You can’t keep a good woman down! Kim Mack works full time as a Contracts Analyst for the County of Sacramento Department of Human Assistance. She has a son, 35, two stepdaughters 27 and 29, a grandson 6 and a granddaughter 3.
With her grandkids – Paige and Bobby
You’d think that would be enough, but in her “spare” time, Kim runs a business called Scratch Made Life, where she teaches classes in kombucha, canning & pickling, baking, pasta making and cheesemaking.
Gouda class in September
She offers a full schedule of classes for making Camembert, Cheese Curds & Poutine, Baby Swiss, Cambozola (Creamy Blue Brie), Gruyere, Feta, Asiago, etc. (click here).
This is the next class offered, and there are many more classes scheduled through April.
She limits her cheesemaking classes to 10 or less because she teaches them in her kitchen.
Some of her other classes are larger and she sets them up in her living room.
Sourdough class
Kim’s Story
I started making cheese about a year and a half ago…
I used to sell my baked goods and cannoli was one of my most requested items.
I had an online bakery for about two years but that ended about four years ago – just too much with a full time job. I still enjoy baking for friends and family but cheesemaking has surpassed it as my passion!
Grocery store ricotta doesn’t cut it for the quality needed for cannoli, so I was spending $30-35 dollars at a high end specialty market to get my ricotta. I thought to myself, “How hard can this be to make?” I found a recipe for whole milk ricotta and it was easy and it was wonderful so, I wondered what it would be like to make other cheeses. The passion was born.
Dill Havarti
Swiss
Mozzarella with homegrown basil in it
Cheddar
Dunlop cheese – a cheddar like Scottish cheese with buttery and nutty flavors – fresh out of the mold
Cheesemaking is so much fun and I am blown away by how fast I have taken to it! I love being able to take my knowledge to try to re-create cheeses that I don’t have an exact step-by-step recipe for (but which I can figure out – most of the time).
Making cheese with my grandchildren. I always heard how wonderful it was to be a grandparent but I didn’t understand how it could be so much more than being a parent – now I get it.
Since I started making cheese, I have made 40 different types and I have been teaching classes for a year.
Preparing for a class
Making Muenster
Waxing a Parm
I was posting cheese pics on Facebook when a friend asked if I would be willing to teach others how to make cheese. So I said sure and my business/hobby was born.
Shopping for a class
Little kits to send home with her students
I limit the participants in cheese classes to 10. It is a good size for my kitchen and keeps the class small enough that I can work with everyone, really pay attention to what is going on and have a lot of fun with the class.
It has really been a blast teaching these classes, meeting really awesome people and growing our cheese making community in Northern California. When I first started making cheese, I searched far and wide to connect with other home cheese makers and it was a difficult task. But now, through Scratch Made Life, I am meeting them and teaching them.
Cheeses I put out for my holiday party
I don’t teach just cheesemaking – although it is the majority of my classes because there is such a void in that area – I also teach baking, canning, pickling, basic gardening, and classes that I call “putting it all together.” For example – It may be a pizza class, so we make mozzarella, ricotta, the crust and the sauces, all from scratch.
Kim’s fabulous garden
Right now I have a Pasta, Pasta and a Poutine class scheduled!
Cheese curds and feta
Recently, I had the experience of a lifetime (for this city girl). I went to a sheep dairy and got to milk sheep.
It was SO much fun. Then I went home and made a four gallon batch of Gouda and a two gallon batch of Camembert with that fresh, beautiful sheep’s milk. Just amazing to work with!
Gouda made yesterday with the raw sheep’s milk. Typically you get a yield of about one pound of cheese to a gallon of milk. This was a four gallon batch. As you can see, I got almost five pounds of cheese – awesome! This is due to the fact that it is raw milk and there is a higher fat content in sheep’s milk.
I love making things from scratch (thus the business name “Scratch Made Life”) which fits right in with Sacramento being the Farm to Fork capital! You can see that most of by hobbies are culinary related, as that is where I find the majority of my talents are.
Sourdough bread
Kombucha
Jalapeno jelly made with jalapenos from my garden
Soap
I tell beginning cheese makers to be patient, do their research and follow the recipe EXACTLY! (And then I tell them to take my classes.)
