One year being a cheesemaker

June 2000

It’s an old article I wrote in 2000 for ACS newsletter.

It has been almost one year since I started making cheese under my 'Andante  Dairy' label. There have been a lot of changes; I am ready to drop many words from 'scientist -cheese maker- wanna-be' to call myself simply a 'cheese maker'; and I now know my cheese-making business can be sustainable. Many people ask me why I, who was born, raised, and educated in Korea, would want to become a cheese maker. They simply assume that most Asians are not very familiar with cheese. It is not a part of our traditional culture.  Even though I had some exposure to Western dairy products through my world-traveling father, cheese had been almost mysterious to me before I came to the US.

My long path to cheese-making started from the decision not to spend rest of my life being a biochemist and to settle in the US after marrying the American man who I met at Boston Symphony Hall two weeks after I arrived here. While I was having a forced break by the long immigration process following my marriage and my lack of skill in speaking English, I had time to read a lot about Western food and the history of American farming.

For an outsider like me, the idea of homesteading was fascinating, and its realistic limitations in Modern society led me to the concept of sustainable farming. I thought that it might be possible to have a small sustainable farm by adding value to the raw product through small-scale on-site food production.   And I had enough knowledge to design such a system from studying Food Engineering for BS and Biotechnology at the graduate school. 

My next step was the choice of items to produce. On my frequent trips to France and Italy with my husband, I tasted some truly wonderful cheese and the relatively limited access to really good cheese in the States gave me the idea of making French-style cheese here.  Given that the price of cows' milk is decided only by the composition and microbial count of the milk, making unique cheese from high-quality milk from diverse breeds could both protect those breeds and help the fight against productivity-oriented food production in the States.

 After moving to California, I was able to attend the dairy science program at Cal Poly graduate school in San Luis Obispo on a scholarship from the California Dairy Research Association; I worked on a low-fat cheese-making project.  While I was studying milk as an ingredient and the cheese-making process extensively, I tried to draw upon my knowledge of food engineering, microbiology, and biochemistry to make a high-quality cheese. Whenever I tasted any good cheese, I tried to understand how it had been made.  I also visited many very small cheese plants in France and met many cheese makers.  From observing their careful handling of milk and their pride in traditional craftsmanship, I began to understand the basis of proper cheese-making.  After two years of studying, I moved to join my husband in San Francisco.

Before I started making my own cheese, I worked for a small dairy farm in Petaluma, CA, to set up a cheese-making facility at the farm, and I had a chance to observe the realities of life on a small American dairy farm. My enthusiasm for helping the dairy farmer build his own business by himself wasn't enough to overcome my lack of experience in business and the farmer's lack of financial resources.

 As I was looking for a plant to experiment with making my own cheese, I met Barbara and Rex Backus in St. Helena, and they allowed me to make small amounts of cheese at their dairy, "Goat's Leap". I started playing with milk to understand what I could do with it.  I thought soft-ripened cow's milk cheese would be a good target since this kind of cheese doesn't travel well, and I knew how good it could be in France. But the actual Opus # 1 was a raw mixed milk hard wheel from cow's and goat's milks, which Barbara and I called Mimela. This cheese was made whenever Barbara had extra goat's milk. As you might imagine, my first few weeks of experimenting gave me real frustration. When trying to make a Camembert-like cheese, the short-set curd dried out too quickly in the September air of the Napa Valley. And the limited climate control in the plant made me give up making that style of cheese totally. So I chose a more versatile 'long-set' lactic curd-making process, which is widely used in very dry areas in France for mostly goat cheese making, to make something like St. Marcellin. Within about three months, I produced something edible, and I got the order when I brought some samples to get practical feedback from the local cheese vendors.  I started selling very small quantities of cheese just before Christmas of last year.

Since my production was extremely limited by the size of the plant and Barbara's production schedule, a maximum of 45 gallons of milk per week for cheese making, I had to make many kinds of cheese from one vat of curd to maximize my sales. At first, I used many different shapes of cheese molds and changed the aging time depending on the shape. As I designed the pyramid-shaped cheese, Nocturne, which was named after the paintings of  J.Whistler and Chopin's piano pieces, I'd had a very personal vision of the product before I made the product itself. A combination of white P.Candidum growth and black charcoal gave the signature bluish-gray color of the paintings on the surface of the cheese, and its delicate flavor and slow-making process were reminiscent of the gentle movement of Chopin's piano pieces. 

