I can't live, if living is without cheese

Can I suggest you play the following music while you read this? Cause this blog is about to get real.

Ever since I was young, I’ve been a “no sugar” kid. Not by choice, and not as an exhaustive rule (I’m sorry, have you even Cadbury Cream Eggs? They’re made from unicorn smiles! They should be eaten all the time).

As a result of this, cheese has always been my go-to at dessert time. You get to enjoy something delicious, you still have a plate in front of you while others enjoy dessert (so you don’t look like an abstemious poindexter) and you get to enjoy a delightfully bourgeois rite of passage:

“Jenkins! Pass the cheese and my favourite Chateau de Pique! Would you fancy taking a turn across the room and a brief Quadrille?”

Precisely! Cheese = winning at life.

But herein lies the problem. I went back to visit the very same doctor that told me all those years ago that I would no longer be able to eat sugar. It was a check up of sorts. I was happy. He was happy. The whole situation was fine (apart from overly-loud 1987 documentary on “Ayers Rock” showing in the waiting room).

But then it all went downhill. He looked me in the eyes and said to me “It’s only fair that I should let you know what you should know.”

(He didn’t, it just fits in neatly with the song playing on your computer right now. He actually said something along the lines of, “So I went through your bloodwork and there were some issues. You’re going to have to make a few dietary changes”...)

He told me the impossible.

[Wait here until chorus].

No more cheese.

No more creamy brie, no more Roaring Forties Blue, no more Ceviste de Scey and (I choked up a little here) no more goat’s cheese. The smellier the cheese, the more I had to give it up.

Doctor Zhivag-no then told me it was okay, because I could manage without cheese.

You know what?! No!

I can’t live, if living is without cheese! What’s the point?

From now on, I’ll try to bring you all I know about the cheeses I can eat. Ricotta (Really? REALLY? A clotted sandwich salve at best), firm un-aged cheddar and Sheep’s Milk cheese. But dear reader, I shall become an expert. I shall forge on and triumph!

If you have any suggestions on cheeses to try, let me know. Suggested coping mechanisms also welcome, but unfortunately alcohol is supposedly off the list too. Unless you count Scotch that has been bottled in the last 4 years.

Awesome.