Thurscheese Special Edition: The Wedding Cheeses

By popular demand!

Big thanks to Crys for getting this picture. I meant to take one, but as you can see, I was busy.

 From the top:

Smokey Blue

All credit for this one must go to the guy at Country Cheese in Berkeley, who was instrumental in putting this selection together. I knew we needed a blue but didn't have one in mind, because a person can only plan so much, and he was extremely helpful and knowledgeable about their cheese selection. I highly recommend it if you are ever in the Berkeley area and need some cheese, or bulk granola, or Vietnamese spring rolls. It's a full-service kind of place. Anyway, all I know about this one was that it was described as the "smokey blue" and it did indeed have a pleasant smokey flavor.


Cave-Aged Gruyere

From a cave! A longtime favorite of mine; if I was going to make a cheese-based greatest hits album this would totally be on the first disc. The fun part about this, besides eating it, was that our friend at the cheese store (I really should have learned his name-- I think he was the owner) very kindly cut a center section, to minimize the amount of rind. Which meant that the way people cut pieces out of it, it ended up looking like one of those rock formations in the background of the old roadrunner cartoons.


Humboldt Fog

One of the very first cheeses I blogged about, though at the time I was under the mistaken impression that it was a blue. (It's not. The line through the middle is actually vegetable ash. No, I don't know why.) There was more of this one left than any of the others, which may have less to do with its popularity than with the fact that I bought an entire wheel, because when else am I going to get that chance?


Pierce Point, Cowgirl Creamery

Another favorite. And I want you to know that there is no truth to the rumors that I insisted on scheduling the wedding for the middle of summer because that's when this cheese is in season. This was the most local cheese we ended up serving, which is terribly un-trendy of us, but I think we can all agree that the whole "all of this food came from within fifty feet of here" deal is getting a little tired. Unlike the delights of cheese, which are unending.


English Cheddar

Our second selection brought to us by the fine people (person, mostly) at Country Cheese was a very nice cheddar, because everyone likes cheddar. Light color, medium-sharp, not at all crumbly. Went very well with the crackers. I wish I had really thanked the cheese guy adequately for his help and the volume discounts, instead of paying with a credit card like an ingrate who doesn't care how much it costs his small business. My only defense is that it was a very busy Saturday, and it's hard to carry around enough cash to buy that much cheese.


Fromage d' Affinois

Never a bad idea. This is the only one where we had nothing left over, despite the fact that we had an entire wheel when the party started. I hope there was enough for everyone to try some.

Since You Asked: Brides Magazine Advice Column

The upside/downside of our recent home invasion by Brides magazine is the truly wonderful advice column. I may have to offer my help to all of the questioners eventually, but for now let's just take it from the top.

My fiance's family is showing zero interest in planning the wedding, while my parents are really involved. He tells me not to take offense-- it's just how they are-- but I'm starting to feel like they don't like me. Is this normal? Should I say something to them?

Dear Person,

The columnist addressed the functional part of your question in her answer-- pointing out that they may be staying out of your hair out of kindness, or just because they have better things to do*-- so I'm going to skip that and get to your Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Have you always felt that other people should arrange their lives entirely around your interests, or is it a new thing? I realize that a couple of hours spent huffing bridal-magazine glue can make it seem like choosing a napkin color is the most important decision since the deployment of the a-bomb, only with more potential casualties, but believe me when I say that not everyone feels this way.

But we're just skirting the real issue here, aren't we? You don't actually want your fiance's family weighing in on the planning with their terrible ideas. (What kind of monster would suggest green ribbons for the centerpieces? The horror.) No, what you want is to be recognized as the most important person in the world by everyone involved, because that is your birthright. It's the modern way: Forget the whole princess-for-a-day thing; now you're the despotic ruler of a small island nation for a good eight months.

So, no, you shouldn't say anything. They're probably already pretty sure you're crazy; why spoil the fun of guessing?

Sincerely,
Daisy


*Giving me a good impression of her sense and intelligence, which lasted until I read her answer to the next question, where she basically said that a bridesmaid who has the nerve to dislike the dress she is being forced to purchase is probably fat and/or unhappy about being single, and is also a horrible whiny bitch who you should just stop being friends with. So, yeah, there's that.

Wedding Zombie Update

Oh no! They got in the house!

Save yourselves! It's too late for me.



In case you were wondering:

Wedding Zombie Will Eat Your Brain

I thought I was safe.

Certainly, I knew I had my vulnerabilities; I had heard its shuffling feet in my brief contemplation of guest favors, and felt its cold fingers when contemplating if it was possible to combine the old/blue somethings into one item. But it wasn't until we completed the budget spreadsheet that the terrible truth became unavoidable:

The Wedding Zombie had gotten my brain.

Wedding Zombie is slow-moving but inexorable. It has no concept of money, knowing only of its relentless desire to feed. And its food is expensive. For example, the food, because the Wedding Zombie knows that even if you have never thrown a party more elaborate than "Super Bowl Potluck," you cannot be allowed to let your guests get away without at least three courses. It is a mindless thing, its consciousness formed by a tightly wound bundle of magazine articles, Barbie outfits, smug criticisms of other weddings you attend, vanities, and "it's just what you have to do."  Nothing is examined, because the Wedding Zombie has no brain of its own. All it knows is that it wants yours.

You may think you can build zombie-proof armor out of good sense and strict budgeting, but Wedding Zombie knows your weaknesses. Because that kevlar vest has a hole right where your latent desire to own one fabulous designer dress is, and there's a fine crack in your goalie helmet that runs along your love of cheese, right up to the point where you fantasize about starting the reception with a personally curated cheese table that everyone will admire. And by the time you even realize the crack is there, it's too late, and the Wedding Zombie is already digging in to your hippocampus.

So what can you do? You can try to make a run to the bunker of elopement, but be aware that you may already be infected with latent spores, which will activate when you least expect them and you will find yourself suddenly compelled, well into your retirement, to stage an elaborate faux-wedding charade, depleting your 401k and confusing your grandchildren because you "didn't get to have a real wedding." Or you can fight back with blasts to the head with the shotgun of reality and enlist someone you trust to know you are too far gone and do the humane thing: Take you out back and cut up your credit cards.

Ringing It

I may have already mentioned this to a couple of you*, but I recently got engaged. To Cameron, who is a lovely person and we're very happy and blah, blah, you're not interested in that. You want to see the hardware. And I am happy to oblige:

(not a professional hand model)

Not exactly visible from space, but I like them.

As a matter of fact, the rings belonged to my grandmother, and we had been planning to have the stones reset into something new. But when I tried them on and they fit, it just seemed silly to spend a bunch of money to turn one perfectly nice ring into another, so I'm just going with them as-is. After all, they did pretty well the last time around.


*Ha!
**I also want to tell you not to worry, this is not about to become a wedding blog, those things make me want to claw my own eyes out.