The way of salting and pressing cheese:

Below, I have included the text of two different descriptions of hard cheese making. The first is from the first century AD, by a Roman author (Columella) and the second is from the sixteenth century in England (Markham). Very little has changed. With modern cheese making, we add the salt directly to the curds before pressing. Pressing cheese is usually less than a 24 hour affair and then the cheese is off to age. In both of the descriptions from period (and before) you can see that the salt is added during the pressing process, and it is applied to the outside of the cheese as a rub. The added technology in the later description, is the use of cloths to wrap the cheese within the press. (The cheese cloth wicks whey away from the surface of the cheese thus drying it out faster.) Torquatto Tasso, also writing on cheese in the sixteenth century maintained that the cheese must be turned into a new, clean cloth at least 3-4 times in the first day. And if you do not use fine clean linen cloth the cheese will be as a child that has been sitting in a wet diaper too long. How's that for appetizing imagery?

But the milk-tub, when it is filled with milk, ought not to be
without fome gentle warmth. Nevertheless, it muft not be brought
fo near as to touch the flames, as fome people are of opinion, but be
placed not far from the fire, and prefently after it is curdled, the liquor
muft be transferred into wicker-bafkets, cheefe-vats, or moulds; for
h is of great importance, that the whey be ftrained and feparated from
the condenfed fubftance as foon as poflible: for which reafon, the
country-people do not indeed fuffer the moifture to drop flowly from
it of its own accord; but, when the cheefe becomes a little more folid,
they put weights upon it, that thereby the whey may be fqueezed out r
then, as it is taken out of the moulds or frails, it is laid up in a dark
and cold place, upon the very cleaneft boards, that it may/ not be
fpoiled; and it is fprinkled with bruifed fait, that it may fweat out
the acid liquor: and when it is hardened, it is prefled more vehe-
mently, that it may be confpiflated; and it is fpiinkled again with
toafted fait, and condenfed again with weights. After this has been
done for nine days, it is warned throughly with fweet water, and
placed in fuch a manner under a {hade, upon hurdles made for that
purpofe, that one eheefe may not touch another, and that i.t may be
moderately dried. Then, that it may keep the tenderer, they put it
clofe together in feveral ftories, in a clofe place, not expofed to the
winds. Thus it neither becomes fpongy and full of holes, nor fait,
nor dry t the firft of which faults ufes to happen, if it be prefled but a,
little i the fecond, if it be feafoned with too much fait; and the third,
if it be fcorched in the fun. This kind of eheefe may be exported alfo
beyond fea. For that which is defigned to be eaten in a few days,
while it is new, is made up with lefs care : for, being taken out of the
wicker bafkets, it is put into fait and brine, and foon afterwards dried
a little in the fun.

De Re Rustica (Columella)

To make a new milke or morning milk cheese, which is the best Cheese made ordinarily in our kingdome; you shall take your milk early in the morning as it comes from the Cow, and file it into a cleane tubbe, then take all the creame also from the milke you milk the euening before, and straine it into your new milke; then take a pretty quantity of cleane water, and hauing made it scalding hot, powre it into the milke also to scauld the creame and it together, then let it stand, and coole it with a dish rill it be-no more then luke warme; then go to the pot where your 187 earning bagges hangs, and draw from thence so much of the earning without stirring of the bagge, as will serue for your proportion of milke, and straine it therein very carefully; for if the least mote of the curd of the earning fall into the cheese, it will make the Cheese rot and mould; when your earnings is put in you shall couer the mike, and so let it stand halfe an howre or thereabouts; for if the earning be good it will come in that space; but if you see it doth not, then you shall put in more: being come, you shall with a dish in your hand breake and mash the curd together, possing and turning it about diuersly: which done, with the flat palms of your hands very gently presse the curd downe into the bottome of the tub, then with a thinne dish take the whey from it as cleane as you can, and so hauing prepared your Cheese-fat answerable to the proportion of your curd, with both your hands ioined together, put your curd therein and breake it and presse it downe hard into the fat till you hane fild it; then lay vpon the top of the curd your flat cheese-boord, and a little small weight thereupon, that the whey may drop from it into the vnder vessell; when it hath done dropping take a large cheese-cloth, and hauing wet it in the cold water lay it on the cheese-boord, and then turne the cheese vpon it; then lay the cloth into the cheese fat; and so put the cheese therein againe, and with a thin slice thrust the same down close on euery side; then laying the cloth also ouer the top to lay on the cheese-boord, and so carry it to your great presse, and there presse it vnder a sufficient waight; after it hath been there prest halfe an howre, you shall take it and turne it into a drie cloth, and put it into the presse againe, and thus you shall turne it into drie cloathes at least fiue or sixe times in the first day, and euer put it vnder the presse againe, not taking it therefrom till the next day in 178 the euening at soonest, and the last time, it is turned you shall turne it into the dry fat without any cloth at all.

