Rockin' Around the Christmas Cheese

I get buck wild for Christmas season for many reasons. One, the lights and shiny things. Two, the generous, giving spirit. Three, the food. Four, the classic cartoons, movies, and television specials. Five, the warm blankets with warm drinks. Six, Santa.

Holiday destruction

I could go on. Now, in my recent station in the cheese world, I can add graft to the list. Okay so it's not really graft. But one of the nice things about my job this season is that as a merchandise buyer and thereby supporter of various small businesses and food producers, I receive the thanks-for-supporting-our-business presents that go out this time of year. So far that's amounted to chocolates--many chocolates, and one bottle of Italian wine from our mozzarella supplier.

Chocolate and wine, what a perfect pairing. That got me thinking: I like interesting food combinations (see post on doughnuts and cheese plate). I like Christmas, and we know I love cheese. I wonder if there are ways to combine all these things I love so much.

I took this hypothetical world of Christmas cheese pairings to a new creative level -- and by creative I mean outlandish ways to bring cheese into the Christmas mix. I haven't tried all of these out, so some might be an epic fail. I don't have the pocketbook or the stomach capacity to try out all these pairings at once, but I intend to slowly do some reconnaissance for future Christmases. Feel free to try them out yourself and give me feedback...or yell at me for making you combine these things in your mouth.

I'm a firm believer that there are no strict rules to pairings. Yes, some things work better than others. But flavor perception is all a matter of preference, biology and experience. So while some of these might sound disgusting, indulge me for the sake of those with twisted palates and/or an overabundance of Christmas spirit.

First I tried to list as many singularly holiday items as possible:
Gingerbread, Fruit Cake, Egg Nog, Candycanes/Peppermint Bark or Mint related items, Frosted Holiday Cookies, Hot Chocolate and/or Fudge, Mulled Wine (aka Glugg or Glogg), Wassail, Figgy Pudding.

Gingerbread:
One style of cheese could easily be left out of the holiday cheer is the washed rind, or stinky, cheese. The pungent, sometimes bitter or abrasive flavors and odors of a stinky cheese seem out of place with yuletide joy. But I'm not willing to place a cheese on the naughty list, so I'm going out on a limb and saying gingerbread might hold up to a good washed rind. The mild sweetness would complement the pungency (which is how dessert wines and blue cheeses hold up so well together), and the spicy ginger may behave like the tongue-tingling hops in an IPA beer (which is a washed rind's favorite beer pairing friend). You could also work with an approachable washed rind like Gubbeen, or a creamier Reblochon. On the more adventurous, stinkier side, I'd try Epoisses, Tallegio, Meadowcreek's Grayson, or a creamy, fatty Hooligan from Cato Corner's winter milk.

Fruitcake:
This one is pretty easy because fruitcake carries a very similar flavor profile to various fruit-nut loaves and crackers that are traditionally sold as cheese accouterments. Typically these sorts of fruity and sweet items go best with sharp cheddars that have citrusy, pineapple notes or Alpine cheeses with mild fruity and caramel profiles. Try Montgomery Cheddar from Neal's Yard, or an extra aged cheddar from domestic producers like Shelburne, Grafton or Cabot. On the milder Alpine style, I would go with something like a Tarentaise (domestic), an imported Beaufort or an older Gruyere.

Egg Nog:
How do you combine dairy with dairy? Is that like trying to get two positive sides of a magnet to touch? Of all the pairings, this one appears to carry the highest likelihood of failure, so I'm going to keep it simple. Ricotta with light honey. Done.

Mint Items/Candycanes:
With this Christmas item you want a creamy cheese that will complement the mint but disappear in the background. Something that will turn this into a scoop of mint milk shake in your mouth. Something like a triple cream brie. A soft or surface ripened cheese with any earthy, bitter, ammoniated or mushroomy notes would destroy the harmony. On the domestic side, Old Chatham's Nancy's Camembert might work, but avoid Camemberts with strong mushroom notes on the rind. You need a cheese that exists solely for the purity of its buttery, creamy lactose dance. A young Brillat-Savarin, Pierre Robert, or Nettle Meadow's Kunik (domestic) are possibilities.

