Steady Chasin that Cheese Curd

Adios Hwy 90. It's been real. 

I’ve come a long way from the naive cheese traveler wandering into Del Rio, half-panicked by my own preconceived notions and by all the border-town fear mongers regurgitating what they heard on the news or read in the travel section of Reader’s Digest. I remember driving the stretch of Highway 90 that dips within two miles of the Rio Grande at dusk, nervously expecting gangs of drug mules, cartel henchmen, and human-traffickers to be leaping across the road like legions of West Texas deer.  

That was 7 months ago. I’ve learned a lot since then.

Still, some things don’t change. My belongings remain mostly stored in boxes and I continue to use suitcases as bedroom furniture. As I put Del Rio behind me in my trusty CR-V, the radio couldn't have selected a more apt farewell serenade: Whitesnake’s “Here I Go Again on My Own."

Because, indeed, like a drifter I was born to walk alone. And this particular lonely street of dreams has led me from the Texas-Mexico border to New York City. The unlikeliest of transitions. 

NYC -- the cradle of big dreams. Some people come for fame. Some for fortune. Some in search of love, purpose, or identity. I came here for a modest wage, relative obscurity, and dairy products.

It was the next logical and exciting step in my cheese schooling. I’ve worked with great cheesemakers. So, it was about time I finally found a great cheese retail opportunity. I told you about my failed retail search when I first arrived in Texas last Fall. Nevertheless, I found a great cheesemaking fit in BVC and used my own kitchen as a platform for productivity with home cheesemaking. 

  

I had to tap some serious ingenuity to make a cheese life for myself in the desolate West Texas desert. It took some mileage to Waco and and several cheesemaking fails in my kitchen, but I did it.

Of course, it was unsustainable. I couldn’t continue the 11-hour weekly commute for much longer. And the grocery store cashiers started to get curious about my frequent milk purchases, giving me suspicious looks as if I had developed some new way to cook up meth or Molotov cocktails with dairy.  

It was time to move on even though it would require another solo adventure. Tad would wrap things up in Del Rio over the course of the year, keeping dutiful guard over the meticulously labeled boxes I have stored in his closet.

Meanwhile as I strategized my next move, the previous year's journey came full circle. Last Fall, I arrived in Del Rio en route from my internship in Washington State with Black Sheep Creamery -- an internship that not only taught me a lot about cheesemaking and farmers markets, but also gave me the gift of an opportunity that once made my skin crawl in professional circles: networking. Through Meg and Brad, I connected with several local cheesemongers and cheese retailers, including a Seattle-based cheese institution, Beecher’s Handmade Cheese. Beecher’s incidentally was boldly entering the East Coast cheese field by opening a second branch in New York City. Even then it seemed like an exciting opportunity with a great company that is as passionate about good food as I am. Before happenstance led Tad and I to Del Rio for a temporary period, I assumed I was heading back to the East Coast after my cheese internships ended, so I expressed interest in getting involved with the new branch. Then, adventures in a border town came calling. 

Fortunately fate, good timing, and “networking” with the people I had met at Beecher’s would nevertheless allow me to grow my cheese ambitions with them. The opening of the new store had been pushed to mid 2011, at just the moment when I was ready for the next step.  And, thankfully, my year of cheese learning cast a sheen of marginal competence on me, and they took me on to the opening team. So, now I'm back on the East Coast, helping put the gears in motion for a major NYC cheese store opening. A bonafide cheesemonger in the big city. I wanted to know how deep the Swiss cheese hole goes and there’s no turning back. This is it. This is what I do. Cheesemaker. Cheesemonger. Cheese stalker – I’ve followed it everywhere; my CR-V can attest.

There are such things as proprietary secrets and non disclosure agreements I vaguely recall from law school that are usually involved with successful companies, even cheesy ones. So while there may not be much in the way of daily details anymore, don't worry. Every chapter of this cheese story seems to have developed its own voice based on the circumstance. I think we’ve grown past the details and the baby steps together. There will be discoveries to share in this chapter, just like the others. 

As I leave the last stage of the adventure, Whitesnake resonating truth through my speakers, I know one thing. If we can find cheesy happiness for the better part of a year in desolate West Texas, we can find it anywhere.