Come and celebrate cheese!

Feeling like eating lots of cheese? Want to learn about how it is made? Fascinated by dairy goats? Want to have more inspiration in the kitchen with your cheese? I bet there's a festival or conference coming up that might be of interest.

I've already mentioned the Sonoma Valley Cheese Conference. I'm very excited to be on a panel. Anything you'd like me to talk about? The focus is on blogging and I'm open to ideas and suggestions. February 21-24th are the dates. It starts off with a gathering at the Cheese School of San Francisco from 5pm - 8pm on Saturday the 21st of this month. For $25 you get to eat some exquisite cheese from some of my favorite producers and wash it down with some great wines and beer. The party moves to Sonoma on Sunday where you can eat more cheese, drink more beer and wine and meet more cheesemakers. Monday and Tuesday is the working part of the conference. Panels, guided tastings, workshops, and great networking opportunities. See Sheana's website if you want ticket information.

If that's not enough to satisfy you, there's the Fourth Annual Oregon Cheese Festival happening in March. Head to Central Point, home of Rogue Creamery on Saturday, March 15th. It is sponsored by the Oregon Cheese Guild and features my friends and neighbors and some damn fine cheese. I hope to make it this year. The cost is quite affordable and open to the public. $5 for cheese tastings and demos, $5 for wine. Wow! There's also a dinner in Ashland for $70 on Friday night. I'm checking my calendar right now.

In Petaluma, there's another cheese festival in March. California's Artisan Cheese Festival is happening March 20th-23rd. This is a big cheese appreciation event. There will be a marketplace, chef's demos, and seminars. The California Artisan Cheese Guild is playing a major role in the festival this year.

Looking ahead: May will feature the Seattle Cheese Festival May 16 & 17th at Pike Place Market. The American Cheese Society Conference will be in Austin, TX this year August 5th - 8th. Woo hoo! Good beer, good barbecue, and good cheese. Works for me!

I can't go to them all, but I'll try to hit a few of them. I've got some building about to commence around here. My $$$ will be ear-marked for other cheese endevors, namely our business. I can't say when ground breaking will be, but I'll looking at weeks rather than months at this point. This is BIG news!!!

There's no place like home

Photo: View of the Sunset District, Golden Gate Park, and Mt. Tamalpais.

I really miss the cultural diversity of the Bay Area. Why? Because most of my life seems to center around eating. I love the variety of cuisines that are available in and around San Francisco. We used to live in a neighborhood that was culturally mixed. The fringe benefit of this melting pot is the fact that I had lots of options when I went grocery shopping. When I craved good olives, I went to the Parkside Farmer's Market on Taraval. Their olive selection and feta selection cannot be beat. They used to be self serve, but now they tub them for you. I guess too many folks were grazing. Parkside also had the best milk prices and a great selection of fruits and veggies. I loved browsing through their aisles looking at the different spices, canned eggplant, and olive oils. The family that owns it is from Jordan, so I could find lots of middle eastern items without going far from home.

I often shopped in the central part of the Sunset District. This area is an eclectic mix of Asian, Eastern European, Irish, and all other ethnic groups that call San Francisco home. Parking was a nightmare in the area, and the stretch of Irving between 19th Ave and 26th Ave was/is always congested. Too many cars trying to skirt around double parked cars and lots of pedestrians. This is where I did a lot of my grocery shopping. I'd often park along Lincoln, next to Golden Gate Park and walk over one block to do my shopping. I loved looking at the fish swimming in tanks waiting to become someone's supper. Sunset Super, an Asian market, often had a good price on live Maine lobster, so I grab a pair for dinner if they were less that $7/pound.

As a treat I'd often grab a bubble tea at one of several local bubble tea outlets. Bubble tea, tapicoa drink, boba drinks, all the same thing and all tasty if they're fresh. My favorite was the Double Rainbow Ice Cream Parlor, but they went out of business and were replaced by an Asian chain called Quickly. Inferior bubble tea IMO. I'll still get bubble tea from Wonderful Foods Company. Or if I was on Clement Street, there's a candy shop across from my fave book store, Green Apple Books that makes great bubble tea (forgot the name.) Oh bubble tea. I love those tapioca pearl balls swimming in a milky tea bath. The texture isn't for everyone. My eldest sister has lived in Hong Kong and all over southeast Asia. She can't stand the drink. I love it. My favorite flavors are Green Tea with Milk at Tapioca Pearls and Mango Tea with Tapioca Pearls. I don't go for the jelly cubes or other options.