Frosted Holiday Sugar Cookies:
This is tough because only in my twisted mind, or that of a mouse, would someone consider eating a cookie with cheese. One of my favorite sugary flavor partners is lemon. I think something sweet and citric would work here. I would keep it basic, a white stilton with lemon peel seems natural. That's a cheese that already tastes a little bit like dessert. I'm envisioning a lemon creme cookie in my mouth. A bit more risky would be a  Jarlsberg pairing -- plain and sweet, but saltier.

Fudge:
This pairing has a lot of variations depending on the type of chocolate. If the fudge has any kind of cherry, brandy, cordial or liqueur situation involved, it could accompany a creamy blue cheese very well, like Fourme d'Ambert or Cambozola; or anything washed in brandy or liqueur, like Rogue River Blue, an amazing domestic blue wrapped in grape leaves and washed with pear brandy. I've also seen cheddar in pairings with chocolate items (and Guinness, which is chocolatey). So a milk chocolate fudge might mix with a mild cheddar or Welsh Caerphilly. A darker fudge could also complement a Shropshire Blue (a combination of stilton and cheshire cheese). Think sweet and salty with this one. Or think fondue. Raclette and Gruyere also fit here.

Hot chocolate:
This might be trickier than fudge since we potentially have the same dairy on dairy problem as eggnog. Plus, the chocolate notes are usually much milder in powdered drink form. Maybe a salty choice with milder flavors like a Swiss cheese, say Emmenthaler. I would venture into some of the fudge pairings here just for fun as well...but not the blue cheese...I'm not a monster.

Mulled Wine/Glugg:
I've actually tried this pairing, so at least for me, it works. The main difference between Glugg and Wassail (mulled cider) comes down to the rich tannins from the red wine in Glugg versus the tartness from the citric fruits in Wassail. The spices in both call for a fairly mellow cheese that acts as a cheesy wallflower. Avoid too much saltiness. The richness of Glugg allows for a heartier barnyard flavor from a sheepy, sweet Ossau Iraty, a pairing that I thoroughly enjoyed. Aged Gouda or Tomme de Savoie and its earthiness could also carry some weight here.

Wassail:
Lemon, citric or lactic are words that seem to fit this holiday item. The apple cider nature of wassail signals a traditional apple-cheddar pairing, but I would be worried that the saltiness may be too much since Wassail is more tart and not as sweet as pie. Something with a touch of sweet citric flavor but less salt is needed -- Mimolette perhaps (the colors would match at least). Or a mild, fruity cheese like Comte matches up well. This might also be a great place for a fresh goat cheese to make an appearance. A lemony mild fresh chevre -- perhaps infused with a touch of flavor like Rollingstone's domestic Orange Zest and Pecan Chevre -- on an oat biscuit sounds like a party.

Figgy Pudding:
This is the archetype for the salty and sweet harmony. Sweet figs with blue cheese is one of my favorite pairings. A hearty blue would work well here, especially if the figgy bread pudding is soaked in any kind of booze. A fruity cheddar would also work. Salt and bold flavors are welcome here. Pecorino could be a risky move that pays off. I also welcome the idea of smoked or meaty cheeses here to go with the sweet, booziness. Idiazabal would probably mix well. I recently had Uplands' Rush Creek Reserve, a smoked-meat flavored, scoop-me-with-a-spoon, bark-wrapped, washed delight that almost brought tears of joy to my eyes. As a winter treat that comes around just in time for the holidays, Rush Creek or it's model, Vacherin Mont d'Or, are perfect Christmas cheeses. While some may say these two cheeses are so good that enjoying the cheese on its own is best, I can't think of any cheese pairing that would bring me more Christmas joy than figgy pudding next to a cheese that tastes like cured meat.

And that's the point of these Christmas pairings, really. To appreciate the variety of things that we love coming together...which I suppose is the point of Christmas itself. Happy Holidays to all, and to all, a cheese-filled night.

