This is exciting in a nerdy way

You asked for it

That’s it for me on cheese. Check out all my long-ish stuff that I file away at Shoot From The Hip. And remember, it’s not you. It’s me.

Final Feature (dramatic music) after the jump.

How do you validate your existence? No, I don’t mean like that.
The question isn’t meant to provoke an Existentialist-foaming-at-the-mouth
crisis. What I mean is, how do you know when a dorky, kind of idiosyncratic
passion of yours becomes validated by the people around you who don’t share your quirky obsession?

The answer can be a number of things, but for my own purposes I’m going to say, when you have a magazine. In the case of cheese, we have one magazine. But that’s one more than last year.

The magazine is called culture. The all lowercaps presentation is theirs.
If e.e. cummings and d.a. levy taught us anything it’s that capital letters
aren’t cool. (Having initials sure are though) So, we have culture, a
quarterly magazine that lists its issues by season. There have been only
two so far, the first coming out this past winter.

As someone who works in cheese, and has come to be fascinated by it, this
is an exciting development. The magazine retails for (a whopping) $9.95.
The first issue was $12.95. Whether the 3 dollar drop is due to a “premiere issue” special high price, or the ludicrous idea that 13 dollars is a good price was forgotten, I don’t know. That might be a knee-jerk reaction on my part, considering what we’re discussing here. People interested enough in spending exorbitant amounts of money on a specialty food probably wouldn’t think twice about the price of a quarterly magazine, especially one as well put together as culture.

The magazine is gorgeous. It runs bigger than the standard magazine and has large beautiful pictures throughout. And it’s all on heavy, glossy paper. What I noticed immediately though was the tone set by the opening letter from the publisher, Stephanie Skinner, that appeared on the sixth page.

In the letter, Skinner sums up the entire, well, culture. Conveniently named
magazine, isn’t it? It recounts an anecdote that her friend told her about
how he was intimidated to put together a cheese basket because he feared
appearing ignorant in a specialty shop. As someone who works behind the counter, this brought a smile to my face. Those of us in the know, aka snobs, might pick you apart (behind your back) if you make a mistake, yes. But, we
do want you to take a chance and learn so we have more people to talk about
cheese with.

Skinner’s letter then goes on to describe the friendliness of the workers,
cheesemongers, and even the customers she has encountered. Everyone knows their stuff, and we all get excited like school children. Pretentious, border-line absurd school children, but school children nonetheless. The magazine of course contains articles about up and coming farms, accessories, popular cities etc.

Flipping through these magazines and reflecting on where I spend half my week, I began to think about just what it is we’re all doing. I’m only sort of
lurching towards Existentialism now, I swear. I have previously dwelled
on the idea of frivolous spending pertaining to cheese in times of economic hardship. My conclusion is that, like all other hobbies, cheese is a form of escape. We become experts in things in order to be immersed. I won’t be so bold as to get into the psychology, but sitting in this armchair I can take
an educated guess.

As someone who works in retail, I get to see how people behave. (Yes, we’re
watching you. We see everything.)  And what I find is that people will
spend a mind-boggling amount of money to save face. This isn’t a new development. “Keeping up with the Joneses” has existed since the invention of capitalism, if not the first time we reared our furry heads out of the caves.

People love glamor. Right now, cheese is glamorous. Just look at the beer
culture that has exploded in this country. Every other week, one of my bonehead friends wants to develop a microbrewery in his mother’s basement.

It’s fun to be passionate about superfluous things and it’s necessary.
But as I look at this 13 dollar magazine, I begin to see something superfluous
taking itself very seriously. This isn’t a bad thing. I’d be lying if
I said we should burn everything down and only deal with “important” topics.

As I write this, Naomi Klein is on the Rachel Maddow Show discussing the
“heist” (Klein’s word) that is the bailout. This immediately makes an article
(tour de force) on cheese feel insignificant. Why care about something so
seemingly materialistic when there are major things happening in the world.

The answer?

Culture. No, it’s not politics, my first love. But it is the story of people
It’s the story of our ancestors and the simple things our communities were
built around hundreds of years ago. It’s chic now, but back then it was
self-expression. Things like cheese bind us together and create society.

The next time you buy a block of cheese for $20 a pound, remember a couple things. There’s nothing wrong with escapism. But, it is just cheese.

The next post will be the 20th one and the last (not counting the Final Feature) as the class comes to an end. That’s the official “good bye” apparently. We’ll save the tears, well wishes, and rides into the sunset for that.

What I’d rather address with this, the last ramble, is what I’ve learned during this whole process. And I think I can sum it up in one sentence.

Have a passion for something odd and the rest will follow.

When I started this, I didn’t expect anyone to read it. Like I’ve stated, cheese is funny. People would probably think it’s a joke to write about it. But over the course of the past three months, I’ve had people tell me how entertaining (and informative…but entertaining) this little venture was.

It’s a pretty satisfying feeling knowing people can appreciate something you probably know too much about. It’s led to interesting conversations and general networking involving my other projects. Sure, I’m stuck being the Cheese Guy, but I can laugh about it.

Besides, someone’s got to help you be trendy right? There’s fashion blogs and lifestyle blogs. But food is undeniably in and what better way to impress than presenting your friends with cheese you can’t pronounce the name of?

