Carrot Top

Could be called that, yes, culiary bigotry. But consider this: When Adam mentioned above that the lobster was not Scottish but Australian, and that Scottish lobsters were like the lobsters "here" that I know, and grew up eating once in a while in Maine, I said to myself, (and I consider myself to be without culinary prejudices nor religious prejudices. I tell my children that people eating roasted bugs in other places is just a fine thing to do, and that if I were there, I'd try it). . .I said "Well then! I will be so happy to go to Scotland and eat a lobster, for it is what I know!" This is how it begins. With "what we know". Every human being wants to be a part of something, some group, some defining safe comforting category for him or herself. Happens with food as well as with other things, without even thinking about it too much, as just happened with me! Then there is the connection that happens with the next generation, just naturally. My children, of course, will want to eat lobsters like I eat, for they seem comforting and happy things to them, and the "others" are the unknown. One can verbally argue against this, but it does happen naturally. Here is an incident that happened in my past that made me aware of the flip side of sticking to the things one knows, and not wanting to turn away from them to other ideas or concepts. I was dating a Jewish guy whose parents had survived the holocaust in concentration camps. We were getting close to being serious about each other. I am half-Jewish, but was not raised in any religious tradition, and the Jewish side is from my father not my mother, so in Jewish traditional law, I am not really Jewish at all. We had a conversation about "where we were headed". He was worried. I could not understand why. He said that he could never marry a girl that was not considered, in all ways, to be Jewish. I thought that to be a rather limiting concept, thought it was the sort of concept that kept the world further apart and that was sort of a bigotry in itself. But then he explained further. If he were to marry someone that was not Jewish, his parents would consider it a form of betrayal. It was important to them, vitally important, that the traditions they held, and that he followed also, (as he was a good and loyal son in this way as in many other ways) be upheld. To separate himself from these traditions would be a bitter betrayal of his family, and he would not consider doing it. And considering the history of his family, I could understand this. Another way of looking at things. Now this example is extreme, and it is focused on the way family loyalty and feelings enter into something other than "food as some sort of religious icon", but it is another way of looking at things. So I say, allow people their own definitions and limitations on what they will eat or do, as long as no harm is coming to others through it. I can completely respect the ways of honor that are shown in these acts, whether small ones of what is put into one's mouth, or whether larger ones, as in deciding a path to take that may not seem totally all-encompassing of the world, but which defines a honest and sometimes sacred way of being.

Agreed, godito. ............................... And (in thinking about some of the other posts made upthread) perhaps there is something about the very essential-ness of food that makes it lend itself to this sort of reaction. After all, when a baby is born the first thing it seeks to do is to suckle, to eat, to nourish itself. You don't see it heading right out the door to buy a Jaguar. Not right away, anyway. And though a Jaguar can seem to give many benefits to one who owns it, it still can not keep one alive. Food is a very essential need and has great emotional content riding within it.

Okay, Jack. I see your drift. Two things run through my mind in response. The first is a question: Is there something in particular that made you think of this, some particular incident that was the straw on the camel's back, the impetus that brought this notion of food as religion into your mind? Just curious, you know. The second is the thought that indeed, it would be much easier to test the tenets and beliefs one has been given in terms of food than it would be in what we generally consider a religion. Much easier access to the stuff the stories and beliefs have been told and taught about, and it sure takes less time to dissect a lobster than it does to dissect any set of spiritual beliefs, (if that even can really be done). And though dissecting a lobster might be messy (let's change it to boning a chicken here so that all can participate). . .(no, wait a minute. . .let's change it to cutting a pineapple instead so even more can participate). . .anyway. The dissecting process is messy on all of these things, but not as messy as dissecting any set of spiritual beliefs! Along these lines there is something written by Gary Taubes, originally printed in The New York Times Magazine then reprinted in "The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2004". It is called "What If It's All Been A Big Fat Lie?". It is specifically about the fact of how the consumer believes what they are told about what to eat to be healthy, and how and where this has gone terribly wrong in the recent past. Good article with great back-up research. ................................................. Adam, that is indeed how I imagined a Scottish lobster to look. Quite craggily frightening. Is he waving his scary little feet at the photographer in an attempt to get him to move away from his bank account? The photo reminded me of my first thought upon reading Jack's original post. Which was. . . what a great idea for a science fiction story!

Ha, ha, ha, ha! Wonderful lines, wonderful question.

That is a very beautiful way of looking at it, Abra. Another idea came to mind in terms of this. This sense of high imagery and detailed ritual that Jack speaks of. . .two factors also seem to be in place that might answer for parts of it. The study of gastronomy and the ability to practice it on a daily basis have become much more easily available to many more people due to better distribution of fine foodstuffs "everywhere". . . and the economic conditions that would allow more people to partake of this world of fine food are also in place. Add to that the fact that this study and life is new to many people. Their families did not do this before them, nor did they live in a culture where the majority of people viscerally lived it and knew it (again, I am speaking of the US here). This seems to me to perhaps be part of the answer, for when I look at people who have known fine food as part of their lives in a visceral, quiet way. . .going back to their upbringings. . .they do not seem to have the attitude of chatty reverence that others may have to whom the whole thing is "newer". People I've known whose families have had the ability to experience fine food as a daily part of life, who have grown up with a good knowledge of fine food and wine, don't fuss about it as much as the ones I've known who are just learning it now. Doesn't really matter whether we're talking about perhaps old-money people who dined at Lutece at Daddy's knee from the age of four on upwards, or whether we're talking about people who grew up in an atmosphere of growing and producing and cooking the bounty of the land in their family homes, without pretense. And this thing of formalizing and giving more importance to a subject when "newer" is natural. When learning a new subject, most people have to try it on this way and that, forming postures that they hope will work for them along the way, then maybe discarding them and trying on another. Learning something new can be awkward, usually is awkward, and because of that sense of awkwardness even more rules and rituals and fussiness can seem to be inherent in the practice of the new thing. If this is a part of the whole idea that you are talking about, Jack, then I imagine it will wear off somewhat as people become more comfortable and settled in their ways with fine food and gourmandism. Anyway, just another thought.

Do you think perhaps, Jack, that the current and burgeoning interest among people that live the US, (and perhaps in Britain too). . .both places where food has not traditionally held such interest as opposed to some other cultures and places. . .do you think this interest has become a sort of substitute for the traditional religions that have supposedly lost followers? I might agree with this if so. . .but then again, I don't really know. Somewhere recently I read that membership in organized religion of all sorts is growing in the US. Maybe we are just hungry for all sorts of things that might be fulfilling. That certainly has always been a great tradition in the US, its hunger for more and better. And one might say so of Britain also if one goes back to considerations of the British Empire. We do live in an age where anything that is thought of, or created, as an idea. . .must be hyped to be successful. A quiet idea is an unknown idea. Media makes reality, and the bigger and bolder the better seems to be the motto. Food is no longer just a personal thing we partake of in our homes every day. It is emblazoned across our culture in bright and bold colors to create excitement, and we define ourselves by whether we dine at McDonald's or at El Bulli or at "wherever". Perhaps this need to be big and bold leads to the translation of food into a quasi-religious sort of thing, at least superficially. It seems to me that many things today have taken on this semi-religious quality in our lives. Everything is named and defined. We are straight or gay, and often seemingly religiously so. We are "this" political way or "that" political way, and again, seemingly religiously so. It is not a quiet nor a subtle time in history. Perhaps food is just one of a variety of things that have taken on this look and feel. I do think I know what you mean, though. There is not much of the understatement about it any more. And that makes one think of bible-thumpers or their ilk. P.S. I have tried in this post to stay away from the specific things that are banned on eGullet in terms of writing on these subjects. I hope I have done so. It has been difficult to even attempt to answer what I think Jack was writing about without skating rather close to the edge, though, as this IS the connected subject.

