Gordonzola.net

It's time to announce that I finally have a web presence that is not LiveJournal. No fear, I'm not going anywhere. But I wanted a cheese-specific place on the web. Especially since industry folks are turning up more and more on my LJ.

Here I am: http://www.gordonzola.net/

There's still work to do, but it's up. My gordonzola.net e-mail does not work yet, I need to add picture captions and eventually the blog won't be a link to my LJ "Cheese" tag. But check it out.

(Thanks to Laren Leland who designed it. beelavender who's hosting me and my brother for getting it started.)

Visit to Neal's Yard (part 1)

For once I took a vacation without making it cheese-related. Well… almost. Since I was in London, I couldn't resist a tour of the Neal's Yard Dairy aging rooms.

Neal's Yard started in the '70s and from early on, took on the mission of selling, and saving, traditionally made English cheeses. As in the USA, commodity block cheddar was in ascendance and the traditional cheesemakers, some of whom had been family cheesemakers for over a century, were having a rough time. Through their (now) two retail stores, their aging facilities, and their domestic and international distribution network, Neal's Yard helped create awareness and a market so that traditional British cheesemaking could survive.

Originally, I was going to go along to visit farms with them while they selected cheese. However, the price of earlier plane tickets and the Bank Holiday weekend due to Easter prevented that from happening. I also was offered the opportunity to work at the retail store or aging rooms. I know some of you folks will not believe this but my response was, "Fuck that. This is vacation."

You can't question my cheese love, but part of the reason I took a month off work was to let my body heal from cheese-related injury. Cheesemonger's shoulder, tendonitis in my elbows, a herniated disc from 1996… I worry sometimes that my relationship with cheese is abusive. But when it looks up at me from the counter, with those weepy eyes and come-hither bloomy rinds, well, I can't resist.

But I did resist getting behind the counter while on vacation. I have some worker pride. However, taking a two-hour tour of the aging rooms sounded like my kind of tourist attraction.

Neal's Yard's aging facility is inside an old brick railway arch. Outside it looks like a Quonset hut, but inside, four different small coolers of differing temperatures and humidities, a large room filled with wooden shelves, a cutting/wrapping/shipping area, a large walk-in, an upstairs filled with offices and about $500,000 worth of cheese.

Here's a small sample:

Yum. Cheese.

(Tomorrow: the actual tour. Less me. More cheese)