Score: Cheesemaking 1, Sarah 0

Food Resolutions update: One try. One failure. One clumpy, crumbly, bitterly putrid failure.


I suppose it really all began with a $5.99 package of goat cheese at Kroger. A 3 oz. package of unspectacular domestic chevre, which in Idaho I would have paid $3.29 for at Winco. I was not having it. My furiously frugal side emerged, reminiscent of my grandmother's, who no doubt picked up this attitude during the Great Depression. Shortly after my outrage, I decided that learning to make my own cheese would be a good thing to put on my year's list of culinary adventures.

This whole cheese-making debacle has led me to the conclusion that there are only three reasons why people (like myself) spend time and effort making things that we could just buy.

1. Making it yourself saves money.
2. Making it yourself results in a higher quality product. (hopefully)
3. Making it yourself has intrinsic, character-building value, allowing one to reap the pleasure of working with your hands and creating something.

When I saw a good sale on goat milk, I snatched up two quarts, my judgment blurred only by thinking about how much money I could save. (Can you see the reduced for quick sale sticker on the cartons of goat's milk?) Soft cheese making, from what I gleaned from the internets, is a simple process involving heating milk with some sort of acid (buttermilk, vinegar, lemon juice) until the curds separate from the whey. The curds are then collected in a cheesecloth to extract most of the whey.

I heated the milk to the appropriate temperature, 180 degrees. At this temperature, the curds are supposed to separate from the whey. This didn't happen. I heated the milk further and curds appeared and then dissapeared. I think this was because of the ultra-pasturized milk. When I gave up, I had a sludge of semi-solid milk with a texture rather like quick-sand. Once this glop was strained in cheese cloth, it did form a sort of dry cakey crumble remotely goat cheese-like.

I let it chill. Then, I tasted it. I spat. I wanted to scrub my tongue with a paper towel to get the bitter nastiness off my taste buds. This was the most disgusting thing I've ever eaten. It had the grassy, gamey, goat hair pungency that I can only equate with something that reminds me of mucking out dirty barnyard pens.

So, how do REAL goat cheese makers avoid this? What wonderful things do they do to their goat cheese that I am unaware of? That log of $5.99 chevere taunts me as I give up in surrender and toss it into my grocery cart. And I realize, it's worth every penny because it's creamy and balanced and perfectly musky.

My frugal grandmother would have been dissapointed in my waste ($5.18 in goat milk, to make about 12 oz cheese, although since Henry got it as a treat it wasn't a total waste). But I hope she would be happy that I have succeed in #3: I have built character. And, I stubbornly refuse to let cheesemaking get the best of me. Bully-headedness is of course a trait that runs in the family.

Cracking a Caged Cake is Better than Blowing Out Candles

I have two confessions to make...

1. I didn't trust anyone to make my birthday cake this year.
2. I also didn't trust myself to make a cake from scratch either.

Yes, it's true. I can't make cakes from scratch, at least not a delicious moist, cake with a light, fluffy crumb. Sadly, every time I attempt a cake from scratch it turns out dense and dry. I follow cake recipes with surgical precision, and I take care not to over bake them, but still I'm disappointed. And, when you're celebrating another year of your life lived, well, you don't just want to leave the cake making to chance.

So really the only reasonable solution was to make a boxed cake, but to trick it out so no one will pay any attention to the fact that without Betty Crocker I'd be a culinary flop.

It also just so happened that I had recently watched an inspiring episode of The French Chef with Julia Child. The episode was entitled "Gateau in a Cage." The concept of a caged cake was at once strange and dramatic, in other words, perfect for my birthday. A caged cake is a cake encased in a domed netting of caramelized sugar. The sugar is crunchy like toffee, but has a richer caramel flavor.

