Le monde de fromage de Kate

The other night I dreamt I had impetigo.
A vivid dream, indeed; it’s just not attractive.
It was odd on a number of accounts. First of all, I’ve never had impetigo, nor have I, for that matter, seen anyone first-hand who did. Secondly, I RARELY remember dreams. The last dream that made any significant impact on me happened during a particularly stressful job hunt eight or so years ago. I dreamt that I worked at McDonald’s. No, this was not a nightmare of some kind; in the dream I was blissfully content at McDonald’s because I knew exactly where all the little food buttons were on the cash register, so I was really, super-duper fast and efficient. I’m not sure what this says about my aspirations in life.
Anyhoooooo, I had impetigo in my dream. I had countless oozing pustules all over my body. In and of itself, it was alarming. But what’s more disquieting is that I was apparently some sort of ersatz nurse in this dream. You’d think that the patients might have found my dripping eruptions worrying, but they were all somewhat comatose (other than the woman who continuously projectile vomited while watching “Blue’s Clues” on a mattress on the floor accompanied by three or four healthcare workers). This was owing to the fact that I, Faux Nurse Pus-Body, evidently, was in charge of giving them all their medications. Mind you, it seems that no one thought it was crucial to inform me of this responsibility, nor did anyone tell me where the meds were, when to dispense them, or how to dispense them. I think the vomiting people hid them from me, actually. The doctors just wandered from patient to patient and were utterly perplexed that no one seemed to be getting any better. It got surreal after that (as thought the previous events were somehow commonplace?). Suddenly, I was driving in a wacky car really fast and there was BLOOD on the road and it was DARK AND FORBODING and then I woke up.

WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN???

A poet’s hope: to be,
like some valley cheese,
local, but prized elsewhere.

-W. H. Auden (1907 – 1973)

What a perfect simile. I just love the idea that the poet aspires to be like – what else – cheese. Why then, such a paucity of verse about the subject? Gilbert K. Chesterton (1874-1936), a kindred spirit (in that he was obviously an unabashed turophile), once said:

Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.

He took it upon himself to write an insightful essay entitled “The Poet and the Cheese,” which is in his collection A Miscellany of Men. It contains the following sonnet:

Sonnet to a Stilton Cheese

Stilton, thou shouldst be living at this hour
And so thou art. Nor losest grace thereby;
England has need of thee, and so have I–
She is a Fen. Far as the eye can scour,
League after grassy league from Lincoln tower
To Stilton in the fields, she is a Fen.
Yet this high cheese, by choice of fenland men,
Like a tall green volcano rose in power.
Plain living and long drinking are no more,
And pure religion reading ‘Household Words’,
And sturdy manhood sitting still all day
Shrink, like this cheese that crumbles to its core;
While my digestion, like the House of Lords,
The heaviest burdens on herself doth lay.

What can I say? If only more artists really considered the cheese; it should be someone’s poetical muse! Just as Dante had his Beatrice, Petrarch his Laura, Elizabeth Barrett Browning her Robert, George Sand her Chopin, Smithers his Mr. Burns, someone needs THEIR CHEESE!

But wait.. enter James McIntyre (1827-1906), The CHEESE Poet! Born in Scotland, he eventually settled in Ingersoll, Ontario, where “he was attentive to his business and was uniformly courteous and obliging. He was an entertaining conversationalist, and it has been said that he was the best Shakespearean scholar in Ingersoll…” (From his Obituary Notice in The Ingersoll Chronicle and Canadian Dairyman.)

Others, sadly, see him in a different light. “In Search of the World’s Worst Writers” asserts:

…but it was at Ingersoll, Ontario that he discovered the great theme of his work, the one subject which could make his verse soar to the deepest depths of imbecility: cheese. McIntyre’s Cheese Cycle (or, as some experts call it, ‘The Dairyad’) includes such poems as “Lines read at a Dairymaids’ Social, 1887,” “Fertile Lands and Mammoth Cheese,” “Lines Read at a Dairymen’s Supper,” “Father Ranney, the Cheese Pioneer” and “Hints to Cheese Makers.”

Not only do the cretins equate cheese and imbecility, they don’t bother to mention beautiful verses like “Prophecy of a Ten Ton Cheese” and “Oxford Cheese Ode.”

But the most egregious omission: “Ode on the Mammoth Cheese.” Any truly discerning turophile would have to consider this MacIntyre’s magnum opus. Oh, how I curse and disparage such a blatant exclusion!!!

James McIntyre actually published two well-received volumes of poetry during his life. Again, from his obituary: “Mr. McIntyre received many complimentary letters from noted writers and others regarding his poems. While they were probably not of the highest literary standard, there was an unmistakable sentiment that made them deservedly popular. There was a sincerity about his poems that was characteristic of the man.” He was also included in several anthologies that were published posthumously, such as Oh! Queen of Cheese: Selections from James McIntyre, the Cheese Poet.