What do I do now that I'm living in rural splendor? I've gotta get into my car and drive. I've been slowly exploring my options around here and in Portland. Harder to find, I must admit. I'm looking for good Indian markets, Asian markets, and Middle Eastern markets. I love the Barbur World Foods in southwest Portland. They make pita bread to order! Heavenly. I'm still looking for a good Indian market.

Then there's H Mart. Shortly after we moved here, a huge Asian grocery store opened up in Tigard. This made all of the local papers. There was a lot of TV coverage, too. This store makes me feel right at home. It is a Korean chain based out of New Jersey. They cater to many styles of Asian cuisine. There's a huge bakery, sushi counter, noodle bar, and kim chi bar that takes up the front third of the store. They've got a great fish counter (yay!) and there's an entire aisle devoted to soy sauce, fish sauce and assorted high sodium delights. One section featured Asian housewares. I can replace my miso soup bowls here. They had special refrigerators aimed at Koreans. I've never seen a fridge that looks like a chest freezer with a button on it that says "ferment." Ferment? Oh! It is a kim chi fridge, I guess. Fancy!

I felt like I was back in San Francisco except that everyone was very polite and the place wasn't crowded. They even had a bubble tea bar! Now, when I feel homesick, I can jump in the car and wander through the aisles at H Mart. I'm not homesick as much as I used to be. I guess I'm getting used to this place. The stuff I used to think was weird and strange seems more normal now.

Also want to find a good place for dim sum. I'm told to head for the border. The Canadian border. The closest dim sum of quality is in Vancouver. If you know of anything closer, like in Portland, please let me know!

Sonoma Valley Cheese Conference, a panelist, and a cheese

Ladies and Gentlemen and children of all ages! We have achieved a milestone. The cheese is ready to be eaten!!

This cheese was born on Halloween 2008. I just cut into it on January 4th.

I just cut the second one on Feb. 1st.

I'm a very proud cheesemaker. These wheels turned out great! Good texture. Good moisture. Good flavor. The current wheel is better than the first. Yay!

If you want to try some of this fine cheese, you might have to stop by and say please.

If you happen to be around the town of Sonoma from Feb. 22 - Feb. 24, you'll find me at the Sonoma Valley Cheese Conference. Stop by and say hello! If you're lucky, I might let you try some of my cheese.

Even better than just eating my cheese, I'm on a panel. I get to discuss the finer points of blogging about cheese. Come and ask questions. Feel free to heckle, I'll only blog about you.

I attended the Sonoma Valley Cheese Conference last year and loved it. It is like a mini American Cheese Society conference with informative workshops, discussion, great networking opportunities, and a great gathering of cheese professionals. I love the town of Sonoma, so this is an added bonus. My friend Sheana Davis is the organizer. She pours her heart into making this happen and she does a great job. There is always lots of cheese, plenty of local beers, and a nice selection of wine to be consumed. Not a bad way to spend a few days. I hope the weather is nice and warm. I could use some more sunshine. Please find me and say hello.


Here's a brief description from the website:

The 7th annual Sonoma Valley Cheese Conference. Hosted by Sheana Davis & Ig Vella. Guest Keynote Speakers include Rob Kaufelt, Murray’s Cheese Shop, New York, Sid Cook, Carr Valley Cheese, Wisconsin, Petra Cooper, 5th Town Artisan Cheese Company, Ontario. Speaker Coordinator Gordon Edgar, Rainbow Grocery Cooperative. Conference Receptions Host, Rainbow Grocery, Cheese Plus and Bi Rite Market. Advisory Committee includes Ig Vella, Gordon Edgar, Sid Cook, Judy Creighton, Dee Harley, Harley Farm; Ray Bair, Cheese Plus; Sam Mogannam, Bi Rite, Mark Todd, The Cheese Dude. A very special Sonoma Dairy and Vineyard Tour, hosted by Levoroni Dairy & Vineyards. The Conference will be held at Sonoma Valley Inn & Conference Center.























A fine, three month old aged goat cheese. Semi-firm. Made in Dundee, Oregon.

