Tag Archives: murray’s

Photo 42 out of 365 – “Pipes in Union Square” & Boot Camp

22 May

I took this picture in Union Square yesterday – right out in front of the Whole Foods.  It was a table display of smoking apparatuses.  I just think that clown has so much personality – in an evil spooky kind of way.

Anyway – I finished my 9th hour of cheese boot camp classes today at Murray’s.   I was a little nervous because my stomach has been a bit on the fritz.  However, I got some very helpful, guiding advice this morning from my nutritionist sister-in-law Robin, so I started the day with a large glass of water with fresh lemon squeezed in it and followed this up with a fresh squeezed vegetable juice (to get my greens in).  I feel much better than yesterday with only 6 hours left to go so I think I’m going to make it!  Thanks Robin.

So far in my 9 hours of cheese boot camp, I have tasted 34 cheeses.  In my opinion, in terms of flavor and overall yumminess, the standouts have been:

  • Epoisses – a very stinky, oozey, pasteurized (because it has to be) cow’s milk, washed rind cheese from the Burgundy region of France.  It is an FDA regulation in America, that any raw milk cheese imported into the US has to be aged 60 days or more.  Epoisses is generally only aged 30-45 days, so in America, we have to have the pasteurized version, which is supposedly far inferior to the “real” unpasteurized version you get in France.  Epoisses is a good choice if you are a bit adventurous and are interested in enjoying a more robust and funky cheese.  I love it.
  • Garrotxa - a pasteurized goat’s milk cheese from Catalonia Spain that has a slight tangy, salty, sweet & nutty taste.  It’s delicious.
  • Tomme Crayeuse – a raw cow’s milk cheese from the Savoie region of France.  Apparently, it was made by accident in the late 90′s while trying to emulate another, much older, traditional cheese from the region called Tomme de Savoie.  Meanwhile, we did a tasting comparison of the two in our “old world vs. new world” section of boot camp, and the Tomme Crayeuse BLEW the Tomme de Savoie away!  ”Crayeuse” means chalk in french, and when this cheese is a bit younger, it has a chalkier consistency in the center. The way we had it tonight, it was a little more aged and it was unctuous and creamy throughout.  It was probably my favorite of the whole boot camp thus far.
  • Cabot Clothbound Cheddar – I’ve written about this one before.  It is a pasteurized cow’s milk cheddar cheese from VT – made by Cabot (the big, huge dairy company) with the aging help of Jasper Hill.  It’s a bit caramelly, salty & sweet with those crunchies (tyrosine) that you typically find in Parmigiano Reggiano.
  • Pleasant Ridge Reserve –  an award-winning raw cow’s milk cheese from Dodgeville, Wisconsin that is made in a mountain style -modeled after the classic French cheese Beaufort.  To me, tonight, it had flavors of caramel and onions with a bright & tangy zip.  It is a favorite of many of the Murray’s cheesemongers.

I’m looking forward to my last 6 hours of class tomorrow, where we’ll be focusing on milk chemistry & the cheesemaking process and then enjoying a battle of the pairings – wine & cheese vs. beer & cheese.  I have a hunch beer is going to win!  I’ll fill you in tomorrow.

Photo 34 out of 365 – “City of Lights”

14 May

I took this photo on the way home from our bourbon and cheese class last night.   Believe it or not, I took it from the back seat of the taxi cab looking through to the front windshield.  I slowed my shutter speed to about 6 seconds and focused on the taxi meter (the red light you see at the bottom).  Then I just held the camera as steady as I could, which was not very steady considering we were driving and going over bumps.  This is what the result was.  I think it’s really cool – it looks to me like a crazy city made up of lights.  Playing around with the slow shutter at night is really fun.

Here is another picture I took from the taxi, where you can really see the taxi meter numbers.  This one I actually moved the camera around in loops with my hands while the shutter was open… 6 seconds was the shutter speed for this as well.

Anyway, today was my last day as a Murray’s cave intern, and I am actually sort of sad.   But I have cheese boot camp next weekend so I won’t be away for too long.  It’s pretty cool.  When I used to go to Murray’s before I started this internship, I was so intimidated to buy cheese from the counter.  The cheese case is HUGE and there are hundreds of cheeses in there at any given time.  And the store is usually slammed, so you have to pick a number and wait for your turn to order.  When my number was called I never knew what to order – I wanted to try EVERYTHING.  There were so many cheeses I had never tried and never heard of… it was impossible to know what I wanted.

Now, I feel like I’ve tasted almost every single cheese in that case.  I’m sure there are a few I’ve missed… but I’ve got a pretty good handle on it, which is super exciting to me.  I’ve really learned a lot over the past 3 months and I’m psyched to keep this cheese education going.  I’ll be sure to do a writeup on boot camp, so stay tuned!

