Say Cheese Yes Please

This is the cheese in my own house 

This is the cheese in it's native home 

 in her own home making cheese with her daughters
here is a link to their website.
http://www.quellehof.ch/index.php?page=leute

Last week a something of a ,dream come true, for me happened.  It was up there in my life with singing at Carnegie Hall. The excitement for me was making cheese, no ordinary cream cheese, feta, cottage. This is an aged cheese, something my friend Emily and I had been experimenting with over a year ago with mixed ,not always, successful results.  With questions like, what is it supposed to look like, taste like, feel like? We were always asking. Ordering ever single cheese book at the library didn't answer those questions for us. Then we both had babies. End of that cheese story. My friend Edith is from Switzerland (she makes the best bread) and she sent me a blog a while back about this cheese course you can take up in the alps where they make cheese over real fires all summer long with cows feasting on fresh grass and wild flowers. Amazing I know. Here is the link to the photo story she sent:
http://fxcuisine.com/Default.asp?language=2&Display=201&resolution=low

I told her one day I want to go there with her and take this course. Last time she was back home she connected with a friend from her town who has worked on the apls for the summer and she showed her how to make this cheese. Edith came back home and showed me how to make this same cheese. This may sound simple but it's a big deal to me. Thank you so much Edith!  Back when Emily and I where experimenting  I called Little Qualicum Cheese Works and tried to get in their factory just to see what the curd was supposed to look like. She said due to government regulations they couldn't let me in but I should go to Switzerland, because that is what she did.  So last week in my own kitchen Edith took me ,in a way, and taught me so much. We are both learning and are just in the wee beginning stages but thanks to Edith I learned a great many things.  Using video footage that her son took, we worked our way through our first batch of cheese  Here are a few things I learned. The milk has to breath, never cool below 10 degees, how to slowly cut the curd, how to slowly turn the curd, what the curd feel like before you cut, what the curd should look like, what the curd should feel like after you raise the temp, what it should feel like, hold like, how to time, when to go slow and when you can move the curd.  I could use the word curd again. I hope the cheese we make tastes at least something like the one we where trying to make. Amazing raw milk cheese from a biodynamic farm. Even the smallest bit added to an omelet brought the omelet to new levels.  I was so consetrationg on making cheese I didn't get to a good photos of us in the kitchen but I'm sure there is more cheese making to come. Thanks to Edith and Thomas, here are the links to the videos that we learned from.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agOofFanNF4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sT8qFkolcY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lHP2E0vB5Q
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoaHuee-ZGM

I think this was the last cutting stage 

 My daughter learning what the curd should feel like, yes we let her put her hand in there and feel.

 I had to attach this video Edith took of her son getting milk across the street for their morning coffee. Won't that be loverly.