Goo Goo Muck

Photo: Steve Mace from The Untamed Youth on bass, Dexter Romweber from the Flat Duo Jets, guitar, and Joel Trueblood from The Untamed Youth on drums. April 1990.

Lux Interior died today. Sad. I always liked The Cramps. They put on a great live show. Spent a few Halloweens in their company. I even took my mom to see them while I was in college. She was visiting me and the Cramps were playing Springfest, an annual event sponsored by my old college radio station, KCOU. As general manager of the station, I had some duties to perform so I set my mom at a reserved table in the front of the balcony of the Blue Note and I went off to make sure things were running smoothly. It was a phenomenal show. Local surf band, The Untamed Youth opened the show. Then the Flat Duo Jets tore things up and the Cramps wrapped up the evening in fine style. I think Mom enjoyed the show. Lux Interior sweated profusely and did his usual striptease act, and performed most of the show in his shiny, black leather underwear. Poison Ivy was her usual cool-as-a-cucumber self. Nothing like an evening of raunchy rockabilly, and trashy rock and roll to make a girl feel good. Mom still talks about that show.

Over it.

Photo: Jim clears the driveway of fallen branches as we try to leave home in December.



Here is a post I wrote around Christmas time when we were snowed out of our house. We got between 2.5 - 3 feet of snow during this two week "snow event." Not only could we not get out, once we did, we could not get back in.

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We're refugees at the moment. It has snowed every day for a week. Each day we'd get a little more snow, and a little more snow. Then the real storm hit. It dumped a ton of snow. Then the freezing rain moved in. It dumped a nice 1/2 inch layer of ice on top of the 18 inches of pre-existing snow. Then it snowed some more. O.K. Fine. Be that way.

Everything was icy. The trees, the deck, the driveway and the powerlines. What is this? I thought I was living in Oregon? This is more like the weather I experienced in Columbia, Missouri, during my college years. Alistair, our spirited dog, kept breaking through the surface of the ice with a big fracturing crunch. Then he was up to his shoulders in snow. He'd bound along, looking for the fun powdery stuff that was there the day before. I knew there was a good chance we might lose power. No power = no well water and no heat. I filled the bathtub with water. I pulled out pitchers and buckets and filled those, too. I've got a propane powered portable stove. I can cook. As it turns out, I didn't need to.

We lost power at 4:00 am. The cool house became a cold house. The well is powered by an electric pump. No water? We don't have a woodstove and our furnace is electric. No heat. The driveway is covered in a thick blanket of ice and snow. Our previous tracks are barely visible beneath the fresh layer of snow and ice that accumulated overnight. The driveway was barely manageable before the last dumping of snow. With this latest snowfall and ice storm, I was getting nervous and afraid we might get snowbound.

We decided we had to leave while we still could. We had no power and we could bring the dog and stay at Jim's uncle's place 12 miles away in McMinnville. We gathered some warm clothes, packed essential items and got out the brand new chains to put on our four wheel drive pickup truck. After struggling for 20 minutes in the cold, the chains were on and we were ready to head out the door. The cab of the truck was pretty full with all of our luggage as well as the dog. No room for our three kitties in their carriers. We fed the cats and decided to leave them and come back later. There was a chance that the power might return within the next 24 hours and they'd be fine. Our house is well insulated, it was a cool 60 degrees inside so they won't freeze. We got the dog, grabbed our newly purchased snow shovel, and some food that we didn't want to spoil, and locked up the house. Ever so slowly, I negotiated our driveway. The tires crushed through the ice. You could hear the breaking of the sheet of frozen water underneath the car. We had to stop at the last part of the driveway. Some big branches had broken off of some of the overhanging trees, blocking our path. Jim hopped out and took care of things and I met him at the bottom. Fairview Drive, our road sees a fair amount of traffic on a normal day. Not this day. A few tracks from other intrepid travelers broke up the white expanse of road. A plow had gone through and made a big wall of snow that we had to push through in order to reach the road.

Most of Oregon isn't prepared for snowfall like this. I was shocked to see that Fairview was plowed. It was still covered in snow, just slightly less than our driveway. There isn't much the county can do when it comes to heavy snowfall. Every town is left to fend for themselves. Most of the towns just give up and pray for warmer weather.


Photo: This is Oregon?? Dayton intersection of Hwy 99W and Hwy 18.


