For the first time in BBCook history, “professionally educated” has been added to the list of reasons to read this blog.  Other reasons include, presumably, you have nothing better to do and/or you’re related to us, so this really adds an air of legitimacy to things.  That’s right, ladies and gentleman, I went to my first-ever outpost of The Dream: culinary school, in the form of a hard cheese-making course.  “Why not start with something you’re actually interested in, Blair, like cake?  For example, you could’ve gone to a cake-making course and finally decided to stop boring us with your recipes.”  Well, yes, dear reader, that would’ve been logical, but when opportunity presents you with a hard cheese-making course, you grab it by the horns (Cow joke.  Get it?) and sign on board.

I and my trusty friend Josh trundled off to Cheese School, where I was immediately assaulted by a wild-eyed 65-year-old man who evidently fancied himself a bouncer shaking his list at me and telling me I simply wasn’t on it.  Trying to figure out how he could’ve already deduced who I was, I smiled weakly and explained the latest case of mistaken identity (having switched into the course last-minute when a friend, who was on the list, couldn’t attend) and sat down.  Our militant cheese professor (or perhaps associate professor?  Can you get a PhD in cheese?  And how would you publish?)  began to speak, welcoming us to Hard Cheese and then launching into cheese theory faster than Josh and I could pour ourselves a glass of wine.  An hour and two glasses of wine later, Josh and I looked up from our stupor only to realize that everyone else around us was taking notes and nodding happily: apparently we were in the equivalent of Cheese 202, having missed Cheese 101 the week before.  Whoops.

Class went on much like this for the next three hours, with occasional trips to stove to jostle with 20 of our new best friends to peer into a pot that looked like it contained milk jell-o.  Yuck.  Then we would resignedly return to our seats to have Ben Stein  drone on about cheese theory some more.  Do you know of anyone in your life more likely to appreciate cheese theory than me?  I don’t.  And yet, I’m here to tell you: a rabid passion for all things culinary will not, under any circumstances, guarantee one’s interest in calf vs. synthetic rennet, or the construction of a homemade cheese press, or the different types of mold required to make blue vs. washed-rind cheese.

Did you know:

-That it takes about three months to make a hard cheese, so it’s completely insane to pay a really boring man in hopes that he’ll teach you to do so in three hours?

-That the sorts of adults who go to school after the age of 22 are the kind who loved school?  And I mean loved.  This was a collection of 20 teachers’ pets from all across the country, each trying to ask the most erudite question to stump the cheeseman, or, worse, to out-cheese each other.  To my delight, the first tactic worked, and we drove our cheese instructor to two glasses of wine over the course of the night, but even this game didn’t make these people less annoying.

-That being the class clown and giggling every time someone makes a “whey, not way” joke, rolling your eyes after the cheese professor busts you for said giggling, and/or sneaking out to 7-11 in the middle of class are still excellent ways to make it seem like you don’t care that you have no idea what’s going on?  Some things never change.

-That the only way to avoid cheese theory and the judgmental looks of your classmates because they know you don’t give two moos about what’s going on is to stand in the kitchen and stir cheese curds for hours on end?  This, I feel, was my most important cheese school lesson.

-That the word “cheddar” is actually a verb?  I cheddar, you cheddar, he/she/it cheddars…I obviously can’t explain to you what it is, since I wasn’t paying attention, but Wikipedia can.

-That Gouda is evidently supposed to be pronounced “howda,” and cheese people will correct you menacingly if you slip up?

Despite how long class felt (and really, I think I would’ve preferred three months in a dark, musty cheese cave), I had nothing to show for my efforts except a lighter wallet, a hatred for all cheese-ophiles, and a firm conviction never to go to cheese school again.  Oh, and no recipes from cheese school: evidently culinary school is making me into an even more useless blogger.  Don’t make cheese at home.  Instead, take your money to the store and watch it magically transform into a delicious hunk of Beecher’s Flagship or creamy Gouda right before your very eyes!

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