Alas, his greatest notoriety, and certainly most dubious honour, came from being memorialized in Very Bad Poetry. This volume also includes such questionable specimens as Matthew Green’s “The Spleen” and Georgia Bailey Parrington’s “An Elegy to a Dissected Puppy.” What pathetic company for the luminous words of our dairy bard!

More recently, he was incorporated into The World’s Worst Poetry: A Compilation of Rhyme Without Reason along with Solyman Brown’s epic poem, “The Dentologia: A Poem on the Diseases of the Teeth,” and “Lines Written for a Friend on the Death of His Brother, Caused by a Railway Train Running over Him Whilst He Was in a State of Inebriation,” by James Henry Powell. Both books include the aforementioned masterpiece, “Ode on the Mammoth Cheese.”

Here it is in its glorious entirety (enlightening annotations are available elsewhere). Judge for yourself, my friends – judge for yourself.

Ode on the Mammoth Cheese
(weight over seven thousand pounds)

We have seen the Queen of cheese,
Laying quietly at your ease,
Gently fanned by evening breeze –
Thy fair form no flies dare seize.
All gaily dressed soon you’ll go
To the great Provincial Show,
To be admired by many a beau
In the city of Toronto.
Cows numerous as a swarm of bees –
Or as the leaves upon the trees –
It did require to make thee please,
And stand unrivalled Queen of Cheese.
May you not receive a scar as
We have heard that Mr. Harris
Intends to send you off as far as
The great World’s show at Paris.
Of the youth — beware of these –
For some of them might rudely squeeze
And bite your cheek; then songs or glees
We could not sing o’ Queen of Cheese.
We’rt thou suspended from baloon,
You’d caste a shade, even at noon;
Folks would think it was the moon
About to fall and crush them soon.

Will you look at this:
I’M FAMOUS!!!!
AND there’s a festive integrated game. If you’re bored (or merely insane), embark on a mind-blowing, ceaseless link fÍte (Link FÍte might be a good name for a band. Small Kitten and I could use it). Hit the link above, hit the link back to “…Kate du Fromage,” hit the link above, hit the link back to “…Kate du Fromage,” hit the link above, hit the link back to “…Kate du Fromage,”(ad nauseum, and somewhat like “back…and to the left, back…and to the left, back…and to the left, back…and to the left”).
Speaking of tuffets,* we were talking about tumors the other day (or, if you are anglophilically inclined, “tumours” – or, for that matter, if you’re orthographically inept, “toooomerz”), and someone (Dan?) said that there was a man who had such a large posterior growth that he could sit right down on it. Someone else remarked that it was rather like an attached, portable tuffet (Bronwen? Are you to blame??). How handy. Even as, put euphemistically, a “puffy” pear-shaped person, I cannot imagine such an instantly-gratifying seating luxury.
Anyhooooo (my favorite erudite transitional phrase), lauds and honors (or “honours” or “onnerzz”) and acclaim and praise and tribute and appreciation and gratitude and a gross of eyepatches (ANOTHER story for another time) to most lovely and trouser-worthy GRETTIR. You are a supreme BLOG GOD. [insert Plagal cadence here]






*It’s genetic. Bewildering alterations from subject to ostensibly disparate subject are my Maternal birthright. But that’s a story for another time. I do have a theory about it; I call it “tacit segues.”

By James Lileks

I’ve never understood why nations with great cheese don’t have better armies. Right now to my left I have a plate that contains six chunks of Stravecchoio Grana Padano, each wrapped in a gossamer-thin scarf of prosciutto. Any Italian worth his mettle would take one bite, contemplate the perfection this combination represents, and decide that his nation should – no, must muster the forces required to repulse anyone who would take such cheese from his countrymen. Cheese this fine would cause armies to cross the Alps to have it; surely they demand armies sufficient to protect it.
I mean, this is good cheese.
I met it for the first time Friday afternoon at the grocery store. One of the elderly demonstration ladies had set out some padano and prosciutto; I took a bite and swooned on the spot. I am not one of those epicures who will spend his ducats in search of a new sensation that will gladhand a few obscure tastebuds in the outlands of his tongue. I do not regard the variegated nature of the cheeseworld as a field I need to master. But this. This was sublimity. It was like meeting the mayor and the blacksmith at the same time – the taste was smooth and subtle, and simultaneously coarse and cheery. I had to have it. For the first time in my life, I had met a cheese I could not put off for later.

(Many thanks to my lovely friend, Grettir, for the “heads up.”)

An average man on an average day
excretes
two and a half quarts of sweat.

Not sodden enough for you? According to David A. Gershaw, Ph.D., “With people who are much more active, the heat and exertion can increase this output [output of sedentary person being a 'small amount of fluid' to 2 quarts per day] to 5-10 quarts.” Isn’t that how much fluid a car’s oil tank holds?
In case you were wondering, you can drink sweat.