We drove down through Dundee towards Highway 99W. There were a few folks out walking around, surveying their now snowbound surroundings. They waved as we crawled down the hill. The truck made it down just fine. A tree had fallen across 9th Street, turning the street into single wide track. The highway was slushy, but manageable.

We drove slowly, following a milk truck that was delivering a fresh load of milk to the Farmer's Cooperative Creamery in McMinnville. Those cows have to be milked no matter what the weather. No rest for the creamery staff. Yet another reason why I don't want milking animals. Please just bring me your milk so that I might transform it into cheese.


Photo: Deep ruts and footprints in the snow.


My cheese! I have a bunch of fresh chevre in the freezer, currently thawing. Chevre freezes just fine. Lots of moisture in there and if you freeze it right, you won't get crystals. Don't ever freeze aged cheese, please. My aged cheeses are maturing nicely, and should ride out the cold weather just fine in the unopened fridge/cave.

We pulled into McMinnville, called Mac by the locals. The stores were open, the parking lots were full. There was a long line of cars out in front of the Les Schwaab Tire Store. They spilled into the street. Folks looking to buy chains or get studded tires. It was sleeting at this point. We pulled onto the sidestreets and drove slowly, navigating our way across the deep ruts of ice and snow and finally arrived at Wayne and Linda's house. Wayne had been busy, shoveling his sidewalk clearing a path to the street. We arrived unscathed and offloaded our stuff, including a crock pot full of turkey fricassee. I hate showing up empty-handed.


The rest of the afternoon was spent trying to keep up with the freezing rain, snow, and sleet. We walked the dog around the neighborhood. I worried about our cats. Dinner was great. Glad I could share the turkey dinner. We called it an early evening, exhausted from a very trying day.

Today we woke up to another 4-6 inches of snow. Great! Just what we need! More snow! I helped Wayne get a path clear down his driveway so he could get his car out. It took a while to get the ice and snow off of the truck, but we managed. The roads around the house are not plowed so getting around can be tricky, even with chains and 4WD.

After breakfast we got back in the truck and drove back to Dundee to see if our power was restored and check on the cats. The drive was scary. The road was barely plowed and at times you could barely make out where the road actually was. Everything was white, there was no sand or slushy bits to make our trail. It was slow going. In Dundee there were several trees down but they were no longer blocking the road. You could see all of the trees with their limbs hanging heavy with their burden of ice. Some were draped across the power lines, just moments away from unleashing more problems.

We managed to reach our driveway. It was buried in snow. I could sort of see where we had driven before, but I could see that there was a lot more snow on it now than when we had left. Not good. I put the truck in 4WD-low and set forth to have a go at our driveway. The first part is a steep incline. Then it levels out and swings through the hazelnut orchard, past our single-wide trailer palace, the shop and then swings up another steep slope up to the house. I figured if we could get up the first part, the last part would be the trickiest but we just might get through. We put the truck in gear and headed up the driveway. And got stuck. The tires began to spin, so I backed up a few feet and tried it again. We made it farther up the driveway before we got stuck again. Back a few feet, and forward again. It took three tries but we made it up to the orchard. What a sorry sight! All of the handsome trees were sagging with the weight of ice and snow. Their branches were brushing the surface of the snow. The car got stuck again. The snow is so deep that our front bumper was acting like a plow, pushing the snow ahead of us. Eventually the pile would get to high and we'd get stuck. Jim would get out, step through the knee high snow and shovel the pile away. Then we'd proceed. We finally came to a halt after sliding sideways on the last turn of the driveway before we reached the house. Close enough. We walked the rest of the way up to the house. The snow was over our knees. Not fun. We got the house open. It was still. No power. The cats were thrilled to see us. We fed them and started grabbing stuff for our long stay at our home away from home. More warm socks, more sweaters, long underwear, clothes, pet food, and the cats. We got them into their carriers and hauled everything and everyone back to the waiting truck.

I then had to retrace our path, driving in reverse since I could not turn around. Not easy, but I managed to get us back down the driveway and onto the road. The drive back to McMinnville was slow, but we were happy that everyone was safe. This is going to be a very different Christmas.

Photo: Jim and Alistair take refuge at Wayne and Linda's in McMinnville, Oregon.