If you believe, as Jean-Francois Revel wrote, that "To as great a degree as sexuality, food is inseparable from imagination", then the suggestion that you are making could certainly hold aspects of truth. Personally, I can not think of anything else in the world that people become so consumingly and definitively sure of how and what and where they want for themselves, than food. And of course, staying alive requires that we eat. So the ritual must be played out each day, unendingly till. . .well, till the end comes. Indeed, I cannot think of a single subject that rouses people's passions as much as food. Except maybe politics and football. And religion, as you say. I do subscribe to Revel's idea.

An interesting topic, Nullo Modo. What fascinating responses are being written from different places! In thinking more about what defines the rural romantic food experience, for me, it would be simplicity and lack of pretension. Along with the food being native in some way to the region. I can think of two sorts of places that still offer this on the East Coast of the US, at least. Lobster shacks in Maine would be one. You can still find a lobster shack that has been open for years with the family operating it, with boats bringing the lobster to the dock each day, with only a few things on the menu, with picnic tables to eat at outside. Of course these are seasonal, and generally found in areas where tourists or vacationers will be coming through, for the native population can not support it. Barbecue in parts of the South. I know of two good barbecue joints within an hour and a half drive of here. . .one in Hinton, WV and one in Beckley, WV. Again, basic menu (and yes, they offer greens sometimes, with pot likker!). Both these places are set on the side of roads leading to town, roads littered with strip-mall sorts of stores. ............................................................................... When I lived in the countryside and had time on my hands, naturally one of the ideas that came to me was to open a restaurant. For I was hungry for good food. Good food that I didn't have to make myself! Nobody in (the very small) town where I lived expressed any interest in the idea of any sort of ethnic food. Some had not even eaten Chinese food before, and had no urge to do so. The idea of an upscale sort of place that offered different tastes, was ridiculous. That idea was an anethema to anyone that I mentioned it to. They had to try hard not to roll their eyes at me in exasperation at my nonsense. So. How wonderful to start a barbecue place, yes? There were people around that knew how to do this, how to barbecue a whole cow or pig, or parts of. . .but two things came up in conversation and in doing research about whether this would be possible and desireable. First, the guys that knew how to do this would not want to leave their jobs in the armory an hour drive away or the plastics factory half an hour away, for there was sure not the small financial security they had there, offered to them in a barbecue joint on the side of a road in a small town (a small town that they had grown up in and seen so many attempts at small businesses of all varieties start and die lingering deaths, small businesses started by locals themselves, not even by newcomers. . .). And second, there were a lot more restrictions and problems inherent in the operations and business parts of opening such a place, than would have been if the place had been started-up some number of years ago which would then allow the ability to grow into the factual demands of operating a food business today. One example: (Remembering here that I am trying to be authentic to the foods of the region.) If I had chosen to have pigs as the main staple meat of the menu, I would have to find someone that still raised pigs. Nobody in the areas did anymore, everyone had gone to steer. But did people mostly want to eat BBQ beef? No, they wanted pork. And then, even if I had found a pig farmer, it would not have been possible to get the pigs butchered by the local slaughterhouse, for due to the lack of pig business, they did not "do" pigs anymore. I was told that there were a couple of old guys over the other side of the hill (which means about at least a half hour away) that would butcher pigs, if I could find them. They weren't often available by phone, for they didn't bother with answering machines and sometimes had their lines turned off for non-payment. And of course, the financial demands of building a place where one can serve food to the public have risen astronomically over the years due to tighter and tighter codes in all areas. . .construction, health codes, etc. You just can't pull out that 50 gallon drum and fire it up, washing your hands from the pump out back, as so many really regional, country places started up many years ago. On a shoestring. Now, the shoestring needs to be a mariner's rope. And the intellectual demands require encyclopedias and lawyers. ...................................................................................... I guess the best thing to do, for one who has that attraction to (ha, ha! I love this line) rural romantic soulful bosomy areas, is to get there as often as possible, travel there as much as you can. They need the support, lots of them.

That is nice of you, Michael. . .but my own background in food in rural areas only began as an adult, so. . .well, I probably could make something up and that would be fun, but I'd rather read "the real thing" as in your stories of Malaysia. Beyond that, the food of my childhood (which was spent in suburban areas till I left home for New York at 14) was made by my mother who thought cooking a chore and food something that had to be eaten at regular intervals to stay alive. She made simple, quick meals from cans and boxes, and she had no ethnic or cultural food memories to carry on. (My mention in the post of "some of us have memories" was meant in a global way. I didn't want to spoil the idea of the thing by mentioning that I in particular did not have these memories!!) I wracked my brain for some ancient food thing that I could share that would show change, and the only thing that came to me was my mother's voice telling me that I should not take my children out for french fries at McDonalds because "You could save a lot of money by making them for them at home". And by that she meant, buy the frozen fries and pop them into the oven till heated. Her culinary philosophy was obviously not about how things tasted. . .but more about not wasting money on frivolous things like this! (Growing up in Maine at the time she did can do this to a person, I guess. . .) So. Anything since my own childhood food has been an improvement. McDonald's french fries included! Actually, going back to the theme of romantic ruralism, the thing is that for a rural person, the idea of having a McDonald's "up the road a piece" can seem like quite a romantic thing to them, so I guess part of this whole thing is perception and "where you're coming from"!

Okay. Seriously. I think it is easier (no matter what one's income level) to find a good variety of good-tasting things to eat in any city that is large enough to really be called a city. Once you know the byroads to follow for your own tastes and pocketbook, the places are there. They may fail, or they may move, or they may be uneven sometimes in performance, but they are unending. The city grows itself. It is always moving. On the other hand, rural areas. . .the attraction about true rural areas to both those that live there and to those that visit is their unchanging quality. The sense of time standing still, the sense of the earth and the sky and the people who have lived there since forever. It's both romantic and true, if you can find the romantic truth in it. This is easier to do when not living there, though. When I lived in rural areas, certainly I found great romance in things that were considered everyday sorts of things, for they were "different" to me and had a charm of their own that appealed to me. But as far as finding great places to eat? Serendipity can provide these, but I do not remember too many people who learned to cook at their mother's knees running restaurants with great food that was provided by the kitchen garden and the pigpen out back. Wish I did. That would have been something to see. And to eat. Unfortunately, most of the people I met did not enjoy cooking, just as they had no real wish to go out and feed the cows every morning. A nice job at a auto parts store desk would be much preferable to that, and a nice frozen quick and easy to make dinner preferable to them, too! Most people, I say. Not all. And why not? Romance is where you find it. . .or make it. Romance, to them, was not inherent in rural life, for the most part. Rural life was just what they knew and lived. The best place I can think of, of the sort that you are describing, in the area of southern West Virginia where I lived. . .was actually a "dairy bar". Ballard, West Virginia. Nobody has any reason in the world to go there. Most people don't. At the bend in the road, the Dairy Bar is open in the summer. White clapboard building on the corner of town (town consists of the Dairy Bar and a gas station with a game checking station and a country store) across from. . .a deserted old ranshackle house on one side. . .a Christian Church of some variety of Baptist with dire warnings about where you would end up if you didn't show up there on Sunday posted on its half-falling down billboard in the dirt front yard on the other side. . .and the country store right in front of it, with garden-fresh dirt covered vegetables in bins in front of it and customers who pulled up in pickup trucks with barefoot children who would run into the darkness of the store to hopefully get an ice-cream pop or a chunk of the wheel of orange cheese that sat usually half-uncovered on a wooden block to the side of the white bread rack. The Dairy Bar offered burgers which tasted like. . .I don't know. They tasted like Ballard, West Virginia. Oh, no. Not fancy at all. Probably frozen too. And they offered fried oysters, of all things, which were also pretty good. Place your order, wait for your name to be called, then chow down on the picnic tables stuck under what looked like a garage roof behind the place. Once, on a hot summers day, I asked the lady that owns the place for an iced coffee. Honey, I made her day! She had never heard of such a thing, and wanted the recipe in detail. She didn't dare to try it herself, though. How I would have loved to have seen that place serve some of the more "authentic" country foods we read of, of that some of us (as you have) have had in our past with our families. I didn't find too much of that, though. So, yes. I think you are being romantic. But why not? It's a tough job, but somebody's got to do it!

