“My Name Is Erin, and I Am a Home Cheesemaker.”

Best daughter ever? I just might be.

I decided recently that, instead of giving people presents of items they don’t need, I’d prefer to give people gifts of “experiences.” So for my father’s birthday, I presented him with plans for the two of us to spend a day at the New England Cheesemaking Supply Company’s Cheesemaking 101 workshop.

Located in Ashfield, Mass., the company is housed in the adorable old home of its proprietress, Ricki Carroll, the Cheese Queen. (If you’ve read Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, you may remember the family visited here when they went north. If you haven’t read Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, I urge you to. it was great, dare I say, life-changing. In fact, that’s how I heard about it myself: from the book.)

I’m not going to bore you too much with the details right now (because one thing I’ve learned since attending the workshop is that, like sausagemaking and lawmaking, most people also don’t want to know the details of cheesemaking) but suffice it to say it was awesome. Plus, as I mentioned above, better writers than I have described the workshop already.

Long story short: We made cheese. A LOT of cheese. And ate a lot of cheese. And bought things with which to make cheese (and yogurt!). And met other people who enjoy cheese. A fantastic day was had by all.

Stay tuned, however, as I will surely bore you with more stories about cheese (and yogurt!) in the future.

[This is me and my dad with the cheese our table (above left) made together. Pretty much everyone at our table posed for a photo with the cheese. My kind of people! My face is a little swollen still because I had my wisdom teeth out earlier that week.]