One Ticket on the Wabash Cannonball

In a word, today was lame. It was the first day I've wanted to cry at work since my days at the law firm. I held it in until the subway station, when I could easily pretend as if I had gotten trash debris in my eye.

So what did I do to make myself feel better? I tried to re-kindle some cheese fun. I made a few pit stops on the way home and sat down in front of a feast of: doughnuts, summer ale, and cheese. It's what I like to call the Homer Simpson cheese plate. And let me tell you, I'm sitting fat and happy at my computer right now. 

The Homer Simpson cheese plate.
Complete with robot beer cup. Because
cartoons make me happy.
Wait a minute. Who put that
doughnut in my hand and forced
me to start eating it before I got home...

It was an accumulation of confounding frustrations building throughout the week. Big things, little things, and expected things. Box after box of shipments arriving with glass bottles packed in freaking styrofoam peanuts (why do we still manufacture these things?! why can't I get them off me?!). Little things. A few days of negative energy and smattering of passive aggression (maybe it's the low pressure system). Big things. The stress of learning how to navigate new responsibilities. Expected things. 

I began to miss the simpler days of farmers markets, when rude customers didn't phase me; when everyone was happy to be outside in the fresh air; when all I had to worry about was what vegetables to barter my cheese for. It had me sitting at my lunch break, angrily shoving a panini in my mouth and reading the latest issue of Culture cheese magazine. I flipped through page after page of grinning cheesemongers posing next to elaborate displays of fromage-tastic mountains of cheese wheels. "What's that moron so damn happy about," I would grumble to myself. 

What. Is. That. 

Therapy would be appearing on my horizon. I went home with a piece of cheese I newly discovered a couple months ago. When it arrived in the store, I was ready to send it back to the distributor, unsure how we could sell such a god awful monstrosity. Those who knew better assured me that it was in its proper state and did in fact taste wonderful. Today I say, Wabash Cannonball, you my only friend. 

In all honesty the piece I ate was, in fact, a bit on the ugly side and too old to sell, but I'm not too good for old cheese. Instead of going into the trash at work, it might as well go into my belly. I sat down with this little monster, which I now find unquestionably beautiful, listened to the Townes Van Zandt rendition of "Wabash Cannonball" (I'm all about themes), and ate away my sorrows.  The Cannonball is a small goat's milk ball from my hood, the Midwest...though I hate to claim Indiana. On its journey from Capriole Farms, it looks like it's lived a hard life. Wrinkled from the work of the mold forming the rind and aging the cheese from the outside in, and covered in a layer of ash, at first it reminded me a little of what an old wad of gum would look like under various public handrails. But this thing tastes amazing!

It's a little chalky on the inside, but buttery and oozy on the outside where the mold is doing its work. The ash, which helps the mold do its thing and peaks out from the white fuzzies might look a little scary, but it all works together in a wonderful lactose synergy. The flavors are lemony and dense at its youngest and oozy with a bit of tongue tickling pungency as it gets along in age. I love this cheese all the time, any time. 

Wabash fit the mood for what I needed in a cheese pick me up. It reminded me that even ugly things can surprise you with some nugget of awesome. Be it a delicious food or a lesson learned -- the hope is that even the tough days have a reason for being. 

Cash Rules Everything Around Me

Cheese is a business. So just like in any business, you'll find your everyday moron. Even in the cheese world -- a world I've described as home to some of the warmest people I've ever met -- there is a smattering of undesirable personalities.

Once I found myself trapped in a conversation with an otherwise well-intentioned cheese guy/business guy who was suffering from a severe affliction of self-involved verbal diarrhea and smarminess. Not only was he unable to stop talking about how awesome he was --the words "I'm a hustler" actually came out of his middle-aged suburban mouth--, but he also thought so highly of his sense of judgment that he took it upon himself to psychoanalyze me on our first meeting. To him, the cheese counter was a stage, and he proceeded to question whether I really had the stage presence for "cheese theater" if I were to open a potential store of my own.

