Why skimp on the cheddar?

Posted on by Josh Nudell

Warning, this post is entirely self-indulgent.

It is a heady feeling; one part pure desire, one part anticipation of a pleasure that is just beyond your reach. Not the ache of an unobtainable pleasure–that mixture of pure desire and the hollow pain that comes from the knowledge that the pleasure is entirely out of reach–but the rush that comes with knowing what you desire and knowing how (and how quickly) you can obtain it. The inexplicable craving that makes the entire world become sharpened to the point of fogginess. You notice every sight and every sound but are utterly incapable of concentrating on any one of them. Your heartbeat quickens while your mind and your body demand release. With luck, obtaining what you desire happens quickly and your senses return to normal, sated and weary. If not, your senses slowly return to normal, but the desire remains, muted. No longer the heady anticipation it is replaced by an ache. It is not a permanent ache that eats away at you from within–not yet, anyway–but a dull ache that will only go away when the pleasure is obtained.

Yes, it is a cliche to compare food to sex, but I did it anyway. So there. In some ways, this is a knee-jerk reaction to a great sandwich I had for lunch (great bread, tomatoes, avocado, chipotle mayonnaise). But for a white cheddar cheese sandwich, the cheese was decidedly lacking. There was plenty of it, but the cheddar on the sandwich was bland, hard, and a bit rubbery. This may pass for cheddar cheese in some places, but the sandwich disappointed me. Cheddar cheese should be on the verge of crumbling, moist, tart, and rich. It should be decadent. For a good, but not great cheddar I recommend Cabot’s Extra Sharp or Seriously Sharp cheddar. It is tart and it crumbles. But, if you want a great cheddar, I recommend Grafton’s Three Year Cheddar. Grafton’s cheese is tart and it crumbles, but it also melts in your mouth and is delicate. It was the disappointment of the sandwich, combined with the memory of Grafton’s cheddar that brought on the heady feeling, now slowly receding into an ache.

The world is more-or-less back to normal. I’m on my way back to reading for my comprehensive exams and I am sure that more sober topics will follow. Pardon the indulgence.

Assorted Links

Posted on by Josh Nudell
  1. Greenland ice sheet melted at unprecedented rate during July – 97% (rather than the usual c.50%) of Greenland’s ice sheet melted this month. The title is somewhat misleading since one researcher said that this happens once a century or two, but they fear that since it happened by a heat dome crossing over the island, this melt could become a regular occurrence. Most of the melt took place over five days in July.
  2. Misery on the March – A note on the (new) humanitarian crises beginning in South Sudan from the Economist.
  3. One-Third of Colleges Are on Financially ‘Unsustainable’ Path – According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, there was a Bain and Company study that claimed a third of non-profit schools are financially unsustainable or will be–including some of the schools that are traditionally considered wealthy.
  4. NCAA Gets PSU Sanctions Right, But For Wrong Reasons – A note from a Michigan blog about the Penn State Sanctions that argues that the NCAA took appropriate or fair actions within the bounds of realistic options, but did so in a way that was hypocritical and weak, rather than following perfectly legitimate reasons and bounds that are within NCAA jurisdiction. These mirror my own thoughts fairly well.
  5. Are We Addicted to Gadgets or Indentured to Work? – An op-ed in the Atlantic suggesting that “addiction to devices” is really being ever more available for work because of the communication technology. I do not entirely agree given that, for many people (myself included), they are also addicted to Facebook, Twitter, and Texting.
  6. Inside the Minds of Mass Killers– an article Hana shared with me about the problems underlying mass killings that debunks the notion that the root cause is insanity.
  7. Promises About Another American Century Are Pretty Lies – A piece in the Atlantic that (while not really that novel) decries the current campaign promises of another American century as perhaps insidious lies.

    8. As always, comments encouraged. What else is out there?