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| - Knowing that our spring break hosts will expect cheese from us, coming from Wisconsin, we turned to this well-known spot for all things fromage.
Our original mission was to ask if they had some nice cheese we could, say, bring in our carry on bags, and how long could it sit out in room temperature, but we were quickly derailed by the panoply of other edible and tasteful gifts lining the store. Though relatively smaller in space than I expected, we were able to browse unbothered, until we finally pulled it together to approach the counter.
Our man behind the counter had all the answers we could hope for ("the FDA says 4-6 hours, but really any of the cheeses sitting out right now except those in the fresh case could handle the trip, especially in this weather") and was passionate ("really, these need to sit out for 30 minutes before consuming -- it's like wine it needs to decant...but I'm getting off topic"). Our answers satiated, we looked forward to coming back just before our trip to make the purchase, but lingered around a little longer.
Suddenly he appeared with a board, no words, just two specially cut samples of cheese. We sampled those. Then we talked about the cheese. Then we looked at some more cheese. He asked if we wanted to try any of the other cheeses.
We were indecisive; we are not the cheese experts, we thought, just the tasters. Without another word, he picked up a cheddar block (after I had poo poo'd on cheddar -- bold move) and cut us another two samples. This european cheddar, this was not your orangey, in your face cheddar.
I changed my mind about cheddar at first crunch, and we had a short discussion on crystallization. We left with half of what was left of that cheddar and ate the whole thing that night, paired with a bottle of wine from Square Wine Co down the street.
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