Skylar held the gallon of milk, staring at the expiration date. One day too many, but Skylar was sure John had poured the milk over his cereal earlier.
“Hey John?”
“What?” His voice came from the dining room.
“How do you tell the milk is still good?”
“Check the date!”
“It says yesterday!”
“Oh.” John came into the room, holding his tablet. “Well, I had some earlier, so it is fine.”
Skylar opened the milk and poured it into a glass. After taking a couple gulps Skylar looked at John. “Okay, so how do you tell the milk is bad if it is still good after the date?”
John twirled the stylus between his fingers, glancing up from his drawing. “Smell. If it smells bad, it is bad.”
Skylar swirled the white liquid in their glass. “But, cheese is made from spoiled milk.”
“I mean…” He shrugged. “Yeah, but, they do that carefully. They use specific acids, or bacteria in order to… I guess ferment the milk.”
“So, you’re saying we can’t turn this milk into cheese?” Skylar shook the gallon.
“Uh,” John saved the partially sketched shadow creature and opened google. He frowned. “Maybe?” Skylar moved over to look over his shoulder. “If we heat up the milk until well, we can see the curds…”
“Then we strain, and squeeze it through some cheesecloth to form one giant curd…” Skylar read a few steps ahead.
“Then, well, we’d be almost done. But…”
“I want to try it.” Skylar bounced on their toes.
“We have less than a quarter gallon, we won’t get much cheese considering a gallon barely makes any.”
“Fine.” Skylar pouted. “I guess we don’t have much time before we meet Emily for more shopping.”
“Exactly. So finish your milk and we can go.” John pulled out a stool and went back to sketching.
Word count: 307