The power company didn't believe that our power was out. I got a call from a lineman. He was standing at the bottom of our driveway trying to figure out why we didn't have power. He saw lights on at our neighbors and could hear the pumping station making noise. Jim talk to him and said that everyone has generators. If you hear noise, that must be a generator because the pumping station is normally silent. The lineman decided to investigate instead of looking for the downed power line that was on the corner of Fox Lane and Fairview Drive. He drove up our driveway and got stuck three times. He called us to apologize for tearing up our gravel road, but he couldn't move. Since we couldn't get there to help, we call in some help. Our neighbor, Ray has a big pickup truck with high clearance. He's also without power, so he was happy to hear that there was a lineman nearby stuck in the snow. He pulled the guy out. Ray took the lineman to the broken power line and we all had power again. A miracle!


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Too bad we had to wait five more days before we could get up the driveway. We finally hired someone to plow our drive. Sure enough, the lineman really did a number on our gravel. He didn't know how to drive in snow and just let the tires keep spinning until he dug a huge hole. I guess all of those years in Missouri taught me how to handle a car in wintery conditions. I still managed to slip and slide, but we never got totally stuck.

Now on our shopping list: wood stove and a generator.

Let it snow!

They say it doesn't happen much around here. Yet here it is. We're in the midst of a snow storm. Well, alright, maybe not a storm, but we've got some heavy snow showers and it is 27 degrees Fahrenheit and the temperature falling. The weather forecast is for more of the same and colder weather for the next week. Brrrr.

This is exciting stuff for those of us who grew up in California. It rarely snowed in San Francisco, maybe once every seven years. The snow never stayed around.

Here in the northwestern edge of the Willamette Valley, they get some good frost, and snow on the hills. Supposedly we see a dusting a couple of times a year. Well, this is our first year here, and we've got more than a dusting.

Enjoy the slide show.

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Cheesemaking at Oregon State University

Photo: OSU Pilot Plant.

Last month Jim and I spent a few days in Corvallis, Oregon, home of Oregon State University. We signed up for a three day cheesemaking class held on campus in The Food Science Department at Wiegand Hall.

Wiegand Hall is named for Professor Ernest Wiegand. He is a professor that made a huge impact in the science of food preservation, specifically with cherries. Cherries grow really well here in Oregon. From 1925-1931 he developed a way to preserve them in brine, trying to keep them from getting too soft and mushy. Before that, canned cherries were a European import preserved in liqueur, tasty, but expensive and mushy. Wiegand's bit in history? He found that making a brin by adding calcium chloride, a form of salt also used in cheesemaking, his cherries stayed firm. No more alcohol needed and we could preserve our homegrown cherries. The maraschino cherry was perfected! And cocktails have been thankful ever since.

His fellow professors continued his work and developed ways to bleach the cherries, and make them any color in the rainbow, blue, green, white, or red. The red ones contain the same food dye (red dye #40) used in gum or according to this website, Dorito's. A portrait of Professor Wiegand graces the lobby of the Food Science building, greeting visitors. There is an article next to his portrait, explaining his notoriety.

The cheesemaking class: The class was lead by Lisbeth Goddik, an Associate Professor at OSU. She's the dairy processing specialist for OSU's extension service. She's the person that fields all of the cheesemaking questions. There were about 25 students from a wide variety of backgrounds. Some had dairies, one was a chef with a cooking school, there were families who had goats, there was a fellow cheese monger and blogger, and several of the dairy inspectors from the Oregon Department of Agriculture were attending the class, too. The format was split between classroom lecture and hands-on cheesemaking. The mornings were spent learning about the dairy industry, how cheesemaking works, how do we keep a clean environment, and what's going on in the regulatory world. The fun stuff happened in the pilot plant down the hall.

Photo: Students gather around the vat pasteurizer.

The pilot plant at OSU is a big working laboratory for food science. There are big tanks for brewing beer, a bottling line, incubators, kettles, vats, pasteurizers, lab tables and several sinks. Stainless steel pipes run throughout the building, carrying steam, milk, or water to where it is needed. There is another lab specifically for winemaking. They were working on some Pinot Noir while we were there.

