BEST CURD CRUSADER
Cheesemaking: the process sounds intimidating, but no matter how you slice it, it’s all about caring for curds. You, the non-dairy-farming urban-dweller, can learn the mores involved in this delicate relationship via the Milk Maid, a.k.a. Louella Hill. Hill will let you taste some of the mind-blowing blue cheese she concocts in her home kitchen. But she doesn’t really want to make cheese for you, though she could. Instead, she wants to empower you to make your own wedges and wheels. She imparts lessons in classrooms, at farmers markets, even at alt-hip bachelorette party tutorials. Having studied cheese-making from the Hudson Valley to Northern Italy’s Emilia-Romagna region, the woman oozes sharp, smelly, and semi-soft expertise — you could do a lot worse than let her teach you to baby a blue.