I'm Exhausted

Yesterday I got to the airport in Texas at 11:30 am. I got home to Chicago at 1:40am. Then I went to work today. I was going to give you part one of the ACS conference but find that I have no energy for cognitive thought. Brain bad. Brain hurty. Here are a few teaser highlights from the conference.

If you would like to see a list of the winners, go here and click.

At the Meet the Cheesemaker part of the day I started at Beehive and ended up at Zingerman's. I didn't go near VT Butter & Cheese because I knew I would be a Bonne Bouche hog. Not a lot of pictures from this session. I spent a lot of time eating cheese, or asking cheesemaker's questions. Since I make it a point to not post any pictures of people, unless they are at their best, I have no pictures of Judy to show you. All you need to know is that she makes great cheese, and that the picture I have of her looks like I was shaking and using Barbara Streisand lighting.* I was not going to post a crappy photo just to say "hey look, it's Judy".

Julianna from Capriole.


Sofia and Piper's Pyramid from Capriole.



One of my favorite new cheeses. This is SeaHive from the Beehive Cheese Company. Milky, and sweet, flowery, grassy salty and gooood.


Topics coming this week (probably starting Wednesday since that's my day off):

• Why is it so damn hot in Austin when it's 9:30pm?
  
• Artisan, Farmstead, Organic, what do those words really mean?
• Cheese Spreads and cheeses like Lancaster Duet, should they both be in the competition together?
• Seriously, why is it so hot?
  
• You're the most ribboned cheesemaker in America, what does that mean, and are you still an artisan cheesemaker? Based on the amounts of cheese you produce are you tipping the scale in your favor as far as competition is concerned?
  
• Is there such a thing as too big when it comes to a cheesemakers production?
  
• Why is VT Butter & Cheese Co. still artisan, but other big companies aren't?

These are just some of the topics that I'm going to be mouthing off about. Of course there will be talk about cheese as well. Especially some of the cheeses I met at the Festival of Cheese. Now I have got to go to bed. My pillow is calling me.

*Barbara Streisand lighting (known as Barbara Walters lighting in some circles) is when the the subject looks fluffy soft like cotton balls. It is supposed to make the subject look younger, but they just look awful and bleached out.