Editor-In-Cheese…

Hello Cheese Enthusiasts!

My “Editor-In-Cheese”…

A very special edition this week to help celebrate one very special person…My “Editor-In-Cheese”, also known as my Mom.

Every week I kick around some ideas to write about, take my final photos by Friday, and then finally finish up writing the story over the weekend. Most Sunday evenings you can find me on the phone with my Mom late into the night, so that she can help me edit my latest post. She was an English major in college, but that is not why I ask her…I enjoy letting her be the first person to read my post, as well as sharing the backstory of the post with her.

My early “Culinary Advisor”

Each week I write about delicious, sometime unique cheeses, and other such delicacies. So what did I eat growing up??...No raw milk French cheeses…No Goose liver Pâté…No imported truffles, just your standard “meat and potato” type meals that would be found on most middle American dinner tables.

She was not raised in a “Culinary” home, so she did not raise me in one either. Her focus was on living life to the fullest by experiencing the little joys in life: her wonderful friends, family, and music…and I was always in on the fun. Life was never boring with her.

As a young boy, she would take me to hear opera in the park (some of the world’s greatest sopranos and tenors), take me to museums exhibits (like the treasures of King Tut, and the beautiful paintings by Andrew Wyeth), and dragged me from bed to watch the magnificent QE2 Ocean Liner sail into San Francisco harbor for the first time (just barely fitting under the Golden Gate Bridge). She wandered through the great halls of the Smithsonian Museums in Washington D.C. with me, took me to the original settlement of Jamestown, Virginia, and through Colonial Williamsburg… and we still found time to walk across the Golden Gate Bridge for its 50th anniversary.

Up to that point, she may not have given me a culinary experience, but she did give me a cultural one.

Everything was about to change in my culinary world…She provided two life changing experiences that would forever change my life path…

Alpen Pantry, my first cheese shop

First, she helped me get my first cheese shop job. She was working as a merchant teller at a bank and one day asked Rudy Papiri, owner of Alpen Pantry, a local cheese shop, if he could use any extra help. Delighted, Rudy had me come down for an interview and I was hired on the spot.

My grandfather helped my mom land her first job, so it seemed fitting that she help me find mine. The specialty foods and cheeses that they carried there were nothing like I had ever experienced before. The sights, tastes, and smells of that first shop were something that changed my food palate forever.

This was also my first experience in selling and dealing with the public. I loved it and thirsted for more knowledge on everything that I was selling.

Second, she took me to the United Kingdom…not for just a week, or ten days, but a full five weeks. Letting me have the time off from work was part of the “condition” that I worked at the cheese shop, and my boss Rudy was happy to let me have the time off.

We ate fish & chips out of newspaper (that was rolled into a cone shape) in Crawley, Clotted Cream on Scones at the Lizard, avoided the “Elephant Balls” near Tintagel (that is a story for another time), ate Roast Beef flavored “crisps”, as well as Salt & Vinegar “crisps” (which had not reached the States yet) along our drives through the English country sides. We enjoyed Guinness, Shandy’s, and “Scrumpy from the Farm” from the local pubs (as well as their pub grub).

Cheese Hall at Harrods of London image courtesy of Pinterest @davidcollinsstudio

But when we finally reached London, it was the famous Food Halls at Harrods of London that really opened my eyes to a culinary world that I did not know existed. The sights, sounds, and smells made our mouths water and stomachs grumble in delight. No photographs were allowed back then, but we must had looked like we had never seen food before. Truly a feast for the senses.

When returning to my cheese shop, I never quite looked at the cheese counter the same way again. I got a subscription to Gourmet Retailer by age 19 and had already started to attend the San Francisco Fancy Food Show, to sample, ask questions, and learn, learn, learn.

Mom, thank you for your guidance, inspiration, patience, inquisitiveness, and of course, your love!

My B.M.E. (*Best Mom Ever)

I won’t ask for your help editing this week’s post…but rest assured, I will be looking forward to our next Sunday night editing session.

Happy Birthday Mom!

Until next week,

Trevor