The Power of Cheese

Last week Chuck and I took a “Wine 101” class. It was a three hour class giving you an overview of wines and cheeses. The goal of the class was for you to figure out what kinds of wine you like and a little bit about what makes the flavors of wine. It also was set up for you to try some cheese pairings. I was all into the wine aspect, but the cheese . . . well I was not looking forward to that. I call myself a “cheese wimp” because anything beyond cheddar is pushing it for me. I will eat brie or swiss (only melted) but just about everything else is out of my league. I know so many people who enjoy cheeses and I never understood the wimpyness of my palette, so I decided to be brave and plan to try all the cheeses no matter what they brought out.

When the time came for the cheese plate to appear, all kinds of crumbly, hard, and mold-marbled slabs were placed before me. I thought this plate of enormous slices were to share, but noooo, they were all for me: Two goat cheeses, one sheep, one stinky and one blue. I was thinking of backing out. But I decided to hang in there. We started with the goat cheese (the “milder” ones) and worked our way to the blue. All night I stared at the blue cheese, telling myself that those dark veins were really spinach and not mold. I pretty-much suffered my way around the plate, however most of them were not as bad as I expected, though I still did not enjoy them. Then it came time for the blue cheese—the thing I had been dreading all night. Someone came around with slices of more blue cheese because most people had already eaten their first helping with relish. She got to me and she gave me this look of surprise when she saw my untouched triangle of moldy cheese. I said, “I think this will be enough,” and gulped. For my first bite I spread just a teeny tiny bit of blue cheese on my bread because my past experiences have not been very good. I took a bite and . . .I liked it. I really liked it. I even began eating forkfuls without bread. Now, I don’t know if it was the wine pared with the cheese, the really good quality cheese, the 13 wines I had beforehand, a new-found love for blue cheese, or heroine injected in the cheese itself, but I woke up the next morning craving it. Maybe my cheese wimp days are over.

© Michelle Scott 2005