Rural cooking? What IS that, Nullo Modo? Tell us more. What was that you said? Something about romantic and. . .was it idealism. . .both in the same sentence!? P.S. I am smiling. And wait a minute. You even ended up with something about soulful bosomy areas. Heh heh. ............................................................ Nullo Modo. Write a menu for what this food, this idea, is to you. As a starting point. This is fun. Please. Imagine a menu that would fulfill this wish?

I've heard that Paris currently can offer some decent regional African food, and do remember having had excellent Indian food while living there, as my neighborhood had a good sized Indian population. I wonder whether the Arabic or Moroccan food is decent. . .and also wonder about Vietnamese. . .

A Taste for Something Different “No, I absolutely refuse!” Susannah quietly responded, trying to keep her temper under wraps. “When I started this company, it was about being the best at what we did. . . it was about creating something beautiful. . .something that could command respect, something that would be pure and wonderful! What you are suggesting is sheer paltry kowtowing to profit. I won’t agree to it. It can not be done!” The seven board members kept their eyes on the fine polished table, some doodling on yellow pads mindlessly, others twisting slightly back and forth in the soft black leather chairs on hidden wheels, making them look somewhat like a group of four-year-olds, made to sit at lunch a bit too long by some strict kindergarten teacher when really they just wanted badly to go out and play. “Listen, Susannah, this is it.” Jeff, sitting at the end of the table with his tousled brown hair and small rectangular glasses, wearing a Ben & Jerry’s T-shirt, spoke. “This is the end of the company unless we make this change now, today. We should be glad that Reuben came up with the idea, really! Because otherwise it is the end. No more cheese. No more company. No more jobs for everyone we’ve hired over the years. The budget is kaput, the profits are flat, and there is nowhere to turn. Susannah’s Kaese, as a company, is done.” “And you want me to agree to rename the company “Susannah’s Sexy Shmears”? You want the product to be re-developed into these two lines of “Grrrrrr Gorilla Grappling Cheese” for men and "Shhhh Shivers Sassy Cheese” for women?! It not only won’t work, but it is against everything we ever aimed for!” Susannah stood up and threw her pencil on the table, barely missing the tofu dip that was placed there, surrounded by pita chips and mini-veggies. “You guys are a bunch of idiots. I refuse to agree!” And with that, she stormed out of the room, her long grey-blond hair swinging angrily. Jeff cleared his throat and wiped a spot of dip off his chin. “Sorry, everyone.” His voice was tremulous as he looked around at the others, who were all, like him, in casual attire, and who now were also chomping on veggies and tofu. “But it is time to vote, as you well know. Susannah will have to live with it. I am sure that she will see that we are right.” …………………………………………………………………………………………….. The launching of the new gender-specific cheese products was a publicist’s dream. These products appealed to such a wide market. . .it was difficult to find anyone that did not want a piece of what they offered in a bite of cheese. What marvelous properties they could confer! An aura of sexual confidence. . .a claim to be an independent thinker. . .and the aspect of being knowledgeable about fine food. Susannah finally had to admit that the company was doing better than ever before, and that their audience seemed well pleased. She had taken to traveling around the country doing cheese parties (for groups that could afford the very high booking fee) and the Ben & Jerry’s t-shirt had been replaced with Prada from head to toe. And why not? She told herself. This was what she had wanted to do from the very beginning. . .make people happy! One thing bothered her, though, but she tried not to think of it very much. The recipe for the new cheeses had never been known to anyone except certain key people in the factory who were bound by law not to speak of it by Jeff. He claimed to have developed it based on his scientific research into pherenomes and did not want his secret recipes to be reproduced by anyone else. She put her worries out of her mind, though, as she slipped into the newest pair of shoes she’d just picked up on Madison Avenue. ……………………………………………………………………………………… Just how the truth about the recipes leaked out nobody ever really knew. Everyone involved had a different story, and none could be confirmed or denied completely. But it had leaked out, and it spelled doom for the company. Why? Because it turned out that there was absolutely no difference between the Grrrr Gorilla cheese and the Sassy Shivers cheese but for a bit of hot red pepper and some cilantro in the first and a hint of mint and fenugreek in the second. There was nothing at all in either of the cheeses that had to do with pherenomes. It was all a marketing hoax. After the Wall Street Journal reported the story on its first page, with a drawing of Jeff and Susannah looking unconcerned, sales fell drastically and class-action lawsuits were considered by at least fifteen different groups. As Susannah entered the same room with the same group of men sitting around the table today, they did not look happy, again. The same men, now dressed in close-fitting clothes from Milan, now doodled with their Tiffany pens on their leather-bound notebooks. But the feelings were the same, the attitude was the same, and it seemed again that Susannah would be the same, for she was angry. “You bunch of flibbertigibbets! You dawdling apes! What on earth made you think you could pull this off?!” This time she did not speak calmly but she shrieked, as is appropriate when clothed head to toe in Prada. “This time, it will be my way. This time, you will see truth win out and our company will be saved!” The men nodded unhappily, for nobody else had any ideas, besides to file for bankruptcy, of course. “We will call our cheese Earth Cheese” she continued. “It will speak to all the good things of the earth. People will think of great pastures of golden grain, of mountains capped with clear white ice, of streams glittering with dancing fish, and all this will lead to thoughts of happy cows and to cheese that will yield health and good nature to whomever eats it.” And so it was done. The company’s future was secured with Susannah’s idea of Earth Cheese, just as it had almost been broken before with what at the time was the tremendously popular Grrrrr Gorilla cheese and Sassy Shivers cheese. The world had been united in its hunger for this new cheese and in its adoration for the idea of it and for its taste. What was the taste? That recipe was never revealed either, but strangely enough, nobody has ever been able to tell the difference between it and the usual yellow “American” cheese slices. Go figure.

