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SAY CHEEESE!!

I love cheese. If I could eat cheese three times a day, I would. I would have it with toast in the morning, pizza for lunch and a bit for after dinner. I might have it with some crumbed eggplant parmigiana and for dessert, blue cheese with some moscato (dessert wine)…

…alas, I can’t… not anymore. As you get older, you realize you can’t thrash your body like you used to in your 20s. Sadly, eating cheese three or four times a day is considered extreme sports if you’re in your 30s. In your 30s: your stomach can’t process stuff as you used to in your 20s. There are other wonderful things about being the 30s, 40s and 50s but eating cheese every single moment of the day is probably not one of them.

Back to our trip in Modica… Alberto and Letizia are Sicilian cheese-makers. They run a small-scale family-run dairy business called La Letizia in Ragusa. They try to do everything without the use of machinery. It is a farm with a dozen or so cows on their property.

On the day Salvo and I visited Alberto and Letizia, they were making ricotta, mozzarella and a local cheese called Caciocavallo.

In the video I’ve put together for this episode, I’ve edited it in the order of ricotta, caciocavallo and then mozzarella to make it clear how the process works. In reality, the three cheeses are made in conjunction so it was so confusing to decipher which process belonged to which cheese in the edit.

With that said, as a cheese-lover, I could’ve easily spent more time with Alberto and Letizia. I think I can watch cheese-making for hours and still not get bored of it. The way how the texture changes from liquid > solid > squishy thing etc is like alchemy and I think it’s so cool. I’d love to make cheese myself, actually!

Oh, and the final result… eating fresh cheese. That is one of the best experiences of my stay in Sicily! Pure and fresh, whey oozing out of cheese is something I dream of. I actually have to force myself not to reminisce over it too much as I get an impulse to go and buy buffalo mozzarella from the deli to relive the experience. Of course, it’s not the same as it was in Sicily but hey… don’t be a snob Tak! Sorry, I’m not trying to make you feel jealous; I’m just writing this as a form of therapy knowing I cannot taste that simple pleasure.

Watch episode 1: Alberto’s Artisanal Cheese.