Cheese in Unexpected Places

It's the end of March. The Final Four is this weekend. I'm a ride or die Jayhawks basketball fan, and I don't have a KU-themed homemade mozzarella pizza to talk about this year. So bear with me as I explain how basketball made me think about cheese during March Madness 2012.

Nobody, not even die-hard KU fans, expected my school, given its roster shortcomings, to make such a deep run in the tournament. Yet, even when things got sloppy, this team maintained composure and proved that big things can happen when you least expect them, as long as you believe in yourself. Final Four bound and making every KU fan more proud than any year I can recall in my two decades of rock chalking.

All this underdog/exceeding expectation talk got me thinking of my trip in February to the most unlikely of homes for cheese. How does a cheese business survive anywhere but big cities and foodie havens like New York? Is it destined to fail at some point, a slave to its market shortcomings? Fade to El Paso, Texas.

Licon Dairy in San Elizario: A surprise detour during a 24-hour trip I assumed would be occupied solely by tacos and steak. I hadn't really thought about the trip to Licon as anything but a fun excursion, until now. With the likelihood of finding myself in a similarly small market becoming more real as I prepare to leave New York, I have Licon to thank for renewing my confidence.

Did I tell you they had a petting zoo?!
Free to the public and school groups.

For 50 years -- fifty freaking years--, this family-run business has been providing high-quality, fresh Asadero (Mexican-style mozzarella or string cheese) to the local community. The offerings at the cheese counter are modest but utilitarian -- Asadero, flavored Asadero, tortilla chips, chicharrones, cream cheese, and whey. There's an oddly placed Payment Agency in the back, so only a fool would expect a day-laborer to buy a wheel of Camembert and fig preserves instead of wiring money to his family. Asadero and whey are often necessary ingredients in local cooking. Tortilla chips and chicharrones? The working class' cheese pairing.

Instead of getting fancy, Licon provides the essentials and does so well. For that reason, this dairy has survived in the most depressed of neighborhoods on the outskirts of a largely middle-class city. The family makes the cheese by hand, doing what they love for the last half century. It is damn good cheese at that (and fantastic sustenance during our ridiculously difficult hike the next day). Simple, but with the intangible quality completely absent from cheeses made without love.

I would never have thought to look for a dairy or cheese counter to visit in El Paso. How could that possibly survive? In El Paso?! I heard the same thing a few years ago. How could you leave a proper day-job after just one year, with so little to invest and so many companies to compete against?  Anything can survive with a little ingenuity, talent, street smarts, self-awareness, confidence, and love. El Paso and basketball taught me this.

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. 

The Grand Opening Report

I know I've been a bit derelict in my posting duties. The weeks since store opening have been action-packed. But I'm going to try my best not to leave Cheesy Street to the wayside going forward.

BOOM, Food Safety Certified, Blouses!
Ok, so it's not a picture of the store.  But I had
to take a test to get this card! And for now,
 it's the best I can do on pictures. 

Three weeks in and being an official cheesemonger and manager-on-duty at a giant cheese store feels like second nature. That didn't take long. Beecher's is huge, and we do a lot. We have a cafe area, an evening lounge/restaurant area downstairs, a charcuterie case, a coffee bar, a cheesemaking facility...a petting zoo. It's a carnival of cheese and cheese-related fun.  Not only did I need to quickly learn the cheese case, but I also needed to know the ins and outs of the cafe area, the charcuterie case and meat slicer (love cured meat but I know nothing about it), the espresso machine (which freaked me out at first), and various miscellaneous tasks that arise like receiving orders, building sandwiches and cheese plates, and answering customer questions that baffle me.

The first day was a non-stop explosion of customers and curiosity. I ended up working an opening to closing shift. Fifteen hours, and a I loved every second. My feet, not so much. Since then, things have been a steady but sane flow of people.

