I am so excited!  I just ordered a kefir start from a woman in Sacramento, CA.  I found her on the yahoo group, Kefir_making. Although I've never tried kefir, everything I've read says it tastes a bit like yogurt with the added benefit of not needing additional heat to ferment.  It seems one can make all sorts of dairy cheeses, which is something I've been wanting to try.  I've found a few recipes for non-rennet cheeses that use kefir to flocculate the milk solids instead of rennet.

My mother used to eat thickened kefir when she was a little girl in Germany.  It will be interesting to see if the stuff I'm getting makes the kind of kefir she remembes.