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“Leonard,” Spock said.
“Mmmm,” Leonard said, which was supposed to be “Morning,” and might have been if he hadn’t been so tired.
“We need to do something about the milk, there are still six and a half gallons in the fridge outside, and I have used the last of the jars with the milk from this morning.”
He handed Leonard a latte and Leonard’s good intentions to reply were lost in his joy about the caffeine. The sun was barely risen, and only just managed to peak through the early morning fog to shine through the (open, thank you Spock) blinds and illuminate the room. His hands were full of latte, which made it difficult to sit up enough to actually drink it. Spock, a cruel and two-faced morning person, ripped the mug from his hands and told him to sit properly before he spilled coffee all over the clean sheets. Leonard sat.
The coffee was returned to him, and because Leonard was forgiving, he leaned his head against Spock’s shoulder and said thank you.
“Perhaps you should drink some before you fall asleep sitting up.” The exasperation had long faded from such statements. This morning, it was accompanied by a kiss to Leonard’s forehead.
“Mmmm.”
“Drink your coffee, Leonard.”
“Cheese.”
Spock kissed him again. “I would suggest mozzarella. The cheese press is still in use.”
Leonard pulled away to sip his coffee and try to blink his eyes into focus. Spock emerged from the blurry haze of light and fuzz. He was wearing the particularly hideous sweater Jim had found for him at a thrift shop. Even so, he was beautiful. He had obviously not bothered to comb his hair before attending to the goats, it was still slightly wavy like it only was in the mornings or right after it dried.
“Mozzarella it is then.”
“Perhaps another soft cheese as well.”
“What do I look like to you?” Leonard asked. “A cheese maker? I have a job you know.”
“It’s Sunday,” Spock said, and stood up to disappear. What would have been a graceful and composed exit characteristic of Spock’s peace and positive relationship with being awake for the sunrise was foiled by the cat winding around his legs and almost tripping him. Leonard snorted and got latte foam on his nose.
When Leonard made his way down to the kitchen Spock had gone already, Leonard assumed to tend the chickens, but one could never be sure with Spock. Neshkura had run down ahead of him and was doing her damnedest to convince him that Spock had forgotten to feed her. He ignored her until he had some eggs scrambled and then she came running when he dropped a half teaspoon in her bowl.
Spock had not been exaggerating. There was a single lonely pint jar sitting in the cabinet and a random collection of extra lids and rings sitting in the basket, for once, not overflowing. The fridge in the garage was overflowing, and creatively organized so that instead of the older jars being mostly at the back and the newer jars being mostly at the front, Spock had mixed them all up to sort them and stack the smaller ones all together. It looked as though he had milked entirely into pint jars that morning, which was obnoxious, but the half gallons were all full, forming a barricade around the two gallon jugs sitting at the far back of the fridge.
It took roughly fifteen minutes for Leonard to identify and pull out roughly two and a half gallon of the oldest milk from three days ago. He had wasted five minutes searching for the jars from four days ago before realizing that Spock had probably pulled those ones out already and brought them inside. It didn’t matter. He left the fridge neither organized by date or size, and figured he’d leave future-him to deal with his own frustration or Spock’s disapproval when it was time to find a place for the results of the evening milking.
With the jars strewn about the counter and Neshkura sitting in her perch at the window judging his poor planning, he played Tetris on the stove with the largest pot and the cast-irons before giving up and making space on the counter so he could get out the pot he used as a double boiler. The large bowl had not been put away in the right spot, and he spent a solid three minutes searching for it before discovering it was still sitting in the drying rack right in plain sight.
“Don’t you say anything,” he told Neshkura. She turned her head sharply to look at him, which Leonard assumed meant he could count on her discretion.
The rest of the prepping process went more smoothly. The liquid rennet, citric acid, thermometer, and cheese salt had permanent places in the kitchen. Leonard didn’t have every recipe memorized, but mozzarella was the fastest and one of the easiest to give away, and he could probably go through the motions while asleep.
Four and a half teaspoons of citric acid and the water in the pot, milk, heat and stir. At 88 degrees he searched for his rennet and water amid the crowd of empty jars and watched with detached satisfaction as he mixed it for the time it took to hum the alphabet song slowly. Spock could count out thirty seconds in his head and come out almost exact, but Leonard did not care quite so much about accuracy and counting was a decidedly boring way to go about keeping time.
When it was mixed, he set his slotted spoon aside and set the timer for ten minutes, which left him with the mess of jars. He put them in the sink and went back to the outside fridge. If he used the microwave instead of the waterbath he could use the two medium pans and get a full two and a half gallons of soft lemon cheese going before the mozzarella was finished. He stared at the jars for several seconds trying to think if he did start the curds now if would have enough time to finish the mozzarella before the lemon cheese would need dealing with, and decided he wouldn’t. Spock would approve of using fewer pans, and the microwave was a hassle. He always ended up dripping whey everywhere and while Neshkura might like it Leonard didn’t want to have to deal with the mess.
When he came back to the kitchen, he discovered they didn’t even have enough lemons picked yet anyway. Leonard grabbed a paper bag and almost collided with Spock coming in from the backyard.
“Sorry.”
“You aren’t wearing shoes,” Spock said.
“I’m just getting lemons.”
Spock eyed his slippers with great skepticism. “The ground is damp.”
“They’ll dry.”
“I can pick some for you.”
Leonard did not bother hiding his eyeroll as Spock took the bag from him.
“You’re a control freak, you know that?”
“Perhaps I simply do not want your dirty slippers tracking mud about the house,” Spock called back. The door slid shut before he quite finished and Leonard did not care enough to reply. He spent the remaining five minutes on his timer rinsing the jars and loading them in the dishwasher, which was thankfully mostly empty.