The Grind

Every Monday through Friday I make a very silent march alongside a few dozen faces I've memorized. It's 5:30am. There are 40 to 50 people waiting for the train. And footsteps are the only sound. You'll never hear a populated subway platform quieter.

It's a moving mural, really, of working class faces, mostly grim and sleepy. A sea of Timberland boots, hushed conversations, uniforms and union hats that signal electricians, carpenters, construction workers, nurses, postal workers, delivery drivers, administrative assistants, hotel clerks and doormen. Seldom is there a stodgy suit with a briefcase -- maybe one or two every month, awake early for a big case or deal.  Generally it's the commuting crew we rarely appreciate or thank for being up and at the grind before dawn. While I'm quite honored to be in the ranks of this seemingly hardworking, reliable bunch that keeps our city and our world going, I also wonder what the hell a cheesemonger is doing commuting to work at 5:30 in the morning. For a farmers market? Of course, gladly. To milk the animals? Perhaps even earlier. For a cheese shop in the middle of Manhattan?...

"Eight a.m.! Why is a cheese shop open so early," I'm often asked. I have no answer for that question as I'm not the one making these types of decisions. All I can say is that, yes, it's bad for labor costs when all you're doing is selling $2 cups of coffee in a 8,000 square foot store with astronomical overhead. Nobody is buying $40 worth of cheese at that hour. C'est la vie. There's a lot you learn about what not to do in running your own business when you work for someone else's. That in itself is a worthy learning experience for me.

Yet, to be blunt, much of the reason I've been derelict in my blog postings (yes, I know I skipped all of November) is because I've been trying to recharge from a month or two of watching that shiny gleam wear off my latest cheese venture. I'm happy I came here and learned as much as I did; I'm glad to have met many of the wonderful people I've encountered. Still, I may have reached my growth limit here.

Since opening, I've taken on a more administrative role as the store's cheese purchaser. I do all of the ordering, receiving, and dealing with vendors. It's great experience for a future business and I love that I sometimes get to play cheese god to our cheese case. I'm very thankful to have been trusted with that responsibility, which I guess means I'm doing something right.

But, dealing with the administrative side, coupled with scheduling that puts me right in the middle of the weekday lunch rush, has spread me thin with little relief and left me little opportunity for one-on-one time with my real love: cheese. Instead, much of my my non-administrative time on the floor is occupied with cafe management, which can bleed even the strongest soul dry. You serve people food and they treat you like trash. Yet, you cut a piece of cheese and suddenly your words are gold. (Everyone should be forced to work the bottom rungs of the food service industry before they are allowed to speak to people.)  The cheese case is a much happier land.

On the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, the store well-staffed and all my ordering tasks wrapped up in advance, I was able to spend the entire day hawking cheese ideas to would-be dinner guests wanting to impress their Thanksgiving hosts. I didn't want to leave work that day. Last Saturday, due to a scheduling swap, again I was able to spend the entire day on the cheese case because weekends are particularly busy for cheese sales (unlike 8am on a Monday). For a person giving up their Saturday to work, I likely seemed obnoxiously eager. I suppose these were exactly the spirit re-ups I needed to reconnect with Cheesy Street. Cheese, I still love you, I'm just learning there are ways to taint you.

There are also all the mounting frustrations inherent in a larger business or company: the red tape, the staffing decisions, the equipment breakdowns -- and in the midst, feeling like you have no control over any of it and your concerns are being ignored. A lot of things are starting to smell and feel like the law firm again. Grilling paninis for two hours feels a lot like doc review. Organizing the mess that's been left behind in the backstock areas I've so diligently tried to keep looking sane feels a lot like fixing partners' Bluebook citations

When I started to spend every lunch break, as I did at the firm, looking at Daily Puppy just to keep my spirits up, I knew I had reached my "cheese" low. No longer was I in the midst of happy cheese people and consumers who really cared about the product and the business. I had fully entered the twilight zone where cheese meets an overly greedy bottom line in an environment that encourages dehumanized drudgery.

