Hi from Italy

[farmerbz]

Hellooooo everybody!  I live in Italy and milk 70 Oberhasli goats (love 'em) I cheese all my milk and sell at farmers markets, restaurants, stores.  I have everybook on cheese ever written and I spend all my free time looking up cheese sites.  As you can probably guess I am very very exciting ;)  I have been cheesing a long time now but mostly self taught and certainly don't know enough for my liking!  Looking forward to being helped and helping when I can.  Ciao ciao!

[DeejayDebi]

Welcome aboard farmerbz.

I spend most of my time researching cheeses from Italy. I have been trying to locate an Italian cheese making book that is in english, or just a good one with mush information on Italian cheeses I can translate.

[Cheese Head]

Hello farmerbz and welcome, well with that love and experience of cheese making you have certainly found the right place!

My family and I were in Italy last June for a great holiday, posted some pictures here.

Looking forward to your input and advice . . . ciao, John.

PS: Amazingly I think you are our first member from Italy, where in Italy are you living?

[zenith1]

At last- a genuine Italian cheese maker! Welcome to the forum- we all will probably be picking your brains.

[farmerbz]

SORRY!  I should have been more clear.  I LIVE in Italy for the past 20 years but I am originally American from the beautiful state of Michigan!  Hope nobody is disappointed :) I cam over when I was 26 and I'm still here (miss home though)
I have a great Italian cheesemakers book, I don't have it in front of me but will get the name to you.
I live in Tuscany (fantastically beautiful), 120 acres PLUS use of all the surrounding land (1000's of acres) as unfortunately no one has animals anymore and they invite me to bring my goats over to clean up the woods.  I started out making sheeps cheese, then added 5 cows, then bought the goats...so I started selling the sheep...sold my beloved cows and now just have the goats (still too many).  He is a pic of some of my cheese

[Cheese Head]

No disapointment! Many of our members are lving in one place but grew up in another, me I grew up in Vancouver Canada, but live in Houston.

That said, wow, what a picture! Not you . . . all those great looking cheeses! And they are just some of the ones you've made :o.

When we visited Italy, after Rome and renting a car we stayed only one night in Pienza, Tuscany, wonderful area, and we would definately be back.

Very envious and very much looking forward to your advice.

[DeejayDebi]

Ah no problem being from the US. I would love to spend some time in Italy lern tne fine art of Italian cheeses.

[Cheese Head]

Debi, in post above your said:

I spend most of my time researching cheeses from Italy. I have been trying to locate an Italian cheese making book that is in English, or just a good one with mush information on Italian cheeses I can translate.

There's an interesting book called "Italian Cheese: A Guide To Its Discovery and Appreciation, 293 Traditional Types", it's available at Amazon here in US. Amazon's description includes "each (cheese's) description covers how the cheese is made and matured".

I've just started a new thread on it in our Library > Books section in case someone has a review of it.

[DeejayDebi]

I bought that book a few years back - 2005. There is just enough information that with a little experinence you can develop your own recipes for just about anything in there.

I love that book! I highly recommend it if you love Italian cheeses. There does seem to be alot of French cheese as well.