The Cheese Stands Alone

I've been away from the blog for a bit. Why? Well...quite honestly, it's because I was embarassed and fed up with myself. I had an experience that threw my world off its axis and forced me to take a long, hard look at my thought patterns and habits. I didn't like what I saw. It is said that when the student is ready, the teacher will appear. My teacher, the entity who flipped my perspective and made change not a should but a must? Cheese.

Yup, cheese.

Like all life's teachers, cheese can assume many forms: a cheerful, waxy orange hunk grinning at you from the dairy case; a gooey, melty blanket of comfort beckoning from atop a pizza; stoic and self-assured in the middle of a fruit plate, much like I always pictured the cheese at the end of "Farmer In The Dell", standing alone in the center of everything and unruffled by it all.

Cheese first appeared to me nestled in two gluten-free mini quiches at the Pickering Flea Market. The BF and I go there at least twice a month so he can stock up on sopprasetta, because it's one of the few foods he deigns to include in his lunch rotation (Monday, bbq pork on rice; Tuesday, half a sopprasetta; Wednesday, bbq pork on rice, and so on). The Flea market has a wonderful food court, full of incredible-tasting garbage like beef patties and (to die for)deep-fried potato puffs. We usually go for brekkie in the city beforehand, but every now and then it's nice to hunker down in a food court with the rest of humanity. Luckily, there is one booth that I can eat at - Molly B's Gluten-Free Kitchen. Besides the usual high-carb fare, which I skip, I can usually get ribs (with guaranteed gluten-free sauce) and salad. Nummy and messy, perfect food court fare.

This time, however, I wasn't that hungry. Two mini-quiches, so small and pretty, seemed the perfect remedy to my niggle for a little something. Upon asking though, I was informed that one contained cheddar, the other goat cheese. Well, I threw caution to the wind! "Bring 'em on," I exclaimed, an imaginary Super Duper Daring Girl cape flapping behind me. Today, I thought, will be the day I challenge cheese. Boo-ya.

I ate one. Then the other. They were okay. Barely tasted the cheese, dammit. It may as well have not been there at all. I mean, if you're going to put cheese in a quiche, mini or otherwise, PUT CHEESE IN. Goobs and gobs of it. When cooking with cheese, one must say "fuck subtlety!" and cram it in there. Anyway, though the quiche was good, I felt cheated out of a true cheese experience. Little did I know what the curdled bitch-goddess had in store for me.

Crestfallen, I commanded the BF to take me to a grocery store so I could purchase a block of tangy old cheddar cheese. If I was gonna suffer, (if, IF, because I don't REALLY have a problem with cheese, do I?)I was damn well gonna live it up first. I put half the block away, shredded a quarter block overtop a hastily-made taco salad (seasoned beef, tomatoes, salsa, avocado, etc) and ate the other quarter atop almond-flax crackers while I waited for the first to melt. My heart was, seriously, pounding with excitement. I was drooling like a wildebeast. I wasn't just eating the cheese - I was making sweet, sweet love to it, and it to me. It was deep, and it was real. As was the devastating gas and bloating that ensued soon after. Devastating gas - so bad that my cats spent the evening trying to avoid me - is one method the teacher uses to speak to you. It is an instruction: do not eat this again. Very simple. It's also a lesson we generally ignore. I went to bed that night like a kid on Xmas Eve, tingling with the anticipation of another day with cheese.

Next day I repeated the same menu. Again, I inflated and spent the rest of the day playing the butt-tuba. Since I wasn't listening, my teacher added another lesson: some weird, intestinal fireworks, like hot tingles, and some heartburn. Later, for good measure, teach threw in insomnia and intense bingeing hunger. I made a mental plan to try goat cheese next.

The following few days contained additional instruction in the form of nasal allergies, an acne breakout and dry, itchy skin. Gas continued, I looked 7 months pregnant, and I constantly craved carby foods like potatoes and sweets. My energy levels were extremely low. So naturally, I ordered and ate an entire medium gluten-free pizza, covered in fantabulous organic mozzarella.

Cheesus wept.

My weight shot up with water retention, my face broke out more, I got constipated and began having mood swings. My fingernails started breaking, gums started bleeding, nasal allergies were in full swing and I still had insomnia and enormous bloating. Cravings I hadn't heard from in ages dropped in to raid the fridge. I started getting obsessive about food and vitamins, and spent hours online maniacally researching things I already knew. I considered testing gluten - you know, just to see if anything happened, because intolerance symptoms are just so darn VAGUE.

Finally, after a small episode involving vanilla ice cream, wine and cigarettes (yes, I smoked - the dairy path is dark, my friends) my gouda-guru and the universe teamed up to give me a final exam. I bought a supplemental omega-oil blend containing, of all things, wheat germ and oat oils - something I normally would never, ever have purchased, and I quite honestly don't know why I did - and got really, really sick. I spent a week passing oil and undigested food. I felt nauseous and in pain every time I ate, no matter what it was, to the point of having to lie down. Course then I'd have to get up and pass more undigested food. I was itchy, tired, upset, sleepless, covered in zits, burping, heartburny. And then, just to add insult to injury, just to make absolutely, positively sure that I was listening this time, cheese/universe sent me one final lesson:

I pooped my pants. Just a little. Just a smidge. Just a wee, itsy-bitsy bit. But the fact remained - I pooped. In my pants. While I was wearing them. I thought it was just a little bit of gas...but no. Oh no. It was so, so much more. My best friend, who has Crohn's, laughed and said "Welcome to my world." What was I doing? What had I become? Is this what I wanted in my life, to be a pants-pooper? If I kept going, what would be next?

I'm better now, and better for it. I have learned my lesson, finally. Cheese is a tough mistress indeed, her lessons brutal. But she never, ever steers you wrong; if she speaks to you, you'd best heed her words. Now when I think of cheese, I don't fantasize about eating it. I picture it standing alone in the center of a bunch of gobbling, drooling people, wizened and calm, meeting my eyes with a knowing gaze and nodding almost imperceptibly as I walk on past.