A few years ago, I wrote a blog post about my love of cheese and all the things, aside from yummy, that it represents to me. I was rereading it today because it reminds me of how complicated this journey is. Food is such a personal thing for so many of us...it's not just about survival and what we eat to sustain us. It's so much more complicated because the shared act of eating wraps around so many other things: love, family, friendship, gratitude in abundance. Perhaps the problem is this last, and the constant fear undercurrent, wired somehow into our chemistry, that the abundance will eventually run out and we must, therefore, hoard it to ourselves while we can.
Will I ever separate the joy of food from the joys of other things in life so that they are not so firmly entwined? I don't know the answer to that. But I think that revisiting old thoughts with refreshed eyes can certainly help. After all, acknowledgment is the first step, isn't it?
But then again, maybe cheese as a symbol of something bigger isn't a horrible thing in the grand scheme. My jury is still out on this.
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July 2010
The beauty and magic of friendship rests in the meshing of different people with similar tastes; that common bond that takes you from being strangers to being--friends! That one (or more than one, if you're lucky) common interest that you can always fall back on for a good time. For me and my immediate circle of friends, while we are lucky to share many interests, one that will always be relied upon is cheese.
Sharp white cheddars that cause that little pinchy feeling behind your ear, pungent bleus decorated with a thready grey ribbon or marbled with a green color the exact shade of the trees outside, salty goudas, soft cheeses with dill, smoky, smooth, creamy and flavored with wine, whiskey or ale: cheese makes our world go 'round. Some people will arrange potluck or progressive dinner parties. Some will tell their friends to come by and bring a 6-pack. For us, it's "Hey come on over and bring a block of cheese and a bottle of wine!"
We meet at certain restaurants and wine bars specifically because they offer cheese sampler options. We go to an expensive local fondue restaurant, not in anticipation of the exotic buffalo and ostrich meats we'll have the option to try, but because of the delicate mixture of gruyere and fontina with white wine and spices that comprises the Wild Mushroom cheese option...we'd opt for three courses of this, if we were given the choice. We attend a local movie festival, each tasked with bringing "something" for the communal gnosh pot--and everyone brings cheese (ok so it wasn't the ONLY thing we brought, but we all brought it!)
So why am I writing about cheese on this, our nation's opportunity to celebrate freedom and those that provided it to us? If you haven't guessed already, this is about so much more than cheese.
It's about walking into a small cafe on a summer night, wearing short sleeves and sandals and not getting a second glance from anyone because of those clothing choices; meeting old friends and new, sharing a plate decorated with slices of bread and cream-colored cow's milk cheese, or soft goat's milk cheese sprinkled with spices, while attempting to resoundingly defeat the other teams present for a general trivia competition, one that covers topics ranging from computer science to pop culture to science and nature. It's about knowing that the faces that surround me include men and women who are software engineers, teachers, medical students, literary buffs, movie afficianados, and a sports fan. Actually, we're still not really sure about that sports fan guy, but since he also DMs some of our D&D sessions, I guess we'll let him stay.
It's about the ability to go into a grocery store just down the street--just a standard, ordinary grocery store--and being able to choose a wedge produced in one of no less than five different countries, including my own. Often the choices are more, and the varieties change weekly, offering even more chances to explore countries I've never seen through my tastebuds.
It's about being able to take that wedge of cheese to a friend's house, or to the beach, or to a picnic ground, or a local park for a film festival, sitting in the shade or under the stars with my Asian friends, my black friends, my gay and lesbian friends, my married friends, my divorced friends, my single friends, my student friends, and sharing a little taste of something special in an environment where we are safe and able to do so without the expectation of being shot or arrested for it.
It's about being able to take that wedge of cheese and share it with people who are just my friends, regardless if they are Asian, black, gay, married or single.
It's about personal freedoms that are often taken for granted, in my day to day every moment life, because I'm so used to them that I don't really know what it's like to not have them until I read about how different things are outside of my life. It's about remembering why I have them in the first place. It's about the belief that all people deserve to have the peace that I have, and having the faith--in God, in Jesus, in the Goddess, in the Great Pumpkin--that someday they will. It's about gratitude.
And gratitude, for me, is represented by a wedge of cheese on a plate in the middle of a circle of friends.
Gouda bless America.