In just one day, artisan cheese maker Melanie Browne is promising to use the beautiful setting of Therapy Vineyards to teach you to make a range of cheeses in your own home.
“Wine and cheese go perfectly and what a beautiful setting. What a great way to spend a summer day,” said Browne. “Stunning views, food and wine, what a great combination.”
Through the course of the day-long class, Browne will teach her students to make Camembert, Feta, Quark, Mascarpone, Ricotta and Greek yoghurt.
“It’s very fun. At the end of the day, everyone goes home knowing how to make their own cheeses,” said Browne. Most of the cheeses, however, take longer than the day to mature. Camembert, for instance, takes four to 10 weeks to mature, depending on how much you want it to ripen.
“The Ricotta we make, we turn into lunch. Everything else, they won’t get to taste their own cheeses: the Quark and the Mascarpone takes at the most three days, the yoghurt takes a day,” said Browne. “They are all really low maintenance cheeses for people to learn. They do get to take cheeses home at the end of the day, they get a goody bag of cheese. But it won’t be their cheese, it will be from a different workshop.”
Making cheese runs in Browne’s family. Her mother has been making cheese for 36 years in Australia, though she only turned the teaching of it into a business about five years ago.
“I am the first international branch. We started out in Australia and I brought it over to Canada last year,” said Browne. “We are number one in Australia for what we do.”
Participants in the one day workshops will learn how to culture the milk, cut the curd, turn and hoop the curd, all under Browne’s guidance. All the ingredients and utensils, she said, are recognizable, nothing that people will look at and feel overwhelmed.
“All the cheeses that we will be making on the day are low maintenance cheeses,” she said. “I teach home cheese making. It’s a really good introduction to cheese making. Our view is if milkmaids can make this on mountain using their elbows as a thermometer, you can make this in your own kitchen.”
Cheesemaking Workshop Canada will be at Therapy Vineyards on June 15 and 16, running one-day hands on workshops. The day includes morning tea and a cheese-inspired lunch served with Therapy wine and plenty of cheese tasting. All course notes and recipes are provided. Workshops places are limited.
To book a place in the workshops, contact Therapy Vineyards at 250-496-5217. More information is available online at www.thecheesemakingworkshop.com.