But first--my own experiments in the past few days. It turns out that it is ridiculously easy to make buttermilk. (Of course, I mean "cultured buttermilk" in this case, not the milk that seeps out of butter churned from the milk recently squeezed out of cow boob.) Basically, you just need to have a tidbit of cultured buttermilk and a lot of whole milk. Then it's simply a question of leaving it alone for a day.
(That's a teensy bit of sour cream hiding behind my buttermilk. It's also a cinch to make and nearly identical to the process of making buttermilk: just substitute heavy cream for the whole milk and you'll have sour cream in a day. And that's my kefir hiding to the side. My roommate assures me it was a success and made brilliant (though I do say it myself) smoothies later.)
Fankhauser says fresh buttermilk is aces for making cheese...but I have never been known for an abundance of patience. So I gave it the old college try with regular milk.
What I lack in adequate equipment, I make up for in enthusiasm. Basically, you need rennet (available at the People's Co-op, fellow Ann Arborians), milk, and buttermilk. Then you need to go to Fankhauser's page because he is much better at explaining these things than I am. And he goes off on tangents about microbes and things. (I can read the words, understand each one individually, and still have to admit that it flew over my head.)
Still lacking in proper equipment. Fankhauser says things like, "hang this cheesecloth in your cheese refrigeration." I'm like, "well, I have neither cheesecloth nor cheese refrigerator nor any convenient place to hang it." I made do with a jelly bag and chopsticks and my grandmother's remarkably large stock pot.
And, voilà! A very soft cheese. Probably a lot softer than Fankhauser would have approved of. Probably a lot softer than most people would be comfortable still calling a cheese. But none of that is the point. The point is that I made cheese. And buttermilk. And sour cream. And kefir. I am obviously the king of the castle and all you non-cheese-making people are not.
