Inspiring New Magazine

I grabbed a copy of this new magazine at Big R the other day when I went in to buy some chicken feed. Anything having to do with cheesemaking grabs my eye, and all new Hobby Farms magazines too, for that matter. I love them! They are really well done. Check out the Kitchen series.

This one is entitled "Cheesemaking". I admit, I have alot of cheesemaking books and have read lots of magazine articles, so I wasn't overly expectant when I grabbed this off the rack and added it to my feed bag pile. When I got home and had time to browse through it a day or so later, however, I was pleasantly surprised. Full color photos, graphics, and not only does it have "eye appeal" for the visual learner like me, but it has fantastic content! It starts the reader off with a brief but very interesting history of cheese. As I said, I have  lots of books, and they do often start out this way, maybe always, come to think of it, but this history lesson was absolutely interestng and well-written.

There are 15 recipes, with lots of pictures, as I mentioned before. There are colorful and careful instructions for making your own cheese press, as well as a great article on pairing cheeses with the right foods and drinks. There are several articles written by real cheesemakers, not all commercial, but real farmers and ranchers, with bits of personal history that I found had me inspired all over again! I had a hard time putting this down, but was torn between sipping my coffee with steamed raw goat milk and running to the kitchen to start a batch of raw milk chevre (which I did last night) and sitting smugly, thinking of my lovely goats out in the barn and dreaming of next year's milkers and kids.

There's not much that gives me more satisfaction than sharing a good cheese made by my own little hands from raw milk that came from my own little goatie girls I bred myself!

I'd love to buy a copy of this magazine for all of my fellow farm girls and wanna-be's, but I have to buy hay again! Seriously, I don't often find something so good- I wanted to share! The magazine retailed for $10.99 but considering it's a history lesson (homeschoolers perk up!) a recipe book, and pure pleasure all rolled up into an easy-to-carry or pack in -a -bag magazine for summer reading, I'd say it was worth every penny.

Hobby Farms is putting out the best publications for the farm and home genre; they really are my favorites right now.