Milk's leap towards immortality and I'm almost half way there at 24,702 words

The excerpt below likely needs no introduction. I will say, however, that much of what you will read below are actual quotes pulled from news articles. I added only a bit of flare here and there, and some light editing for context.

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I texted Gordon, Colm and Evelyn in our group chat, asking if they would like to join me later in the evening for a group viewing of Cheese: A Love Story. Of course, since there were six 1 hour episodes, we would not be able to finish them all in a single night, but we could certainly get started.

The rest of the day passed slowly, anticipation building. Finally, the moment arrive. We gathered around the television in the main living area, glasses of pinot noir in our hands.

I pressed play.

The scene opened on a close-up of Afrim Pristine. He is holding a large, red wheel of Boar n’ Trots goat cheese and a cheese cutting tool. His smile is strained, and he has an intense and almost unhinged look in his eyes.

“I was born with a piece of cheese in my mouth,” says Afrim Pristine. “I’m exaggerating — but perhaps not by much. Hi. I’m Afrim Pristine. You may know me as the owner of Toronto’s Cheese Boutique, opened by my grandfather in 1970. I also have the distinction of being  Canada’s only Maître Fromager (cheese master) and the world’s youngest Maitre Fromager. 

“I see this recognition as a duty. Earning the title of Maitre Fromager at such a young age meant I had to share that cheese is not just milk and salt — it’s an art form. I would go even farther than that. Cheese is milk’s leap towards immortality.”

The camera pans out from Afrim’s strained visage. We see that we are in the Cheese Boutique’s aging rooms. Afrim points to a 10-foot-high, 1,000-pound aged Auricchio provolone — basically a punching bag-sized torpedo of cheese.

“The Toronto Maple Leafs bought this,” says Pristine, co-owner of the specialty grocer along with his two brothers, Agim and Ilir. “Everyone from the team and management is going to eat this when they win the Cup. Luckily, this is a cheese that ages well and can be eaten after it has been stored properly for decades. Centuries, even.”

He stoops down and pulls out a bin of five wheels of northern Italian cow’s milk cheese sitting in an Aperol spritz, an Italian aperitif made from orange peel and rhubarb. Pristine coats the cheese with his hands, as he routinely does, and says with what must be a smile behind his mask, “These kinds of projects, thinking outside the box, this is part of the fun of what we do here.”

“I hate to sound cheesy,” Pristine says, pun intended, “but here we love seeing our customers smile because of our food, our service. Frankly, we’re suppliers of happiness. That also applies outside the store. I recently joined the board at St. Joseph’s Health Centre Foundation and my business established the Cheese Boutique Mental Health Promise Fund, where we’ve raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for mental health initiatives in the past 15 years. Cheese is the living embodiment of wellness, and we are working hard at the Cheese Boutique to spread that to the world.

“And that’s exactly what we’ll be doing over the next six episodes. You will follow me as I travel to regions in Switzerland, France, Quebec and more, in order to learn more about cheese and the lives of world-class cheese masters. Join me on this life changing journey.”

As the scene is closing, Pristine turns to the side. We see that he is still holding the cheese cutting device. Unexpectedly, he uses the device to cover his eye. We, the viewers are left wondering “But what does it all mean?”

Of course, we finished all six episodes that evening and were booked into The Cheese Boutique’s Level 2 Tour hosted by Afrim Pristine himself for the next weekend. I was counting the days.