23 August 2007

Is it Possible to Get Sponsored as a Cheese-Eater?

I think I need to see a doctor. Or a shrink. Or maybe be I could just pay someone to tie me to a tree and spoon feed me for a week.

You see, I’ve got an addiction.

And it’s not going away.

I’m addicted to cheese.

That’s not some hep code word for some psychotropic wonder pill. I mean cheese pure and simple. The yellow stuff. The stuff that makes a cheesesteak more than flesh on a bun.

Cheese.

I looked up my addiction online and all I could find were people who took themselves way too seriously who were prepared to wean me off cheddar.

I’m not ready for that. I’m gonna take my chances. You’re not gonna take my cheese away, weird internet-cheese-intervention person. If you want to take my cheese away, you’re gonna have to pry it out of my cold, dead hands.

Ok. Now that I’ve proven that I’m a completely reasonable person…

One of my favorites here is a little block of wonder known as Dill Havarti. I think those little flecks of green twig are really miniature suicidal alien beings holding a thousand miniature tractor-beams. They pull my face close to the Dill Havarti until I have no choice but consumption.

Just a theory.

I hold a special place in my heart for fresh mozzarella. Possibly my finest cheese memory comes from sitting outside a little café off Piazza Navona in the shadow of Sant’Agnese in Agone eating Insalata Caprese. A simple salad of tomato slices, mozzarella, basil, and olive oil, this stuff takes on an epic tone in the City Eternal. Mozzarella chill, soft and wet, drizzled in extra virgin and bespeckled with tiny charms. The fact of the matter is: this is the cheese that conquers all. The only cheese that can honestly heave its own reputation into the fold and come out an equal on the square of Borromini and Bernini’s great architectural arguments.

Alas.

Asiago, Feta, Danablu, Dubliner, Beaufort, Munster, Edam, Svecia, Paneer, Monterey Jack, and (my favorite) New York Extra Sharp Cheddar… these are the names that haunt my dreams. Sometimes stinky, sometimes hard, sometimes gooey, sometimes moldy. I just can’t get enough.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Goat cheese

Unknown said...

Yum. Crumbly Goat Cheese.

Savvy said...

camombert?