When it is prest sufficiently and taken from the fat, you shall then lay it in a kimnell, and rub it first on the one side and then on the other with salt, and so let it lie all that night, then the next morning, you shall doe the like again and so turne it vpon the brine, which comes from the salt two or three dayes or more, according to the bignesse of the cheese, and then lay it vpon a faire table or shelfe to drie, forgetting not euery day once to rubbe it all ouer with a cleane cloth, and then to turne it till such time that it be throughly drie and fit to goe into the presse; and in this manner of drying you must obserue to lay it first where it may drie hastily, and after where it may drie at more leasure; thus may you make the best and most principall cheese.

The English Huswife (Markham, Gervase)

Dear Doggie: PLEASE TO NOT FEED TEH BEBE TOADS. KTHKSBAI.

It has been raining all day. My dogs do not like rain – and yet… They still must potty. I have been a mean, mean Momma and made them all go outside twice today, but *certain dogs* have been reluctant to poop … Apparently, getting rained on is so distracting that the poopy process is interrupted and impossible to perform.

Those same certain dogs that do not want to poop outside in the rain, are sometimes sneaky. They creep into my basement to poop in the laundry room when it is raining outside. So it is vital that I leave the basement door CLOSED when it is raining outside. Just in case.

Today, I forgot to close the basement door after coming up with a load of clean diapers. Maggie dashed into the basement while my hands were full and I thought for SURE that I was going to have to clean up a “present” as soon as I was able to safely put the baby and all the clean laundry down. Before I could get my cleaning tools together, though, Maggie came back out of the basement. She didn’t look as guilty as she usually does after leaving “presents” for me in the basement… She did, however, look… funny.

Moodles ran to Maggie for their normal joyous reunion, after being apart for longer than 30 seconds. Maggie spat out a live toad on Moodle’s foot… Apparently having a live toad in one’s mouth leads to a very peculiar expression on a dog. Maggie had brought Moodles a present of a different sort… A slimy toad! Hooray! (Normally, I’d correct a person for describing a toad as being “slimy,” because they generally have dry skin… This one, poor thing, was completely coated in dog drool. ) Moodles managed to snatch it up off the floor before it was re-oriented enough to get away… Seeing as it had been good enough for Maggie to eat, Moodles thought that CLEARLY the offering was meant to be food - forgetting that Maggie doesn’t have proper hands for sharing. Moodles nearly put the toad in her mouth, but paused to look at me with her “mischief face,” just to make sure she was allowed. (She gives me the mischief face right before she tries to eat dog food. She knows I’m going to stop her every time, but apparently the fun is in the trying…) As usual, I was the wet blanket and took the toad away. I put it on the floor to see if it was still alive enough to be worth putting outside. Miraculously, I managed to hold back the curious tide of dogs and toddlers who aren’t as clear on the finer points of “personal space,” as I and the toad might have liked them to be. Surprisingly, the toad seemed stunned, but otherwise uninjured. After a few seconds of re-orienting, it made for the privacy of the space under the refrigerator. Moodles thought it was FANTASTIC and shrieked with glee. She lunged for it a couple times, but was knocked out of the way by Maggie who, ever the helpful one, thought I might require assistance in corralling her find. I took the poor little toad outside before his life got any more exciting.

I still have no idea how that toad ended up in our laundry room. I guess now he knows better than to come into THIS house to get out of the rain.

Moodles goes to the zoo:

Aunty Jocelyn took Moodles to the Zoo! Moodles saw all the animals she looks at every night on her light mobile, except for the hippo and the pelican. Sadly, Moodles was more excited to see other kids up close at the zoo, than she was about the animals. (I agree. Toddlers totally need to be kept in the zoo... But really, I think the problem was that most of the animals were too far away for Moodles to understand what I was pointing at. The other children, on the other hand, were RIGHT THERE, and in many cases, screaming louder and flinging more poo than the monkies.)

The carousel was not a hit. It was pretty until it started up, but then EVERYTHING WAS MOVING and Moodles wanted off. Maybe next year.

