Whey of Life: Haloumi- Deal Breaker?

A lot of food bloggers have posted in recent days, annoyed with an article that appeared in the New York Times by Kim Severson about recipe “deal breakers.” A deal breaker can be a technique, ingredient, or tool that can cause you such frustration that you give up all hope and order take-out Chinese instead. Severson cited obvious deal breakers from recipes that required “wild boar from hills surrounding Sante Fe,” “48 tender young grapevine leaves,” and “fillet and butterfly 12 4-inch anchovies.” But she also spoke with so-called cooks who won’t truss chickens, deep-fry- or char bell peppers. Come on, I can find any excuse to deep-fry. All I’m going to say is that a recipe is a guideline and can be manipulated to accommodate obscure ingredients, level of skill, and lack of proper equipment. EXCEPT IN THE CASE OF MAKING CHEESE! A recipe must be followed as written- the slightest deviation can yield a totally different product. This is why I spent 9 hours last Monday making haloumi.
It happened so innocently. “Wouldn’t it be great if we made haloumi?” I said to Jeremy, “it’s summer, time for grilling, we could sell it for Fourth of July.” “Sure, you can make haloumi if you want,” he responded with a look on his face that yelled SUCKER! I had no idea what I was getting into. The recipe seemed simple enough. I would first pasteurize, then culture, set with rennet, cut, stir, mold, press, press again, cut large blocks up into small 3 inch squares, reheat reserved whey to 180 degrees, cook squares in whey for 1 hour until they floated, pull cheese out of steaming hot whey bath and set out on draining table to cool for 20 minutes, then sprinkle with salt, and brine the following morning! Got all that? Everything was going great until I had to fish roughly 50 pounds of haloumi out of the extremely hot whey with a colander you might use for draining pasta. Obviously I am missing some proper equipment. What the recipe neglected to let me know is that I would need an electric pressure washer, an extremely caustic soap, and a hell of a lot of elbow grease to clean the tank after all was said and done. When I reheated the whey, albumin proteins coagulated making ricotta, which was a sweet bonus, but it also melted to the sides of the cheese vat. Jeremy walked in at this point to find me muttering all kinds of profanities under my breath as I wielded the pressure washer like some kind of vigilante cheesemaker. “If I ever suggest we make haloumi again, remind me of this moment,” I said. However, I had yet to taste my wares. A few days later I hauled my charcoal grill and some haloumi to the Lake Ella Farmer’s Market where I grilled up some skewers with delicious tomatoes from Turkey Hill Farm. Amazing!
So was making haloumi a deal breaker after all? No. I definately don’t want to make this all the time, but that’s probably why this tastes so good. All of the steps were necessary to yield the end product, which was delicious and worth all the sweat, cursing and extra scrubbing. Sometimes the deal breaker can actually be the deal maker!