Spock was back before he finished, bag full of lemons.
“Would you like any assistance?”
“Maybe you can wash the pot while I do the curd,” Leonard suggested. “I was thinking lemon cheese after the mozzarella.”
Spock nodded. “I will make the lemon juice now then.”
The timer beeped and Leonard went to check his curd. It separated cleanly from the edge of the pot. The cheese knife appeared at his elbow and he muttered something that vaguely sounded like thank you, or was close enough at least for Spock to get the message.
He did his best to cut the curd evenly, but as always it swirled around in the pot and his grid became rather wiggly. Spock scooted around him to rummage in a drawer for the nicer lemon squeezer.
“I think it’s it got put in the cupboard,” Leonard told him.
With his curd cut in a passable enough grid, Leonard excavated the slotted spoon from the drawer and turned the heat back on. He set the thermometer back in the clip on the edge of the pot and watched the temperature rise slowly as he stirred. When it was close enough, he turned to get the colander only to discover Spock still had the sink full of lemons.
“I need to drain the whey.”
Spock said nothing, but piled his lemons haphazardly over the drying rack and cutting board. Leonard put the colander in the sink and turned the stove all the way off before carefully lifting the pot and bringing it with him to the lip of the sink. The curd had been cooperative and the whey was now opaque and milky again, but he scooped up as many accumulations of curd as he could before pouring the rest of they whey down the drain so that the last smaller bits could fall into the colander.
“Would you like me to turn the burner on for the water?” Spock asked.
“Please.”
Leonard left the curd to drain for a moment while he put on double gloves. Spock might have hands of asbestos, but he didn’t. He prodded at the curd in the colander when he came back and turned it over a few times to let more whey drain off before he added the first teaspoon of salt. When it had solidified slightly more, the picked the whole colander and pot up and moved back to the stove to give Spock more room again. Leonard massaged the salt in and let more whey drain out as he waited for the water to heat up. He should have done it while he was heating his whey, but it had just slipped his mind. Spock’s pile of lemon rinds grew steadily.
Luckily by the time Spock had his several cups of lemon juice squeezed, the water was hot and Leonard was ready to tip the curd into the bowl and let Spock wash the large pot. As an afterthought he grabbed the thermometer out of the water and stuck it in his curd while it heated. Spock handed him a spoon to mix with and Leonard swirled it around a few times as the temperature crept upwards, watching more whey drain out.
“Can I interrupt you to pour this out?
Spock looked over from the sink. “Can it wait another thirty seconds for me to finish scrubbing the pan?”
“Suppose.”
Spock continued washing and Leonard decided a hundred and seven degrees was warm enough to start picking the curd up with his hands. It was still a soupy sort of mess, but he did his best to encourage it.
“I am ready now,” Spock said. He was carrying the pot, still dripping wet, back over to the stove. Leonard seized the opportunity to pour the excess whey out of the extra bowl.
He returned to the pan and kept mixing it to ensure it heated evenly, and eventually it looked as thought it was nearing 135 degrees and he left the thermometer on the counter, gathering the curd in his hands. It was wet and mostly tried to slop back in the colander, but he pulled on it and it good naturedly began to coalesce slightly more. When he thought it was appropriately elastic, he added the second half of the salt. The curd at this stage could transition very quickly from unworked goop into overstretched disappointment. Spock helped him with quality control by stealing several tiny chunks.
“It’s done now,” Leonard told him as he pinched off another, larger bite. “Stop it you’re ruining the shape.”
Spock shoved half his piece in Leonard’s mouth, effectively cutting off further argument. It tasted nice.
Leonard left the water boiling purposelessly and took his bowl to the sink to fill with cold water, and Spock helpfully brought out the ice tray.
“Didn’t we used to have more jars?” Leonard asked.
“Three gallons worth are still with Scotty,” Spock reminded him.
Leonard hummed.
Despite their best efforts, the kitchen was still something of a mess, and only grew more chaotic by the time Spock had brought the milk in for the lemon cheese. Leonard left him to put the new empty jars in the dishwasher and was content to stir the second batch of milk as it heated. Lemon cheese was easy enough. Milk, heat, lemon juice, pour the curds in a cheese cloth and hang. And add salt, eventually. He often forgot that step and Spock liked to complain about it. Leonard didn’t quite see why it was a problem to add the salt when you actually ate the cheese, it was soft anyway. He no longer bothered hashing the argument out though, and when he forgot Spock usually saved rolling his eyes for when Leonard wasn’t looking.
Then with the mozzarella taken out of the ice bath and put in the fridge, the lemon cheese hanging in the cheese cloth, the pile of dishes to wash by hand growing, and Spock abandoned him to investigate a problem he had discovered with the goats’ automatic waterer, Leonard gave Neshkura a very tiny bit of curd that had dropped on the counter and grabbed a pear to take to the back porch. That was concrete and clean enough that Spock wouldn’t notice if he kept on his slippers. Unfortunately it wasn’t particularly warm out yet, still. Neshkura stayed inside judging his choices.
Spock came back inside just as Leonard was taking the cheese out of the cloth.
“Did you get the thing fixed?”
“I believe so. I have replaced one of the valves.”
“Hmm.”
Spock peaked over his shoulder at the Tupperware. “Did you remember to add salt?”
Leonard hadn’t.
Spock took some of the unsalted cheese for comparison and looked smug about it.
“I never said the unsalted cheese was better,” Leonard protested, “I’m just saying it isn’t bad. And go shower. I won’t start the dishwasher yet.”
“Very well.”
Leonard left the dishwasher on delay and the sink mostly full and followed Spock upstairs to get dressed properly.