When I used to work off farm for a living I had an employee who used to go home every year to Wisconsin. She’d always bring me back a couple of bags of “squeaky cheese” or cheese curds. I’d never heard of them before she brought me some but it became one of my favorite things.
If like me, you don’t know what squeaky cheese is, its little misshapen balls of cheese curds and it’s a special thing. Kinda like doughnut holes I guess, a neat oddity. The name comes from the fact that as you eat them, they start squeaking against your teeth as you chew. Not loud enough that anyone but you can hear it and not always, but often. It seems the better the curds, the more they squeak, but maybe that is just me.
So SWMBO found this local cheese maker in Western NC and asked if I wanted to get some in for the store. I’d already had their cheese before and they had some really awesome selections so I said sure, bring it on. A few weeks later I get home after a day of driving all over to various pickups and drop offs and the wife, as an aside, mentions that the cheese has come in. That’s nice. It’s all over at the store, packaged for individual sale and ready for customers. Doesn’t affect me. Then she mentions that there is squeaky cheese in the order and I’m like…
But I’m not going to open a bag that is destined for the store, just so I can get my fix. So still, doesn’t affect me.
THEN she says, there is an open bag in the fridge, the kids have already had some and you can have the rest. Woo hoo! I jump and run to the fridge and grab the bag and it’s…light.
Really light.
And sad.
There were a few crumbs left in the bottom and maybe two cheese curds. Now make no mistake, I gobbled them as fast as I could, lest one of my crumb snatchers happen by and realize there were still some left and want me to share. Then I sat and stared at this sad, empty bag of former happiness and wondered if gypsies still purchase children. And how do you contact them? Craigslist?
So um, yeah. We have cheese in the store. And it’s good. Cheddar, colby jack, romano, and squeaky cheese. These compliment the speciality goat cheeses from Celebrity Dairy and cow’s milk cheeses from Chapel Hill Creamery that we carry. Sometimes you just want some cheddar cheese and now we have it.
Come get some before I decide I’m going to do to you what the kids did to me.
The cheese is calling, I must go.