Wow, this is harsh. But there's good news. Lots of it. A bad day at the store is 1,000 times better than a bad day at the firm. I choose the bustle of running around on my feet over office work, even if it's on the cafe side. A smiling customer always lifts my spirits, as much as, if not more than, the Daily Puppy's puppy of the day. I really cherish the few hours a day or week I can physically sell cheese to people. I've grown a lot in learning about cheese buying, which, when coupled with time on the cheese case, is a fuller, more enjoyable cheese experience.

Plus the grind, as it were, has ground me down to the point where I'm able to distill a clearer path for the future. Remember back when I was on road trips working on idyllic farms with happy cheese people and moving on to the next farm before things got too heavy? Yeah that was great. I also had no idea what I wanted to do. The cheddar brick road has led me to a vision for a career:  If I open a cheese food business, I don't want a food empire where I spend countless spirit-breaking hours as an over-educated panini griller while disgruntled office workers yell at me because they didn't get their sandwich in a timely manner. If I open a cheese shop, I want it it to be successful, bustling, and challenging, yes; but I also want it to be a cozy place where both customers and staff are appreciated, befriended, given value, and able to easily find a delicious piece of joy. If I start a cheese farm...well, it will be hard, but the baby animals will keep me happy.

Sure cheese empires are nice, but at what cost? You can grow, but your business ambitions should never get the best of the object of your love -- be that a personal or professional lesson. So in keeping with the cheese education I expected to embark upon, I discovered that the workplace issues I had at the firm can be recreated almost anywhere. Learning to dodge that bullet in the future is a gold-mine of happiness.

Plus, even though the 5am grind usually starts my day off in dejected and incoherent fashion, I sort of like my commute. I don't know anyone's names but I enjoy seeing the same faces every day and imagining what their work days and passions are like. In my subway platform dawn-dreams, I imagine us all getting together to talk about our ambitions...and then they all welcome me into their circle with an honorary pair of Timberlands. Hey, whatever it takes to keep me awake and motivated.

My First Cheese Plate

Last weekend I built my first cheese plate.

Yes, I've been eating cheese for a long time. Indeed, I've been a legit member of the cheese industry for more than a year. True, sometimes I've had an impromptu cheese party or tasting with friends and loved ones at home. But until now, everything has been a casual affair, often involving randomly selected cheeses from the sale bin. At best, my cheese consumption has involved cramming a bunch of cheeses onto a round dinner plate next to a box of water crackers. At worst, it's feasting on chunks and slices over the sink. The beautiful black cheese slate I bought for plating cheeses has been seeing great use as an oversized coaster for my coffee mugs.

I've never had to put together an honest to god cheese plate for a bonafide social gathering -- for which the cheeses needed to be curated and selected with a purpose, paired with thoughtful accompaniments, and plated in an aesthetically pleasing manner. My roommate and buddy, Ambyr, gave me that chance when she hosted a baby shower for our friend at our apartment last Friday night. My attempt to be helpful involved putting together a pre-dinner cheese partay.

Curating cheeses involves several variables: size of party, format, venue, and taste sensibilities of your crowd.

First and foremost, being that the guest of honor was with child, I selected three pasteurized milk cheeses. Whether to eat raw milk cheese during pregnancy is a matter of personal choice and cultural influence -- and in some circles a controversial matter at that. Opinions vary on whether raw milk cheeses pose a risk to the fetus by harboring certain harmful bacteria. Even soft pasteurized cheeses like blue cheeses and feta may be discouraged because of the fear that said bacteria are more likely to thrive in a high moisture environment. Given that (in our health system) the medical advice commonly given to pregnant women is, at the very least, to stay away from raw milk cheeses, I suggest erring on the side of caution when selecting and/or labeling cheeses for such an occasion. If you do select raw milk cheeses and you know some people in the crowd may be pregnant, always clearly label or announce which cheeses are raw. I eliminated any uncertainty by avoiding raw milk cheeses altogether for the shower. Besides, there are PLENTY of delicious pasteurized cheeses to choose from.

