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!)
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
I somehow went from doing nothing at this year’s American Cheese Society conference to judging and being on a panel (that will be done twice). I’m not sure how this happened. I still want to do a book event (or two) as well. It’s going to be a busy week in August.
In honor of this, I figured, why not post this again:
“They used to make good cheese” is my favorite line.
I was loving all my co-workers last night. We had our every-6-weeks membership meeting and I thought it might be a contentious meeting. Most of the agenda was filled with proposals about changing our store-closed paid holidays and people tend to have strong feelings about such things. But we actually never got there.
Instead, we spent the whole two hour meeting discussing a potential bylaw change that I hadn’t realized was controversial at all until I got to the meeting. Basically (simplifying a little because otherwise this will become unreadable) the proposed change allows workers who have cashed in shares to buy more shares from the co-op, up to the amount of shares they have earned at their time at the co-op. * This proposal was brought up for a couple of reasons: more flexibility to raise cash if needed, and a desire by some workers to be able to invest more in our workplace.
There were concerns, confusion, and impassioned pleas, but it was one of the most productive financial discussions we’ve ever had covering internal class issues, IRS confusion about co-ops, the intrusive nature of bank loans, future dividends vs. high cash payments of our profit sharing, and the relation of a financial buy-in to an emotional one. Even the people I almost never agree with — on both sides of the issue – were making smart and interesting points. Spontaneous applause broke out when someone mentioned offhandedly that we will pay off our mortgage this year and we all realized it was true. Seems like just yesterday (15 years ago) we voted to buy the building.
Since it’s a bylaw change we vote by ballot so I won’t know what the result will be for another couple of weeks. I was just so proud to be in that room with everyone there. I love working at a co-op.
*for the record, no matter how many shares you own, it is one worker/one vote. **Oh hey, don’t forget that we are closed on Saturday, May 1, in honor of International Workers Day.
My reading in Mendocino was great. I was at work at 7 AM, off by Noon and in Mendo in time for my reading at 6:00. When I arrived, Margaret Fox and the folks from Harvest Market had not only set up cheese, they had set up cheese that I recommended in my book, with little quotes by me in from of the grazing piles. I was embarrassed/flattered.
I don’t know much about Mendocino beyond what I have seen on vacations and my regular reading of the The Anderson Valley Advertiser* so I was a touch worried about the fact that I knew that the independent, local grocery was co-sponsoring the event but that Mendo has a collective grocery spitting distance from the book store. Would there be tension? Would I just be ignored by the collective folks? Had I sold out already without knowing it?
Nah. Almost the first person I saw was a guy from Corners of the Mouth that I met a decade ago at a co-ops and collectives tour of Redwood Hill Farm. In fact, he had just had surgery on his leg but made it to the reading anyway. Awwwww.
It was so nice to have someone else set up the cheese for an event. In most of my future events I will be lugging a cooler of cheese and doing the set up myself (I actually totally gouged my finger right before my Reading Frenzy event. But I didn’t bleed on the cheese!) so I owe the Harvest folks a big thanks.
All book events should be walking distance from this:
It was the first event I had where (except for the one collective grocer) I didn’t know anyone who would be there or if anyone would come at all. But of course, the cheese pulled people in and we got a pretty big crowd, especially since there was a competing book event down the street! My favorite moment was when asked about political issues with dairy, I said that, imo the most political thing was keeping small farmers in the dairy business and that – because of the financial differences between selling dairy as commodity fluid milk price and selling cheese at a price that reflects the cost of production — the resurgence in regional American cheese making could help accomplish this. I hadn’t read anyone in the crowd as being involved in commercial dairy, but at the end of the reading someone came up and said he came from a dairy family and appreciated that I had talked about how hard it is to make a living dairy farming.
By the end I was talking to the Harvest folks about shelf tags and cheese conferences. Then I went to the room they had provided for me and watched “Footloose” until I fell asleep. Mendo was good.
Sunrise on the Mendocino coast
*At one point someone (can’t remember who) told me that the AVA would “cover” my reading but no one there identified themselves. That’s a bummer because I would have asked ‘em to come if I knew they needed encouragement. What I love about the AVA is that the idea of them reviewing my book or reading scares me a bit. That means that they are a real newspaper.