The question still remains (at least in my mind) as to how financially successful most of these so desired "off-the-beaten-track-gems" could or would be, given the market economy of the areas that one wants to find them in. In each small town I've lived in, no matter what the geographic location within the US, unless there was a significant local population that was willing (philosophically and emotionally) and able (financially) to support such gems, they are only able to exist as labors of love and finally, empty bank accounts, for there are many small towns with populations that do not meet the criteria. And in each small town I've lived in, given the choice of going to a local small "gem" or to the local place that did, yes, serve a good breakfast (but with dishwater coffee natch) (and margarine pats for the biscuits, natch) but then would allow the day to disintegrate (obviously only in my mind for these places are packed with locals each day) into a hot and cold buffet for both lunch and dinner. The buffet would always be stocked with tons of canned and frozen foods, rewarmed. . .and perhaps an overdone roast and some fried chicken (again from a box, certainly not freshly-made). This is where people would be happy to go, again and again, to spend their money. . .while the small gems that did try to open would stare across the street in a sort of shocked amazement, till the end would come and their place would close. This is why, when you ask, "What can be done?" and you suggest a guide. . .well, other than trying to change the people of small towns (which of course is nobody's business but their own); yes, it would be a great idea to have a guide. Other than a "nose for the thing", which obviously one has to be born with and which must be in working order when it is required to be, this is the best idea yet.

I don't want to be a drag, but feel that yet another unfortunate fact regarding this phemonena of the unfortunate food that is found in the small/rural/off the beaten track towns (even such a town as Lexington, VA where there is a good amount of old money here and there, and there are colleges though those colleges are small and fairly conservative). The restaurants that do open, that are of the level that would make an experienced traveller or demanding eater pleased, generally have a very hard time going it. Particularly with the locals and particularly "off-season". Sourcing local products is not easy, for the people that grow mostly do so for themselves and their families, and do not want the bother of working/growing to a schedule. Sourcing local help is not easy, for in the college towns the labor force disappears during summer (which is likely to be the busiest time for these places due to visitors driving through) and even during the other seasons, unfortunately there do not seem to be the same amount of hungry young (or even old!) people desirous of a job waiting tables or learning to cook fine things as there seem to be in metropolitan areas. And finally, so many of the locals simply do not go to eat at these places. For the majority of people (aside from landed gentry (sic), as I mentioned before. . .which in one small town that I lived the local lawyer informed me was the equivalent of the local elementary school principal whose salary was about $40,000. per year) simply do not have the money to do this very often, or do not think that fine dining is where they should spend it if they do have it. They do not feel that they "belong" in these places. They just don't feel all that comfortable there. Anyone is free to argue my viewpoint on this, of course. My knowledge is only based on eight years of living in this sort of place and of speaking to the owners of such places as chef-to-chef. I like the idea of a off-road guide, Busboy. And I think that one could be well started just by going through the annals of eGullet and sourcing the good regional restaurants in the regional forums, if that is something that would be possible and desireable to anyone who was involved in such a project. It is a crying shame to live in this great country and to have to travel the byroads and be so often disappointed in even the desire for a simple meal. Edited to add: I seem to remember Holly Moore and someone having a discussion about an off-road guide some time back, a small niche guide I think it was. . .

Ah, yes, Lucy! How very smart of you! The smell of an onion sauteeing would definitely do that! Motivation by aroma. . .that could be turned into an entire artform. . .and probably could fill a cookbook with ideas, too. Along these lines, what comes to mind for me is basil. If there is a big fresh bunch of basil sitting in the kitchen, it calls and calls endlessly to be made into something good to eat (hopefully before it gets nibbled away into nothingness by hands going by plucking a leaf here and there for "just a bite"!)

For me when this happens a good solution is to visit a small exotic food store where nobody speaks any language I understand, and where they can not understand me either. That leaves the ingredients on the shelves up for analyses that are completley hopeful based on past experience and knowledge. The strangest items can then come home to enter the cupboards and fridge, and either be cooked with fingers crossed, or left to sit and be stared at in bemusement while the things that originally bored one sort of gain a grudging acceptance in the idea of cooking with them, just out of fear of the other stuff. The other solution is to go out to eat at the worst chain restaurant in town. After that, anything you have gains in favor just by comparison.

