endings and loose ends

Last night, I went to dinner at the home of my Documentary Film Production professor and was fed delicious steak and a lot of goat cheese, among other things. This event marked the last official professor interaction that I had as a Haverford student. How simultaneously terrifying and satisfying.

After dinner, faced with the option to attend Senior Week Quizzo, I decided to lag behind to ask another professor how he shifted focus from physics to film/photography/rhetoric/philosophy/conceptual art in his graduate work and current course offerings. This conversation ended up ebbing and evolving into a nearly three-hour sesh that quadrupled the length of my summer reading list. The recommendations, combined with a cup of the strongest coffee I have ever sipped, kept me up until sunlight saving PDFs to my desktop. I have about 1,500 pages to read!

Part of my Senior Week academic all-nighter (nice one, Gen) involved organizing my recipe bookmarks and transferring some of them to my Moleskine recipe journal. As my college days are dwindling, I am trying to avoid food shopping to minimize the amount of stuff I have to lug back to New Jersey. Working with the severely limited and surprisingly diverse ingredient selection has been quite the exciting challenge, complete with creative recipe adaptations hoping for the best. Today, I made daal with golden lentils and coconut milk and I am in the process of making mung bean-millet falafel. Tomorrow, I’m going to make some fresh pita with the rest of my flour and life is going to get pretty raucously delicious, I reckon.

Apologies for the lack of pictures. My camera was stolen or I lost it or something, but hopefully I will buy a new one next week before shipping off to my WWOOFing adventure.

instead of packing

Look at that face!

Tonight is one of four nights between my San Diego stay and my Haverford departure, so spending time with my brother was also a priority. Solution? Make goat cheese with Johnny. kiss my spatula has an absolutely gorgeous blog post about making homemade goat cheese that inspired me to make some myself. I made some in the past with condensed goat’s milk – mistake. This one came out so much better.

As we looked at the recipe on, we found out that the blogger pairs her recipes with songs. The goat cheese pairing was a Yann Teirsen song from the Amelie soundtrack, one that my brother is learning how to play on the piano. How perfect!

Goat Cheese with Lemon, Herbs, and Pine Nuts

1 qt. goat’s milk (we got ours at Trader Joe’s)
1/4 c. lemon juice, or the juice of three medium-large lemons
2 tsp. lemon zest
2 tbsp. pine nuts, finely chopped
1 tsp. herbes de Provence
1/4 tsp. garlic powder
Pinch of red pepper flakes
Salt and pepper

Place several layers of cheese cloth in a medium-sized mesh strainer resting in a bowl.

Heat the goat’s milk to 180° (measured with a candy thermometer) in a saucepan over low heat. While it is heating, zest the lemon, and squeeze the juice into a measuring cup until you have over one-quarter cup. Be careful to attend to the milk, though, because you don’t want it to surpass that temperature because it may start to boil or even caramelize. Once the appropriate temperature has been reached, remove the saucepan from the heat and stir in the lemon juice.

Let it sit for 15-20 seconds. This time allows it to curdle. You can let it sit for more time; in fact, I chopped the pine nuts together with the lemon zest, herbs, and salt for about a minute while letting the lemon juice and the warm milk mix n’ mingle.

Pour the liquid conglomerate into the cheese cloth-lined strainer. As it strains, a very watery, clear liquid should strain, leaving the curdled cheese behind. If it strains through very fast and cloudy, you can return the mixture to the saucepan and repeat the process, adding more lemon juice once the temperature has reached 180°.

Let it sit for 1-2 hours, or until it reaches your desired consistency. Gather the cheese cloth ends in a bundle, and squeeze the remaining water out. Then, transfer goat cheese off the cheese cloth into a bowl.

Mix in the flavorings, and eat.