I'll Grow Mold With You

Last week I got to go home to Michigan! I visited the University of Michigan to talk research and give an informal seminar (my first!). I think it went pretty well - I got a lot of great feedback and suggestions for future research, and I got to see my friends!

I even got to stay with my parents during the trip. It was so great to be home for Mother's Day. Happy (belated) Mother's Day to all the mothers, grandmothers, godmothers, and aunts! Even more fortunately, I was home for my cousin's First Communion from the same church I went to as a kid. Sophie looked so happy, and we all teared up when the kids sang a blessing to their families.

Sophie and Nate, being super adorable.

Keri finished up her fourth year of college with all A's, because she's amazing, and came to celebrate with us in Madison! I guided her through her first train/bus trip, and she'll do it again all on her own (like she's an adult or something) tonight when she goes to visit John and Juno in Illinois. It was so nice to chill with her the past few days and binge-watch Gilmore Girls. We even took walks around our part of town to keep ourselves from being complete couch potatoes.

Of course, it wouldn't be a blog post without my telling you about some tasty food we had - this time, the food in question was a burger, suggested by Keri! Yum. Picture included.

Part of a balanced dinner.

While we're on the topic of food, I got Wil a cheesemaking class for his birthday!! I am usually terrible at both presents and surprises, but this one was both a great present and a great surprise! A Madison shop called GetCulture partnered with one of the grocery stores to put on a cheesemaking class. We made farmers' cheese, or queso blanco, and were sent home with some supplies and a recipe. The cheese was absolutely delicious and we'll definitely be doing it again! In short, you need milk, some culture, a binding agent, and hot water. You start out with a lot of cutting, to draw out the water from the coagulated milk, and hot water to cook it. Curds are the solid part left behind, and whey is the remaining liquid.

Left: checking the consistency after adding the binding agent
Right: separating curds from whey

Then, after you've let your cheese sit however long at whatever temperature (there's so much room for variation!), you separate the curds, press them, and let them drain. This is the point where you cut in salt and flavor, then smush it all back together again and let it do its thing.

Left: separating out cooked cheese curds
Right: pressing and draining the cheese

In the end, we had a soft, white cheese that was mostly in curd form. It takes a lot of pressing to get it back into a block, but we didn't have the patience! My cheese is flavored with garlic and herbs, and Wil used a Southwest blend with some jalapeno. Happy birthday honey!

Not the greatest picture of us, but we made cheese!