Maggie. . .I am truly sorry if I've confused anything with my late entries and my ongoing entries. It is just that I am having so much fun with this cheese thing . . . Karen In the Name of Love Over the years, Michael had developed the habit of disappearing for a day or two here and there. It was not that he really disappeared, for he did keep in touch with his family and his place of work. . .but it was a fact that nobody really knew where he went. His boss and co-workers thought he was at home. His wife and children thought he was away on business. This had gone on for many years before the first hint of his secret life leaked out. It was discovered by his secretary, one day when his wife called work to get the phone number of the hotel where he was staying, for she had misplaced it. The secretary was stunned into silence by the request, but in a record-quick recovery time of one and a half seconds, she collected herself. She realized what was really going on, for some of her own weekends and evenings were spent with a certain married man in a nearby hotel, while her own husband believed her to be working. In an instant, she calmly spoke, following the code of those who dissemble, the code that says, “Bend truth for others as well as for oneself for one never knows when a backup falsehood will be needed in return.” “Oh! Didn’t you get his e-mail? It must have gotten lost in cyberspace. The hotel was booked up when he arrived, and he had to go find another one. It’s quite busy there right now. . . convention time, you know. I’m sure he will let us know as soon as he locates another room!” Janice smilingly said to his wife. And as soon as she hung up the phone, she hit the keys on the computer quickly, sending him an e-mail telling him that his wife was trying to get in touch with him. She hoped that he would check his e-mail. And that was all that was ever said of it between them. Time went on, years passed. Life was the usual routine with Michael and his family. He continued his disappearances, and nobody knew the better, for his secretary was uninterested and his wife had been lulled into the usual calm of accepting his word as good. She had received an e-mail from him shortly after that phone call several years ago, an e-mail that told her he had moved to a new hotel for the duration of the trip, and he gave her the phone number where he could be reached. The children grew, the family prospered in a quiet way, albeit sometimes in a lonely way for Emelie, his wife, for his business trips became more frequent and the house was often empty but for her and the children. It became so that the children did not even ask after their father anymore, for he was more of a figurehead than a real, live person to them. It was on a hot sunny Sunday afternoon that the phone call came, the phone call that tore this mundane, normal world apart into tiny shreds for them all. Emilie picked it up and heard the woman’s voice asking for Michael. “He is not here right now. May I take a message?” Emilie asked politely.“Yes, thank you” the voice replied over the line. “This is Hodges Real Estate. I wondered if he had found an apartment yet. If not, I have something to show him and his friend.” Emilie’s heart stopped for a brief second. The world did actually spin when this sort of surprise was sprung on one, she said to herself. But no, it could not be. It must be a mistake. Wrong phone number, mistaken identity. “Uh. . .you wanted to leave a message for Michael Upsyring? Michael J. Upsyring?” she breathed out into the receiver, hoping that the whole thing was a mistake. “Yes, I hope it is okay. He did not want to leave a phone number but I was just so sure that this apartment is right for those two that I searched the internet to find it from the rental application he filled out with our company. He and Miss Dabnurt were just here last week. May I leave a message?” asked the caller with hope, the neverending hope for a rental fee in her pocket that could pay off her credit card bills. “Miss Dabnurt? Oh. Yes. Okay. Yes, please leave your number. I will see that he gets the message” Emilie blurted out with her best attempt at control of her emotions. She jotted down the number and hung up. Now what? she thought as she paced the room trying to sort out what was happening, what on earth could be happening here. Her heart was pounding out of her chest as she reached again for the telephone to dial Michael’s cellphone number. “Hello!” Michael responded in his usual overbearingly charming way after picking up on the third ring. “Michael. . .uh. . .listen. Listen carefully” Emilie choked out into the receiver. “The cat is out of the bag. I know what is going on. I want to hear it from your ears, though. I know about your apartment hunting. And who you are doing it with. What is going on?” There was a dead silence on the other end of the phone. Emilie spoke again, trying not to cry, for to burst into tears would allow his power over her, and that was something she had no wish to do now, at this moment, and perhaps never again. “Michael! Tell me! I have never done anything to hurt you. I have always been by your side. But I need to know what is going on!” Michael spoke slowly but his voice was strained. “What do you mean? What are you talking about? Nothing is going on! You’re crazy! What makes you think something is going on?” “Tell me the truth. Or I will find it out myself,” said Emilie. Yet he continued in his protestations. Then he became aggressively verbal and loud, asking Emilie, “Who told you this?” And with that, she knew. She knew it was true. Now it was her turn to flatten the air with leaden, heavy, endless silence. The moments seemed like endless hours, like eternity, like she had floated into space somehow, a space where it was dark, cold, heartless, and empty of anything at all. Her voice left her body of its own accord to answer him. “I’ll tell you who told me. . .if you tell me the truth. And that is the only way you will find out. Now tell me”, she droned in deadened tones. “I’m going to kill myself!” Michael spoke suddenly in a panicked tone. “I’m just going to kill myself!” “Okay” she replied in the voice that spoke on its own, the voice that was low and flat and so unlike her usual tones. “But why don’t you tell me about it first”. And so he did. ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………. “Aren’t you going to make me something to eat?” Michael asked boldly in a semblance of his usual charm, his winning smile now making his face look like it belonged to a crocodile. “Get real, Michael. Make it yourself.” Emile replied as she passed him on the stairs on his return home. “But Emilie! You always cook for me! You are the best cook in the world! And I just complimented you on your new hairstyle! What is wrong with you?” Michael asked beseechingly in his always-slightly-demanding way. Emilie could not believe her ears. He had admitted to the fact that he was sharing an apartment with another woman. . and here he was asking for dinner to be cooked for him upon his arrival home? Simply because he complimented her hair? Really, the man was living in another world. “Michael. Tell me that you will get rid of the apartment. Tonight. You should not be there, and neither should she. It is wrong. Then, there might be a chance I would cook you something, but really. Your attitude is outrageous!” she said levelly. “Otherwise, we will be looking at a divorce.” He stopped walking and turned around. “Please. No. I don’t want a divorce. Please. We have something together. But I can not get rid of the apartment or her. I just can’t. Please. Listen. There must be something wrong with me, for I’ve done this before. Three years ago, when we lived in North Carolina. I did the same thing, but then I did leave the woman. I left her without telling her I was leaving or where I was going. I just disappeared after having the same sort of relationship with her for two years. There is something wrong with me, I tell you! I need help!” Emilie felt she was going to be sick. Turning away from him, she walked to the bedroom that she would never again share with him, and there she drowned in tears, in gulps of desperate air, being shocked by a battering of comets of shock and pain and disbelief. Her world, her whole world of the past ten years, had been a lie. ……………………………………………………………………………………………… Months passed and still Michael could not bring himself to rid himself of the apartment and the woman. When he visited Emilie and the children, he slept in the basement den. . . and those visits became fewer and further apart. The children rarely asked about their father anymore, and when he appeared with a big crocodile smile and armloads of gifts from the toy store to gain their appreciation, they tore open the gifts and were made happy for the fifteen minutes it took to toss them around a bit. Then they walked away from him back to Emilie. He saw the slight look of disdain in their eyes. For his money did not hug them. It did not tuck them in at night or watch over them. It did not make them good things to eat nor did it fuss over them in all the moments of the day. His money and his gifts had no eyes to look into, no face to look up at in respect. It was cold, and it was selfish. And so they grew away from him. The divorce eventually was finalized and life went on. It was six months later that Emilie picked up the phone again to hear another shocking message. This time, it was the state police. Michael had been in an automobile accident. Michael and the woman. They were both declared dead upon arrival to the hospital. …………………………………………………………………………………………………… “Sorry, guys, but we have to do this”. Emile quietly said to the children as she unlocked the apartment door in the faraway city where their father had lived his secret life. “We’ve got to go through Daddy’s stuff and sort it out. There is nobody else to do it, and he was your father.” The door opened, and they all stood back, eyes blinking in disbelief. The apartment was filled with refrigerators, of all sorts. There were big stainless steel ones and smaller old white ones. There were clear pass-through boxes and it seemed that one wall had two walk-in boxes built into it. Emilie backed out of the door. “Uh. . .gee. . .maybe we should not do this right now. Not right now, anyway. Let’s go get something to eat instead, huh?” for she could not imagine this sight. What was in all those refrigerators? It was just too too weird. She would call the police for help. They could investigate while she took the children back to the hotel. ………………………………………………………………………………………………… The world was just as amazed as Emilie to find out what was in those refrigerators. It was cheese. Cheese of every sort imaginable, cheese from all over the world, cheese catalogued to perfection and in loving detail. Each whole cheese had two round holes in it where two round paring tools had been used to remove two small bites. One for him and one for her. All in the name of love. And when the will was probated and the sale of this fabulous collection completed at auction by Sotheby’s, Michael’s children and probably even their children were made wealthy by the sale. And why, how, did all this happen? It was all in the name of love. Cheesy love.

Roast chicken with butter and herbs. If you don't want to wait for the whole chicken to roast, flatten and butterfly it, roast on high heat. Start a tomato sauce simmering while the chicken is cooking. Onions, herbs, something the kids will like on pasta beside the chicken. Cucumber salad, simple, with a dash of cider vinegar, salt and pepper. Dill if you have it. Cover the raspberries with cream for dessert. Just pour it right over. Add sugar to top if they are not naturally sweet. Easy. Save the sausage for breakfast.

There is one quite nice restaurant in Lexington called "The Southern Inn" (or the Southern-something-like-that...it is early in the morning and my brain is not functioning too well!). It is run by someone with training and experience. White tablecloth/casual, if that makes sense. Certainly you can go there in jeans, and certainly children are welcome. The food is moderately "sophisticated" which means to me that you will find some creatively designed items but also some well-crafted simple foods. Nothing from cans or boxes. There is another place called (again, sorry, name forgetfullness but it is the only one like it) Tequeteria something-or-other which is good and also fun for the kids. Again, fresh food, nicely prepared. Southern Inn won't kill you financially, but the Taqueteria is of course much less expensive. I have a friend who lives outside Lexington who knows food well, who is quite particular, and who "keeps up with" the food-goings-on in town. These are the only two places he will eat there. I've been to both restaurants and have been happy both times (and I, also, am not made happy unless there is some sort of charm and freshness to both the food and service besides demanding that the place be clean...which is something sadly lacking in so many places). Anyway. Two more choices if you need them. And yes, Holly is right about The Pink Cadillac. It is an odd and amusing place and if you order right, the food will be fine.

