In an odd twist, my annual pre-holiday cheese nightmare wasn’t about cheese at all. No –for whatever reason — I feel confidant that I haven’t over-ordered this year. Maybe it’s because I don’t have to receive all the cheese myself anymore…
Still, while I take a perverse pride in having my sleep interrupted by cheese anxiety, last night I had a nightmare about fake cheese. That’s just downright undignified.
There’s this new vegan flavor of the month “best vegan cheese ever” that we have been going to great lengths to carry. It’s called Daiya. It’s from Canada. It’s made of cassava root (like tapioca) and it is really good for what it is. It tastes kinda like the butter flavoring you get on popcorn. It comes pre-shredded and I don’t think it’s a trade secret that the Amici’s chain is now using it on their vegan pizzas.
Unfortunately, while we are selling tons of it, the food service demand for it hasn’t been what the distributors expected and there’s a little Daiya drought. Obsessed vegans are feeling betrayed that we don’t have it on our shelves. I made the mistake of checking my work email upon returning home from a short trip last night and my co-workers were begging me to tell them when it would be in. Evidently it ran out even sooner than expected and the vegans were upset.
Last night I kept having dreams about my coworkers and I being trapped behind the cheese counter, frantically shredding Play Doh and cupping it as a substitute for the unavailable Daiya. There was a huge mob of them having their equivalent of a bread riot, trampling the weak to get their shredded Play Doh cups so they could make their vegan lasagnas for the holidays. They were gathering the remains of the strength in their little vegan bodies in order to elbow their way to the front of the lines. The sneakier ones were jumping the successful elbower-outers as they ran away from the cheese section and jacked their Play Doh that way. Vegan Melee! Very stressful!!
Please Mr. Sandman, if you give me back my dreams of rotting Swiss and maggoty Brie — I will never complain again!
(ETA: oh thank god. I just got word that we’ll get more on Wednesday)
Gordon ("Zola") Edgar 
so funny! those vegans will cut ya! that is stressful.
have y’all decided what to do about coupons next year? i went after the coupons were done for the year – WHOLE NUTHA WORLD.
Next year coupons will be every other month excluding November and December: on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. They’ll be in the Oakland Yellow Pages this year too I think.
Oakland? As if the Bay Bridge isn’t dangerous enough, without the crazies on the hunt for telephone books.
Awesome.
How funny. One of my vegan friends was recently raving about Daiya, which she got on a pizza that was special ordered. Not being vegan I had no idea it was in such hot demand.
yeah, it is totally the vegan hot ticket right now. Poor Teese… they were just catching on. Dr. Cow still has the “specialty” vegan market cred, but it’s available almost nowhere.