I know names, locations and stories of domestic cheese and cheesemakers pretty well. Yet, I've never had the opportunity to try many cheeses. So describing the flavor of each cheese is a completely different matter. That included most of the cheese in our case when we first opened. I felt pretty confident about being able to direct people to the right cheese. But the first couple of days was a lot of looking at cheeses and guessing what they would taste like and hoping for the best.
"Do you have anything similar to a manchego?"
(To my self) "Gah, I have no idea."
Scanning labels frantically; finding one with a picture of a sheep.
(To myself) "Mmmeh, this one looks like a semi-firm sheep's milk cheese. I bet it'll work."
"Yes we do actually. Here try this one. I think it comes pretty close."
Nom, nom, nom.
"Man alive, this is delicious! I'll take a slice."

I would try the cheese with the customer or after they left and discovered that my guesses were usually pretty accurate. Not always, but surprisingly often. It worked well. I guess lawyering taught me a thing or two about making things up on the fly.

It only took a few days of tasting and exploring along with the customers before I learned 90% of the cheeses in our case and didn't have to rely as much on panicked assumptions. Now, I can look at a wheel of cheese and know which cheese it is without seeing the label.  Plus it didn't take long to know the cheeses that are crowd pleasers and the ones that aren't.

In a nutshell, I love my job. I love conversations with random excited customers and regulars. People in NYC love cheese. I knew that from my farmers market days. But now I can explore up to 100 different cheeses with them and figure out which is the perfect cheese for each person, and this may sound strange, but that is inexplicably fulfilling. And if my brain is ever fried from figuring out which cheese hits the mark for every single person, I can always escape to the solitary, focused zen world of the espresso machine or sandwich press. Waking up for an opening shift at 5:00am can be difficult, not to mention the alarming introduction to an early morning/late night cast of characters on the subway. Once I'm at work it flies by and I love being there.

One of the best aspects of the job is continually trying, discovering and re-discovering new cheeses I love ...or even ones that I don't love so much. As I keep going, I'll try to share as many as I can with you. Just because not all of you can come into the store and find out directly from our cheese counter, doesn't mean you should be sheltered from new and delicious cheese discoveries.

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. 

In the Meantime: In Search of Something Cheesy

No cheese, but plenty of natural beauty

During the month or two after my Black Sheep internship and the end of my roadtrip, I slowly began to have a meltdown -- not of the delicious melty cheese variety, but more of the metaphysical "what am I supposed to do with my life now" variety. Cheese and I had physically, not emotionally, grown apart while in Del Rio, which left me with a lot of searching on my hands. I could feast on all the Queso Fresco I wanted, or take it back to old school college days with Wal-Mart brand cheddar and Easy Cheese galore. That was about it, at least until I drove the 2.5 hours to the nearest cheese counter. Potential cheese employment would require just as much searching and driving. I was in some sort of cheese-free purgatory, with great experiences behind me and hopeful optimism for the future. But until that future arrived, I'd have to figure out how to gain more knowledge while in Del Rio for the next year or so.

I started emailing cheesemakers and cheese stores in (relatively) nearby and bigger Texas cities. The response rate was low. Most that did respond didn't have any open positions. The response from one cheesemaker in Waco was promising. I soon thereafter arranged a follow-up visit with them on my way up north to visit friends and family in the Midwest. On the same trip, I arranged to visit a cheesemonger in Dallas who didn't have any open positions on staff but was kind enough to speak with me anyway. Like I've always said, unlike legal "networking," cheese "networking" is actually enjoyable and not at all humiliating. On the way, I also made a point to pop into Whole Foods, Central Markets, and cheese stores in Dallas and Austin with a more personal employment inquiry.

My first stop was Brazos Valley Cheese (BVC) in Waco. I had heard of a few of their cheeses through the ACS awards, where they placed in a couple categories. I had never tried their cheese. Actually, I had never tried any Texas cheesemakers' cheeses. The BVC cheesemakers are part of a larger self-sustaining craft community, which includes services such as a blacksmith, pottery studio, grist mill, and cafe. They offer classes to the public in these and many other skilled trades. I got the grand tour and sampled several of their delicious freshly-made food stuffs...including handmade ice cream, which remains the fastest way to win me over. Still, when I described the opportunity to others, and the words "Waco, Texas" and "self-sustaining agrarian religious community" were placed in combination, it elicited some understandably curious reactions and half-joking queries regarding stereotypical media images. I know what you're thinking, but there is no such thing as a cheese cult. Though I could see myself starting one. Everyone was very kind and I enjoyed the cheese I tasted. I was surprised to hear that nobody had ever asked to come on staff and help out with cheesemaking. I actually discovered in my searching process that most Texas cheesemakers didn't have a hiring or internship program. The cheese scene was growing but relatively new here, and cheesemakers seemed used to doing it on their own. BVC, however, seemed receptive to my help. A part-time opportunity that would allow me to go back and forth from Del Rio was available to me if I could manage the driving. More on that soon.