A Master of Cheese Please…

27 Apr

My three-month Murray’s cave internship is winding down now with just one more week left in May.   Over the last three months, I have grown to both love and hate this internship experience.  On one hand, I met lots of cool people – my fellow interns, the awesome Murray’s mongers and some super passionate and knowledgeable classroom teachers.  I have also had some serious cheese exposure and have been tasting nearly every day!  On the other hand, my back and feet ache from all the manual labor, I smell like cheese most of the time (though I’m strangely starting to like it), and my poor hands are all dry and cracking from washing them 500 times a day.

So what next?  I am completely jazzed about this cheese thing.  The more I learn, the more I want to learn, which tells me I should keep moving forward with it.  And as I continue along the cheese path, I’m narrowing down my cheese-related interests.  For example, I’m pretty sure I don’t want to be a cheese maker.  But I’d like to know cheese makers and help them sell their cheeses.

My dream scenario for the moment is to apprentice with a cheese connoisseur in NYC and then perhaps eventually consult with restaurants/shops to help them develop their cheese programs.  I would love to travel around the U.S. and around the world, seeking out the most fabulous cheeses, meeting their makers and learning what makes each cheese special.  I’d love to judge cheese competitions!  YES… there are cheese competitions!  In summary, I’d like to be a master of cheese please.

Stay tuned for more cheese adventures.

“Self Portrait – Taxi Mugshot Style”

22 Apr

One challenge with this photo-a-day project is finding the time to take the photos.  Take today for example, my morning got away from me… trying to figure out our new insurance plan, calling our doctors to see if they are part of it and helping my friend re-write her Jdate Profile.  Before I knew it, it was time for Murray’s.

Of course, today I was running super late, so I took a cab (I usually walk – good photo-taking time).   I spent about four hours in the caves, unloading massive amounts of cheeses and then I helped out with the Beer & French Cheeses class and got home at 9pm.   I seriously only took about 12 pictures today.  8 of them were in the back of the cab on the way to Murray’s – the other 4 were taken in the classroom – I tried to take pictures of the cheese plate, but I only had my 50mm lens and I couldn’t get enough distance from my plate without standing on a chair or something (totally just thinking of that standing on a chair thing now.)

I didn’t know what I was going to do for a photo when I got home, but looking again at my taxi cab self portraits, I thought this one was kind of cool… then I started playing around with the color and I gave it this cyanotype treatment (the blue tint).  To me – that really kicked the photo up a notch.  So, the lesson for me today is two-fold.  First, continue to take my camera with me every day, because even if I don’t take a lot of photos, I just need to take at least one.  Second, editing the photos is pretty fun – and can really bring a little magic and totally change the feel of the picture – it’s good to experiment.

Glorious Cheese… (and photo of the day)

20 Apr

I took a Burgundy Wines & Cheese pairing class tonight at Murray’s.  It’s amazing… the more cheese I eat lately, the more I want to taste.   I spent my entire day at the cheese shop today, washing stinky washed-rind cheeses, patting down mold, shuffling around wheels of cheese weighing over 10 lbs each,  scraping cheese remnants off wooden boards… and yet still, as I sit here at my computer at midnight, the smell of cheese still stuck to my clothes and hair, I cannot wait to taste more!!

There is just something about cheese…  the way it coats your mouth like the richest dessert you can think of, the fact that there are thousands and thousands of varieties, all with different tastes, smells and textures and made in all corners of the world, the fact that it’s a living, breathing thing (like wine) – and that the exact same cheese can taste remarkably different on a different day – I mean, I seriously never tire of it!   And tasting each cheese once is not enough…  I can’t remember what a cheese tastes like after I’ve tasted five others – I’m learning that you have to keep tasting the same ones over and over and over so that their flavors become familiar.

I’m taking a cheese boot camp in mid-may and I cannot wait.  It’ll be two and a half days of intensive cheese education – including tastings of over one hundred cheeses.  After 2 months of my cave internship, I’m really just now starting to feel like I’m turning a corner.  I sat down at my cheese plate tonight at Murray’s and properly identified 5 out of 7 of the cheeses without looking at the class notes.  I NEVER would have been able to do that before this internship… I wouldn’t have even been able to do it 3 weeks ago!

All this concentrated tasting of cheese is beginning to make me more mindful with tasting in general now.  For example, this new Stumptown Indonesian Coffee I just bought – The taste is different from every other coffee I’ve had – it’s super complex and totally delicious.  Adam and I have been completely freaking out about it the past few mornings!  Here is the link to what we’ve been drinking www.stumptowncoffee.com/coffees/indonesia/indonesia-gajah-aceh-organic.

It is actually very similar to what this photography project is doing for me… forcing myself to take my camera out every single day to look for a picture, has made me just look for pictures all the time.  Even when I don’t have my camera with me.   I guess it’s all just paying attention more, using your senses more, being more aware and more in the moment.  All good things really.  It’s making me feel inspired to continue and that’s never a bad thing!

Now it’s time for bed, so here is my photo for the day.  I didn’t have much time out in daylight today, so I had to get creative when I got home this evening.  To me, this looks like a Neanderthal carrying a big boulder, about to be demolished by the smoke monster from Lost (the shadowy thing happening over on the left side).

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