Hey Folks, I added a new page to my website. Take a picture of my book at your store or your favorite store. (Just remember, it’s ok to turn the cover out for the picture and then forget to turn it back*) A few of you have already sent me pictures where they sat in my phone/email box until I accidently deleted them. Why not put ’em online?
Pictures of Cheesemonger at stores!
Like this at Market of Choice in Ashland:
*Haha! Bookstore owners, I am kidding!
On the way out of Seattle I grabbed an awesome Washington State, Camembert-style called Dinah’s Cheese from Kurtwood Farms. I have never met Kurt, but everyone seems to love him and he’s buddies with one of my oldest friends.
Here’s what it looks like:
And here it is in the Econolodge after reaching room temp.
Shari from the Calf and the Kid gave me a day-old loaf of bread to go with it and this was probably the best meal ever eaten in the Bellingham Econolodge. This is the real deal: rich, creamy, oniony, earthy and awesome.
I also stopped and visited the folks from Samish Bay Cheese on the way to Bellingham. We’ve been carry the Ladysmith on-and-off and I really like it as an (relatively) affordable organic fancy cheese. It reminds me a lot of the Bellwether Carmody,: fatty, satisfying, and milky.
Here’s the making of the Ladysmith:
Here’s the Ladysmith sitting around on a shelf.
And here’s Roger, the Samish Cheese guy
The farm was beautiful and Roger is doing what I would love other organic dairy farmers to do – making new, non-commodity-style organic cheese. We should be bringing a bunch in next month so if you are local, check it out.
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After Seattle was Bellingham. The bookstore was fascinated hear me boasting of traveling with two coolers of cheese. They ever had me write a blog post about it. For anyone else who may be interested, here was my set-up:
Driving position. Wearing my Gits sweatshirt in honor of Seattle.
Big ass cooler, cheese knives, cheese bag. Unfortunately I had to take the little cooler out of the way to capture the majesty of the big Rainbow cooler (checked out of the store for a week)
Here’s a peek inside the cooler. This was on the way to the Seattle reading with pre-prepped cheese in tubs and decorative pieces (also useful as bribes) of Black Butte Reserve, Cocoa Cardona, and Gran Canaria. Ice was a constant issue.
The Bellingham reading was good, but – if I had to grade myself – was probably the one I was most exhausted for. My old high school friend couldn’t make it, but I did get to hang out with my Sister-in-Law’s sisters for beer and pizza afterwards. The crowd was artificially bulked up by a creative writing class from the local college and friends of my high school friend. A couple of people brought their cute dogs. It was sponsored by the local co-op, but no one identified themselves if they were there. Co-op people, don’t be shy!
I forgot to take a picture of the cheese for the second reading in a row. Spoiler alert: I would never remember even though it was the main reason I brought a camera.
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Tagged Cheesemonger -- in store sighting, cheesemonger -- the book, road trips
Well, that was exhausting. Six events and a radio show in four days and four cities. 2000 miles of driving, one flooded trunk, a lot of bad road food, and one solicitation for clean urine at a rest stop. Whoo and Hoo!
I know I did a couple of updates form the road, but now I have pictures. You love pictures don’t you?
First I hit the Seattle Cheese Festival. I came up with a brilliant idea the next time I do a fest where everyone else has actual samples of cheese. I’m going to print out my manuscript, cut out sentences, and put them in a bowl marked free samples. That way when drunk people ask, “Where are your samples?” I’ll have something to give them.
Here’s my Seattle Cheese Fest table. Looks nice, eh? (Thanks Laurie!)
I was thrilled to read at the new Elliott Bay. So new you could smell the paint! Friends from all over (high school, college, LJ and cheese!) showed up and I was very grateful. I did what will probably be the only encore in my life and I have a friend’s 8-year-old to thank.
This doesn’t look like I’m droning on or anything, does it?
The event was actually put on by an old punk rocker who was shocked I knew of her band, Conflict (from Tuscon, not that other one from England). Heck, I’ll do better than that. Here they are on the internet. Oh, and
here are some Conflict MP3s to listen to while reading the rest of this entry.
Oh, except that’s pretty much the end of the entry. Just this awesome picture of me and three local Seattle cheesemongers.
Roger (from Central Co-op’s Madison Market), me, Shari (from Calf and the Kid), and Julia (Metropolitan Market)
See you in August, Seattle.
My “Splendid Table” interview runs tomorrow. Check to see if your local NPR affiliate airs the show!
