First week of kindergarden

I was a bit worried, leaving the cheese for two whole days, unattended for the holidays, but I have returned home and he seems to be doing quite well. He sufficiently soiled the towels in his fridge, from the tears dripping down onto it, so I have replaced them. (I remembered to wash them straight away, with a little baking soda in with the soap to alleviate the downright unpleasant smell.)

It is hard to believe that it has been 5 whole weeks that the cheese has been in existence! Now is the time to start flipping him only once a week, but he still seems pretty soft. When I pick him up, his sides give way to my fingers. He springs back immediately, but I am fearful of allowing him to sit on one side for too long. (I do not want him to heave to one side like before.) Erring on the side of caution, I am going to flip him every other day for the next week, and see how he does.

Deck the halls with balls of cheese

No news is good news. La cheese is doing well, a few bits of straw keep sticking to his side, but besides that all seems in order.

Loosing weight

The tears on cheese’s side are becoming thicker, and slightly tan in hue. The lard and muslin feels a little loose near the top and bottom seams, which makes sense if the cheese is tearing and releasing some liquid, but I am not sure if this is a bad thing for his overall health. (When I wrapped him, everything was very taut.)

Official stinkage

I have been trying to find accurate ways to describe the changes to senior formage, but I am now at a loss. Even in my cold medicine haze and stuffy nose, I have been attentive to the cheese. I open of the fridge for his daily flip and I am hit by a wall of funk. Everything that it has been smelling like, lard, salt marsh, rotten fruit cocktail, well its just gotten a whole lot stronger. Not putrid, but lets just say that I am not looking forward to opening the door tomorrow.

There is a reason people kept dairying rooms

Every morning before I leave for work I water the cheese and the Christmas tree. (The Christmas tree has been a recent addition to this daily routine.)

I have an open water bottle that I fill at night and let sit out, to allow most of the chlorine to evaporate. (Chlorine kills bacteria; good for people drinking tap water, bad for cheese that needs bacteria to taste yummy.) In the morning, I dribble a little water on each towel to make sure they are nice and damp.

After a fine evening with good friends, tasty sweet potato fries and delicious beer, I came home to my room filled with ode-de-cheese. There was a sticky, smelly puddle under the fridge. (Apparently I was a little heavy-handed with the “watering” this morning and it oozed out onto the floor with all its cheesey goodness.)

After some elbow grease and an hour of airing out, the room is inhabitable again.

In other cheesetastic news, the “tears” seem to be lessening, or at least becoming thicker and moving more slowly down the side of the cheese.

Going bad is so good

I think I have identified what the cheese now smells like… salt marsh, lard, a wee hint of cheese and slightly rotting fruit cocktail (specifically the kind with the bright pink cherry halves that my mom used to serve with cottage cheese after we watched Sesame Street, just before Mr. Rogers).

Cheese friends nod and say “that’s good” when I tell them about this new fruity development. But these same people also look very surprised and slightly perplexed while nodding.

Washing the washer

I changed the towels hanging in the fridge, keeping it nice and humid. I forgot to wash them right away. They have now tainted the washer with an awful funk. Three loads of laundry later and it still smells.

Fruit Loopy

The cheese smells a bit fruity. I do not know how else to explain it. I have no idea if this is good or bad.

The Noes Knows

It finally smells like cheese! I opened the fridge for cheese’s nightly flip, and out wafted the glorious sent of cheese! Not ode-de-Kraftsingle, no this was the same salt marsh and lard odor, but with a noticeable hint that something was fermenting. It did not smell bad, but if I opened up anything in my kitchen fridge and it smelled similar it would be in the garbage, not my belly. I think this a very good sign.

Do cry for me, argenchessia!

For those who were waiting with bated breath about cheese’s spontaneous weeping, you may let out a sigh of relief. A very kind cheeseperson informed me that it is normal. (The extra moisture inside the cheese has to go somewhere as is dries.) This was extra reassuring because more droplets have been forming since the rewrapping. I am going to take this a good sign that everything is working well, but for added insurance I have stepped up the re-dampening of the towels to make sure the humidity inside the fridge stays up near 80% so the cheese doesn’t dry out too fast.