Not Your Average Joe Walking into the house that was set in the working class section of Bridgeport, Connecticut it might seem as if you were entering a maze. An amusement park perhaps, the back part where the tricky things were kept that were used to amuse the crowds, the things that were made of bits of strong cloth and even stronger bits of metal, the clutter of odd shaped paraphernalia that just made one feel as if the Wizard of Oz must be around somewhere, if not a midget or a dwarf or the Snake Lady…some sort of person that would induce amazed wonder. Follow through to the end of this somewhat claustrophobic hall and you would enter directly into the kitchen. And there she was. She did not induce any sort of wonder in the way she looked. Standing about four feet eight inches tall, Josephine had grey hair pulled back, always pulled back but for when she would retire at night. Then the hair would cascade down her back in a total surprise of rebellion, the image reminding one that the old were once young and that the young will become old as sure as any thing can be on this earth. Her hair that was daily rolled into its bun suited her, though, for she was a direct no-nonsense woman that had lived well and with full health into her seventies. The kitchen was where Jo existed. You could find her other places…once in a while in the garden outside in the lot that was set to the side of this house that had raised a family of six children, four boys and two girls all somehow surviving and growing in three bedrooms. You might find her once a year or so at church. But the rest of the time, all the time, you would find her in her kitchen. There, this tiny, uneducated, unpretensious woman was Queen. Jo cooked every day of her life. Breakfast, lunch, dinner. Seven days a week, no respite. Nobody else would dream of approaching the kitchen to cook, not only because she was Queen but because nobody wished to go even one meal without tasting the food she and she alone could make. Her daughters had been taught to cook, and her sons a bit too…but never was the savor the same. It was not the ingredients, for they were the same. It was not the methods, for the methods she used were nothing if not basic. It was not the equipment nor the weather nor the mood of the person nor anything, anything at all that could be found to answer the question “Why?” It was just Josephine. Josephine was not an artist with the food, no. Not unless you believe that what an artist does is to somehow transport love into their works. For that is what Josephine did, and that was the taste that filled the mouths of those who were lucky enough to partake of it. Jo’s food was love, made real enough to eat. “Hey, hey!” her small high-pitched Italian-accented voice would warm one as they entered the kitchen, her kitchen, her kingdom. “What’re you doing? Sit down, sit down, here, eat!” And you would not have a choice. It did not matter if you were hungry or not, for the food would appear before you on the table that was cluttered with a zillion things as she bustled busily in the six foot space between sink and stove and refrigerator. You would have to perch on the kitchen chair and then enter into the world of busy conversation, half in Italian and half shouted in laughing English… and bowls and plates and pots of food, food that said love, food that would send you into a place of deep contentment and childlike passivity. What did she cook? Nothing new….nothing too expensive or finessed, that is for sure. This food was prepared on a shoestring, but that shoestring could tie the world together, and do it beautifully. There were roasts seasoned with garlic and fresh herbs, endless platters of strange bitter vegetables of all shades of green, some from the garden, some from the market and some picked at the side of the road. There were small glasses of strong homemade wine with larger glasses of tepid water served in a cacophony of different designs of glassware to wash it down. There was polenta and rice and pasta, always with some sort of “ururu” or ragu, the tomato sauce that filled the house with the aromas that only a long-simmering, meat-and-herb seasoned tomato sauce can give, the aromas that hint of bright sunshine and laughter, the ease, simplicity and suppleness of the Latin way of life. But there was one thing that Jo used in her cooking in almost every dish. One “magic ingredient” beyond and besides the love that proved inimitable. Cheese. Cheese of all sorts and varieties was pinched or shaken or grated onto almost everything. Never was it slathered or piled or used to add the cloying overpowering richness that could deceive one into believing the dish was good, simply based on the pure cheese-y richness of it. It was always a counterpoint, an accent. It was the feather in her cap. Homemade ricotta was whipped into a soft puff then poured over macaroni with a ragu sauce, the creamy cool whiteness of the cheese seeming like a gathering of angels hovering over and protecting, aiding and abetting the spicy sauce and heavy pasta lowering below it waiting for its touch. Grana padano fell like golden tears into the rich chicken broths that were filled with whatever happened to appear that day…bitter greens, double-yolked eggs, fresh peas, rice…it melted just enough to allow that the tears that it was were now gone, that all was right with the world, all in this bowl of golden soup. Slices of grainy Provolone were layered into potato gratins, the earthiness of the potatoes somehow being made to seem more real, more solid, more powerful, with the addition of the cheese. The book has not been written yet of Josephine’s recipes. Would it be possible? Would the recipes, even so closely written and carefully detailed, even filled with memories, would these recipes ever be able to do what they claimed…to bring Jo’s love into reality again, in the form of a bite taken of a fine dish of food? It is not possible to know the answer to that question. But there is one thing that any cook who wishes to dish up a plate of love to eat can be sure of. Add a bit of cheese to your recipe, gracefully and carefully, as if it were a kiss on the top of a child’s nose. The love will be tasted.

Cheese, Please History has shown us many examples of the ways in which cheese has been a strategic part of society and culture. How often have we looked back in time with awe at the way Hannibal was able to lead an army of elephants into Ancient Rome over mountainous terrain, wondering at the marvelous fact that we now have finally realized…that the elephants were moving solely to escape the aromatic breaths of the soldiers behind them, breaths that were perfumed with the odiferous combination of aged goat cheeses, raw garlic, and garum. The legendary beauty of Cleopatra can also be traced to the power of cheese, as we have recently discovered the secret recipe that she used for her daily facials…camel’s milk cream cheese whipped by hand with lemon and olive oil, applied and allowed to work its magic for at least the time that it would take for one or two slave dances every evening. The magic of Leonardo da Vinci was touched by cheese also, as scholarly investigation has found that each of his personal paint recipes included a tiny grating of Parmesan cheese to add texture and a certain golden hue to the colors…and of course many important pianists around the world will admit to the fact that a quick rub down of the piano keys with a fresh slice of mozzarella di bufalo does wonders where fast fingering is required in the score. There are so many more ways in which cheese can enhance our daily existence on earth besides the usual, commonplace one of placing it in our mouths, moving it around between our teeth and tongue, moaning a bit in pleasure (or, in the case of some goat cheeses, choking in bitter shock) and swallowing it for caloric sustenance. According to the type of cheese, one can accomplish so many daily acts of life with so much more pleasure within the simple acts and an even greater sense of accomplishment. Each type of cheese has its own abilities and offerings. Some of these are listed below for those who would wish to further their education in fromagerie scholararie to experience a more fruitful and pleasant way of life. Brie: A large round of Brie is a better bed pillow than one can imagine, unless you have already tried it. The velvety texture of the rind is smoother and softer than brushed silk, and has the additional benefit of reducing lines and wrinkles on the face by constant application of vitamins and phosphates which are inherent in the cheese. One’s head is cradled gently, almost hugged by the soft diaphanous cheese, and the nights dreams are accompanied by the gentle scent of warmed Brie (with walnuts or olives, depending on your personal food philosophy) which is not a bad thing at all, at all. Cheddar: Aged cheddar has been proven to be an excellent material out of which to make children’s toys. The younger the child, the better, for when they have finished playing with the toy and are bored, they can simply eat it with no complaints. Some of the toys which cheddar is good for are: small building blocks; dolls (use raisins for the eyes and celery for the arms and legs); and any sort of building system such as Lego or Erector sets. Cheddar can also be used to replace computer keys which children have broken off. Swiss: What can not be made of a slice of Swiss cheese?! Lay it out and dry it a bit, then use a hole-punch along the edges. It can then be sewn into any fashion one can desire, from leggings to hats. The clothing never needs laundering, simply a wipe with a damp cloth or an occasional rub-down with a bit of mayonnaise for a pleasing shine. St. Andre: St. Andre is the best massage cream one can imagine. Skin is left glowing and fragrant, particularly after the bite and tongue marks go away from the removal process. These are only a few of the ideas that cheese offers us today. Many more can be found by simply opening up the box, breathing in deeply of the cow-and-vinegar smell, and allowing your imagination to flow. Remember what Brillat-Savarin said: “A meal without cheese is like a beautiful woman with only one eye”. Carry that thought through your day, and enjoy!