Every Friday, at some point in my young life (1976-ish?), we would drag the TV upstairs from the family room (which had “pizza-vomit” carpet and a PLAID couch – that’s a story for another time), put it in the corner of the kitchen, and watch the Donny and Marie Show. This was utter bliss and rapture. I had the HUGEST crush on Donny Osmond. His purple socks, his perfect teeth, his “je ne sais quois” – he made my young heart throb. One of his myriad nephews, Aaron Osmond, was in my kindergarten class. All the Osmond nieces and nephews got to be on the Donnie and Marie Christmas special; Aaron had been on TELEVISION. He was FAMOUS. I was a painfully shy child, so I can’t imagine that I ever said that much to Aaron. Even so, he called me “Fishface.” Don’t ask me why; my family firmly maintains that I looked like Ramona Quimby as I was growing up.* But I didn’t look the least bit fishlike, so I was ambivalent about “Fishface.” Aaron Osmond (one of THE Osmonds) had chosen a nickname especially for me. Then again, it wasn’t so flattering.
Because of these formative experiences, I am now a largely dithering, conflicted person.
If only I’d won a lock of Donny’s hair.
*They even cut a picture of Ramona Quimby from one of those book club flyers and tormented me with it. I’ve seen more recent versions of the books and she’s much cuter now, believe me (they’ve especially improved her coiffure – I certainly could have used such hair improvement).

I didn’t fall down today (yet), but I do fall down on an alarmingly regular basis. I have a friend who says I am an “Edge Crasher.” Theoretically, this is a scientific term, but I can’t seem to find any evidence saying as much. One way or the other, it’s a nice way of saying “clumsy” and “gawky.”
When I was little, my family defined it as a “Kathryn” when people fell down (not just me). At some point I had friends who called me “Grace.” Mind you, I am selectively elegant and poised, especially when I’m performing. You can ask my husband. Hmm. That doesn’t sound good. I meant performing as in acting and singing. Then again, I’ve also biffed it in that venue one or two spectacular times. I’ve momentarily lost essential pieces of my costume (I can be thankful that my topless moment was when my back was to the audience), I tripped on a cord once, I tripped on the train of my dress another time – you get the picture.
So last week I fell down our wooden stairs. The week before that I tripped on my way into work and then fell in Kinko’s a few days later. On all of these occasions my hands were full and I could not catch myself. Also, I exclaimed in a rather loud and surprised voice. This didn’t help me go unnoticed, suffice it to say.
If I were a pirate, I’d have to be the dread pirate Achy BlueArse, the most feared pirate in all of…
the emergency room?

Arrrgh!
Sniff.

On My Black Scrunchie
A Haiku

My black scrunchie died.

Each hair cries, “Despair, ANGUISH!”

Catawampus strands.

“Never commit yourself to a cheese without having first examined it.” – T. S. Eliot.
I could live at the Juhl Haus Market & Deli (formerly the Cheese House which was formerly the Cheese HAUS – one must agree – “haus” is much better than “house” when it comes to cheese). They have a delightful selection of international items (teas, biscuits, chocolates, confections, fondue pots – even fairly obscure articles like vegemite). They make scrumdiddlyumptious sandwiches. They make simply divine lemon bars. BUT… More relative than this: the CHEESE’s the thing.
They have an mind-boggling selection of domestic and imported cheeses, everything from the rather staid cheddar, demure gouda and unadventurous havarti (a personal favorite, though), to a engaging ChÚvre imbued with Anise & Lavender, several flirtatious blues blended with fruit, and the piÚce de résistance, Fromager d’Affinois. This is a truly orgasmic triple-crÚme brie. I’ve never been an especially huge brie aficionado, but one taste of Fromager d’Affinois would make lactose-intolerant people want to commit hary-cary.
Moreover, as the Juhl Haus says, “Our impassioned cheesemongers are anxious to share their knowledge of cheeses with you as they suggest new ways of serving cheese, expose your palette to new tastes, and inspire your quest for the best in cheese.” No kidding – impassioned cheesemongers to “inspire your quest for the best in cheese.” I think I’ll embroider that on a sampler. And speaking of samplers, I do believe The Juhl Haus would feed you cheese tidbits all day: it’s DAIRY NIRVANA, I tell you! I only suggest you avoid the particular cheesemonger who thinks it’s hysterically funny to make everyone taste the “Bierkäse” (yes, that’s “Beer cheese”). Actually, I didn’t mind it, but I am, as you may know, an unabashed turophile. It made my husband want to heave.
RESEARCH NOTE: Gloom, bitterness and ANGUISH. It’s possible that Fromager d’Affinois is NOT a true triple-créme as I was told (and as one often reads), but a mere double créme. Please pardon me while I weep and lament over the shattered pieces of my erstwhile delusion. Then again – the horror – that means Fromager d’Affinois has only a 60% fat content as opposed the 70% of the “true” triple-créme.

A winkle is an edible sea snail.

Not to be confused with Mr. Winkle. He, unlike our sea snail friend, is harmless.
Winkle! Winkle!! WINKLE!!!!