Bloomy Rind

Last night, Dan and I met friends Amy, Scott and Sue at Murray's Cheese for the "Tour of the Cheese Caves". It was a 2 hour class, full of wine, cheese, these great Spanish almonds and a lot of education on how to make and age cheese. After a brief introduction, our teacher Zoe took us down into their 5 aging caves in the basement of the store. The caves all smelled in varying degrees like: dirty socks, pee, toes or rotten hay. Some smelled worse than others, but none of them smelled good. Zoe explained the intricate temperatures and humidity needed to enhance and age each different cheese. We learned about rind washing and bloomy rinds and hard rinds and bacteria and B Linens and all sorts of other sciencie things that go into making cheese. It was awesome. Sue makes her own cheese and has a cheese cave in her basement, so she had the best questions of the night and even talked Zoe into giving her some salt wash and a cleaning cloth for her cave (I guess old, used rags and solutions work best). It's all kind of gross to think about, but also very interesting. I still love cheese!