But I’m a procrastinator so I’m going to put that off too.

In the meantime, some house keeping. Then onto the cheese.

First, you all should visit Allison Quering’s blog. She was nice enough to give a nod to mine. You have to do more with your life other than buying cheese and this will help you.

Secondly, my other blog Shoot From The Hip. That’s new. And once this cheese odyssey ends, we should still be friends. Creepy internet friends. Be warned there might be some colorful language that pops up.

Now, follow the jump and we’ll talk about brie for a bit.This would probably have been a good way to start this whole blog. Brie is the one “fancy” cheese everyone knows. But once people know they like brie, they’ll go into a store and say, “Hey, I’d like some brie.”

And then the smiling man or woman behind the counter hands them some, right? No. They look at the customer with a look that mixes anger and confusion. Why? Because there’s probably 100 types of brie and they have no idea what you want.

Breathe, it’ll be alright. You’ll avoid this life-altering scenario by knowing a few names that most stores are bound to have.

Double Creme (Not as rich and smooth as triple creme, but sturdier. If you must bake brie, double creme is what you want)

Fromage D’Affinois

Marquis De Lafayette- Not a single good link. In short, similar to the D’Affinois. However, has a sturdier texture. Not as smooth and noticeably smellier.

President (only if you’re on a budget)

Triple Creme (Very creamy, consistency of butter. Will ripen quickly and turn into liquid)

Delice de Bourgogne

Brillat Savarin

Delice d’ Argental (like it’s similarly named counterpart, but saltier)

This is a map of a handful of cheese shops I enjoy in the area. Assuming you start in South Jersey, you’ll notice one location. The other three are in South Philly, all relatively close to one another.

First, meet the Kehlers.

What they’re doing is really pretty revolutionary, since this is the first cave aging cheese operation in this country. I’m told the caves are a sight to behold. Also, they have their own small fleet of high quality cows that produce fantastic raw milk. They also herd them indoors in the winter and play them jazz music to keep them happy.

I don’t know about you, but I trust any cow with an ear for jazz. I wonder if they like Thelonious Monk?

While that’s all very entertaining, the important this is we’re going to have awesome cheese for an awesome price. All the fantastic cave aged cheeses we get from overseas are pretty expensive. With them made here, with the same technology (do caves count as technology?) we’ll have almost identical quality for much cheaper.

Sometime this year they should be starting to send their cheeses to stores. (Last I heard only 2 of the caves were complete). I, for one, am psyched.

Everyone and their mother are literally scouring for this cheese. It must be in every hot recipe published within the last two years. French onion soup comes to mind.

Let’s break it down. Because I’ve eaten a few.

First, there’s your standard “natural” Gruyere from Switzerland. It tends to have a blue label and is shy under $20 a pound. This is the classic, and it’s decent. A little too heavy on the “swiss” though for me. Meaning, it’s kinda smelly. And it totally smells like dirty diapers when you open it.

Okay, I take back that dirty diapers comment. The cave-aged version of it REALLY smells like dirty diapers. It’s older and aged in a cave for maximum stink. The taste is just a bit too much for me. If I want something this vile, I’ll get some Morbier. Sometimes, you need something vile.

America has their own variations on Gruyere as well.

My favorite is the Gran Cru Surchoix. This is the one time (tell your friends) that I prefer a domestic cheese over its foreign counterparts. It’s cheaper (under $14.99 a pound) AND it tastes better. Huzzah!

This will get funny in a second, I promise. I’m getting off my soapbox.

Alright, so like I mentioned last week, here’s the cheaper alternative to the showstopping cheese platter.

Since we’re in a recession, I’m conserving letters and not giving it a long acronym. I’m just dubbing it TARP. (I can’t help myself)

Jump to the cheese, finally.Ok, so this is like the Bizarro version of last week’s platter.

Note: In order to cut costs, all cheeses are domestic. They are significantly cheaper than their foreign counterparts.

1. The Brie

Go for the brie made by President. Some of their products are imported. The brie is not. They retail for about $8.99 a pound and come in various flavors. Not a bad price to taste ratio.

2. The Cheddar

New York, New York. So you can’t afford the cheddar from Canada. Whatever. New York does it just fine for under $10 a pound. Yancey’s Fancy makes some bad ass cheddar. Yes, bad ass. Meaning, it’s not really fancy (despite the name) but the sharpness from the amount of salt they use will make your tongue tickle. Sorry if I creeped anyone out…

3. The Italian

I can’t stress this enough. Check out Bel Giosioso. They have a wide selection of Italian cheese (made in Wisconsin?) that’s all about $7.99 a pound. Go for the Parmesan if you’re stuck.

4. The Goat

This is tough. Laura Chenel wins, I suppose. It’s tough doing domestic goat. But we’re seeing this through! An 8oz piece usually goes for under $5.

There it is, the Recession Special. Not as glamorous, no. But you’ll have more money for the necessities in life.

I’m going to try and find some decent, bargain priced cheeses that will still impress without breaking the bank. That’ll be here next week.

In the meantime, contemplate the mystery that is American cheese. Why doesn’t it have an actual name?