**Ha! If I saw their webcam before I would have alerted you so you could have watched my car for the entire two hour event. That’s where I parked.
For the first time in months I worked a full work week and it felt great. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining about getting the opportunity to do so many readings and events. I even feel a little guilty that I happened to write a non-fiction book on a trendy subject while other writers I know try and write more challenging fiction that may not ever get printed.
Not too guilty mind you, just a little. That this is my lowest paying second job ever right now, mitigates it a little. Some day in 2011 when I theoretically get a royalty check I may be able to take more days off without feeling it, but I’m a by-the-hour worker (as we all are at the co-op) so – logically to me, unbelievably to everyone I mentioned it to – I went from Goat Fest at the Ferry Building to working my closing shift at Rainbow, which also included deep cleaning of a cheese cooler.
Here’s me and an old sales rep at the Goat Fest:
I didn’t take a picture of cleaning out the cooler because 1. I was dirty from cleaning out a cooler and didn’t want to touch a camera and 2. It probably would have shown my plumber’s crack, but maybe I will next time. If memory serves, the pictures of me composting 100 lbs of bad Mozzarella made everyone happy. Hey, that was a Saturday night as well!
But I really love my Saturday night closing shift. I like the pace of Saturdays and I also like that I don’t get phone calls from reps (no offense!) on the weekends. It’s all cheese, all the time! It’s the purest form of everything I love about my job.
In all the excitement I forgot to link a couple of reviews that I really appreciate. Both have a perspective on the work part of being a cheese worker, one written by a grocery worker (and author), the other by a librarian (and author). Check ’em out.
I didn’t know the book was in the Netherlands. My Dutch/Brit friend sends me this (it comes with a warning about diction):
Dude I just bought your book! In a shop in Amsterdam, they had it in stock and everything, I didn’t even have to order. Initially there were some minor misunderstandings as my British pronounciation of the word “monger” sounds just like the Dutch pronounciation of the word “manga”, but the food section in that shop happened to be right next to the fantasy section so I ended up in the right place anyway. Woohoo!
This was not a question I expected. I’m a worrier. I worried about all sorts of things people could ask me when I went out on the road with the book. Mostly I figured the stumpers would be farming or cheesemaking details that I’m not an expert on. Things like, “How do you prevent frothy bloat?”*,“What is the optimal pH for Mozzarella?”**or “What is the current somatic cell count limit on fluid milk?”***
Still I was a little prepared for this question because someone else had asked earlier in the day. I attributed that to nervous blurting,**** — god knows I do that myself – when that person was suddenly confronted with a book for sale in the middle of the Oregon Cheese Festival.***** However, when asked a second time in an hour, I started to get mad.
“Why would you say that?” I asked.
“My husband is a freelance writer. I know how it is.”
The Oregon Cheese Festival is amazing in many ways, but one which I didn’t appreciate until that moment was their wristband system. I had not attended previously, so I don’t know if there were problems in the past, but each adult wristband had 10 wineglasses printed on them. When an attendee gets a drink, the wine pourer checks one off. I looked at this woman’s wrist. 12 Noon… 7 drinks. And that didn’t count the beer she was holding.
She had already mentioned that she worked at a large retail chain (not grocery) that sells food. The best thing I could come up with in my head is that she was so immersed in the world where someone wouldn’t do anything unless there was a profit to be made. That I would write a book because it would be fun, educational, and fulfill a lifelong dream really didn’t seem to be on her radar. No, this had to be about brand positioning. Either I needed a book to increase the profile of our store or for me to get my shot at the Food Network. Clearly having a book isn’t about writing a book in her world. It’s only about self-promotion. Why would I waste time actually writing it?
I did the obvious thing. I brought Laurie into it.
I turned to Laurie who was standing right next to me but had been talking to someone else and hadn’t heard my conversation. “Hey, Laurie, this woman just asked if I hired a ghostwriter.”
“What? I think she’s saying that you look too stupid to write a book,” Turning to the question asker, “Are you calling him stupid?”
She started to respond but we just kept loudly saying, “Ghostwriter?” laughing and mocking her question until she walked away.
Here I am at the Oregon Fest looking too stupid to write my own book. I even wore a shirt with a collar on it. Geez.
Gordon ("Zola") Edgar 