Excerpts from “The Chronicle of Higher Chalk and Cheese” Reprinted with permission August 2005: The market for cheese has dropped rapidly in the past two months, and is still falling, raising fears among cheese producers that their businesses will no longer be viable. “I just can’t cut the cheese anymore” stated one artisan cheese maker in an interview with the Chronicle. “It all started with the “Literary Smackdown Contest” on that important food and wine website. So very few people bothered to respond to the challenge to write about the subject of cheese that the national media took notice and quickly posted their own stories about the Fall of Cheese…how it was no longer “in” with the Foodie Incrowd. Sales have been dropping ever since. I’ve had to let fourteen of my goats go, I can’t use their milk, they are now the neighbor’s bratty children’s pets…what is the world coming to?!” Other cheese producers are in agreement with these thoughts expressed, and the cheese world is in a tizzy. January 2009: As bio-engineered foodstuffs increase in popularity in the world-wide market, fine cheese continues to fall in sales. Since the discovery of how to grow filet of beef and chicken breasts in the laboratory from one existing cell into thousands of pounds of yield, live animal breeding has decreased. The factors influencing the consumer preference for bio-engineered foods are a) Money…lower price of product; b) Health…better disease and sanitation controls of product; c) Cultural…less inhumane treatment of livestock. The majority of the general public have now come to the point where the slaughter of an animal for food is a crime against nature in their personal value systems; and d) Real Estate…farmland freed from farming has been the source of the latest real-estate boom, making millionaires of everyday folk. May 2015: Fine Artisan cheese has disappeared almost entirely from the world-wide marketplace. American cheese slices and Cheeze-Wiz are still to be found almost everywhere, and fast food emporiums are the major buyers of these products, incorporating them into almost every one of the recipe items they offer, including desserts and beverages. The “Hot Pepper and Cheese” smoothie is the new hit of the season at America’s largest fast-food restaurant chain. It is said that artisan cheeses can still be found on-line by joining the latest fashionable clubs, which claim to offer their converts the ancient knowledge that will allow one to prophesize the future through reading cracks and pockmarks in the various cheese varieties they still create. This ancient art is called “Tyromancy” and has existed since Classical Civilizations flourished on the earth, but had dropped into a neglected phase in the years since. March 2038: In this year of a frozen winter, a disaster of unimagined proportions has occurred. A new and unknown virus has found its way into the world’s food sources, all of which are currently bio-engineered and created in laboratories. Meat, chicken, fish, vegetables and fruits have all been infected. Malnutrition is approaching the top levels ever known. People are killing each other for their neighbors’ pet cats, dogs, and birds in an effort to find something to eat. The zoos are being emptied as they were long ago in wartime, in the long-ago time when people had few scruples over sacrificing an animal for food, but now, picket lines and protesters are attacking each other with weapons over whether or not the animals should be eaten. Scientists are working day and night to try to contain and destroy the virus which has attacked the food source, and are being kept alive themselves to do this task with numerous cans of Cheeze-Wiz. April 2038: The virus has still not been contained but there is hope on the horizon. The art of cheese making has not been completely lost to civilization as was previously thought. A sect of Orthodox Jews has come forth from the veiled privacy of their culture to offer the world a chance to learn this lost art. They have been saving the knowledge of how to make artisan cheese in the ways that Christian Monks saved knowledge during the previous Dark Ages. It was vitally important to their culture to do so, as it would have been impossible for them to follow their religious edicts without the daily act of keeping dairy and meat separate. If dairy did not exist (as it has not, in the recent past number of years) they would not be able to act in the manner which they believed was right. The loss of sacred ritual in day to day life was not to be lost to them, so they quietly raised cattle and maintained the art of cheese-making for their own use, and have now come forth to offer this knowledge to the world. Teams of scientists from every part of the earth are racing to these small farms to learn the ways of producing cheese, so that the world will no longer suffer. A cultural renaissance is underway, and all because of cheese! June 2040: Black Market cheese continues to demand a high price as artisan cheese-makers continue to develop new products. Most of the populace is happily re-growing their lives on the generic Swiss Cheese that is being manufactured by the ton while the virus that decimated the world’s food source is still being contained. It is said that Black Market chickens are available in some areas of West Virginia. What is next? The ancient food called “The Hamburger”…made from a freshly slaughtered steer? Time will tell…

The Moon is made of Green Cheese The cat climbed up my leg with her claws just barely scraping through my jeans. She lunged up towards my hands. They held a fat square of Velveeta cheese I’d just cut from a loaf that was shaped like nothing so much as a 24 K gold boullion cube straight from the Federal Reserve Bank. To this cat, it was as precious as any gold would be to man. She was pregnant, hugely so…and she had not eaten in a very long time. I didn’t know that, when I walked into the room with the cheese. It was my first day in the apartment and I hadn’t even known there was a cat in the place. The cheese fell from my hands, and I shrieked with mild terror and surprise. The cat grabbed the odd-shaped bit of Velveeta and almost swallowed it whole. She ran towards my legs again, desperate to find more of the manna that had appeared; the manna that would save her and her soon-to-be-born kittens lives. We stared at each other in a sort of mesmerized shock. She began to mew and demand. Naturally I murmured okay, okay. She ran to the eyedropper-sized kitchen just ahead of me and started to climb my leg yet once again as I began to cut the cheese. It hurt. Quickly, I placed the cheese on a paper bag, for there were no plates to be seen, and practically dropped it on the floor. She inhaled it. An old cracked turquoise plastic bowl in the cupboard was filled with some cool water and she fell upon it, slurping in a little cat-dainty way as if she were a gourmand stranded on a desert isle for many years, and it a fine vintage bottle of wine found in a corner of some far flung cave. I ate a bit of the cheese myself, along with several pieces of Wonder Bread that I had just bought at Key Food. This was all that I could afford to buy with the money that I’d panhandled in the place with the infamous name of Needle Park (though I didn’t know that then), all three dollars and forty cents of it. I was fourteen years old. It was my first day in New York as a runaway. Why would anyone choose to buy Velveeta cheese and Wonder Bread if they only had money for several small food items to buy? I don’t know, really. It was not the usual thing that I would have chosen to eat before leaving home, but in the time that had passed since then, and in comparison to some of the other fare I’d eaten, it seemed just right. It actually seemed a luxury. It was soft. One could imagine it warm. It was rich and giving. It was wrapped in lovely shiny silver paper that had a sensual feel of heft and assurance inside the bold yellow cardboard box. It seemed so American, so self-assured, so right, so very settled. Those were the promises that Velveeta held for me that day at Key Food in the narrow scuffed aisles. The Wonder Bread, too, was the cheese’s friendly partner in its own right, with its wrapper of bright ballooning shapes, printed boldly with the solid promise that it would “Build Strong Bodies Twelve Ways”. Out in the big world acting as I thought a grownup should, but still yet a child, I longed for that stolid sense of promised security and health; goodwill and sunshine; the American Way. We shared the bread and cheese, the cat and I…and over the next several months became friends and allies against the noisy late night tirades of the other tenant in the apartment, Warren the heroin addict. Warren had been the other surprise, besides the starving cat. I’d not been told about either of these inhabitants of the place when an acquaintance had said I could stay there and “apartment-sit” for her. My friend the tabby cat continued to share the food I’d bring home for several weeks, and the kittens were born healthy, four of them, quietly in a corner of the closet in due course. One day soon after that, the cat’s owner whisked into town and carried them all away. I moved out of the apartment as quickly as I could afterwards. It was not the same without the cat, the bread, and the cheese. Though all these things were on the far side of elegance…a cardboard box of processed cheese spread, a sponge of a wad of tasteless bread, a rangy-looking old cat, none of that mattered the tiniest whit. There was great comfort to be found then… and there always will be in a cat, some bread and some cheese.

