For Daddy

Before I made the phone call to tell him the truth, I mulled the difficulty of living a covert double life.

I was leaving the law firm. No big deal. People leave their jobs all the time. I was also abandoning my search for any legal jobs. Okay, kind of a big deal. He’s going to wonder how I’ll pay the bills and loans. I would be spending the next year or more working with cheesemakers and cheese shops to learn the business of cheese. Yeaaah. He was going to demand I come home to convalesce from my mental illness.

Maybe I could pretend I’m still lawyering for the next few decades, I thought. I’ll just throw out some terms occasionally. Contracts. Deposition. Objection.  

To that point, the reception for my change in life course had been mostly positive. Yet, I was not without critics and deserters. They were easy to ignore, however, because nobody had anything invested in me. I owed them nothing. I owed my father everything.

He left behind the adventures of serving in the Indian Army and the familiarity of his home country to live in some of the backwateriest regions of the American South that a non-white immigrant could have the misfortune of experiencing circa 1970. He worked menial jobs to put himself through a doctorate program. He helped run a successful veterinary practice, and eventually became a civil servant with the USDA. Each decision made for the good of his family. He put me through a private high school, four years of college, and helped me anytime my loans fell short in law school. 

I, on the other hand, was leaving a career path that he helped subsidize for nothing but my own sake. To my surprise, he didn't see it that way.

“Learning about business is good. It’s smart to start from the bottom. So you’ll open a cheese shop maybe? Tell me when; I can invest in it. We’ll put mummy to work behind the counter. She likes sales.”

It was the easiest, difficult conversation I’d ever had. As parents, and especially as South Asian parents, mine always surprised me. They never pressured us to get married; never quizzed us about giving them grandchildren; never made us feel guilty about moving away from home to pursue our lives. My dad wanted his children to be happy, no matter what that looked like. 

When I told him I had started training for and signed up to run a marathon, he sounded concerned. “Oh that’s very far to run. What if it’s hot? You know if you get tired or exhausted, it’s okay to just stop and leave.”

That’s. That’s just the worst advice ever. But each time he gave similarly terrible-seeming advice, I realized that behind his worry was an effort to remove our worry. He would remain proud; just having the courage to try was enough for him. Despite the potential that I would actually just give up, my parents were the only ones to travel to Chicago and Disney World that year to support Tad and I as we crossed the finish line of two marathons.

His unconditional support was an outgrowth of his generosity. My dad took the courtesy – or often cultural imperative – of offering guests sustenance one step further. His welcome mantra was “here take all of this.” 

My dad would hunt for excuses to give us everything he had.

“Daddy this coffee is good.”

“Oh you need coffee?”

“No we have coffee at home; it’s okay.”

Two weeks later a box packed full of his latest Gevalia shipment shows up at our doorstep.

Tad jokes that the government budget cuts prevent his office from ordering new pens.

Daddy goes around the house collecting every stray pen he can find, giving Tad two handfuls of various promotional writing instruments.

My Dad makes a friendly Superbowl bet with Tad every year. Ten dollars for pizza.

Oh the Broncos lost? Well, there’s $10 in the mail for you anyway.

It was a running joke amongst my high school friends to guess what my dad would scrounge up to give them when they came over. Jugs of orange juice. Every jasmine bloom from my mom’s plant (to my mother’s dismay). Entire 12-packs of Diet Coke.

“You want Coke?”

“No, thank you.”

“But look we have so much. Look, here, take all of this.”

My daddy was the most soft-hearted person I've ever known. At times, it left him open to being taken advantage of by contractors, businesses, and even family members. But who cares really? If, like my dad, we could all hold on to our innate goodness even when we’re being totally screwed, we'd build a happier world.

We had disagreements, and I’m sure there were disappointments at times. I second-guess whether I could have done more, been a better daughter. I question what happens to him now and whether the things we believe, or tell ourselves we believe, about the afterlife are just delusions of comfort. What is this “better place” really? When he didn't wake up that Tuesday morning was he anywhere? Can he watch over us now or is he just gone forever? I have to believe at least some of what everyone else says: he was proud of us and he knew how much we love him. To believe otherwise now that confirmation of those facts is impossible would spell certain insanity.

Millions of people suffer painful loss of some kind every day. There is nothing that makes my loss any greater, more tragic, or different in any way. It simply feels insurmountable because it is mine. Much like my mother's grief for her best friend of almost 50 years is her own. I have to hope that eventually the tears will run out and the pain will cauterize itself. Perhaps when enough time has wedged itself between the Tuesday before the blood moon and sometime beyond – enough time that I can no longer play a macabre version of I-spy life before my daddy died: The last time I wore this shirt, my daddy was still alive. When I bought this gallon of milk, my daddy was still alive. The first time I heard this song, my daddy was still alive.