The one "doggie" that Moodles did like was the red panda. (All animals are still doggies, as far as she's concerned.) It came right up to the fence where Moodles could see it closely. Up close, it still looks like a stuffed animal. In the gift shop, I showed Moodles a stuffed red panda that chitters when you squeeze it. Moodles grabbed it from me, and without hesitation, stuffed it in her mouth and bit the crap out of it.... either she's feral or aunty Eithni told her what to do if Momma doesn't fall for just licking things in the gift shop...

Overall, a good time was had by all. We'll probably hit that attraction again this summer. Thanks, Auntie Jocelyn!

See the full gallery on Posterous

Saddest Little Girl on the Playground

Yesterday was finally a nice day in Wisconsin. Warm enough outside that when Moodles got all crazy and started pouncing in the dogs and jumping on the couch, I decided to take her to the park to let her "get it out of her system." It was the saddest thing ever.

My child needs practice going to the park. There seem to have been two main issues. Item the first: Moodles does not enjoy wearing shoes, and because she has such chubby feet, I've had trouble getting shoes in her size that will go on her feet. Thus, up until recently, I've not been terribly good about putting shoes on her, and when I do, she either takes them off immediately or sits around forlornly, giving me dirty looks suggesting that I have crippled her with horrifyingly complex torture devices. Item the second: When Moodles finds a rock in the house, she tries to eat it. Being a reasonably responsible parent, I do not let her, and usually make her give me the rock so that I can dispose of it. Thus, when we went to the park, it was not the frenzy of running, flailing, and gravel tossing I had envisioned. My poor child. First I put SHOES on her, and then I took her to the park and set her down in a hill of gravel, which was an even more strange surface to be on than in shoes alone. She did not run. She did not smile. She just stood there looking at me for cues.

So I ran away from her and came back, to demonstrate the playfulness that she was supposed to be feeling. She sighed deeply. Then she leaned over and picked up a single particle of gravel and handed it to me. Then another. Then more resounding sighs, as though to say, "Mother. We are NEVER going to get this cleaned up in time to play before bed time."

**facepalm**

After about 10 minutes of unsuccessfully trying to engage Moodles in play that wasn't quite so forlorn or serious, another little girl came to the park to ride the swings. She was about two and screeching with glee every time her Papa gave her an under-dog push. Moodles observed this very seriously, but did not approach. After the little girl left, I put Moodles in the swing to see if maybe she would like that more than the slide. (She seems to have a problem with the slide, wherein no matter which way I put her ON the slide she ends up coming down head first, looking like an unflappable butler going for a ride in the Batmobile. Not panicking. Just... completely unflapped. And up-side-down.) She eventually gave me a giggle for the swing, but other than that the playground was a complete flop.
 
Obviously we need more practice. We got home and she seemed relieved to be there with her doggies (which she went back to tackling) and her sofa (which she is darn near jumping off of these days.)

**headdesk**

Better Late than Never

I'm sure some of you who signed up for socks back in February have
noticed that you still have no socks.

I am still working on them, but now they take rather longer, because
I'm no longer working with commercial yarn. I am now SPINNING the yarn
in a vain attempt to de-stash a couple pounds of the raw wool I have
lying around the house... Then, because I like making new friends and
working on collaborative things, I am sending the yarn ALL OVER THE
COUNTRY to be dyed by someone else. THEN, when it comes back to me, I
am making SOCKS.

So.

These are the socks I made for Gwyneth with yarn dyed in Florida by my
friend Elizabeth. Aren't they pretty?

Sign Language: This is not the ASL you're looking for...

So, since it became clear that Moodles understands more words than she can say, I've been trying to teach her some ASL, so she can communicate more things to people other than Mommy, Daddy, and Grandma.

This morning, I was THRILLED because when as soon as she got up, she  was signing "milk" at me... or so I thought. I poured her some milk and handed her her sippy, and signed "milk."

She signed back "MILK!" but then threw the sippy on the floor and hit me in the knee.

"No, GENTLE." I told her.

She rolled her eyes and *patted* my knee. Then she *hit* my knee and signed "milk."

"But I gave you milk and you threw it on the floor. Right there."

"Milk." *hit, hit, hit*

"GENTLE."

*sigh, pat, pat* And then she ran off, leaving me to pick up her milk and follow. She went to her book collection and picked out a book and then waited patiently for me to sit down in the reading position. I
sat, and she handed me the book. "Milk."

Oh.... Riiiiight. "Hand, Hand, FINGERS, THUMB. You were showing me FINGERS, THUMB, weren't you? I am sorry, sweety. Your Momma is 'Dum ditty dum ditty dum dum dumb."

