Sara Ward on Living the Good Life October 2024

Say Cheese!

Guest blog by Sara Ward

I think there is something really rather magical about making cheese.

It’s the most ancient way of preserving precious milk and was a process practised regularly in many households for thousands of years. Now, with electric fridges that safely keeps our milk cool, we can gaze in wonder at the huge variety of cheeses available – a quick shout out for the fabulous Chiswick Cheese Market – and pile up a celebration supper platter with an array of fermented curds.

Apparently, France boasts around 400 varieties of cheese whilst Britain claims to top that with 750. However, when we consider that cheese is simply milk from a mammal (pick your ruminant), curds and whey are separated and there’s some salt in there somewhere – the very small variances in time, temperature and technique are the key factors that create the distinct qualities and characteristics that differentiate our favourite cheddar from a brie and everything in between.

I find this both absolutely fascinating and utterly delicious.

My cheese making journey began back in 2011 when Rachelle, a family friend from Australia, came to stay for a few weeks – we were already kindred spirits and so when she told me that she’d been trying her hand at cheese making (to preserve a glut of milk from her neighbour’s cow, naturally!), of course I wanted to know more…

We started with Feta, Mozzarella and Camembert, each very successful, then over the years I have explored new techniques to make different cheeses. I like to use normal kitchen equipment where possible; big pots and pans, long handled spoons and knives, etc. So when I realised that most hard cheeses need a bit of pressure to help expel liquid in preparation for a long maturation, I naturally stacked a pile of books on top of a chopping board above the cheese to provide the necessary weight.

It didn’t work. The curds may have been slightly unevenly distributed, but basically the whole set-up started to slide slowly, gathering speed, culminating in a crash on the kitchen floor.

A game changer was when I treated myself to a proper cheese press, Gouda was a huge success (both air dried and waxed) and Haloumi is a real family favourite.

Regular readers will know that we love to share our skills, so we’ve now developed two different courses for adults (pick which cheeses you’d like to learn) and a family course encouraging youngsters to learn where their food comes from.

I’m also starting to create a ‘two day – real time’ bread and cheese course that will allow us to make sourdough and hard cheeses, fresh butter, hand stretched Burrata and more – watch this space…

We’ve got loads coming up over the next few weeks and I’ll give a full introduction to our Christmas Courses next month…

I hope to see you soon,

Sara

Coming up at Hen Corner:

October

• Introduction to Making Pasta – Wednesday 9th
• Introduction To Making Cheese – Thursday 10th
• Introduction to Scandinavian Baking – Tuesday 15th
• Full Day Making Sourdough – Thursday 17th
• Cheese Together (Families) – Wednesday 30th (Half Term)

November

• Introduction to Making Bread – Tuesday 12th
• Introduction to Scandinavian Baking – Thursday 21st
  

All courses can be found at HenCorner.com

Follow us on social media @HenCorner

Sara Ward is the owner of Hen Corner and author of Living the Good Life in the City: A journey to self-sufficiency

Hen Corner is a member of The Chiswick Calendar’s Club Card scheme, offering discounts on her courses and on her book Living the Good Life in the City.

See her Club Card offers here: Hen Corner Club Card offers

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