New Year, New Cheese

I hate New Years resolutions. They're an easy way for you to feel less guilty about being a subpar human being the rest of the year. Making a resolution on January 1st is like waiting until you run out of underwear to do your laundry.

When you realize something in your life needs to be fixed, then put your man pants on and do it immediately instead of waiting around for an opportunity or excuse. So the timing of my next move and the title of my post are purely coincidental. This was a few months in the making. 

I hinted at the fact that I was starting to stagnate in my current cheese station. The purpose of moving to this city, in a nutshell, was to parlay my cheesemaking experience into learning an equally ample amount in the retail world. I needed to work with fellow cheese nerds in a real cheese shop, guided by cheese mentors who could impart their retail cheese wisdom and product knowledge on me. I wouldn't be fulfilling any of those needs being a manager of panini grilling, mac and cheese scooping, and pointing people to the house-made pre-cut cheeses. I need professional training in a store a little more focused on promoting the real star (cheese) and a lot less corporate and bent on promoting the extraneous, and often insincere, money-making foodie culture. 

I know way more about cheese than I did a year ago, but I still have a lot to learn beyond the ceiling I had hit in my current position. I'll just wait it out until I leave NYC and move on to the next thing wherever we end up, I thought. I almost fell prey to the easy route of drudging along in ever-growing frustration and belligerence  until an opportunity presented itself to me. Then, a revelation thanks to a very obvious question from a very good friend. Why don't you use your last few months here to gain experience at a different shop? Stupid, stupid. Why didn't I think of hunting that opportunity down myself sooner! No other city in the county has more opportunities to work with cheese experts in as many cheese businesses than NYC. This is a learning playground and I've just been taking repeated trips down the same slide.

So, in two weeks I'll be leaving Beecher's to take a position slinging some serious cheese at Bedford Cheese Shop. Bedford is an established shop with roots in Brooklyn that are expanding into Manhattan. It's all cheese all the time. Their cheeses are impeccably maintained, and they know their cheeses and producers...and want to teach you in a fun, welcoming way. The space is small, old school, and wreaks of delicious, stinky, cheese odors. Plus, I'll be forced to learn about imported cheeses, which I have yet to work with. In sum, I'm kind of terrified. Despite technically taking a step down from manager to good old fashioned cheesemonger, I feel unprepared for the hardcore, badass cheese shop world. But they were willing to take me on, and I jumped at the chance. Stay tuned for how it turns out and how badly I soil my pants on day one. Stay cheesy until then.