I checked in with larger chains that have full cheese counters like Whole Foods to no avail. If it wasn't posted on their online job bank, it didn't exist. Cheese stores, likewise, were fully staffed. Nevertheless, I enjoyed scoping out the cheese store scene here. If Cheesy Street were to open in Texas in one of many potential business models I have schemed up, I started to get an idea of what would work and where. First, direct cheese retail competition with the bigger natural foods chain stores like Whole Foods and Central Market seems rough here. Their cheese counters are baller. The natural food stores with which I'm familiar never had cheese counters that could be their own free-standing cheese store like the ones here.  As for free-standing cheese stores, Antonelli's in Austin and Scardello's in Dallas are amazing. Both had a great selection and friendly, helpful cheesemongers. They have now been added to my list of cheese store heroes. In any city where my cheese heroes exist, I would have a hard time opening up anything unless we could all be friends. A non-competitive spirit might be my downfall in business.

Mozzarella Company in Dallas is probably the most well-known and highly regarded cheesemaker in Texas. They have many non-mozzarella style cheeses, but the mozzarella itself is amazing. It's so rich and creamy that I've never felt so guilty eating mozzarella. I decided to check out their store to discover it's not really a store at all. It's just a small room with a cooler full of cheese and a viewing area of their production room. Making cheese there seemed just as awesome as selling their cheese. Unfortunately, staff turnover is almost nonexistent. I was told most of their cheesemakers had been there for decades.

While it seemed next to impossible to get anyone in this state to let me help make or sell cheese, I had a wonderful time making the rounds and starting to re-establish my cheese knowledge.

There was only one major fail: a cheese store in Dallas that shall remain nameless. I'll just say it was in an area of town that upon driving into, I knew before even seeing the shop that it would not be the right fit for me. The store itself was across the way from a Jimmy Choo store and down the street from SMU (where rich kids keep it classy). My car was the most busted looking thing in a two mile radius. I suspected the clientele would fill me with throat-punching frustration on a daily basis.  Let's be real, I'm not gonna hate on money. Sure my dirty, road warrior CR-V could eat your stupid Lexus SUV for dinner. But some disposable income is necessary to buy artisanal cheese and for a cheese store to survive. And, sure, I'd like to be able to afford a nice house someday too. Yet, the complete sterility of the place was discomforting. Upon walking into the store, I was not greeted with the same warmth as I get in most other great cheese stores. The display and selection was depressing. It was obvious that shopping for a $400 shirt was the main goal of the retail area. Cheese was just an afterthought. Anything European seemed fancy enough for this place to survive with its customers I suppose. I entered, not wanting to judge a book by its cover, but left even more disappointed than I had expected. It was the type of store that makes artisanal cheese experimentation seem like a useless and snobbish exercise to cheese lovers and cheese novices alike. Promptly casting aside all pretensions, I used the application to pick a feather, which must have drifted off some roadkill on my long journey, out of my outcast-car's grill. The diseased-looking scrap and application thereafter went in the trash.

It became quickly apparent that I would have to find a way to self-educate while in Del Rio and make multi-hour trips to buy cheese or make cheese commercially. I'm okay making some adjustments to get things done. And, it turns out, I'm starting to really like long-distance driving (cheese trucking business here I come). In the meantime, I just received some home cheesemaking supplies in the mail! Here's to hoping that in search of something cheesy I don't make all our furniture smell like spoiled milk....

