Top 10 Signs you might be a Cheese Geek (hey – it’s Friday afternoon and my mind is wandering):
10. Someone asks you the difference in the “make process” between colby and cheddar and you a) know what they mean by “make process” and b) actually know the answer (Colby is similar to cheddar, but does not undergo the cheddaring process – it is softer and moister because it’s produced through a washed-curd process). Thrilling, isn’t it?
9. You’re on a first name basis with the individual who owns the trademark “Squeaky Cheese”. (That would be Bob Wills of Cedar Grove Cheese and he’s still giving me a hard time for my Christmas poem about him and Sid Cook).
8. You Google yourself and the first (and only) thing that appears are articles you’ve written about cheese, cheesemakers and events revolving around cheese.
7. When you host a dinner party, the first question your guests ask is “So what kind of cheese are we having tonight and tell us the stories about the cheesemakers.”
6. You spend your $1,500 “economic stimulus payment” on a new refrigerator specifically because it has a special temperature-maintained cheese drawer and then regale its features to your friends with what turns out, so much enthusiasm, that they later heavily mock you over margaritas.
5. You volunteer to work Saturday mornings at a local artisan cheese shop because it’s a) great fun to talk about cheese with complete strangers and b) you get the honors of being the first person to taste the new wheel of bandaged cheddar that Willi Lehner just brought in. Could life get any better?
4. Your husband introduces you to his co-workers as the “Cheese Underground Lady” and they look at you and start talking very loudly and slowly, taking care to enunciate their words. You smile and nod.
3. Farmers from Peru, the Ukraine and India all write you emails on the same day, asking if you can send them a manual on how to start a dairy. While you can’t, you do refer them to the Center for Dairy Profitability, where by now, Arlin Branstrom is probably pushing delete whenever he sees your name in his Inbox.
2. Every year during the month of June, random people somehow track down your cell phone number at 6:30 a.m. on Saturday mornings and ask for directions to the (insert various county name here) dairy breakfast, and you actually get out of bed and Google it for them. This could be why you nap so much.
1. And the number one sign you might be a Cheese Geek: you write a blog posting about the top 10 reasons you might be a cheese geek and no one reads it.
Happy Friday!
Oh there are people who read it!
Oh, yes! We are here!
Oh – here’s one more:You might be a cheese geek if you suscribe and actually read BOTH the Cheese Reporter and Cheese Market News. (And get excited when they hit your mailbox on Saturday mornings — whoo-hoo — morning reading with coffee.) Sad, just sad.