INTRODUCTION
My Journey to Cheese
They say we are the sum total of our experiences. For most of us, that is quite a lot of stuff, some random, some planned. But if we are to “begin with the end in mind,” do we ever really end up where we thought we would? I know I didn’t. And for that I am truly glad.
When people ask me how I became a cheesemaker I jokingly say, “In the usual way.” I think I am being clever because there is no usual path to becoming a cheesemaker. I am pretty sure there isn’t a major one can declare for it, nor is it a vocational choice given to children, such as a fireman or nurse— at least not in the U.S. I didn’t grow up, for instance, telling my first-grade teacher that I was going to be a cheesemaker. Honestly, I didn’t even know something like that was a life choice when I was thirty, much less six.
The only thing I remember saying that I was going to be— and I felt a bit serious about this in high school, although entirely blind as to how I might accomplish it— was the first woman Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court. I knew that it was a high aim, but I was always told that I could be anything in the world I wanted to be, and I believed it.
I studied English Literature in college not because I knew where it would lead but because I loved it. I was certain that if I got a good liberal arts education I could do anything I wanted. Anything. Cheesemaking still wasn’t on the list.
I ended up building a successful and fast-paced career in internet technologies that challenged and kept me busy, but when I thought about what really made me happy, what I was really passionate about, it was, without a doubt, food and cooking and the simple act of sharing it with friends. Chefs were my heroes— the golden kind like Alice Waters and Daniel Boulud— and I wanted, I thought, to be like them, dedicated to making simple things elegant and more delicious than one can imagine.
That passion for food led me, mid-career, to the Culinary Institute of America (CIA). It was like being plugged in— how a new appliance must feel when it connects with power for the first time. Electric. I was surrounded by people whose sole purpose was to elevate and celebrate food, this source that keeps us alive, to an art form. I loved it!
So after what seemed like a professional attempt to deep dive into the food world, I still couldn’t articulate what I wanted to do with this knowledge. Nevertheless, my passion for food, its mysteries, and its power only intensified.
I can see now how my experiences have shaped who I am. I am an Alabama girl with a Greek heritage.
While I was enrolled at the CIA, I went into Manhattan to my all-time favorite food store— Dean & Deluca— and was happily taking in the incredible bounty and variety of surreally beautiful foodstuffs. I wandered the aisles touching and smelling and exploring honeys and cookies and cakes and produce. Then I stopped to linger over the marvelous cheeses from around the world. I picked up a goat cheese labeled Fromagerie Belle Chèvre, and on the label it proclaimed, “Made in Elkmont, Alabama.”
The End. That’s how I became a cheesemaker.
Okay, there is a little more in between that “chance” finding in Dean & Deluca and my becoming a cheesemaker, but that really was the moment— the time and place— where it all started.
After my stint at the CIA, I was lured back into my previous career, because even after culinary school and finding the cheese that was both renowned and made in my backyard, I still hadn’t put two and two together.
I lived like this for some years more, on and off planes each week— sometimes with nanny and child in tow— until I was finally ready to get off the merry-go-round. Then, despite knowing nothing about making cheese or the market into which it is sold and distributed, I called the founder of Belle Chèvre and said, “I just quit my job, and I’m coming home to make cheese.”
All it took was everything
My favorite T. S. Eliot poem, “Four Quartets,” which had no small part in luring me to where I am today, states in the most beautiful of ways that the exploration which seems like the end is really the beginning, “costing not less than everything.”
Everything included quitting a job and leaving an industry I knew, getting a divorce, learning a new trade, buying a business (with very little resources), and finding a new home.
I can see now how my experiences have shaped who I am. I am an Alabama girl with a Greek heritage. I am a daughter. I was a wife, and I am a mother. I was an executive, and now I am a cheesemaker. I am a cook. And I am fortunate to call myself friend to many wonderful people who have guided me along the way.
All of these roles have been combined like one of my recipes to create me. Appreciable yet very ordinary. The “me” that is my experiences-to-date had a notion to write a cookbook to share what I love about my life as a cheesemaker, my recipes from my Alabama and Greek heritage, and my joy for playing in the kitchen.
It seems presumptuous of me to write a cookbook, which is really none other than a how-to book, especially since it comes from a woman who never really likes to measure anything. My hubris in trying to teach you how to do something that I most often make up as I go, or rather, as I am inspired, seems overreaching. I rarely ever follow a recipe; I find that my experiences often send me in slightly divergent directions from other cooking authors. Spontaneity and improvisation drive me in the kitchen— all with a nod to classic technique.
I am okay with this.
Not only am I okay with it, I heartily encourage it. My hope is that if I introduce you to a new recipe that I really have given you not one but ten new ideas on how to create a particular dish. Feel free to take any soup recipe you find here and substitute the vegetable for one you like better, or for something you just happen to have in the fridge. Take the technique of braising or the concept of frittatas and play with them. Create something that suits your own taste.
My son has a game he plays in the kitchen, something he has been doing for years, which is making a “potion.” I put an extra-large mixing bowl in the sink and, as he stands on his stool to hover over it, he is allowed to put anything into that big bowl that he can find in the kitchen. Well, almost anything— I won’t let him open a bottle of champagne! I normally end up acting the role of surgical assistant as he cries for soy sauce with his palm out waiting for it to be handed to him.
It isn’t my hope for him to be a cheesemaker or a cook. My hope for him is that he will be creative and daring in all that he does. That would also be my hope for you with this cookbook, with these recipes serving only as a guide.
I have a tradition at my table. It is my personal take on saying the blessing or raising one’s glass with a few words at the beginning of a meal. It is inclusive and communal, as everyone at the table or standing in wait for a buffet brunch is required to participate. It is also a sign of respect to the cook and to the abundance we are so very fortunate to have. At my house, around my table, we say “Three Things.” Before the first fork is raised, everyone, whether it is only my son and I or thirty guests, goes in turn to say the three things he or she is thankful for.
Ever since my son could speak he has said his three things before eating. And always, to this day, it has been the same three things— “I am thankful for you, me, and the beautiful day.”
I cannot recall the exact moment, but I believe the tradition of Three Things started at a time when I was reexamining my routine behaviors. I was a new mother of a young son and wanted to be very conscious of how he would