There is a taste that a lot of us carried from Bangladesh and quietly gave up on finding here. White, slightly salty, soft-yet-firm ponir, pressed in a little bamboo basket, made in the same way for generations by families who have kept this craft alive. The kind of cheese that squeaks when you chew it. The kind that makes you close your eyes for a second.

I moved to Ottawa and that taste disappeared from my life.

I should tell you something about myself. I like all kinds of cheese. Soft, hard, bland, salty, stinky, cooked, melted, inside things, on top of things, with fruit, with crackers, with bread. The list goes on. Let’s just say I like cheese.

But Aushtogram ponir is not just any cheese to me. I loved it from the first time I tasted it. I could never find anything remotely close to it anywhere else. The only time I got to have it was when I travelled back to Bangladesh, or when a family member brought some back. It was never enough.

So I decided to learn to make it myself.

I have a gift from my mother — the ability to decipher how things are made and to replicate them. I decided to use it.

I started the way I start most things: obsessively. I watched cheese-making videos. I read about techniques. I changed ingredients. I made batches, rewatched the videos, read again, made more batches. I bought cheese moulds from Amazon. The results were okay — but I am a firm believer that anything worth eating is 60% presentation and 40% taste. My cheese tasted close but did not look right. It didn’t have the authentic form. And it didn’t have consistent eyes — the small holes you see in a sliced wheel, not large like Swiss cheese but distinctive, beautiful, a sign that something real is happening inside.

I needed the basket.

On a visit to Bangladesh I tried to find the baskets in Dhaka. I had no idea how hard it would be. I left that trip without any. But I did manage to buy a few wheels of ponir to bring back, and I convinced the seller to part with a couple of his baskets — at a considerable premium, I should say. When I got them home I realized they were designed for one kilogram wheels. Far too large for my experiments.

So I went to the source.

Through my cousin — who is from Aushtogram himself, part of the close-knit family network that my mother’s side has always maintained, the kind of closeness that perhaps my generation is the last to fully know — I found an artisan who would have baskets made to my specification. Five hundred grams. On another visit I went to see him. My brother came with me, and one of my closest friends. We drove part of the way, took a boat ride, then motorcycles for the last stretch. Another cousin arranged escorts. It was quite an adventure.

The trip to Aushtogram. My brother, my friend, and me at the sign. The haor at dawn. A rest stop along the way as we wait for the boat to take us to Aushtogram. And the reason we came — the artisan’s ponir.

I got to see how this cheese has been made for generations. I will say this — there is an old adage that one should never see sausage being made. I understood it that day. I have never heard of anyone getting sick from Aushtogram ponir, and I have no doubt the artisans know exactly what they are doing. But I knew then that I would be bringing my own approach to this craft. Food safety standards. Consistency. Every batch, every season. The traditional methods and techniques — combined with a modern understanding of what keeps food safe and good.

It reminds me of home. Of my mother’s love. Of her innovative and adventurous cooking style. Of the many ways she taught me to eat this cheese. Of how food fuses cultures together. Of how her adventurous streak can live on through me.

My father would have it with bakharkhani or toast biscuits and his morning tea. I am more like my mother. I love it every way I can think of — and I am always finding new ways.

I have been making this cheese for a couple of years now. With every batch I get better. But perfection is hard to achieve and I am not sure I ever will achieve it. That gap is what keeps me going.

The breakthrough came on a batch not long ago. I sliced through the first wheel and looked at the eyes. Then I let out a sound that brought my wife running from the other room, convinced something terrible had happened.

Eight wheels. Ottawa. The batch that made me scream.

It hadn’t. Quite the opposite.

UUUUFFFFFF.

That was me, tasting something that finally felt like home.

This is Journal Entry 01. More entries — about the craft, the cheese, the experiments, and the ways to eat it — will follow with every batch.