A few weeks back in the USA!

We finally headed back to the good ole' US of A as a family. I was once told that flying overseas with kids takes 2 years off your life...confirmed!  After 8 months of living in Switzerland it was good to get back to the States for a few weeks. This trip was obviously about seeing family and friends, as always that goes hand in hand with great food and quality drink! I headed down to Philadelphia to meet up with a good friend and in the short period of a few days we packed in so many food and beverage stops I'm still amazed to be here today. 

Summers on the Jersey Shore always meant crabbing in the bay and blue claws are king. Kevin and I both polished off 6 each and picked at least that many for crab cakes. 

When Kevin picked me up in Philly we immediately speed off to Long Beach Island to recall all my childhood memories. Surprisingly, most everything was as I remembered it...so feeling pretty darn nostalgic we stopped off at Mustache Bill's dinner to enjoy some Barnegat Bay flounder and a very non European turkey club (it was awesome).

We visited one of the cities best BBQ places...Sweet Lucy's Smokehouse (owned by my former partners from Boston, Brook and Jim Gershel.

Can't beat their smoked chicken and smoked kielbasa.

We had to hit a craft brewery...Philadelphia Brewing it was.

Two studs wishing they could have all that Kensington.

 

The tour was quick, but we got to see the entire process and be right on the floor while production was taking place...unlike large breweries that just manufacture summer swill.  

Who wouldn't want this as a tasting room?

I know it's not pretty, but keep in mind it's 1am, we're drinking some strong Dogfish Head  IPA, and they don't do chicken wings in Switzerland. 

Hoagies done the right way

Ending the day at Germantown Cricket club with an incredible Bluecoat gin and tonic.  

The Art of Cheese Making, Swiss Style

I want to do a lot of things (understatement), but I really want to make cheese! This is something that I’ve wanted to do for many years and truly have a passion for...it’s a combination of my creative side (like being a chef), my artsy side (I’m still perfecting my stick figure drawings) and my science side (ever evolving).  I have a huge respect for artisan cheese makers who take a few raw products and craft them into something as complex and living as cheese.  The process of making artisan cheese is so basic and has been going on for thousands of years, but it’s not something that can be replicated on an assembly line type of production and will quickly loose its sense of place or terrior.  

So a good friend and I decided to journey into the mountains and learn the basics of cheese making, the old school way...one copper kettle, wooden tools, a stone for a press, an open flame, and true old time Swiss cheese masters to guide us. 

Two well aged cheese masters who teach their art to crazy people like me and Alex 

Adding the renet, which makes the milk coagulate...a very important part of cheese making (ok, you wouldn't have cheese without this step)

Looking for a clean break. Looks more like jello milk.

Cutting the curd, not the cheese

Hey Miss Muffet...here are your curds and whey

Check out the wooden heat shield

Alex is working hard to make our cheese, but "this damn heat shield does NOT seem to be working"

That's the curd in the cheese cloth and the rest is the whey. Whey is high in vitamins, protein and minerals and this whey will be feed to local pigs. Otherwise the Swiss will use whey in carbonated drinks to add some healthy quality.A truly sustainable product.

A stone really is a unit of measurement, no joke.

This is where our cheese will age for the next four months

On the way home from the Emmentaler region we had to stop at a cheese shop to round out our experience...so the likely place, was a truly inventive and experimental cheese shop called Chas Glauser www.chaesglauser.ch located in the German speaking part of Switzerland. He is doing some incredible creative things with cheese. 

These fresh cheese are suspended over Calvados so they can absorb and soak up the liquor...adding an amazing flavor

I couldn't resist a picture amongst a huge wheel of Emmentaler (the inside looks like what most people associate with swiss cheese but this cheese is nutty and smooth, but is certainly not meant for a sandwich).

There are jars and containers all over the store with Herr Glauser's experiments. Yes, you can actually purchase these

Serious chemistry!