Tour de Cheesemongers

Recently, I became sane again…mostly. I have a few things to thank for this: My visits with various cheesemongers in the region being one.

ACS was a great experience for learning and meeting new people. Frankly, though, it freaked me out. I mentioned that many of the seminars made the possibility of opening a cheese store seem either emotionally consuming or financially crippling. It was not the intended message of the panelists, who had a lot of other very helpful information to offer. They were just being honest about the difficulties they and many other cheesemongers and business-people face. It was just in my mind that the scary parts were repeating like an echo.

Really, it was due for me. Realism is always needed in small doses, and I was dreaming big with no concept of what the dream would require in reality. But I became a pendulum. Instead of focusing on the helpful tips and bringing my optimism down to a natural and healthy level, I panicked. I was in a small, depressing town, far from everyone I confide in, panicking. I felt like I had eloped with cheese, and was spending our honeymoon in Indiana—or worse yet, Delaware—where cheese had left me in the Motel 6 to run off and blow our life-savings gambling at the horsetrack and getting elaborate drunken tattoos of fire trucks on his face. Me, with nobody to talk to, wondering if I had made the right decision.

Every day I was working at the farm I felt reassured. So much so that I began to think that perhaps I should just switch my vision to making cheese or working with cheesemakers. I was constantly reminded how lucky I am to work with something I love so much. Cheese could never let me down. That is until I went home, where there was very little to do, and began to think about a future cheese shop. My mind went in all sorts of directions until a cheese shop transformed cheese into that drunk, broke, fire-truck-faced idiot that wanted to scavenge on my joy. Oh cheese, how could you?

In reality, it never did, and it wouldn't. Cheese as a tattoo-faced degenerate was just a phantom of my own creation. I realized this first when I visited Sheri’s store, Calf and Kid, in Seattle. Prior to opening her shop, Sheri had spent a few weeks at Black Sheep learning about the finer points of cheese birth. Turns out she keeps a blog for her business and began writing it when she was just getting the store off the ground. I went through her blog last month, and while it seemed that her pace in opening a shop was much more decisive than mine, I found a lot of commonality with her vision. Because of that, Sheri had a lot of useful insight to offer. Most importantly, she had the attitude I had been looking for since ACS: a cheese shop does not have to consume your life, and there are ways you can avoid unnecessary costs to keep it financially reasonable. Sheri was completely open and willing to share details on any stupid question I asked. She let me shadow her in her shop for two whole days! I was incredibly lucky and thankful. She shared a lot of useful tips on saving money, like calling in handy friends to help with build-out instead of relying on useless general contractors. She helped me gain a lot of perspective on what needed to be done to bring to life a cheese shop you love (and don’t resent). Her shop is part of the larger Melrose Market in Seattle, which brings together several food-related businesses (restaurants, meat shop, winebar, sandwiches). It is very similar to the size and set-up I kept coming back to in my head, especially after this summer when I visited Saxelbys in New York’s Essex Market. Starting small seemed like the best option. A smaller shop is welcoming, and it can help keep costs down and keep me sane. What if I can’t find a suitable location like the Melrose Market. Will a big store necessarily make cheese a burden for me? 



Cheese Bar is open until 11pm and

doubles as a friendly,

nighborhood watering hole...

...but the cheese is definitely the star.

Steve, of Cheese Bar in Portland (formerly Steve’s Cheese) put that fear to rest. I shadowed Steve and his staff at the Cheese Bar for one afternoon, getting some extensive wrapping practice, watching customer interactions, and asking questions. Steve started off small, just a cheese counter in a wine store, and recently expanded into a stand-alone storefront with food, cheese plates, beer and wine to accompany the fully-stocked cheese counter. True, Steve began small, on the scale of stores such as Calf and Kid or Saxelbys. Still, expanding into an exponentially bigger space requires a significant investment. Through a lot of do-it-yourself labor and thoughtful planning, he managed to accomplish the expansion without the crippling debt numbers they were talking about at ACS. Both Sheri and Steve, calmed my fears, helped me see where to begin on the business front, and, through their laid-back approach, gave me hope. Granted, I can’t build a counter or pull up floors on my own, but I do have some handy friends. Eh eh? Handy friends, I’m looking at you; there’s free cheese in this for you.  