Pregnancy can also cause sensitivity to smells. So I also didn't select any super strong or stinky cheeses for fear of assaulting the guest of honor's gag reflex. I love me a good mnemonic, and someone once gave me this great adage for picking cheese varieties for a party: "Something old, something new, something stinky, something blue."  If you're only going with three cheeses, you can pick between the stinky and the blue. For quantities, it's best to go with three or four cheeses. Any more would be sensory overload. And as an appetizer course, one ounce of each cheese per person is usually more than enough.

Knowing that I was dealing with ten to fifteen laid back, fun people, who wouldn't taunt me with cheese snobbery or comment on the pedestrian nature of this or that cheese, I picked three fairly well-known (at least in the artisanal cheese/foodie set), crowd-pleasing 3/4- to 1-pound pieces.

My something old (i.e. hard) was Cabot Clothbound Cheddar. My something new (i.e. soft) was Cypress Grove Humboldt Fog. And my tamer version of "stinky or blue" was Beecher's Marco Polo Reserve (actually an aged hard cheese with peppercorns).

I paired the cheeses with some dried fig bread, a fruit and nut crostini, caramelized pecans, and honey hazelnut crackers -- all phenomenal with the sweet, fruity, sharpness of the Cabot, and also good to tame the mild kick from the Marco Polo's peppercorns. If I had a little more room on the plate I would have added a dried tart fruit to give the Humboldt Fog's acidity a better friend. I did some fancy cubing, slicing and design work with the hard cheeses and SHAZAM! Cheese plate. Even my new cheese slate was given a chance to dress up and make an appearance.

Save for a few chunks of rind and leftover fig bread, the cheese plate was pretty much devoured by the end of the night. I heard phrases such as "this cheddar is amazing" or "this soft cheese is really something special" or "these candied pecans are like crack" bandied about. So I can only assume people were genuinely pleased with my first attempt at a bonafide classy cheese plate. And not a single person had to eat it over the sink. I count that as a success.

In my excitement, I forgot to take pictures.
I stole this from a friend, but I should have gotten an aerial shot. 

Cutting Crust from the Equation

Have you ever wondered if there was a way to wad up all the toppings on a pizza into a ball, pile it onto the tiniest of crackers, and shove that all in your mouth? No, that's disgusting and weird, you say. Mmmm delicious food ball, I say. Welcome, my friends, to my lifelong neurotic phobia of crusts. (And yes, if the Tracy Jordan Meat Machine was ever a real thing, I would be the first to buy ten.)

If I were to write a Crust Manifesto, my definition of crust would go something like this.
Crust /krust/
noun
1. The least delicious part of a food item
2. That portion of a food item which serves as a vehicle to transport more delicious parts into your mouth
3. Ingredients in any dish that take up belly space, which could be filled by more delicious parts of the dish
4. Appropriator of chewing effort
syn: culinary chicanery

As a rule, I will eat only as much crust as I need to transport and enhance the part of the food I find to be most delicious, leaving the rest as a disastrous canvas of mutilated crust carnage on my plate.

This isn't just a starch issue. This is an efficiency issue. I have a limited amount of space in my belly and I want to make sure I use as many hours as I have on this earth to fill it with what I love most. So piles of steamed rice with just a dollop of stir-fry on top is an assault on my face-stuffing sensibilities. Crust can also be counter-intuitive. The crunchy outside of the pancake, to me, is more delicious than the soggy inside. If I have limited time and space, I will eat the outer ring and leave the inside "crust" of pancake.

Imagine my delight when I rediscovered a cheese that, for me, serves the purpose of eliminating the bread from a grilled cheese sandwich.

Not only is it delicious, but it also
looks like bacon. 

If I were to name favorite cuisines, Greek/Mediterranean would definitely make the top three. In college, when my roommates and I would dine at our favorite Greek restaurant, everyone would order sensible meals. Salads. Gyros. Seafood. I, however, would feast on one thing and one thing only. A slab of cheese set ablaze by flambe before my eyes.

