Bigger Responsibilities

A couple of weeks ago, I was the face of Cato Corner. I was the person running the cheese shop at the farm on Sunday. Leslie, who is usually in charge of the shop, was out of town, so I filled in for the day.

In sum, I was in charge of selling all this cheese. By myself.

Whereas at the New York farmers market I was unable to escape from customers until I physically stepped away from the tent, at the farm there were several lulls during cheese shop hours. A lack of foot traffic and smaller population will do that. Still, there were periods when I was trying to serve multiple groups at the same time, which was tricky to do all by my lonesome. Usually there is someone else working in the back in the cheeseroom who can help if things get really crazy out front. I did call in reinforcements briefly, but Sundays tend to be pretty calm.

When I was recently asked what I like the most about my cheese internship and what I'm least crazy about, I realized I hadn't even addressed this question.  As to my least favorite, I reiterated a few of the points I made four posts ago about the general toll it can take on my body. There were several things on the list of what I like the most. I like the routine of working on packages; I like nurturing the fruits of my labor in the aging room; I like the zen-like nature of making cheese and carefully following the cheesemaking process. Still, I think what I like most is working with customers in sales. The New York market was intense and somewhat terrifying, but I loved it. I enjoyed talking to people about cheese and making their day with the perfect purchase. I had never done any kind of direct sales before so it was somewhat foreign to me. And I'll admit, I was a bit insecure and conscious of looking and sounding like an idiot. But overall people are great, and if you're product is good, you don't have time to worry about such things because you're too busy selling. Working the cheese shop is a much more relaxed version of the same pleasure. It was nice to actually have time to talk to and learn about the people who came by.

Early on there were a couple of children who came into the shop, which was relevant to a previous post about palates. For some reason, these kids were awesome and wanted to try all the cheeses and actively participated in telling their parents what to buy. I was dumbfounded. Not only did they disprove the theory about kids' weak palates, but they also knew a thing or two about good food. Yet, another customer (who hated the Hooligan) had a very wise thing to say about cheese: It's all delicious, there are just different types of delicious to different people. (I guess unless you hate cheese.) It's true. I'd have one person come in and ask to sample everything except the blue cheeses and stinky cheese. Then I'd have another person demand the strongest blue or the runniest Hooligan that assaulted even my fairly strong palate. Yet, they all drove out of their way on a weekend to a random farm in Connecticut to buy cheese. Ahh cheese. The uniting force for all people. Cheese, the soccer of foods.  

I was secretly in awe of the customers who would come in and buy an impressive amount of cheese. Entire wheels of Hooligan. One pound slices of five types of cheese. I needed to act professionally and most of all not scare away the customers, but I really just wanted to high-five or chest bump everyone who asked for various giant slices. What, three-quarters of a pound, but I'm cutting these too small? That's right! Up top! Game time, you get after that cheese!!

It made me feel a little inadequate. Compared to them, I was a cheese weakling. Shocking. Maybe I need to put my man pants on and up my cheese game.