My last stop was DeLaurenti’s at Pike’s Place market, which isn’t so much a cheese shop as it is an institution. DeLaurenti’s cheese counter is insane. Their meat counter is equally awe-inspiring. Forget Murray’s, this is like the Sisteen Chapel of cheese. There’s just so much to take in. The store has been running in the market since the 1940s and is a full-fledged wine shop and specialty store as well. Obviously my initial ambitions are not to emulate DeLaurenti’s on scale. That would just be stupid…and require me to have very rich parents. I shadowed the cheesemongers at DeLaurenti’s for a few hours mostly to see how they interact with their customers. A cheese shop of that magnitude and in such a high-profile location can become very intimidating for shy cheese enthusiasts. When I first visited the shop, I noticed how welcoming it felt, as well as the exceptionally personal and patient interaction the cheesemongers had with their customers. I was equally impressed that many of them could tell all the cheeses apart without their labels. Seriously, though, 200 cheeses! My afternoon at DeLaurenti’s reminded me of the interactions that made me want to open a store to begin with.

So all that was a long way of saying, I feel much better now. Also, I’m just stupid lucky to have gotten a chance to hang out at all these stores for several hours at a time – always in the way and full of questions. I was supremely appreciative that so many helpful cheesemongers were willing to open their business to me in that way. That means two things. One, cheese folks in the Northwest have an amazing, supportive relationship with each other. Two, people really think highly, as they should, of Meg and Brad to be welcome someone who they hear is affiliated with Black Sheep.

Finally, I also feel a sense of calm because I’m starting to form a rough plan for my life after I leave here in the next few days. I know I still have a lot to figure out and learn about cheese and business. But I hadn’t really thought much past November. I didn’t even know where Tad and I would be living. To a certain extent, I still don’t know the full picture. At least I’ve written down some options on a notepad and bought a used book on opening a small business. That’s a start.

Meeting the Cheese Family Part 2: Fromage

Whaaaaa?!

The day I returned from visiting Saxelby's in New York, I drove down to visit Fromage, a cheese store in the pleasant coastal town of Old Saybrook, Connecticut. Somehow I scheduled consecutive visits to cheese stores that are polar opposites of each other. When I walked into Fromage, I stood in the doorway with my mouth gaping, mumbling to myself in hallucinatory disbelief for a few seconds because they had EVERYTHING. If someone asked me, "hey, where can I find the most baller specialty food store ever," I would send them to Fromage. From dishes and soaps to olive oils and chocolates, they are stocked. There were some things that made me question the desires of people with excess amounts of money. Gourmet baking sprinkles! I've never once in my life thought, hey you know what I want to spend ten bucks on? Sprinkles.

The most impressive thing was the giant chalkboard behind the counter with the epic list of cheeses available in the store. Instead of just focusing on one region or one country like Saxelby's, Fromage makes sure all bases are covered. They had fresh cheeses, American farmstead cheeses, imported cheeses, meats and an olive bar. She deals directly with many of the regional cheesemakers, but the rest, and particularly the imported cheeses, come from a distributor. Christine was yet another great person to meet and was very helpful in answering my questions despite being in the middle of a busy day of putting together party platters.

Whereas some might take such a vast variety of products and fashion a store that looks like an episode of Hoarders, Christine has designed a store that really looks like an art installation. It's truly fun to walk around in the store, browsing and staring at the giant chalkboard o' cheese. Her business has been open for 18 years and expanded to the larger location a few years ago. From a business perspective, she's been doing everything right and selling gobs of quality products. I've heard that the store can get ridiculously busy with fancy food flying off the shelves at peak times. She also benefits from being the only specialty food and cheese shop in that area of the state, which just happens to be fairly wealthy. Hey, I guess, one man's extravagance is another man's cake sprinkles. 

