05/08/2026
Looking ahead to this mothers day weekend! I just sent this mini memoir to my newsletter subscribers. Add your name to the Cheesecraft Club waitlist if you'd like to hear when the doors open. That will subscribe you to my emails too. https://urban-cheesecraft.kit.com/club
My journey into cheesemaking and from-scratch cooking didnât really begin with me. It began with my grandmother. Nana Julia to her grandkids.
She was a young widow who worked full-time in a clothing factory doing hard physical work all day. Standing. Pressing. Repeating the same motions for hours. And yet somehow, she managed to cook most meals from scratch.
I donât share this because I think women should have to âdo it all.â Quite the opposite. Looking back, I see women like my grandmother and mother were carrying enormous loads because they often had no other choice, and they deserved far more help, rest, and support than they received. In many ways, not much has changed.
What I admire is how resourceful and adaptive my grandmother was. She kept finding ways to nourish herself and her family while also trying to survive her own exhausting days.
Every Sunday, no matter how grown or busy everyone became, they knew there would be caldo simmering at her house. Big pots full of meaty bones, beans, hominy, vegetables, chiles, and love stretched to feed a crowd.
I watched her balance work and cooking long before people talked about work-life balance or meal planning. Over the years she slowly welcomed helpful tools into her kitchen: a crock pot, a blender, a microwave, an electric knife. Not because she loved shortcuts for the sake of shortcuts, but because she needed cooking to fit real life.
That stayed with me.
She let me help with everything, and I loved squeezing into that narrow kitchen just to be near her. I picked stones out of beans beside her. I lit her Winston 100s on the gas stove, rinsed veggies and shredded endless blocks of Monterrey Jack cheese. I learned to love foods many kids would run from, including crunchy cartilage, tripe, menudo, rich bone broth, beef tongue in red chile, and jiggly marrow slurped out of bones.
And every week, when we crossed the border into Tijuana, our first stops were always the tortillerĂa and the cheese counter. Our cheeses of choice were panela and cotija. Panela is tender and milky, while cotija is salty, dry, and gloriously stinky. Perfect for grating over enchiladas later that week.
Weâd stand right there on the busy sidewalk surrounded by the noise, colors, scents (not always good in the Tijuana centro!), and movement of Mexico. We rolled still-warm tortillas around hunks of soft cheese and ate our comforting tacos while the city buzzed around us.
Meanwhile, my mom was also working hard as a single mother. Cooking for her was often necessity more than joy. So somewhere between my grandmotherâs inspiration and resourcefulness and my motherâs reality, cooking became something deeper for me.
It became both survival and comfort.
I started cooking to help feed myself and my sister before my mom got home from work. And thankfully, because of the cooking joy my nana instilled in me, and because my mom trusted me with real responsibility instead of treating me like I was incapable, I never learned to resent it.
Instead I gained a deep sense of capability before I even had words for it. The belief that I could figure things out, feed myself, care for others, and move through the world with confidence.
I learned to feel empowered by cooking.
We lost my grandmother many years ago (remember those ci******es?), but I still feel close to her when I roast chiles on my cast iron comal for chiles rellenos or fry tortillas and onions for chilaquiles dripping with cheese as she used to make. These became the specialties we made often during my many years as a vegetarian. She didnât quite understand my choice, but she respected it and adapted with love.
That adaptability and generosity live in so many of my memories of her.
I inherited her molcajete, and it sits on my kitchen counter at all times. Sometimes I hold the worn lava stone pestle just to feel close to her again. She had it for decades, and I watched her grind roasted chiles and tomatoes into incredible salsa with love and a great appetite for life.
I am grateful that appetite got passed down to me too.
These are the roots of Urban Cheesecraft.
The belief that making food from scratch should feel nourishing, joyful, and actually possible in real life.
Not reserved for vacations.
Not reserved for âsomeday when life slows down.â
Not reserved for people with endless free time or fancy kitchens.
I donât believe making a tender fresh cheese has to take all day. Sometimes itâs faster than waiting for takeout. Often, the very act of heating milk, salting curds, or letting whey drip is the thing that helps us reset from the noise of a busy day.
Thatâs part of the heart behind Cheesecraft Club too.
As I build this monthly membership, I keep thinking about creating something that fits into real lives while still feeling meaningful and supportive.
Something creative that gives you a calm hour to yourself. A small reset and pause.
A gift to yourself instead of another task.
Simmer milk.
Watch steam rise.
Slice curd gently.
Listen to the whey drip.
Then eat warm fresh cheese and remember that a beautiful moment does not have to be earned first.
To all the mothers, grandmothers, aunties (me!), and caretakers who fed people through exhaustion, stress, tight budgets, grief, busy schedules, and long workdays: thank you.
You passed down much more than recipes.
You passed down little everyday acts of love, survival, and connection that still nourish us generations later.
Talk cheese soon,
Claudia
â
P.S. I think part of why I love cheesemaking so much is that like many foods it carries stories of family history, migration, survival, culture and celebration right alongside flavor. As I build Cheesecraft Club, Iâd love to weave more of those cultural threads into the cheeses we make together. Is there a cheese or food tradition youâd especially love to explore?
