My Summer Vacation

If you are in the NYC area this weekend there are a few cheesy things you MUST do. The Fancy Food show is going on! In addition to a bunch of stuff we don't care about because it's not cheese, there are tons of cheesemakers too. I think I'd heard a number like 65 or so. And it's free. And there's cheese. Go so I can eat vicariously through you.

The second thing you have to do is go to the cheese eating contest. Stinky Brooklyn is hosting a cheese eating contest at Smith & Vine. I don't know if it's a stinky cheese eating contest I really hope it is but it's a cheese eating contest and you have to go. Why am I not going to either of these events? Why am I going to be here in Chicago instead of at a cheese eating contest? I'm taking too much time off this summer, and I had to be selective for which events were most important to me.

I know that I'm supposed to talk about my summer "vacation" at the end of the summer, but I'm a rebel and am breaking the rules.

On Tuesday I went to a seminar on Parmigiano-Reggiano held at Kendall College here in Chicago. Sponsored by Zuercher. The guest speakers were Daphne Zepos, cheese Goddess extraordinaire and owner of Essex St. Cheese in NYC and Giorgio Cravero 5th generation selector, affineur, and all around expert in the field. Thursday Daphne and Giorgio did a demo at the store, it was crazy busy and awesome. I'm working on a post. Next month some folks from Neal's Yard Dairy are coming out to do something similar.

Then comes August, or as I like to call it, I'm traveling a lot this month and putting the poor kitty in a kennel and eating so much cheese and going to be so broke after this month kicks my wallets' butt. It's not as succinct as just saying August, but it conveys so much more.

First off we have the ACS Conference Facebook link here going on from August 5-8 with the festival of cheese on August 9th. Then on August 22nd I'm doing the cheese trail in Vermont followed by the Vermont Cheesemaker's Festival on August 23rd. You can also find more info here. I'm still waiting to see if I'm going to get the time off for the Cheese Tour in Washington County, NY. This summer I am going to be eating a ridiculous amount of cheese. Yipee!