May 22, 2010 We’re learning to eat on the cheap with Christopher Greenslate and Kerri Leonard, authors of On A Dollar A Day. The Sterns have found first-rate tidewater seafood at Sting Rays in Cape Charles, VA. And Gordon Edgar, author of Cheesemonger, A Life on the Wedge explains the intersection of punk rock and cheesemaking.
More tour stories next week. I have to go to the store and buy cheese now.
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In Bellingham. Need to get on the road to Olympia soon. Discovered a near disaster last night when I found that the cooler drainage hole had opened in my trunk. Thankfully, the case of books was in a safe dry space. Unfortunately my car will soon smell even more like mold than it already does. My trunk – with its naturally occurring flora — is officially more qualified to be a cheese aging ”caaaaaaav” than 90% of the warehouses used for cheese storage where cheese is later sold as “cave-aged” . Yes, I am exaggerating. A little….
Gotta run… But I just got sent a link to my book being mentioned in a cheese book roundup in the Washington Post. “The book’s most appealing feature is Edgar’s own voice, which is often funny and always devoid of pretension.” Check it out!
Hello I-5, good to see you again.
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Even though my friends were mocking me last night because my eyes were so droopy and I was falling asleep in a loud pub, 5:45 AM seems to be my predetermined wake up time this days. Good Morning Seattle!
I do love Seattle. I’ve often said that if I –-theoretically –couldn’t live in the Bay Area this is where I’d go. It’s got some of my favorite old friends. I like the weather. Seattle has always been good to me.
The Cheese Fest is really no place to sell books. Cypress Grove sold out of cheese on the first day (while I was driving up I-5) so they gave me their whole table. I sold a few books but 1. I hate pushing my book on people like that. I know I can’t stand trying to decide if I like a book enough to buy it when the author is standing right in front of me. It’s not the same without Laurie talking me up while I stand on the side and look sheepish. And 2. People weren’t there to read. More than 50% of the people who picked up the book were looking for recipes and/or pictures. Nothing wrong with that, it’s just not my book, ya know?
Elliott Bay on the other hand, was great. Their new location still has some paint fumes, but the downstairs reading area is awesome and it was packed on a Sunday afternoon. Old friends, cheese friends, LJ friends and strangers were there and I even got asked to do an encore of a specific passage of the book. It was a good suggestion that I’m going to incorporate into future readings.
Checking out a new cheese store this morning, ( The Calf and the Kid) then driving to Bellingham. Day one: so far, so good.
* Confidential to Laurie: I haven’t been gone long enough to write a tour song for you so just pretend I’m Mike Ness. I think this really captures the anxiety. loneliness, and violence of any cheese road trip.
** Apologies in advance for any typos. My fat hands don’t type well on this tiny keyboard and I won’t have time to go back and edit this later.
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Black Butte Reserve: Made by the pasture-based Pedrozo Dairy and Cheese Company in Orland, CA, this cheese is made only from the tasty spring milk. This is basically an aged Boerenkaas Gouda. Made with raw cow milk. Farmstead.
Brick: From Master-cheesemaker Joe Widmer in Teresa, WI. This is a semi-soft, stinky cow’s milk cheese very popular with ethnic German communities and my father.
Cameo: This is a bigger version of the Camellia, a soft-ripened, goat cheese from Redwood Hill Farm in Sebastopol, CA. The first person who can sing a good version of “Word Up” by Cameo (the band) gets a free wheel. (This offer only valid in Olympia and Portland because the cheese won’t arrive until then)
Cocoa Cardona: Made by Carr Valley Cheese in Wisconsin, this is a semi-soft goat cheese covered in cocoa. This would make a good drag name.
Gran Canaria: Some cheese snobs look down on (third generation cheesemaker) Sid Cook’s Carr Valley cheeses because he makes so damn many of them. Sid Cook meanwhile, has probably developed a new cheese in the time it is taking you to read this paragraph. Carr Valley makes well over fifty different varieties using cow, sheep and/or goat milk. The Gran Canaria won the best of show at that 2004 American Cheese Society Conference in Milwaukee and it is a blend of cow, sheep, and goat milk, aged for two years and cured in olive oil.
Green Hill: From Sweet Grass Dairy in Thomasville, Georgia, this is one of the best brie-style cheeses made in the US. Pasture-based and, while not farmstead, they buy their milk from their father/father-in-law who lives next door. This is from cow milk, but they make great goat cheese too.