At the time Saganaki, as the dish is called, was awesome for two simple reasons. One, cheese. Two, fireball. Not until recently when I brought home a piece of Idaho Golden Greek Grillin Cheese by Ballard Family Farms -- a tribute to Greek Halloumi cheese -- did I realize the true beauty of this style of cheese. Halloumi and other Greek grilling cheeses are designed for pan-searing until a thin browned crispy film forms a shell around it. On the interior, the cheese is heated to a gooey, stretchy perfection. It's a perfect recreation of the flavor profile in a grilled cheese sandwich, but with all cheese.

I look down at my crust-less dairy dinner, which I have supplemented with broccoli and hummus (I've learned a lot since college: You need vegetables. Pop-Tarts are not a fruit), and I realize how much I've missed this cheese.

Setting aside my delight that the role of bread has been outsourced to the cheese itself, there is a lot for the general ("normal") population to like about grilling cheeses. You don't get the perfect outer layer of salty crunch from pan-searing just any cheese. Try that with a block of cheddar. You'll have a melty, charred grease fire on your hands. If you need a firm, salty cheese to add to a warm dish without causing a runny mess, here's Halloumi to the rescue. It's like the paneer of the Mediterranean. It stays true to its form, and can even bring a little crunch to the party.

Enjoy Halloumi in all the normal and socially acceptable culinary modes you desire. As for me, I have rediscovered that cheese is the new bread.

Cheesemonger to the Stars

I'm not one to floss about grand achievements, but from here on out, I'm no ordinary cheesemonger. I'm cheesemonger to the stars.

There was this one time Spike Lee...was outside of the store filming a carpenter's protest. Or at least it looked like him from our side of the window. Ummm...okay, okay, so there was this one time one of the crazy clients from Millionaire Matchmaker came in... and loudly discussed the calorie content of our tomato soup and left after eating some samples...and, umm, yeah I guess reality tv does not a star make. Okay okay, I have a real one! This other time Jon Benjamin (who has some show on Comedy Central but is only relevant to me for lending his voice on Archer and various Adult Swim cartoons) hung out in the store...eating sandwiches. Right, so.... Oh, I have it! Once, Jimmy Fallon came into the store...and I mostly avoided eye contact because real celebrities make me nervous, and all he did was buy a bunch of frozen mac & cheese.

Alright so I haven't actually mongered to any stars. And truth be told, the greater the celebrity, the more I wouldn't know what to do with myself and just act a fool. But all these celebrity pseudo-encounters in New York, as well as the generally demanding nature of customer encounters in this city's service industry, got me thinking. Someday, if I own a business, whether it be in an important city or small town, my mission statement will be "to provide a service or product that is so innately awesome that I don't have to kiss a bunch of ass to get people to like me."

Both law and cheesemongering are service professions. Both industries have taught me that I would sooner re-live that day I had kidney stones than spend my life kissing everyone's ass and ingratiating myself in a gratuitously saccharine display of self-prostitution. Right, so that sounds a little harsh.

Okay let's put it this way: The stores and business in which I feel most comfortable are those that employ a normal amount of courtesy to the average customer, are totally free to bust your balls if you're truly being a rude cretin, joke with you when you do something silly, and treat everyone like a normal human being. Whether you're kind of a big deal celebrity or just an average joe, each customer is deserving of the same respect when it is returned in kind. If a store/business serves me up something phenomenal, delicious, comforting, or unique, then I don't care if I'm greeted with feigned friendliness, high-pitched queries, and painted smiles. I'd actually prefer not to be. Just imagine the customer is a friend you've known for years. At least that's what I do when I try to help people pick out cheeses from the case. I smile because that's what you do when you're having a good time with friends.

It's pretty easy to tell when a corporate customer service model has jammed a friendliness micro-chip into its employees' brains. And there's nothing more distasteful. If people like your stuff and feel at ease doing business with you because you're innately a nice person, then they will buy your product whether you're having an incredibly smiley day or not. That's what friends do. They welcome your varying and normal levels of joy because the most important thing they get from the relationship is you.  So obviously, I just need to approach the next celebrity that comes in and ask to be their friend. Yes, by god, that's the trick! I'll let you know how that goes.

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.