Cheese and things..

The cheese - the mighty Brie - has sat uncovered in one of the wine fridges at about 14-15 degrees Celsius for the past ten days. She (I think a cheese should probably be a she, don't you?) started life as a very soft 2.2 kg, and in the drying stage (not necessarily a technical term) has dropped a full kilo.

Our (hopefully) beautiful cheese is now weighing in at 1.24 kg, and smells just like it should (I think). There is a good dusting of mould over its surface, and the rind is firm with a little give. It isn't as well covered in mould as I thought it might be, but it has had the full ten days suggested in the recipe. It is now wrapped to mature for the next couple of weeks before we cut into what we hope will be a creamy molten centered mass of cheesy goodness. Either that, or I head straight back to the drawing board.

The Brie just before wrapping... very different from the original! (see previous blog)

MacK... our dear boy has rapidly moved on from his tentative two step shuffle. He now walks pretty much everywhere, and has two main modes of movement. There is the arms-out-in-front 'zombie walk', and the arms-in-the-air 'orangutan' walk. Both highly effective, and give him the balance he needs.

 MacK has taken to sitting in his toybox. Not that he will fit for long!

He is very strong, and regularly proves it, to our consternation. Last night, he was playing in one of 'his' drawers in the kitchen, and lifted out a rather heavy pottery quiche dish and went all Greek on it. There won't be any invitations for quiche for the next while... While sitting on the lawn the other day, he was playing with the petanque set. He reached in, and pulled out a ball in each hand. We ere amazed, as the balls are not light at all. The funny bit came when he stood up and started carrying one of the balls around. He was fine while the ball was in front, but when he tried to carry it in one hand, his equilibrium went out the window. As he lifted his right foot off the ground, the extra weight of the ball in his right hand caused him to topple straight over. Very funny!