Mobay: Another cheese from Carr Valley, this has goat cheese and sheep cheese separated by a layer of ash. Cute, eh?
Mona: From the Wisconsin Sheep Dairy Co-op, this is actually a blend of cow and sheep milk. Nutty, sweet, and milky. You gotta support the co-ops in this business.
Prairie Breeze: Great sweet, aged cheddar from Milton, Iowa. Made with milk purchased from the local Amish communities, this cheese won a best in category at the American Cheese Society competition the first year it was entered.
Teleme: Franklin Peluso is the third generation cheesemaker of this California classic. I worked an event for Franklin once and was amazed. Every Italian-American coming up to the booth and a few years older than I am said almost the exact same thing, “Teleme! I grew up on this stuff!” Wanna-be cheese snobs will not be impressed by this because it is not strong in any way. But what it does have is integrity and presence. I always have a quarter wheel in my fridge.
Verdant Blue: Pasture-based blue cheese. The milk comes from the Wisconsin Grazier Co-op, a small group of pasture-based farmers and is made in Minnesota at Fairbault Dairy. Fairbault brags about being the only cheesemakers in the US who age their cheese in natural sandstone caves.
Different cheese, different nights, of course. See why you should come to a reading?
http://www.gordonzola.net / gordon.zola.edgar@gmail.com / Facebook: “cheesemonger: a life on the wedge”
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I’ll always have love for Santa Rosa and the North Bay. My buddy Spring set up a reading for me last week at the Micro Gallery. Spring is a big part of the Hand Cart Regatta up there so I knew it would be fun.
It was a great crowd. They ate cheese. They laughed at the right times. They gathered my notes when they flew out of my book. They discussed things amongst themselves during the Q and A. It was great.
Normally I wouldn’t this boring looking picture, but it’s important:
Part of my regular reading schtick is talking about the importance of punk rock in the ‘80s to people like me, and how it ended up making me a cheesemonger. Specifically, I read the section in my book about the Reagan cultural revolution and how I saw it as a teen. So, after talking shit about Reagan for 10-15 minutes, and finishing the Q and A, one of the gallery folks came up and said, “You know, Ronald Reagan ate dinner at that table you were sitting on.”
Evidently the table had been his father’s and someone had invited Reagan over after one of those Bohemian Grove/Illuminati meetings in the North Bay. For the record, the gallery person’s dad was super mad about the whole thing.
Anyways, it was a nice feeling, even if chronologically reversed. “My ass, your face, Ronnie!”
(Thanks to Meridith, my school mate since 5th grade for showing up and taking the picture!)
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My Pacific Northwest tour starts on Sunday! Spread the word! Tell your friends!
May 16, 2010, 4:00 pm — SEATTLE, WA
Gordon Edgar at Elliott Bay Book Co.
1521 10th Ave, Seattle WA Gordon Edgar will discuss and sign copies of his book, Cheesemonger, at Elliott Bay Book Company in Seattle, WA on Sunday evening, May 16th at 4 pm. Call 1-800-962-5311 to learn more. (Don’t forget, Elliott Bay just moved into a beautiful new store! Capitol Hill, not Downtown!)
May 17, 2010, 7:00 pm — BELLINGHAM, WA
Gordon Edgar at Village Books
1200 11th St., Bellingham WA 98225
Gordon Edgar will discuss and sign copies of his book, Cheesemonger: A Life on the Wedge, at Village Books in Bellingham, WA on Monday, May 17th at 7 pm. Call 360-733-1599 to learn more.
May 18, 2010, 5-6 pm — OLYMPIA, WA
Gordon Edgar at Olympia Food Co-op, 3111 Pacific Avenue SE, Olympia WA 98501 Gordon Edgar will sign copies of his book, Cheesemonger, at the Olympia Food Co-op’s Eastside location on May 18th in Olympia, WA. Call 360-956-3870 to learn more.
May 18, 2010, 7 pm — OLYMPIA, WA
Gordon Edgar at Orca Books 509 E. 4th Ave., Olympia WA
Gordon Edgar will discuss and sign copies of his book, Cheesemonger, at Orca Books in Olympia, WA on May 18th at 7:00 pm. Call (360) 352-1456 to learn more.
May 19, 2010, 6:30 — PORTLAND, OR (With Tami Parr)
Gordon Edgar will read and sign copies of his book at Square Deal Wine and Cheese 2321 NW Thurman Street, Portland, OR. 503.226.9463
Handy-dandy Facebook invite here:
See you there!
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Gordon ("Zola") Edgar 