Cheese Addict’s 12 Steps to Recovery

Here is an amusing take on the recent blahblah about cheese being the new crack! In the Paris Update, a weekly Paris guide edited by Heidi Ellison, I found this funny column written by one of her contributers: David Jaggard, apparently a cheesehead of the first order.

In his article French Cheese: Confessions of a Casein Addict he kindly provides the rest of us with a 12 step program for cheese addicts.  Read the entire article, it is funny but here are his 12 steps for you to contemplate while endulging in your habit:

  

The C’est Ironique Cheese Addict’s 12 Steps to Recovery (of More Cheese)

1. Admit that you, by yourself, are powerless over cheese. You also need a knife.

2. Believe in a power greater than what you have now — somewhere out there is a cheese that’s even more potently malodorous than anything you’ve ever smeared on bread. If only you could find it.

3. Make a decision to turn your life over to God as you understand Him, by which you understand Casomorphin.

4. Make a searching and fearless inventory of your moral shortcomings. Or, since that’s a drag, of the nearest cheese shop.

5. Admit to yourself, to Casomorphin and to another person, namely the cheese shop clerk, the exact nature of your uncontrolled cravings. Along with how much of each one you want.

6. Be fully ready to have Casomorphin remove any compunctions you might have about asking to sample dozens of different cheeses before buying.

7. Humbly beseech Casomorphin to keep delivering His opiate high without ruining your cholesterol levels or waistline.

8. Make a list of all the persons you have harmed in the past by breathing on them right after a big bite of gorgonzola.

9. Make direct amends to those people by inviting them over for fondue.

10. Continue to take regular personal inventories of your cheese stock and, when it falls low, promptly admit it. And (duh!) go buy more.

11. Seek through prayer (for more grocery money) and meditation (on the locations of various cheese shops) to improve, and indeed maximize, your communion with Casomorphin.

12. Having had a spiritual, or, failing that, gustatory awakening as the result of these steps, carry this message, and a cheese knife, everywhere you go.

Say Cheese Please!

Recently I lead a cheese tasting (dégustation) for the American Womens Group here in Paris.  Unlike we normally do, we went to one of my favourite fromageries - Griffon, near Ecole Militaire for a group visit of the shop guided by the always affable and totally knowlegeable team of Claire Griffon.  One of the participants, Janet Robbins sent me a link to her blog Postcards From Paris where she posted a great recap of the visit entitled 'Say Cheese Please!'. The article is worth the read as Janet really nailed the essence of the moment and backed the visit up with a good deal of research on my favourite subject -  CHEESE!  

A Look at Pairing in the USA

The Wall Street Journal published a great article on cheese in America worth taking a look at called The A to Z Guide to Cheese Plus Pungent Pairings by Tia Keenan. It features an interesting combination of world cheeses with amusing descriptions to go with them, like " a nutty, savory, beef-broth-y stunner with plenty of “crunchies” (amino acid clusters) that add a pleasant Pop Rocks-for-adults texture to many aged cheeses" or Époisses being "Stinky, funky, smooth as a velvet Elvis".

Then it proposes, with photos, some cheeseplate combinations of the selections they feature.  Quite interesting combinations, not your usual ones either, which is the point of the article.  There are some American cheese I would really like to try but can not get here in France, but there are some beautiful Italian and Spanish ones that if you look hard you can find here and in the UK.

This aticle proves that cheese has definately 'arrived' in the US and just like wine Americans are jumping into it with both feet!  And as a side note, Culture Magazine reported that before banning them, the US Food & Drug Administration has decided to  "reconsider the safety criteria" for raw milk cheeses !  Great news for all.

The internet is an amazing thing.  You can find all kinds of useful and useless information, anytime, anywhere.  Following a link from a podcast about the International Cheese Competition, I read a very interesting article, albeit a bit old the other day regarding terroir and cheese.  It was in the Feb 2002 issue of Wine Business Monthly and is called The Terroir of Cheese by Maria Lorraine Binchet.

It is one of the best and most focused discussion of the subject of terroir and cheese I have read.  It describes the main differences between terroir in wine and in cheese and then goes indepth on the subject relative to cheese from the land, to the animals, to the process and the producers, all who add their special piece to the terroir of a fromage. Well worth the read!

Cheese & Sex

Cheese eaters have a more active sex life?  Who knew! Apparently according to an article on the website MinuteBuzz, cheese-addict have more sex than otherpeople.  Yep! You read it right. The results of a survey made by the American dating site Skout, after questioning 4600 members about their sexual habits, the cheese-lovers have it...or at least have it more often!

According to researchers, it is the tryptophan in cheese that make the difference. This amino acid helps boosts serotonin or "the pleasure hormone", so people who eat lots of cheese have higher levels of the stuff coursing through their libido! The best part is that the stronger the cheese strong, the stronger the link.  Yeehah!  Now all you gotta do if eat more cheese especially the smelly, strong ones!