{"id":28317,"date":"2016-08-19T16:40:29","date_gmt":"2016-08-19T20:40:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/?p=28317"},"modified":"2016-08-19T16:40:29","modified_gmt":"2016-08-19T20:40:29","slug":"to-have-and-to-mold","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/to-have-and-to-mold\/","title":{"rendered":"Ruminations: To Have and to Mold"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>There\u2019s a piece of cheese in a Ziploc bag that\u2019s been sitting in my freezer for two years. It\u2019s crumbled into a million pieces, is definitely inedible, and has turned a weird color best described as freezer-burn chic. It\u2019s also my engagement ring.<\/p>\n<p>Some women dream of princess-cut diamond sparklers perfectly fit for their fingers. I never caught that bug, but my dairy desires run deep. From be\u0301chamel-y macaroni and cheese to a bracingly sharp English cheddar eaten solo, cheese has always been one of my core food groups.<\/p>\n<p>When Jon and I started dating a decade ago, curds became the (welcome) third wheel in our relationship. We\u2019d polish off <a href=\"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/cheese-library\/La-Tur\" target=\"_blank\">La Tur<\/a> in a single night, entertain friends with <a href=\"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/cheese-library\/Ossau-Iraty\" target=\"_blank\">Ossau-Iraty<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/cheese-library\/Harbison\" target=\"_blank\">Harbison<\/a>, and make tacos with small mountains of <a href=\"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/cheese-library\/Cotija\" target=\"_blank\">cotija<\/a>. Or, um, just melt cheese on pita and call that dinner. Our three-way was symbiotic: We loved each other, we loved cheese, and cheese was good to us. Wins all around.<\/p>\n<p>Still, we ignored Valentine\u2019s Day and regularly forgot dating anniversaries. I think roses are tacky. Boxes of chocolates? Please. Because I\u2019m so turned off by manufactured romance, Jon knew that if he was going to surprise me with a marriage proposal, it would have to be in the most mundane of settings&mdash;like, for example, a Los Angeles airport hotel. I was staying there for a night after returning from a trip to New Zealand, and he flew cross-country to surprise me.<\/p>\n<p>To prepare, Jon phoned Andrew Steiner of <a href=\"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/cheese-shop\/Andrews-Cheese-Shop\" target=\"_blank\">Andrew\u2019s Cheese Shop<\/a> in Venice Beach to ask what type of cheese could be easily sculpted into bling. They landed on <a href=\"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/cheese-iq\/tommes\" target=\"_blank\">Tomme Brule\u0301e<\/a>, a semi-hard raw sheep\u2019s milk cheese from the Basque region. Jon then carved the wedge into a ring with a plastic knife in a parking lot while waiting for an In-N-Out burger to \u201cpair\u201d with my jewelry.<\/p>\n<p>As I settled into my hotel room, the doorman knocked, presenting me with the burger. I was &hellip; confused. Then he knocked again, this time bearing fried chicken. Then it was cauliflower (from a restaurant I wanted to try). Finally, it was Jon at the door&mdash;on one knee, offering me a misshapen piece of cheese as a symbol of his undying love.<\/p>\n<p>If he had popped the question with a diamond ring, I would have had doubts about our future&mdash;did he know me at all? But the pecorino bauble strangely proved we were meant to be. I said yes, then polished off the burger.<\/p>\n<p>At some point we\u2019ll throw out my engagement ring. Really&mdash;it\u2019s become one of those Unidentified Freezer Objects that you discover lurking in the back corners during a major cleanup (plus, I now have an understated rose gold wedding band). But the smooshed plastic bag is also a sweet reminder that expressions of love come in many forms, and it\u2019s often the unexpected gestures that mean the most. Diamonds may be forever, but for me, a moldy, disintegrating cheese ring is way more precious.<\/p>\n<p><small><em>Illustrated by Aleks Sennwald<\/em><\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Forget carats\u2014this bride-to-be had her heart set on cheese<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":28319,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"wprm-recipe-roundup-name":"","wprm-recipe-roundup-description":"","cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[590],"tags":[],"coauthors":[896],"class_list":["post-28317","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ruminations"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.4 (Yoast SEO v24.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Ruminations: To Have and to Mold - 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