It looks like this:
You all know how much I heart Julia Child. But I especially love her when she gives inspirational speeches regarding spun sugar. In this episode, while she's waiting for the sugar, corn syrup, and water mixture to come to the boil and caramelize, she says, "People are scared of recipes that have spun sugar. They think OH! I couldn't do that. This is one of those awful American syndromes of fear of failure. If you're going to have a sense of fear of failure, you're just never going to learn how to cook. because cooking is--well lots of it is--one failure after another, and that's how you finally learn. For instance, you have got to develop an "I-don't-care-what-happens" attitude." She continues on with her little lecture, waving her fist in the air for added emphasis, "A souffle can fall, omelets can go all over the stove, but I shall learn. I shall OVERCOME. That sort of women's liberation."

How could I not believe I could conquer spun sugar after that?

It starts out simple, really, with 1 cup of sugar, 1/4 cup corn syrup, and 1/3 cup water. These boil together on high heat for about 5 minutes, or until the faintest touches of caramel color begins to show. Then it's taken off the heat and allowed to cool. The syrup mixture gets darker and darker as it cools. (The first batch I made was overdone and had a slightly scorched taste, so I made another...)

The mixture cools until it thickens enough to drizzle well. Then, using a spoon, I drizzled the mixture over a buttered mold, which in this case, was a Pyrex casserole dish a cake pan.

Then, the cages cool slightly before they're removed from the molds.

If you aren't incredibly careful, they will shatter and make a big mess like this one:

Then, I made a third batch of caramelized sugar...

In the end though, I had a beautifully encased German Chocolate Cake filled with homemade coconut pecan frosting and topped with dark chocolate ganache.

When serving time came, I got to crack the cage. If you listen carefully you can hear my friend, Scott say, "I didn't even realize those covers were edible until you broke them."




I'm a year older and a year wiser. Wiser knowing that cooking, sometimes, is several failures after another. Which means, I think I'm finally smart enough to try making cakes from scratch again. And maybe by next birthday, I'll have cake baking from scratch mastered. Maybe.

Gratitude for Small Things like Oatmeal

I've noticed lately that winter doesn't bother me as much as it used to. I've taken a more reflective approach to the cold and the snow and the sunless days. I can't change it, instead I've learned how to just BE in it.


Being in winter means enjoying the fact that the pace of my days is a bit slower, and that the food on my plate is comforting, warm, and hearty.

Specifically winter makes me grateful for:


1. A hot bowl of oatmeal first thing in the morning.

2. The beauty of icy crystals on my window in the morning sun.

3. Being able to justify putting on pajamas as soon as I get home from work because it's dark.

4. Cuddly, warm cats on my lap.

5. Toasty wool socks.


Honestly, the more I eat oatmeal, the more I love it. Waking up with a meal that is warm and creamy, fragrant with cinnamon and dotted with jewels of dried fruit is a fine way to accept the day graciously, and openly.


Of course eating your breakfast with a happy, purring cat sitting in your lap helps too.

I have eaten a bowl of oatmeal every single morning for the past 19 days, and I'm not tired of it. Oatmeal is a blank canvas. Oatmeal will take any suggestion or whim that you throw at it, and embrace it. I see starting a pot of oatmeal each morning as a ritual open to endless variations. Simply put, oatmeal is expansive.

Here's the basics for A Bowl of Oatmeal Possibilities:

1 cup liquid, (milk, soy milk, rice milk, water it doesn't mater.)
pinch of salt
1/2 cup quick-cooking oatmeal

Bring your choice of liquid to a boil. Add a pinch of salt. Stir in oats and cook until desired consistency is reached, about 1 to 3 minutes.

Stir in any combination of flavorings:

Dried Fruits, such as: cranberries, raisins, cherries, apricots, dates, figs
Fresh Fruits, such as: sliced bananas, sliced pears, diced apples
Nuts, such as: toasted almonds, chopped walnuts, sunflower seeds, peanut butter
Sweeteners: brown sugar, vanilla-scented sugar, maple syrup, honey, chocolate chips, coconut

Sprinkle liberally with cinnamon and top with yogurt if so desired.

I've never made the same bowl of oatmeal twice, but at its core it is always comforting familiar, like a favorite pair of wool socks. Oatmeal isn't glamorous, in fact its allure lies in its humble proletarian roots. Oatmeal makes me feel well and balanced and grounded. And that's the way I want to start my day, 19 days in a row and counting...

So what 5 things are you grateful for this winter?