I’ve got an index!
Long before I ever thought about writing a book I was fascinated by indexes. I realize now that I have always wanted to read a history of indexes: how themes are chosen, the hidden politics of indexing, unsung heroic indexers etc. Is there one out there? Of course this realization was spawned by the fact that I just found out that I’m getting an index. I know it makes sense, I just hadn’t thought about it! To me this is much more exciting that the cover finally being chosen. I mean, check out this snippet: Reagan, Ronald, 82–83, 96–98, 189–190, 195–196 Reblochon, 92 recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH), 26, 74, 84

My annual cheese nightmare
In an odd twist, my annual pre-holiday cheese nightmare wasn’t about cheese at all. No –for whatever reason — I feel confidant that I haven’t over-ordered this year. Maybe it’s because I don’t have to receive all the cheese myself anymore… Still, while I take a perverse pride in having my sleep interrupted by cheese anxiety, last night I had a nightmare about fake cheese. That’s just downright undignified. There’s this new vegan flavor of the month “best vegan cheese ever” that we have been going to great lengths to carry. It’s called Daiya. It’s from Canada.

Cheesemonger: A Life on the Wedge
Ok, People keep asking when the book is coming out so here it is. Not available until March, but it’s never too early to pre-order. And check out the new low cover price since we’ve done away with the pretentious hard cover edition. You can order

Thanks!
Big thanks to cheese writer Laura Werlin for catching an embarrasingly stupid mistake in my manuscript at the last minute. (I wrote the the USA produces 9 million lbs of cheese yearly when I meant to write 9 billion) It takes a cheese pro to catch an error like that. My eyes went right past it at least 100 times. I owe you one!

Bad Bocconcini
The other day Nick Mamatas asked me what my happiest day was as a cheesemonger.* Well, last Saturday certainly wasn’t it. We had an in store demo scheduled for the week before. Even though I got about 100lbs of pre-packed bocconcini, we couldn’t sell it because it wasn’t sealed correctly and it was spilling all over the place. I figured we could give it away, but, unfortunately, it was already rancid. Yuck, spit, hawk, spit, yuck, rinse. Because we’re good little environmentalists, I opened every package and drained it in the sink so we could compost the cheese and recycle the plastic tubs. Luckily