giveaway winners. also cheese.
Hey! This month’s queer book giveaway is over, and the winners are Sarah S., Jessica O, and Claire E.! All three peeps will be receiving emails from me shortly so I can send them a physical copy of RB Lemberg’s The Four Profound Weaves to in the mail!
I will reveal what queer book I am giving away in January NEXT week (cue dramatic music).
Also, if all goes well, that newsletter will contain a preorder link for my book, Regency Cheesemakers #1: A Bloomy Head.
A quick update on cheese! I now have two on the go, two small ashy cream-enriched Camembert-style cheeses and an Alpine-style tomme.
The cream-enriched cheeses are a slight variation on a recipe I have made several times before, though they are the richest version of this recipe I’ve made yet, substituting 2 cups of cream into a gallon of milk. They also have a line of fennel through the middle of the cheese and a coating of ash on the exterior, which you can just barely see beneath the fuzzy white mold in the picture below. They should be ready in January.
The Alpine-style cheese is significantly more of a departure for me. This four-pound cheese does not have salt added to the cooked curds at the time they go into the plastic form, instead being soaked in a brine solution for about a day after it’s been pressed. This should result in a sweeter, smoother cheese than a cheddar, which has the salt milled in with the curds before it goes into the press. This tomme will also have a washed rind, which is to say that I will be taking it out of its cooler to wipe the whole thing down with more brine every 3-5 days. This cheese should age for three to four months and end with a pliable paste with a mild nutty taste and a very stinky rind.
May the cheese gods smile upon us all,
Sharon