that's me. with a whole lot of cheese. 5 kilos to be exact. that's 11 pounds of cheese! life in asia is never dull, particularly in the realm of food. we absolutely love the local food here. although one food group distinctly absent is dairy. i never realized how much dairy americans (and this one in particular) eat until moving to a place where everyone else isn't such a fan. the majority of people here are lactose intolerant and the rest just view milk as for kids. i, on the other hand, love milk. not so much here bc it tastes weird, but in america it is one of my favorite things to drink. my love of cheese, however, spans worldwide. as an aside, i would like to note that i blame my love of cheese 100% on my mother whose now empty-nester refrigerator contains an average of 5-10 different cheeses making up approximately 50% of her grocery bill. (numbers subject to my estimation.) and since it isn't a local fav, that means that it must be bought at an import store at an extremely high price. so some of the women in my city got really wise a couple years ago and found a hole-in-the-wall place where you can buy it in bulk making it much cheaper. so last weekend jarred and i made a cheese run and stocked up on cheese for the next 6 months! and despite the fact that we are working to eat less dairy (along with meat, processed food in general, and everything else that makes up the "western diet") (note: this is mostly a result of michael pollan author of In the Defense of Food, as well as a few articles i have read recently linking dairy in the western diet to breast cancer and even acne), all of this cheese will get used over time. and the kicker is that we paid $37 for this cheese, which is a savings of $52 over what it would cost to buy it a chunk at a time at the normal import store. let's just hope the power doesn't go out for an extended time at josh and danielle's where most of this cheese is in a big freezer. the only bad thing is that most recipes call for shredded cheese, which requires this:
