{"id":8847,"date":"2014-03-13T13:56:16","date_gmt":"2014-03-13T17:56:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/?p=8847"},"modified":"2021-02-26T16:07:52","modified_gmt":"2021-02-26T21:07:52","slug":"cheese-love-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/cheese-love-story\/","title":{"rendered":"Ruminations: A Cheese Love Story"},"content":{"rendered":"

Three days before Christmas four years ago, I went off to the gourmet supermarket to meet my future husband. Of course, that wasn’t my express purpose. My family was coming to town, and I thought fondue would make an easy, convivial holiday lunch.<\/p>\n

Luckily, there was a wide fondue display stretching across the cheese case. Blocks of Emmentaler<\/a>, Jarlsberg<\/a>, and Gruye\u0300re<\/a> were fetchingly stacked, along with pouches of ready-made fondue goo.<\/p>\n

How to choose, and how to make the stuff? Helpfully, a store employee came to my side.<\/p>\n

He had brown eyes and a name tag that read \u201cMatt.\u201d As he looked at me, he seemed to want to extend the conversation. \u201cSure, you could use the pouch,\u201d he said. \u201cBut it\u2019s really easy to make your own fondue. You get blocks of cheese, and add wine, and kirsch…\u201d<\/p>\n

Kirsch? What was that, and who had time for it? I had presents to wrap! \u201cBut the packets are still good, right?\u201d I made the guy confirm. Then I cut off the conversation. Call it a woman\u2019s intuition, but I got the distinct feeling that this Matt wanted to ask me out. The last thing I needed was to get picked up at a grocery store.<\/p>\n

Two years later, Matt and I met again through our shared Catholic parish, and started dating. Once I found out he worked in the cheese department of my favorite supermarket, we realized we\u2019d met before, and actually had that quick first encounter because of fondue. My gut feeling was right\u2014 he admitted he\u2019d wanted to ask for my number back then.<\/p>\n

By this point, Matt was heading to grad school for an MBA. Even though he wouldn\u2019t be working in the industry anymore, cheese still gave us common ground for building our relationship. One of Matt\u2019s early compliments to me\u2014which I still tease him about\u2014was, \u201cYou have a really good palate.\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019m a traveler; I\u2019ve developed an openness to foods from visiting nearly two dozen countries, so that didn\u2019t surprise me. Matt doesn\u2019t mind a trip, but his world centers more around home. With cheese, we can have cozy nights in and both be happy. We like to start dinners with a cheese plate that includes varieties such as Spring Brook Farm’s Tarentaise<\/a> from Vermont, and Abbaye de Belloc<\/a> from France’s Basque region.<\/p>\n

Since I\u2019m the designated globe-trotter, I use cheese to inspire trips big and small. If I want to visit my sister in Madison, I convince Matt to come by suggesting a visit to the country-meets-urban cheese shop Fromagination. If I need to work from New York, I promise to bring back can\u2019t-get-\u2019em- at-home varieties, such as Jasper Hill\u2019s bloomy-rind Moses Sleeper<\/a>, from Murray\u2019s Cheese.<\/p>\n

We plan around cheese when traveling farther afield, too. Last fall in Argentina we sampled grilled provoleta (a variation on provolone). We\u2019ll soon visit rural Kentucky, where we\u2019ll make a bourbon-and-cheese farm tour. And we dream of visiting the Azores, the Portuguese islands known for beautiful scenery and Queijo Sa\u0303o Jorge.<\/p>\n

Cheese helped us meet in passing. We could never have imagined that our first rushed encounter would lead to marriage (nor that we would have received four\u2014 count \u2019em, four\u2014cheese boards as wedding gifts!). By combining both our interests, cheese set the foundation for something lasting. From now on, whenever we make fondue, we\u2019ll stick with the kirsch rather than the goo packets\u2014and we\u2019ll do so as husband and wife.<\/p>\n

