Cheese Making

I never fail to remind J that there is a time and place for everything. It is possibly the line she will remember me by when I am dead and gone given how frequently she hears it. Instead of having her breakfast she will break into a song and dance number from High School Musical well past eight on Monday morning. She will insist that I watch and applaud the performance instead of screaming at her to finish her milk and cereal.

Her sense of occasion is seriously lacking but then so is mine. Consider for example, a person walks into the grocery store with the express purpose of buying detergent because they are fresh out of it and laundry is only half way done. However instead of heading straight for detergent, they wander over to the natural foods aisle and go berserk upon finding goat milk on sale for a dollar a gallon. They at once proceed to stock pile so they can turn it to huge quantities home-made feta cheese. That person would be me.

It would not concern me in the least that I have zero cheese making experience. What is more, I would not be bothered to find or follow a good recipe because following instructions is not one of my better skills. I prefer to play it by ear, seat of the pants style specially when it comes to cooking. I remember my mother make cottage cheese at home, this can’t be any different. Since, this cheese making enterprise was not planned for during this week, I really have no time for it. I realize I have to be creative and work it into my schedule.

So while J regales me with Bop To The Top for the fifth time in a row and pretends her breakfast is a Barmecide's feast, and I get dressed for work, I start to boil the goat milk on the stove. Between corralling J back to the countertop to her breakfast, ironing my clothes and fixing my hair and makeup, I manage to keep an eye out on the milk so I can curdle it with lemon juice at the right temperature. I did read about rennet being a key ingredient in making cheese but was prompt to dismiss as a minor detail.

I tell J that we are going to have home made feta cheese and she lets out a squeal of delight because its her favorite kind of cheese. At this point she has abandoned the song and dance along with the breakfast and is very anxious to help me make cheese. She is trying to drag her chair into the kitchen so she can watch the goings on up close. All this at eighty thirty in the morning.

I know I have a nine fifteen meeting in a building where parking is tight. Why I would embark on feta cheese making at this hour on Monday is a question worth considering. Not being the one to leave a task half done, I finish up with the milk and note that it has completely failed to curdle. The chances of this thing turning into any kind of cheese look remote at this point.

I am fashionably late to my meeting but feel a deep sense of satisfaction about my accomplishments in the kitchen earlier. So what if things did not go as planned or expected, I know I can squeeze something that will look like cream cheese with some effort later in the evening while I am responding to the last few emails from work, getting J to eat her dinner, helping with her music lesson and running some chores on the side. There is never a time and place for anything in my life. I don’t have to look too far to see how J is the way she is.