**For those of you who are not familiar with the book, it's about a bunch of monkeys with drums. She wasn't hitting me. She was doing the drumming part of the book that we do every time we get to "dum ditty dum ditty dum dum dum."

Hybrid diaper cover tutorial:

So, after months of experimentation, and half a dozen or so diaper cover designs, I've come to a final design that I'm really happy with. It's not so much a specific PATTERN that I like as these techniques will work with MOST of the patterns in my pattern stash. It's the functional elements that I love. So, lets have a look at what I've got:

Sorry I sound all breathy. I accidentally spent an hour and a half listening to JVC after Moodles switched the channel and I was too busy sewing to find where she put the remote and go back to NCIS.

What does this design have that I like? Leg gussets, and front and back slide/splash guards, a wipeable PUL interior, but very little of the rubberized side of the fabric is in contact with the baby's skin, AND front and back elastic to guard against poor fit and poo-splosions.

So lets talk about what I did. (I learned these tricks from other ladies. I just figured out a method of combining all these features that works for me.) First I cut out my pieces. I have 1 piece of black flannel cut to the actual shape of the diaper, and 1 large piece of PUL that is traced on the fold, but instead of putting the pattern piece directly against the fold, I put it 2" from the fold, thus giving me 4" of extra PUL for the middle of the diaper. This extra PUL will be used to form the leg gussets. Here I've overlaid my flannel normal sized piece on top of the PUL piece so you can see the extra width I'm talking about.

I also cut pieces of PUL in the NORMAL PATTERN SIZE that duplicat the FRONT and BACK of the diaper to form the splash guards. Here is a picture of all my pieces cut out. You can see those extra front and back pieces in the picture. These extra pieces also provide stiffness in the waistband, and substance for the snaps to grab onto.

Also in the above picture, you can see that I drew in the elastic lines for the gussets. Normally, I just go 2" from the outside edge of the PUL, but because this pattern (Tighty Whitey Hipster) is hip snapping, my original lines wouldn't work once the gussets were in place... They'd end up interfering with snap placement. So I re-drew my lines, and the ones I used are the ones with fuscha stars on them. The next step was to 3-step zigzag my lastin down along the drawn lines with the lastin and the stitching on the OUTSIDE EDGE of each line. I did my sewing on the non-shiny side of the PUL, since I want the shiny side to be toward the baby for this part. (Remember to stretch the lastin as you sew!) Then, I folded along the lines, I sandwiched the lastin between layers of PUL, and added 1 line of straight stitching along the outside edge of the lastin (not sewing through it) on the shiny side of the PUL. Doing the leg gussets with one straight seam here, will reduce the number of needle punctures through the PUL in the wet zone.

Next, I pinned the extra front and back splash guards to the body of the PUL, shiny sides together. The leg gussets become 1" deep pleats at this point, and I fold the tops of each gusset ridge toward the center of the diaper. Then I stitch the splash guards down with DOUBLE the seam allowance I was using previously. (So if I was using a 1/2" seam allowance before, I do these seams at 1".) This will "seal up" your wet zone like a dam so that other seams that go through the cotton layer won't wick.

Then, going back to the normal seam allowance, I sew the cotton flannel to the diaper PUL, right sides facing together. The view you see of the PUL in the above picture is the RIGHT SIDE of the PUL part of the diaper. The pink arrow shows the space I left in the seam to turn the diaper right side out after I add my elastic. In this view you can also see how the leg gussets are pleated toward the middle at the front and back of the diaper.

Here is a close up of the two previous seams. You can see how the "dam seam" is toward the inside, and the seam that goes through the cotton fabric is now outside the "wet zone."

The next step is to sew my lastin to both leg seams, and the back and front stretch zones. I 3-step zig-zag my lastin to the PUL side of the seam allowance, and this causes the elastic to roll IN toward the baby.

Then I turn and top stitch my diaper. I top stitch from pink star, to pink star in this picture, along the leg seam. Make sure you don't sew through your lastin! In the places where I was sewing along the previously made double width "dam seam," I sewed right through the same line, because I was NOT sewing in the wet zone. I do not top stitch the front and back elastics, because they are in the wet zone. As long as you top stitch the wings on either side, this seam will still look tidy, and if you sewed your lastin to the PUL side of the seam allowance, the seam will roll in.

Then I added my snaps. Since there is a nice PUL splash guard, and I'm not putting my snaps in the wet zone, I can do all my snaps LAST and still have "hidden snaps." I just reach up under the splash guard on the front of the diaper to place my hidden snaps, and the hip snaps in the back go through all layers of fabric.

 

TADA!