When I started getting steady orders in January this year, my whole life was controlled by my cheese-making schedule. My work started before 4 am and ended after a minimum 200-mile drive, and a full day of cheese-making and deliveries. To produce the best quality cheese, I picked up warm Jersey cow milk before 5 am in Petaluma and started pasteurizing within an hour in St. Helena. The labels were printed out of my computer printer on the generic address labels, and scotch tape was used to give more water resistance.  On weekends, I drove from my home in S.F. to St. Helena and back, simply to turn the cheese or to check if the cheese was doing well. I learned how to control the humidity for the proper ripening process in a limited climate-controlled environment by wrapping and unwrapping cheese frequently.  After 6 months, I could sell almost all the cheese I made and started getting standing orders, so I could plan how many of pieces I needed to make in advance. Barbara and I also developed the mixed milk cheese, Mélange.

Being a soloist in business without an accompanist has not been easy, but it gave me the chance to learn many valuable lessons. Cheese making was more like having a very demanding lover. It required a lot of attention. For example, not sufficient turning made cheese stick on the matting, and the product becomes unsaleable. It also called for total dedication; I could get cold milk from the tank in order to sleep a little bit more, but the amount of the separated fat on the top of the curd increased dramatically by doing that, and the final texture was inferior. I could increase the vat temperature setting in order to shorten the curdling time, but the final flavor told me that I could do better. There were so many temptations to take shortcuts, which I ultimately had to resist because the final product always told me what I'd done wrong. 

Every morning after setting up for the long-set curd-making night before, I would make the drive up to St. Helena with extreme nervousness as if I was going to get the final sentence when I arrived. But well-formed curd made me forget about all anxiety. 

For the markets, I must admit that I was very lucky to be living in Northern California. In the beginning, Barbara introduced me to her best customers, including Oakville Grocery. Local markets were always open, and I could drive around to introduce my product easily. Personal contact with cheese sellers and chefs gave me lots of ideas for new products. I learned the characteristics of the clientele of the specific stores, which could minimize the amount of leftovers. Even though mine was often the most expensive cow's milk cheese in the market, no seller complained about the price, and, often, those cheese sellers guided me to increase the price. 

In March I started selling to distributors, so I could expand my market without adding more driving time. In April, I added one more item, Picolo, which was a triple creme cheese, by mixing the curd with my dear friend Sadie Kendall's Kendall Farm's Crème Fraiche. 

By the end of July, almost all Bay Area specialty stores carried my cheese, but my production had to be stopped because Barbara's production needs didn't allow me to make cheese in her plant anymore.  Sadly the cheese at my display table at ACS conference were the last pieces I've had from the first stage of my cheese-making business. At the festival of cheese, there were so many people who wanted to buy my cheese that I was tired of telling them I didn't know when I could start making cheese again. My first recital became the last one for an uncertain length of time. After the last day of the conference, the familiar road from CIA to San Francisco seemed darker than ever.

Despite a lot of lessons, I've gotten through being a cheese maker for a year, the most important changes were catalyzed by many fabulous people I met through my business. There were many storeowners and cheese sellers who encouraged me with their openness and orders: Colette Hatch and George-Ann Levine at Whole Foods and Vicky Gott at Palisades Market to name a few. My best distributor, The Cheese Works, worried about me when I couldn't fill the order instead of complaining about the inconsistent supply.  If Barbara and Rex Backus hadn't opened the doors to their cheese plant, I don't know where I would be.  They know how very grateful I am to them. My dear friend Sadie Kendall at Kendall Farms, who makes the best crème fraiche on the American market, gave me all sorts of advice on cheese making and business. She and her husband Jeff have also been the most critical tasters of my cheese.  Lynn Alley and Daphne Zapos deserve special thanks. Their warm voices on the phone gave me enough strength to endure any hard-working days. In the restaurant industry, I especially thank the people at The French Laundry and Bouchon, who impressed me by their pride and sincerity. 

Now my cheese-making is temporarily on hold, while I look for the space to set up my own cheese plant someplace in Northern California. My first year of cheesemaking has been the blueprint for my future production. And I know that those wonderful people composed the real terroir for my cheese-making in addition to nature itself.   I have more confidence in the value of cheese making on the sustainability of the traditional small dairy farms in America, and my next project will be the confirming process of my belief.

At least I have met my first goal: the abbreviated "cheesemaker" suits me best.