Julia Makienko Biography

Chef Vasily Emelianenko: “My wife pushed me professionally” Passion. Julia Makienko: My parents are far from cooking. Moreover, mom does not know how to cook. She is a professional artist, draws computer games. But, as you know, creative people - they are not particularly family. Therefore, I cooked in the house for the most part I. And I invented, from childhood.

We had a thick culinary book covered with a layer of dust, because no one in life opened it. I looked at the pictures and thought: “So, this is what I have in the refrigerator, it is also, let's try to do something from this.” Not from the first, but from the second time it usually turned out. So the profession brought me a children's interest. Is this not your case?

Julia Makienko: No. Mom thought that I would be either a translator, or I would also draw like her. Because I, as a good daughter, studied at an art school. How did it happen? Julia Makienko: Just one day I came to the store and realized that there was no normal cheese on the shelves. And literally a week later, she flew to her first training in Italy. Later there was a continuing education at the Institute of Military Delishes and Cheese in Uglich, and more than 20 internships in European cheese men.

So in milk I understand no worse than in a confectionery. It is from the confectionery background that my author's recipes for cheese ice cream, cottage cheese and cheese sweets are growing. To stand out in the market, you need to offer something more than just cheese. Julia Makienko: They are usually organized through friends. Sometimes I just googled, went to some local guide, through which I found the contacts of the cheese man who was interested in me and agreed directly with it.

Not all cheese people let you in. They prefer not to give out their secrets. Julia Makienko: Basically, you pay only a flight. In production, you do not pay money for training and housing. You are a full -fledged employee, in fact, a family member. It was not that I woke up at 12 o’clock in the afternoon, went lazily along the cheese car, wrote something to the notebook, took it to the phone and went for a walk.

No, I got up at four in the morning, took milk and, together with all the guys, fiddled until two in the morning. And the next day I have a day off. You go there to work there and study in parallel. And I came up with, since childhood. " Julia Makienko: I have very good English and French, Italian - only a base. For six months I took the Italian lessons, because on small family cheese men somewhere in the north of the Apennin do not speak English.

In principle, they do not let anyone in of themselves, and I have been seeking a visit for a very long time. But it was exactly the family I wanted to go to. Julia Makienko: Thanks to the school. I am from the Vologda region. We had one language school for the whole city with a very good pedagogical engine, sharpened for children to really know languages. Plus, during the practice on the confectionery path there was a lot of communication with the French.

And everything somehow came from there. If you want to live, know how to spin. I was even a synchronous translator: I worked at the events of one political party for two years. Julia Makienko: I was 18 years old. I worked at local Vologda radio stations. Then I was invited to conduct news on regional TV. They just saw on the street and invited for an interview, although I have no journalist’s education.

This is how it happens! After some time, the editor from one culinary channel called me and offered to make programs. Julia Makienko: So it turns out that in many areas of life I have successes: in cooking, and in linguistics, and in karate. Julia Makienko: Yes, I have a black belt. Just dad wanted his son laughs. I was five years old and they took me to the hall.

But I really liked it. And now I understand that martial arts organize and discipline well, give hardening and endurance. Julia Makienko: It is. Now we have very strong cheese residents. Initially, we wanted to take the program “The most cream” in this direction. To introduce spectators to cool specialists and artisans who make a product whose analogues are not in the world.

But, unfortunately, in view of the restrictions related to pandemia, we could not shoot somewhere except the studio. Nevertheless, this is true: we have very powerful cheese cheese. And it is always painful to hear words like: “Oh, they don’t know how to do cheese in Russia. All falsifier. " Not really. If before the niche was unnoticed, now it is a super -competitive market. Julia Makienko: We cook dishes from dairy products.

We take milk, eggs, butter, kefir, yogurt from the refrigerator-anything, and prepare something unusual than you can surprise loved ones. And to the dish, a milk drink is some kind of cocoa or cocktail. There is one issue in which we prepare cheese. Julia Makienko: Yes, I have a straight sleeve "scored".

My master and my parents “scored”. In our family, everyone has a large tattoo. As they say, what are your family traditions? We have tattoos laughs. Julia Makienko: We are 10 minutes from Vologda.We have 30 employees on the staff, masters-technologists and production workers, not counting technical personnel. A small but very mental team. We work every day in two shifts - by the time of handling milk.

We have no weekend. Julia Makienko: Usually ten tons are leaving in a half to two days. We systematically distribute it to the number of days and the types of cheeses that we want to do. There is a schedule of vots depending on the cheeses that are required in the repository. We have three storage facilities: for hard cheeses, for cheeses with white mold and for cheeses with blue mold. And they all should be filled even with us.

Julia Makienko: Now it is possible. Although there are a lot of those who make all kinds of online courses. It seems to me that the most correct way is to get the basic education at the same Institute of Oil Deliver in Uglich, where they give a good base adapted to our milk and to local realities. It must be understood that the milk of the north-west or central part of Russia is not the milk that in Italy either in the south of France or in Spain.

And then you call the production and achieve that you are taken on an internship. What is the difference? Julia Makienko: Another fat, another protein. How many months in the year do we have winter? And there are cows on a free grazing under paradise - the sun, grass. We have hay. A cow on such a grazing gives completely different milk: very fatty, rich and multifaceted in taste, which you want to cook, which you want to work with.

Julia Makienko: Yes, of course. You carry large cans of milk, turning huge heads of cheese.