Like a loser, after each cheese shop meeting, I immediately went to a coffee shop or a bench on the subway where I could jot down every helpful piece of information I could remember. Three lessons I took away from my cheese shop visits: First, cheese people are great! It's like one big happy family of foodies, who are totally willing to help others find their dream. The more people I meet, the more confident I am that I made the right move in my life. Second, I have a lot to get my hands on. I knew my questions would be very basic and perhaps downright stupid. I had no concept of the work or money it took to start such cheese shop shenanigans. I still don't know much, but my questions and understanding are getting more sophisticated with experience. Third, I can totally do this. I was almost scared to ask about what went into the business plans and the financials, mostly for fear that it would be some astronomical feat that would end me. Turns out, it's within my reach with some confidence, conviction, and creativity. I'm sure alliteration helps as well.

Meeting the Cheese Family Part 1: Saxelby's

My Connecticut cheese bucket-list has been sitting around without much action on my part. With only three weeks left, I started making moves. There were several people nearby in the cheese industry that I had been hoping to meet over the summer. I set up several back-to-back meetings and the first stops were cheese stores in the area.

First on the list: meeting Anne Saxelby of Saxelby Cheesemongers in New York. Anne was a former intern at Cato Corner after college and went on to open her own successful (and delightfully cute) cheese store in New York City. Basically she's my hero and did almost exactly what I'm hoping to accomplish in a few years. 

Anne's store is a small cheese counter inside the Essex Market on the Lower East Side. For those not familiar with it or other indoor markets, imagine several small "stores" -- bread, produce, fish, even chocolate -- providing one-stop shopping at what amounts to a grocery shopping mall or a daily farmer's market on steroids. 

Saxelby's has a very focused selection of cheese from American artisanal cheesemakers, primarily from the Northeast. They also have yogurt, fresh cheeses (such as ricotta or mozzarella), and fresh bread from a local baker. It's nothing fancy, but they will whip you up a deliciously simple cheese sandwich with any of the cheeses, fresh bread, and a simple topping like olive oil.  I've had lots of cheese sandwiches before. Still, I had my face rocked clean off by Pleasant Ridge cheese on a small raisin roll that Katrina sent me away with after my visit. It might have been delirium from walking around in the heat all day, but as I sat in the park taking the sandwich out in two bites, I could have sworn it got me drunk.  

When I actually met Anne, we went for brunch in Brooklyn before her cheese radio show. I knew we had bonded when she ordered from the menu exactly how I like to roll. Three meals, share them all:  the fried chicken, the eggs, and the pancakes. It's a hearty giddiness for variety and a refusal to let anything delicious feel left out. (P.S. if you're in NYC go to Roberta's; it rules). 

In the studio with Anne

We cleaned our plates and I had plenty of time to pick Anne's brain about the business and how she got started. Then we headed over to the studio adjacent to the restaurant for her cheese radio show. Oh yeah I didn't make that part up. She has a show on an internet radio station called Cutting the Curd, during which she interviews a different illustrious and interesting person in the industry every week. I sat in as "guest host," a role in which I fear I may have made myself seem far too seasoned upon mentioning that I used to be a college radio d.j. Talking about cheesemaking was not quite the same as popping in Flaming Lips tracks at 3 in the morning for stoned 19-year-olds and pizza delivery kids...or is it?. Embarrassingly, I was not at all familiar with the cheese of the cheesemaker we were interviewing, nor did I know anything about the topic of herd migration and seasonal Alpine cheese production that we were discussing. In sum, I wasn't the best guest host. But I was still ridiculously excited that I was on a cheese radio show with the pros and, like a cheese nerd, thought I was somehow cooler for it.

The next day I visited the store and met with Katrina, who was runs the store when Anne isn't there. The retail area is ideal for low overhead because only a couple people at most could really fit back there at any given time.  What the store lacks in bling it makes up for in charm and friendliness. It has the exact unpretentious and welcoming attitude that I would want in my cheese shop. I also love that Anne has direct contact and relationships with all of the cheesemakers she does business with and often visits their farms. The day I returned from New York, I visited an equally awesome store but with a completely different philosophy....

Completely unrelated to visiting Saxelby's, but I was impressed
with the cheese plate offered at McSorley's in the East Village.