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Abstract

The cheese shop on Shattuck is famous. It boasts the largest selection of cheeses foreign and domestic in Northern California, and is known to give an almost unlimited number of free samples. Most of the employees—called cheese consultants—are retired chefs now spending their golden years guiding the faithful to the best pairings for a plum tart or a dry champagne. On the afternoon I finally enter the shop, after years upon lustful years of walking past, I have three dollars in my wallet. My student loan payment is overdue again, and I’m praying HR won’t audit my time card. But as I stand in the doorway, the glass counter seems to gleam with particular insistence. Underneath, bright stacks of wheels and rounds—Bries and Montasios and Jarlsburgs, Munsters upon Asiagos upon Camemberts—form an altar of aromatic temptation. Surely I can go in, sample one cheese, and leave. Surely this is possible. I cross the threshold.

Cover Page Footnote

"God of the Cheese Wheel" was originally published at Booth.

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