My dad shuffled his feet (I've noticed that my sister and I often do the same). He loved old movies, action movies, and the Andy Griffith Show. He had many friends (I learned from him). His heavy cologne would rub off on the seat belt. When I drove his car, I hated that. Now, I will miss it. His comb-over would flap in the wind, and I’d beg him to get rid of it. He always had a mustache. When I was eight, they shaved it off for surgery, and I was terribly confused.  He would always warn me of food recalls and remind me of birthdays. He ate a lot of bananas. Some might say too many bananas. He had nicknames for many people. He called Tad, James Bond. He was always good for the ego. 

And someday when I fulfill the goal that I nervously called to tell him about four years ago, he'll hopefully be able to see it. Maybe it will be a cheese shop. And maybe he'll find a way to tell me, "you know, if it fails, it's okay."

A Tale of Two Cheese Books

Once upon a time, I told you about a cheese-themed novel. A novel, which brought both shame to the written word and anger to my eyeballs. The Long Quiche Goodbye was a book that showed me the grave error of judging a book by its bemusing title.

When a friend handed me The Telling Room: A Tale of Love, Betrayal, Revenge, and the World's Greatest Piece of Cheese, I was wary of reading another cheesecentric novel. But by the end I learned another lesson: a book about cheese can be wonderful if it is written by a W-R-I-T-E-R. The latter book was penned by accomplished journalist and storyteller, Michael Paterniti. The former novel's creator, Avery Aames is masquerading as a "writer", parading a multi-novel resume of books and stories. Indeed, she is as much a writer as a paint-by-numbers enthusiast is an accomplished muralist.

The Telling Room traces the rise and extinction of Paramo de Guzman, a cherished family cheese made by a farmer in the Castilian highlands of Spain, exported across the world, and coveted by food lovers from American cheesemongers to European royalty. The cheese itself was destroyed by the business politics of the cheesemaking facility's expansion -- a destruction which the creator of the cheese believed was owed to the machinations of his best friend.

Indulge me with a bit of melodrama when I say the story connected me emotionally to the cheese itself and to the greater tragedy of cheese extinction. I've mentioned the surreal nature of taste transience. A flavor may enter this world and leave it just as quickly if the right people and conditions are not there to help it carry on. I can't help but feel some disappointment to know that I will never taste and experience the cheese in this story.

Paramo de Guzman is also a facilitator in this book. It enables the coming together of family and friends in the Spanish "telling room" (literally the room above the cellar where the wine and cheese ages) to laugh, live and eat. Like all family recipes, the cheese lifts the spirits of the Castilian family and reminds them to enjoy life and all of its stories. Come what may with the failed crops, the sick herds, or the daily rigors of toiling in the harsh Castilian sun, Paramo de Guzman is at the center of the table. That is, until it isn't.

The Telling Room is not without its pitfalls. The author's cheeky homage to the footnote--some of which span multiple pages--quickly traded amusement for exhaustion. If the anecdote or history lesson is important enough to expound upon, it belongs in the text.

Though the cheese and its creator, Ambrosio Molinos, are the subjects, the hidden protagonist is the art of storytelling, of which Ambrosio proves to be a master. The author's insistence on immersing himself in the first-person narrative, closely befriending the cheesemaker himself and moving to the village of Guzman to uncover the story, betrays his journalistic mantra to actually tell the story. We experience a meandering chronicle of the author's experiences in Guzman with his family, but we don't get the factual account of the betrayal or the narrative of the supposed betrayer until the final few chapters.

Cheese stories aside, the point of the book is to remind us to suck the marrow out of life and cherish the pace, fervor, and simplicity of the Castilian way of living. A way of life with which the author is so wholly enamored that he steps into the frame to experience it.  A way of life that would have every reader believing Ambrosio's mantra that "the three highest things in life" are "to eat, to make love to a woman, and to shit." (Because, as he notes, to shit well you have to take the time and care to eat well...don't ask me how the second element fits in.).

Now, I'm not one to casually tear apart someone's creative work. That is, unless the creator wastes my time and stains the collective cultural library of thought with garbage like The Long Quiche Goodbye. I'm especially not particularly comfortable laying criticism on the work of someone I really admire. So, it puts me on the nauseous side of uneasy to classify the third cheese book I read, Cheesemonger: A Life on the Wedge by Gordon Edgar, in the same canon of books that make me scream "let the writers do the writing!"

Gordon Edgar is one of the pioneers of the American artisanal cheese movement. Like all present-day cheese celebrities who were presented to cheese society decades ago (before cheese was even cool), he paved the way for lowly people like me to really dream of making a living at it. I've seen him speak before at a cheese conference and it was magical. I respect him and his superior knowledge of cheeses, cheesemaking, cheesemongering, and all things cheese. But, if you read his book without that foundational respect, you would get to the last page knowing a little more about raw milk and feeling confident that cheesemongers are definitely not writers.

