Our Miscellaneous Category

HoganFarms blogging has been non-existent for some weeks while I was preparing for and executing a large hardware migration at work.  I offer my sincere apologies!  I did make a firm cheese a few weeks ago from regular pasteurized milk and am still aging it.  It looks pretty good, so I may need to cut into it tonight.   I need to restore lost calories from last “weekend.”  “Weekend” is in quotes because it was all work.  I also had another attempt at a firm cheese fail but it makes a nice spread on morning toast.

I did register for the American Cheese Society meeting in Montreal in August and have explained to all at work that early August I will be out of country and focusing on cheese rather than information technology.  If you are going too, I will see you there!

Ok, how in the heck did the term cheezy (sometimes spelled cheesy) come to mean showy and/or cheap?  Here’s a good answer: the Urdu word “chiz,” meaning a “thing,” became used by British colonialists to mean a “big thing.”  One can easily imagine the proper Englishman gentleman’s disdain for something obvious and showy.

I knew it could not have anything to do with cheese, which is, after all, ambrosia.

This is my first post and I don’t have time right now for a long one.

Almost one year ago it struck me that in over a half century of living I had never made cheese.  I love to cook and to eat but somehow it never entered my mind that I could or should make my own cheese.  Since then I have made cream cheese, Mozzarella, Cheddar, goat/cow Cheddar, Edam, Ricotta, Double Gloucester and Havarti.  I also made up one of my own that I named “Old Adidas” due to its rather pungent aroma.  Most folks did not like that one, but a few including me really loved it. (No disrespect is intended toward the fine folks at Adidas.  Somehow the name just jumped into my mind.  Possibly it was because of the beloved old pair of Adidas I was wearing at the time.)

I am really new to blogging, so until I get my feet really wet I have turned off comments.   I plan to turn them on at some point so come back every so often to see what is up!  I look forward to lots of interaction.   Maybe I’ll get a Twitter account but they are down for maintenance right now.

Bon Appetit, Y’all!

(P.S. My dialect swings from Texan to Oklahoman to Californian without notice.)

(P.P.S I am now on Twitter now as @HoganFarms.)