Work-appropriate Cheese

There’s always someone in the workplace who wears inappropriate clothing. Her name is Jasynta, and her daily garb will normally include a variation of distressed denim jeans with sub-cheek derriere ripping and a low slung Sass & Bide singlet with contrasting bra (you trend-setters think this is cool, but it's not...and your bra is ugly).

The question of work-appropriate attire is as old as the workplace itself, and if I understand the film 9 to 5 correctly (which, I’m sure, I do) then appearing at work is all about rocking a stylish shirt-dress and showing the boss that he can’t push you around, no matter how fab your perm is.

But today we gather to talk about a very different matter indeed – workplace cheese.

Last week, I visited a local deli on my way to work and picked up a copy of The Cheese Mag (more on that in my next post) and a wedge of pungent Comte-style Le Ceviste de Scey. 

I won’t go into the details of just what this cheese smells like, but suffice to scey its pungent stench is more of a knockout than Dolly Parton’s character in 9 to 5, Doralee Rhodes.

No matter, I thought. I’ll just take it along to work. I’ll buy myself some crackers and enjoy a little nibble for morning tea!

Ahhh there’s the rub. To enjoy this cheese, I would need to eat it standing up in the kitchen like some sort of hind-legged sow, with my little trotters vainly attempting to grasp the biscuits without looking foolish. (For some reason, this conjures an image of the tightly-timed lunch breaks at my old workplace).

Or, I’d need to eat it at my desk. So I brought it back to Auxiliary Cubicle 2B (my loving name for my desk) and discretely pecked away.

My workmates are accustomed to seeing me eat a snack at elevensies, but they were notably silent on this day. I am a cheese lover and I was acutely aware that it was borderline too stinky for me (of course it wasn’t, that was a test, I love all cheese).

But the awkward desk stink did remind me of another situation at my old workplace, when a co-worker took off her shoes and our office accountant leaped up with his head over the cubicle divider and exclaimed, “What is that smell? It smells like something has crawled up into the air conditioning units and died there!”

To avoid this situation in the future I have two lessons that we can learn:
1. Future desk cheeses will either be of the un-aged cheddar or mild brie variety.
2. Don’t ever take off your shoes at work. They smell like sweat cauldrons and you know it.

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.