Cheesemonger tries to link Gordon Edgar's life on the punk rock scene in the 1980s with his entry into the cheese world as it was just emerging in the United States. He does throw in some well-researched facts on cheese politics and a smattering of amusing cheesemongering anecdotes. But like all writers who aren't really writers, he forgets the importance of details. For instance, the loss of farmland to urban sprawl is purportedly a tough and important topic. Telling us that you've "talked to quite a few dairy farmers who are thinking of either moving away from their family's farming region or getting out of the business altogether," gets us nowhere closer to understanding the issue. What farmers? Where? How many exactly? What was their story?

The punk rock dynamic to his attempt at a story arc also fails. An honest examination of the 1970s and 80s musical and political movement alongside a thorough examination of the rise of a fringe food movement like artisanal cheese might have gotten us somewhere. But to draw analogies between the enzymatic reaction of rennet to the angsty atmosphere of the 1984 Rock Against Reagan concert is disingenuous to both topics. The punk rock scene had its poseurs, its nihilists, its anarchists, its straight-edge kids. To lump them all together and use punk as a vapid adjective ("my tight punk rock jeans"), is like telling someone you like cheese because it's milky. The tragedy is that his activist stories could be great. Cast in the proper storytelling framework, the parallel evolution of a punk rocker and a cheesemonger could be compelling. But without the writer and without the story, you're left thinking: We get it dude. You were totally punk rock and now you're totally cheese. Can I get my $20 back?

The number of cheese celebrities willing to contribute blurbs of praise to the back and front of Cheesemonger is sobering. A testament, perhaps, to Mr. Edgar's importance in the cheese world. But I'd like to believe that some successful people out there have principles. And I know mine. No matter how high I (hopefully) climb and whose prestigious cheese ass I have to kiss to win favor, there is one thing I won't sacrifice: my allegiance to the written word.

The Importance of Being an Eater

Endless combinations of pairings

With the second semester of cheese classes at the Kitchen under my belt, I have a better idea of what people enjoy: making cheese and drinking booze.

Setting aside any variables like advertisement, promotion, or timing, the three home cheesemaking classes had slightly higher average attendance than the three cheese tasting classes, with the exception of the wine and cheese pairing class. The cheese plating class and the raw vs. pasteurized blind tasting were successful in their own right; and the students in attendance seemed to really enjoy them. But for whatever reason, the current ebb in cheese demands (at least here) are in the more practical pursuits:  How to be self-sufficient. How to create your own edible product at a lower cost and higher quality. How to entertain your guests.

Unless you have a gathering of cheese and/or food nerds like me nobody is going to care about the family recipe and terroir behind a raw milk cheeses or the manifest bravery of attempting to create the perfect pickle and cheese pairing instead of throwing a bunch of grapes on the cheese plate.  Nobody -- or at most a scant group -- cares about parties like that. People do care about what's to drink and what you're eating with that drink. Because, let's face it, more people will come if they think there will be punch and pie...and the punch is heavily spiked.

We've come a long way in the last decade gastronomically (that odious term "foodie" aside), especially in caring about the effort and creativity behind our food. But the art of eating can still seem daunting at times. Perhaps the idea of admiring this final step before everything mixes with the bile in our stomachs is still seen as a lofty and self-righteous pill administered only by foodies and urban glitterati. After all, a cheese plate and accompaniments curated from a specialty shop is expensive and often a luxury, yes. The idea of reaching a palate epiphany from obscure, pricey, or glamorous foods is a combination of daunting, silly, and uncomfortable for the casual citizen of consumption. But the calculated appreciation of how flavors are created from so many individual parts is not relegated to fine foods. When it comes to the art of eating, everyone is an artist.

Six cheeses, six wines, one port, one whiskey,
and a cheese wheel = a good time

The take-home point in all three tasting classes was that there are no rules to a good pairing. There is no cheese law that says a raw milk cheese is better than a pasteurized one. Taste is not related to cost. Everyone, especially those damn foodies, will pretend to be an expert on the best pairings or the most amazing meal in the world. But a good cheese, a good pairing, and a good meal is whatever you enjoy. It's the company you keep when enjoying it. There are guidelines that may help you achieve a delightful flavor revelation. But the beauty in digestion is taking the time and care to notice the food in front of you -- from the love in your mom's pancakes to the medieval history of Parmigiano-Reggiano.

At our core all creatures in the food chain are inherently gluttons; we want our prey quickly and we want to eat our share faster yet. Caring about the act of nourishing our bodies, the community in eating, and the story of our sustenance sets humans apart from our primal brethren (at the very least) and unites us as people (at the very best). If you look at it that way, a tasting or pairing class isn't so intimidating...the booze probably also helps.