Sunday Scribblings: Mostly irreverent thoughts about cheese

#182 - Cheese (Sunday Scribblings)

Some people like cheese at any time under any circumstances, and some people don't care for it.

I am of the former persuasion.

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A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,

A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread-and Thou

Beside me singing in the Wilderness-

O, Wilderness were Paradise enow!

From Omar Khayyam
~ Edward Fitzgerald
Never mind the rest of the poem; think about this for a minute.
So these two lovers are out in the wilderness with their bread and their wine. Don't you really think they should've had some cheese to go with that? Think about the blood sugar alone! Is it pedestrian of me to think of a slab of cheddar or brie stuck in between thick hunks of that coarse bread, washed down by the contents of the jug?
Maybe it's been too long since I sang verses in the wilderness with a "thou." My appetites lean more toward the gustatory than the romantic.
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Years ago on Mothers Day I had the great idea of ordering up a singing telegram for my MIL. I phoned Zingagram simply to inquire about how to do that, but the young woman was extremely pressed for time, and wanted interesting tidbits right now! about my MIL's personality so that she could compose a personalized song. I could think of nothing on the spur of the moment except that MIL loved cheese. I could hardly have a singing telegram all about MIL's deafness or her hypercritical nature or her husband the drunk.
Mother's Day brunch at our house:A knock on the door. Enter a slender young woman in brief tuxedo attire. Young woman sings to MIL. MIL cries tears of sentiment.Mission accomplished.No matter that the song might have been titled: Song of Cheese.
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When I was very young, my father, gripped by a craving, would take the whole famdamily across the county to get the sharpest cheddar cheese obtainable. I think it was made by a local farm family, and I remember it being so cured that it crumbled as it was sliced. Dad would eat great hunks of it with immense pleasure.It was years later that I heard the phrase cut the cheese, but my comprehension was immediate.Thanks, Dad.
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I call my dogs inside by yelling "Cheeeeezzzze!"
1965 memories of late night commercials for a local "Cheese House," the owner describing in delicious detail the kinds of cheese available and always ending with a recitation of the name of the place and the location and a perfect cheesy-tight smile. In those days I guess it was a pretty nice place. I was there a few years ago and the place was filled with flies, the cheese was sweating, and so was I. No cheese for me that day.
Atkins diet: "Have all the cheese you want." I was in Heaven. And I did lose weight.No bread, that's why.