It was completely idiotic. I felt dumber for having participated in the conversation. Cheese store guests should feel like a cheesemonger is their friend and cohort in an adventurous hunt for a delicious food experience. Customers shouldn't be treated like a detached audience while their cheesemonger makes a fool of himself by over-dramatizing the relationship. And while some people (me) can't get enough of cheese or may joke about running a black market raw milk cheese trade, I sure as all get-out don't want my cheesemonger to hustle the stuff on me like a dime-bag of dairy goodness. Having now spent many successful weeks behind the cheese counter, I see how full of crap that guy was.

Pretty much everything that came out of his mouth exuded the two character traits that have cast the artisanal cheese industry (foreign and domestic) in a pretentious and elitist light:  narcissism and vanity. When people vomit that kind of nonsense, it makes customers think the reason they're paying $30/lb for cheese is because someone with a big vocabulary and fancy attitude wants to make a buck on spoiled milk. They don't see the hard work the farmers and cheesemakers put in to develop the recipes, care for the animals and make the product, or the effort the cheesemongers should be making to help them discover something new and delicious. They just see a buffoon, a court jester, a dairy thug, trying to sleaze their way to some dollar-dollar bills.

On both sides of the counter -- among cheesemongers and customers alike, people who think they're members of some cool kids club because they know a thing or two about cheese make it really difficult for the other person to enjoy the experience and the exploration.

There are self-involved, sleazy types everywhere. Having seen plenty of that in the corporate world, a fear of turning into a cheese counter cretin has hindered my own self-promotion in the cheese world. Many dear friends and supporters have encouraged me to do more to "brand" myself, if you will. Post more on the blog, review products, teach classes, link to my posts on Facebook, give Cheesy Street information out to strangers and new contacts, advertise. Instead, I have yet to burn through a 100-count deck of business cards I printed for myself, and a lot of acquaintances and old friends still have no idea what I'm doing with my life. Telling new people what I do usually begins with a hesitant stutter that I use to fill the space I anticipate from the awkward silence that will ensue.

Let's be blunt, though, every business needs a palatable amount of hustle to keep enough green paper flowing through its veins to stay alive. I realize that talking about what I do with people is essential to long-term survival, and, really, not so terrible. I handed out a very rough first draft of my business card to former classmates at my 10-year high-school reunion -- the epitome of awkward situations. I even unloaded a card to a stranger on the Subway a few weeks ago -- a native Brooklynite who spent some time in Wichita and struck up a conversation with me about my Kansas t-shirt. His wife loves cheese, I'm told. I'll probably never see or hear from that guy or his wife, but at least my card and web address are floating out there somewhere.

Talking about my cheese life has gotten much easier, and led to some really great conversations. Even strangers can sense your character pretty easily when you start talking about yourself. I've learned that as long as you are genuine and enthusiastic, people are really interested in hearing about your craft - be it accounting, lawyering, painting, cheesemongering, what-have-you. Everyone wants to talk to real people, not hustlers, clowns, or showmen. As long as you keep the smarm out of it, business-talk ain't so bad.

This is also a long way of self-promoting two things: 1) So you might have picked up that I have a first draft on a business card. It's really DIY and needs a lot of changes, upgrades and updates. But it looks like:

Biz cards with pictures from the blog and info on the back.

I look forward to dropping it in fish bowls for drawings at various restaurants and hotels.

2) Cheesy Street is blowin up homies!! Soon....well as soon as I figure out how the hell to design a web page...it'll be moving to its very own Dot Com! Without the hyphen! The Cheesy Street url was something I tried to reserve over a year ago when Tad and I came up with the name. Unfortunately I wasn't aware of Internet trolls who poach urls and purchase them shortly after someone runs a search for the name on services like GoDaddy, with the hope of selling or auctioning the domain at a higher price to those who really want it. The day after I searched for cheesystreet.com and was ready to to buy it, I realized some fool in Utah had bought it from under me hours earlier. Eventually he realized there was no burning demand for cheesystreet.com and transferred it to my friend Chris who will be helping me figure out how to design the page...which will happen ...someday...in the future...Okay so I have no idea when it will happen, but at least the option is there now and it WILL happen.