His bushy eyebrows drew closer together. It seemed as if E.G. Peskyfirther’s brows were trying to form the “V” of Victory on the mounded hill of his face. It made one wonder, where else but in the magnificent metropolis of New York City, where else but in the hallowed halls that rose grimly proud over the cobbled lanes of Wall Street, where else could you find a man like this, so intent on greatness and perfection! “What is this?!” he bellowed towards me, stretching his neck out to the full extent of its four inch length. “I wanted exactly, precisely, one ounce of cheese!” I turned from the open door of the refrigerator and saw him in the full display of his rage. His short, pudgy hand arched out with venom. His mouth, jaw, eyes, and infamous eyebrows all worked in unison now, each displaying a quality of dance-like movement…all full of anger, distress, and extreme disappointment. “My diet " (as he intoned the holy word, his eyes closed with religious rapture) "requires one ounce of cheese. At this time of day. Each day. Not more, not less! And I must tell you…the last time that I broke this rule, the disaster that was Black Monday occurred. What do you think of that?” I saw him wince briefly as he pounded his hand onto the hard wooden butcher-block table with a rubbery smack before continuing his narrative. “It must be one ounce of cheese. It must be a sharp Cheddar. It must hail from Wisconsin or New York State. Ideally, it will come from Liverhat, Wisconsin or Slapsings Folly, New York, These geographic locations are the ultimate prime meridians for perfect cheese. Never listen to those who say that Fofum Valley in Minnesota or Wompummfat, Oregon has the equal grace in cheesemaking. It is not so!” I raised the five pound block of cheddar from its swaddling of three thicknesses of cellophane wrap, benignly assessing its major charms: a superb orange greasiness; a stench half of skunk and half of wet basement (or maybe more like a dead skunk laying in a wet basement); and a grating finish of aftertaste that stuck your tongue to the roof of your mouth like a bloodsucker to a bare leg in a weed-filled northern lake. It was my second day on the job as Sous-Chef in the Executive Dining Rooms, and so far I had learned a great deal: Do not arrive for work early, least you be greeted by twelve VIP wanna-be’s who suddenly required personalized breakfast cooked for them (ASAP, natch); do not smile at people, for they would then arrive at the kitchen door with winsome doglike little smiles, simpering about how good those cookies were they’d had last week…were there any more “just laying around?”; and finally, never, ever get caught in a conversation with E.G. Peskyfirther, for to do so was to risk your job at the drop of a hat if not at the very least the loss of your sanity. At 6:40 A.M., it seemed to me to be too early for an angry rampage about a dairy product’s “perfect weight”, but again, this was E.G. and he had his ways. I swung the mountain of cheese out of the chill of its refrigerated home and smacked it down onto the chopping block, just missing E.G.’s perfectly manicured little round pink fingers that were gripping the grain of the wood just a mere three inches away. E.G. had nothing to fear from me, though, but for a growing willingness to enter into an argument over a bunch of nonsense. “I didn’t get any instructions from the Chef about your cheese requirements, Squire. . .uh, I mean Sir” I simpered with a tight little smile in his direction as I pulled an eight inch Chinese cleaver from the drawer. “She knows what I need! Where is she? Why were you not told?!” he barked and whinnied with all three of his chins quivering. I began to cut a piece of cheese. “Now, Mr. Peskyfirther, I will get you a new piece of cheese, but don’t expect it to be “cookie-cutter” perfect, for I do not have the exact dimensions you require nor do we have a working scale in the kitchen. I will just follow the directions for cheese-paring, I mean cutting, that were printed in this month’s issue of Tootin’ Foodies magazine. The article was quite extensive, an entire twelve pages. Surely you read it?” I asked, as the knife moved towards the cheese. I looked over at him and grinned with an overbearing solicitous manner. Personally I thought the man needed professional help. His thirty-six million dollars a year in annual compensation (not counting bonuses or profit shares) would seem to argue against this, though. Maybe there was something to this cheese thing. “Hie!” he snorted at me, and started to shout out his orders as a small drop of snot started dripping from his nose from the strength of his exclamation. “It must be one exact ounce! It must be the shape I always get it in, and don’t think you can fool me, young lady!” “We’ll have you all set in just a snap, Master. . .uh, I mean Mr. Peskyfirther. . .for I have one idea in mind here. . .to do my job as best I can. . .to make you happy. . .and to get this cheese back into the refrigerator so that I no longer have to smell it” I smoothly replied. “I will cut you an ounce of cheese, an amazing and perfect ounce of cheese. Do not doubt me now, for neither I nor the cheese will disappoint you.” His bright red face was glazed with sweat now, he stared with beady eyes as my knife moved. “Now I said I would cut an exact ounce of cheese.” I admit that I almost began to giggle as I unwrapped the foil that surrounded the quarter pound of butter, four ounces it said on the package, that I held in my hand. . .but it was a giggle of impending madness. “There is no scale here” I continued, while hacking at the huge block of greasy orange congealed milkfat that he called cheese, “and the Chef said to just guess, if something needed weighing. Could be that I can do better than that. . .let’s just see. . .” Placing a chunk of cheese onto the butter wrapper, I sliced it into a chunk along the printed line that said “one oz.” then took the knife and slid the cheese towards him across the worktable. “Here is your cheese. One exact ounce cut by volume. Please check the reference on your diet. Was it really one ounce of cheese by weight that they required?” His face and eyebrows did not know what to do now. They gnashed and wriggled and shook and started, but no victory sign was attempted with the eyebrows, for he could not decide. What was this that had happened? “Open thine eyes and thou shalt be satisfied with bread!” I snapped at him as I swung the refrigerator door closed on the foul beastie of curds called New York Cheddar. A huge gasping laugh broke from his gaping face as he tottered sideways then grabbed the chunk of cheese and ran for safety away from the kitchen down towards the elegant corner office on the trading floor. “Cheese weighed by volume! Ha, ha! Black Monday will never cross my mind again!” “Yeah” I muttered under my breath as I pulled out the production sheets to begin lunch. “An ounce of prevention sure would have been worth a pound of cure in this case. Wouldn’t it have been better if your diet had required Reblochon? Then I could have at least respected you.”