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Time for some cheesemaking. There were four cheese stations set up. We split up into groups to focus on one cheese, but we still could observe the other groups and see what was going on all around us. I worked on Havarti, Jim was on Team Camembert. My team's vat of milk took forever to set up. Don't know if it was the temperature of the room, if we added the wrong amount of rennet, or what the issue was, but we stood there waiting for our cheese to have a clean break for over an hour. It should have been around 30 minutes. But, the curd dictates when to cut, not the clock, so we waited and waited and waited. Finally we cut the curd, let the curd rest and began to stir. Havarti is a washed curd cheese, so we got to heat up water, drain some of the whey off, and added warm water back into the curds. Fun! Then we got to use a mult-form system to full the empty forms full of the knitting curds. Then came the flip with the fancy draining trays that OSU recently purchased from Servi Doryl.

Photo: C. van't Reit small pasteurizer at OSU

One of my favorite lectures was on Starter Cultures and their role in cheesemaking. This is a subject that I find fascinating and am beginning to get a better idea what they actually do in your cheese. Yes they acidify the milk, but they also affect flavor, texture, as well as control how it ripens down the road in the aging cave. The starter cultures develop enzymes that produce amino acids. The amino acids give us more flavor compounds and aromas. They can be buttery, nutty, toasty, fruity, etc. This is the stuff that makes me say "Yum!" when I eat a piece of cheese. Understanding bacterial cultures can help you predict what your final cheese will taste like and what texture it will have. The good cheesemaker is an artist coaxing the best flavor out of a cheese's potential. As many have told me, good cheese is made in the vat. If you start out with great potential, your final results will be that much better.

Photo: Tools for Queso Blanco.

We mixed things up the second day of cheesemaking. In the morning we all made Queso Blanco. This is a fresh, Mexican style cottage cheese made with whole milk. Quite easy to make, with quick results that we can eat in 90 minutes. It is acidified with buttermilk and set with junket, a tablet form of rennet also used in making pudding.

Photo: Fresh Queso Blanco.

We divided up into two groups. One group tried to make a drier cheese, the other wanted a moist cheese. It was good practice seeing how curd size, as well as the firmness of the curd mass at point of cutting will determine the amount of moisture left in the curd. The firmer the curd at the initial point of cutting, the softer the cheese, the smaller the size of the curd, the drier the cheese will be. These are all decisions made every time you make cheese.

Photo: Mary and Sasha work on Havarti.

We also got to switch cheeses in the Pilot Plant. Jim moved to Team Havarti and I went to Team Mozzarella. Jim became defacto team leader and got a lot of hands-on cheesemaking. Our Mozzarella didn't turn out. We used store bought milk and didn't add calcium chloride. The curd got over stirred and the curd never stretched. A waste! I was sad. I want to practice stretching mozzarella with someone who knows what they're doing.

Our evenings were spent socializing with fellow students. Jim and I went out to dinner at a brewpub with Sasha Davies of Cheese By Hand, and Professor Marc Bates formerly of Washington State University. Had a great time talking about living in Oregon, cheesemaking, and current events.

The second night we went to Evergreen, an Indian restaurant with Sasha and fellow students Pete and Cecil. More great conversations about what we all want to do, dairying, and what it takes to get going.

There are many reasons to continue to take cheesemaking classes. Not only do I continue to get new ideas and a better understanding of the process of cheesemaking, but I always meet some really nice people with similar interests. Now that I've been following this dream for a few years, I feel more comfortable asking questions and understanding the answers. I'll keep taking classes and working with others so long as there is someone to teach me. I am happy to show others what I've learned and maybe inspire them, too.

Photo: Goat cheese with green peppercorns from River's Edge Chevre.

We ate a lot of cheese. We had a sampling of cheddars from Tillamook. We also got a nice selection of goat cheeses from River's Edge Chevre. We also got to sample some cheeses from Europe. We were never hungry.

Photo: Brian of Oregon Gourmet Cheeses in his cave.

The final afternoon was a field trip to Oregon Gourmet Cheeses in Albany. Brian Richter graciously let our group come into his plant where we heard his story, try his cheese and pepper him with questions. The scale of his cheeseroom is modest. Not small, but efficient. He uses a 500 gallon milk tank as his vat. He makes both raw as well as pasteurized cheeses. His raw milk Sublimity is dense, like an alpine style cheese. The texture is well knit and it is chewy like a tootsie roll, but not sticky. He likes to add dried herbs like lavender and herbes des provence to some of his wheels. Like most cheesemakers, he'd love to have more aging room and is at capacity. I'd like to visit him again so I can ask more questions. Albany is about an hour away. This would be an easy repeat trip.