Cheesy Street: The American Cheese Society Conference: Tummy Aches and Big Timers

The annual ACS Conference and Competition is the big show for cheese. This year it was held in Seattle and I made it out to the west coast just in time to attend. I'm new to the professional cheese world, so I feared one of two things: 1) it would either be like the Star Trek convention of cheese where the overall enthusiasm for cheese would surpass even mine and send me running from my cheese connection for fear of becoming a social outcast; or 2) it would be like a legal conference--stilted, awkward, boring, and lots of conversations where I struggle to be knowledgeable.

It was neither.

One of the evening receptions,
with a DJ and dance floor
like it was cheese prom

I'll start by answering the first question most of you might have. Yes, there was a LOT of cheese to eat at the conference. There was cheese at lunch, cheese at breakfast, cheese at breaks between sessions, cheese in the bookstore, cheese at the evening receptions, cheese in sessions on tastings and parings. I was mildly surprised there wasn't cheese in the bathroom to eat after peeing. There was an insufferable amount of cheese. I'm not one to complain about constant access to cheese, especially at the price you pay to attend the conference. But, my major concern was waste. There is no way all of that cheese was eaten. In fact, by the end of the conference, most people I talked to were so over cheese. They couldn't eat anymore. So what happened to all that leftover cheese? I can only hope a food bank or food kitchen benefited from our cheesy lavishness.

Not only was the cheese plentiful, but the food was too. If you can't tell from my constant fatty-fatass discussions of food (see almost every road trip post), cheese people really like good food. Some of the meals were generic hotel food; but overall the evening receptions and lunches had a lot of really good food. I went home with a tummy ache most nights.

The sessions I signed up for where mostly aimed at retailers and those considering opening a retail cheese business. After the first day I was really amped up for all the information I was absorbing and all the great people I was meeting. The second day, I crashed a bit and here's why. All three of my classes on day 2 were retail oriented. The lesson I was absorbing = this is going to cost you a lot more than you anticipate, you will be in debt for the rest of your life, it will be a decade before you get a return on your capital investment and become profitable, and your life will be owned by this store. It sounded like law school all over again.

Maybe, I panicked a little. The few cheese store owners I had talked to previously had started out modestly and with manageable investments. Now I was meeting many fellow aspiring retailers, much farther ahead in their business planning than me, who were talking six figures in start-up costs. That might be easier for many people to stomach who don't already have six figures in student loan debt. It made me want to throw up. I was additionally freaked out when I heard that only one of the people on a 4-person panel of successful retail shop owners had paid back their initial capital investment loan...and she did it because she had no staff. A shop owner in Norman, Oklahoma advised me to budget almost a quarter million in start-up costs. And she's in Norman! Oklahoma! What the hell am I going to do in a place like DC?

Oh hai, I'm 30-years-old, and all I have to my name is nearly half a million in debt, several hundred pounds of cheese, and a Nintendo-64 equipped with Mario Kart and GoldenEye. Awesome.

I guess the good news is that everyone loved their job. After calming myself down a little and talking it out with my new aspiring-retailer friends, I realized I might just need to re-evaluate the size and aspirations of Cheesy Street, at least at start-up. It can be done for less. Though circumstance, luck, customer base and market often dictate the size. I guess I'll just have to tackle the money problem when it arrives.

Cheese and beer tasting. Yes, please.

Despite my suddenly burst bubble, I was heartened by a few things. First, Cheesy Street store or not, I'm completely convinced that I jumped into the right world. There could be a lot more for me in cheese than I had imagined. I know I love making cheese now. Plus, there are plenty of really important lobbying issues for Raw Milk dairy producers where my law degree might actually have some use. I love writing about cheese and food. I've even become somewhat better at tasting and pairing (just barely). No matter what happens (either in addition to or instead of a shop), there's something in the cheese world that I can get involved with and love.

Second, cheese people are awesome. Remember my fear about ACS being like a legal conference? It was the exact opposite. People actually were kind, easy to talk to, and supportive. Store-owners want to see each other succeed (assuming you don't open up right next door, that is), and cheese big timers I met were actually interested when words came out of my mouth. One established cheesemaker went out of his way to stop me after lunch and introduce himself, apologizing for not getting a chance to do so when I sat at their lunch table. That would NEVER happen at a legal conference! I met a lot of really great people, most of whom I'm sure I'll have the pleasure of seeing or working with in the future.

Maybe the only place in the world
where tasting spoon-fulls
of butter is a-okay

The closing keynote speaker was Michael Pollan, author of various musings on food, including The Omnivore's Dilemma. He opened talking about our obsession with food simply as the vehicle for nutrients and went on to discuss his philosophy on eating, eating well, and not too much. (The not too much part seemed ironic considering the mountains of food we were seeing on a daily basis). His speech made a lot of sense. I appreciated his barbs at the "food product" in Kraft American Singles, but not so much when he busted out the can of Easy Cheese. It's hypocritical, I don't eat it anymore, and I know it sucks. But I'm going to stand behind my Easy Cheese until the day my collegiate nostalgia dies.

There were over a dozen tables
that looked like this at the Festival

The grand finale was the announcement of winning cheeses and the Festival of Cheese. Every year cheesemakers across North America enter their cheeses into one of about 100 categories in the ACS judging competition. I'm told it's the Academy Award of cheeses. Each year the entries have almost doubled. This year 1435 cheeses entered. And it blows my mind to comprehend, but after the awards are announced, each of those 1435 cheeses are on display for tasting. Thus is born, the Festival of Cheese. I think a good Man vs. Food challenge might be attempting to taste each of the entries. I had never seen so much dairy in one room. I tried about twenty, and mostly stuck to award-winners. By the last day, I finally mastered how to avoid a tummy ache.