Sheltering-In-Place: What I Have Learned… What I Do to Keep From Going Crazier Than I Already Am…

Mead-Infused Cheddar Cheese and Chocolate

What does an “elderly” Cheesemonger do while sheltering-in-Place?**

First thing I have learned is that I miss interaction with others but if I must be Sheltering-in-Place, The Man is the perfect companion. He is easy going, clean, quite neat, grateful for my cooking (even the less-than-successful dishes), and he makes me laugh everyday…

The cats, squirrels, raccoons, possums, birds and deer continue to violate the Sheltering-in-Place order and expect their meals on their schedule. Luckily my schedule is uncluttered and I can accommodate their every whim. The young female, Blue, we adopted after she was abandoned near Blue Haven Bee Honey has turned out to be a bully. She beats up on Felix, who is declawed

(already declawed when we adopted him) and not able to defend himself. Playing referee is tedious and a waste of time; Blue doesn’t care if I tap her on the end of her nose…

The Cheese Community rallied to assist our members who have been devastated by the shutdown of businesses that especially supported the smaller, artisan cheesemakers. I’d like to shout out to a few who have organized specific virtual events or other avenues to help our fragile community.

Janet Fletcher compiled and published a comprehensive list of online sites to purchase cheese. Access the list here, which she updates regularly. If you are a cheesemaker or retailer and want to be added to her list, please let her know and she will add you. (Also, if you don’t subscribe to her weekly email, you are missing out on one of the best. It is the ONLY email that I open and read EVERY week.)
Babs Hogan is interviewing cheesemakers and other cheese swells. Click hear for her interview with Cheese Icons, Mary Quicke and Tracy Colley. Also, be sure and “Like” her Facebook page. Also, Babs has more than 25 interviews with Cheese Swells on her You Tube Channel.
Nathan’s Support our Cheesemakers Presentation
Nathan Aldridge, ACSCCP, aka The Cheese Preacher, is conducting online cheese classes that you can access here.
Michael Landis, ACSCCP, ACSCCSE, Court of Masters Sommelier and Certified Cicerone, is interviewing cheese icons. Schedule and RSVPing can be accessed here. Also, be sure and “Like” his Facebook page.
Cheeselandia is supporting Wisconsin Cheesemakers with monthly virtual cheese tastings. The next one is scheduled for May 21st on Zoom/Instagram.
The Mobile Monger, Janee Muha ACSCCP, is interviewing many of our makers and mongers. You can access her schedule and interviews here. Also, be sure and “Like” her Facebook page.
Laura Werlin and Janet Fletcher are offering free virtual wine and cheese tastings, Cheese O’Clock”, every Thursday.
The Facebook Cheese Study Group continues to educate, even though the 2019 ACS CCP Exam has been postponed. We are posting a “Question of the Day”: some serious and some whimsical. We’d love to have you join in.

And now for non-cheesey stuff that has kept me occupied…

What the heck were Elon Musk and Grimes thinking in choosing their child’s name?
Binge watching is the way to watch series TV. We have watched Bosch (the best!!), Ozark (I LOVE Ruth!!), Mary Tyler Moore (Chuckles Bites the Dust is still the funniest episode of TV I have ever seen), The Practice (if David E. Kelley created it, it’s worth watching), Fauda (which The Man hates).
If you have metal legs, you don’t need to worry about fire ants or snakes. (My thanks to Veteran Joey Jones for this insight,)
Charles Manson was only 5’2″ tall and died in 2017. (How did I not know this?)
Crossword puzzles and Jigsaw puzzles keep me busy when I get restless.
Aren’t all jobs essential? It must be demoralizing to be told your job is “non-essential”.
More than one of my favorite sayings came from the Mary Tyler Moore show: “I don’t know whether to eat this or apply it directly to my hips” Rhoda Morganstern.
NOAA radios are cool and a pain at the same time.
No good deed goes unpunished… Out-of-state nurses/doctors who came to help NYC are being hit with NY State income tax bills.
Not all TP is created equal.
Betty White is 98 and still working.
Twitter is not for sissies… you had better have a tough hide if you want to play in that sandbox.
I miss live golf. May 24th can’t get here fast enough.
Still loving American Idol after all these years. I picked Jonny West as the winner at his audition. He’s still in the mix. He didn’t win but Just Sam from NYC (with the best backstory – well deserved!!) did win!!!

I began creating “My Pantry” within my #AmazonInfluencer store front. If you support my store, I will derive a few pennies from your purchases (and when I say pennies… I mean pennies…) You can also review the various pantry lists on this page.

On January 1, long before we knew what the future would become, I signed up (Third Year) for Goodreads Reading Challenge. In 2019, I read 98 books total and for 2020, I pledged to read 100 books. As of this morning, I have read 57 books and here some bullet points of what I have learned from my reading time***:

Among Tesla, Edison and Westinghouse, Tesla was by far the smartest of the three and evidently Edison was an asshole. (From Last Days of Night)
Walk the Wire, David Baldacci’s new bestseller is set in North Dakota in the middle of the fracking industry. I now understand how fracking works and can believe that the OPEC war between Saudi Arabia and Russia is a conspiracy to put the US energy industry out of business… but then again, I am married to a conspiracy nut and after 42 years… some of it rubs off…
A.J. Stewart’s new Miami Jones’ is set in the world of thoroughbred racing. I learned two pieces of interesting trivia reading Past The Post: All thoroughbreds’ birthdays are on the first day of the year of their birth, giving horses born early in the year an edge in a race over horses born later in the year. And all breeding of thoroughbreds must be “live”; artificial insemination is banned.
I read Samuel Beckett’s famous play, Waiting for Godot, and I can only say… what a waste of my time… sorry but I didn’t get it… I had the same reaction to Midnight Cowboy.
Paul Levine tackles the college cheating scandal in Cheater’s Game and I learned how easy it was for the scheme to work… had it not been for a bit of luck on the part of the FBI, we might have never known…
Masked Prey by John Sandford is the 30th in the Lucas Davenport series and I have read all 30 (in order). As the series developed, the Writer toned down the gruesomeness of the crimes and for that I am thankful. In the beginning, Lucas dealt primarily with grizzly serial killers (thus the “Prey” in every title). His Virgil Flowers series, a spin-off from Davenport, is worth your time as well.
In The Parisians I learned that Coco Chanel was at best anti-Semitic and a Nazi sympathizer or at worst, a traitor and full-on Nazi spy during WWII. If not for Winston Churchill, she would have been tried and most likely ended up in the pokey. She did exile to Switzerland and kept the House of Chanel closed for fifteen years. Her hatred for Jews stemmed from the deal she made with the Wertheimer brothers selling Chanel Parfum to them early in her career. She felt her royalty was unfair and petitioned the Nazis to take her rights back from the Jews. Her efforts were unsuccessful and ironically when she reopened The House, it was the same Wertheimers who backed her venture and return to success (although the French never fully forgave her for her actions during the war).

In addition to being an American Cheese Society Certified Cheese Professional, I am a Certified ServSafe Food Production Manager with certifications that also include ServSafe Certified Instructor and Proctor. I am available for cheese events, cheese program development, cheese training, food safety training and 3rd party food safety auditing. See my About Me and Resume pages for more details or call me at 360 921 9908 to discuss availability.