It was an office cooking challenge that first got Paul Broughton "stuck on the cheese thing".
Now he runs the Remutaka Pass Creamery and C'est Cheese shop in the Wairarapa town of Featherston.
Paul loves eating cheese but also fell in love with the process of making it, he tells Kathryn Ryan.
"On the weekends the kitchen at home would get turned into a cheese factory and no one would be allowed in.
"The neighbours started to wonder what was going on when a milk truck would turn up with crates and crates of milk."
At the time, Paul and his partner Sue were getting a little over the corporate world.
They took time off work and did a week-long commercial cheesemaking course at the New Zealand Cheese School and then dived in.
The couple decided Wairarapa was a logical place to set up a cheese shop – being in wine country and close to milk producers.
They found a historic 1875 building in Featherston with room enough for them to live on-site, have a shop and eventually a creamery.
C'est Cheese opened in 2013 – selling New Zealand cheese and local deli products – and Remutaka Pass Creamery opened last year.
Paul says he made the right call.
"The other day I was in the factory at 6:30 in the morning turning cheese and I looked up and I could see the commuter train heading to Wellington … yeah, nah, I was very happy."
Remutaka Pass Creamery focuses on producing blue cheese and soft cheeses as we're already spoilt for good cheddar and gouda in New Zealand, Paul says.
They use local organic milk – which only a small number of cheesemakers in this country do.
To get the "local terroir" into their soft and washed-rind cheeses, Paul has teamed up with local wineries: "The wine will go in and on the cheese to create the funky stinky soft cheese people love."
His advice to people who want to get into making cheese is to focus on cleanliness and using the best quality milk you can get. (Paul started with "silver top" from the supermarket.)
Also, very importantly, write down everything you do.
"There's nothing worse than making a really good cheese and not remembering how you did it."
