm as it should have been (more rennet, I suspect) and we had a structural problem transferring the curd.  And then, of course, releasing the cheeses from the molds (I use ricotta molds because they are what I have - sadly, they are not ideal).

There are fixable problems, of course.  More rennet is easy enough to add and I am looking at new molds (I think I found some Chevre molds that will do the trick).  And I did try some this afternoon - sure enough, no matter what the appearance, it tastes just as good as ever (for soft cheeses, I recommend honey over them. They make a great dessert).

The point of this (I think) is to remind all of us that not everything we try to do to be skillful or self-sufficient works out quite as we had anticipated. That is no reason not to try, though.  We only make the effort time and time again to get better.

After all, you cannot fall off the floor.