Fromage

Dudes, I totally forgot to post the specifics about Gig Harbor before the show last week. I came down with a snotty little cold over the weekend, and have been a little spaced out. The weather was perfect, and the weekend turned out lovely anyway.

I took it a little slow yesterday, mainly because that was all I could manage. But I've got a full plate this week in order to be ready for the Bellevue show this weekend. It's another 3 day show, and one of my biggest, so there is quite a lot to be done.

In between all this work work, I've made a couple of batches of cheese. Yes, you heard right, cheese. Mascarpone and chevre to be exact. And they turned out quite nicely for the first experiment. I plan to do more. It's easy! In fact, as I was reading through all the instructions for the harder cheeses - the molded ones and the rind ones - it sounded a lot like soap making. I think I might just be able to do this. Where can I find sheep's milk I wonder. Mozzarella is next. There are so many to try. Yum, cheese.

I was reading the other day about the tomato blight on the east coast - it's awful. So disappointing to put in all that hard work and then have the plants die off before you can get any crop. I know, that's what's happened to a bunch of my squash in the front. I'm trying to save 2 little ones off in the corner which still have healthy leaves on them, but the other ones are gone. I have no idea if it came from my soil or came from the plant itself, but it's awful. The pumpkins on the lower terrace are growing like mad, but my treasured little round zukes and yellow summer squash are no more. My tomatoes are incredible - biggest plants ever and they are all starting to turn this week. I've had a few small handfuls of cherry tomatoes, and the romas might be good for dinner. It's going to be so hot the next few days - I'm sure they will all ripen and fall off while I'm working in Bellevue on the weekend. I'll have to get up extra early to harvest.

In case anyone is wondering, business has been down. The shows are ok, some really awful, some just down a bit from last year, some borderline ok, nothing great. It dawned on me about a week ago that this soap business might just be a pot of hot water and I'm the frog. I'm hoping I can hold on this year and wait for the economy to pick up. At the moment, I'm in too deep with summer and fall commitments that I don't have a minute to make new plans or change anything. I just have to hang in there through this bunch of shows and see where I'm at in mid-August.

Favorite quote (at least this week): "It's not about miracles, it's about persistance." Gotta keep plugging away at it, that's all I can do.