Illustration by Aleks Sennwald<\/a><\/em><\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Their paths cross over fondue, but it was the way their relationship broadened over cheese that makes this a true cheese love story<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9160,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","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":[591],"class_list":["post-8847","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ruminations"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nRuminations: A Cheese Love Story - culture: the word on cheese<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Their paths cross over fondue, but it was the way their relationship broadened over cheese that makes this a true cheese love story\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/cheese-love-story\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Ruminations: A Cheese Love Story\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Their paths cross over fondue, but it was the way their relationship broadened over cheese that makes this a true cheese love story\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/cheese-love-story\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"culture: the word on cheese\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-03-13T17:56:16+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-02-26T21:07:52+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/spring-2014-ruminations-cheese-love-750x368.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"750\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"368\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Lynn Freehill-Maye\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Lynn Freehill-Maye\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/cheese-love-story\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/cheese-love-story\/\",\"name\":\"Ruminations: A Cheese Love Story - culture: the word on cheese\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/cheese-love-story\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/cheese-love-story\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/spring-2014-ruminations-cheese-love-750x368.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2014-03-13T17:56:16+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-02-26T21:07:52+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/#\/schema\/person\/81b9a2e76d581f340849c880f4085df9\"},\"description\":\"Their paths cross over fondue, but it was the way their relationship broadened over cheese that makes this a true cheese love story\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/cheese-love-story\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/cheese-love-story\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/cheese-love-story\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/spring-2014-ruminations-cheese-love-750x368.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/spring-2014-ruminations-cheese-love-750x368.jpg\",\"width\":750,\"height\":368,\"caption\":\"Illustration of a couple dreamily holding hands in the midst of piles of cheese\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/cheese-love-story\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Stories\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/category\/stories\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":3,\"name\":\"Ruminations\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/category\/stories\/ruminations\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":4,\"name\":\"Ruminations: A Cheese Love Story\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/\",\"name\":\"culture: the word on cheese\",\"description\":\"Culture, America's magazine for cheese lovers, delivers stories about cheeses, cheesemakers, travel to gorgeous cheese regions, and practical tips on buying, presenting, and cooking with cheese.\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/#\/schema\/person\/81b9a2e76d581f340849c880f4085df9\",\"name\":\"cheesemaster\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/b30bd983f28ed6a17e023e5a5d0c56c4\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/Anon-Cheese-Watercolor-500x500-96x96.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/Anon-Cheese-Watercolor-500x500-96x96.jpg\",\"caption\":\"cheesemaster\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/author\/cheesemaster\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Ruminations: A Cheese Love Story - culture: the word on cheese","description":"Their paths cross over fondue, but it was the way their relationship broadened over cheese that makes this a true cheese love story","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/cheese-love-story\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Ruminations: A Cheese Love Story","og_description":"Their paths cross over fondue, but it was the way their relationship broadened over cheese that makes this a true cheese love story","og_url":"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/cheese-love-story\/","og_site_name":"culture: the word on cheese","article_published_time":"2014-03-13T17:56:16+00:00","article_modified_time":"2021-02-26T21:07:52+00:00","og_image":[{"width":750,"height":368,"url":"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/spring-2014-ruminations-cheese-love-750x368.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Lynn Freehill-Maye","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Lynn Freehill-Maye","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/cheese-love-story\/","url":"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/cheese-love-story\/","name":"Ruminations: A Cheese Love Story - culture: the word on cheese","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/cheese-love-story\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/cheese-love-story\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/spring-2014-ruminations-cheese-love-750x368.jpg","datePublished":"2014-03-13T17:56:16+00:00","dateModified":"2021-02-26T21:07:52+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/#\/schema\/person\/81b9a2e76d581f340849c880f4085df9"},"description":"Their paths cross over fondue, but it was the way their relationship broadened over cheese that makes this a true cheese love story","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/cheese-love-story\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/cheese-love-story\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/cheese-love-story\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/spring-2014-ruminations-cheese-love-750x368.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/spring-2014-ruminations-cheese-love-750x368.jpg","width":750,"height":368,"caption":"Illustration of a couple dreamily holding hands in the midst of piles of cheese"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/cheese-love-story\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Stories","item":"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/category\/stories\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Ruminations","item":"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/category\/stories\/ruminations\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":4,"name":"Ruminations: A Cheese Love Story"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/#website","url":"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/","name":"culture: the word on cheese","description":"Culture, America's magazine for cheese lovers, delivers stories about cheeses, cheesemakers, travel to gorgeous cheese regions, and practical tips on buying, presenting, and cooking with cheese.","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/#\/schema\/person\/81b9a2e76d581f340849c880f4085df9","name":"cheesemaster","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/b30bd983f28ed6a17e023e5a5d0c56c4","url":"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/Anon-Cheese-Watercolor-500x500-96x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/Anon-Cheese-Watercolor-500x500-96x96.jpg","caption":"cheesemaster"},"url":"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/author\/cheesemaster\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8847","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8847"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8847\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8847"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=8847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}