The Best Cheese Ever: Sartori MontAmoré

Once upon a time, I had dinner at Jazz on the Lawn with my friend Emily, and she brought cheese. Actually this was a few weeks ago, so not really once upon a time, but just recently. And the cheese was the best. The best cheese. There is no other cheese like this cheese.*

Yes, I sometimes have a life. And Emily is a master chef.

I photographed the label. Emily said our grocery store had it in their cheese case, so I went right to the store and bought my own brick of cheese, which I then consumed in less than a week.

Heaven. Heaven in a paper wrapper.

And then I went back to the store for more of the Sartori MontAmoré cheese. Only to find that there was no more cheese. NO MORE CHEESE. Sure, there was lesser, inferior cheese. But that cheese doesn't count. I asked the deli lady whether more of the cheese was coming.

And she said no.

This led me to a sort of massive cheese-related meltdown.

This guy is pointing at my life, in the distance, burning into cinders of cheeselessness.

I went back to the library (I'd gone during lunch to the store), I bemoaned the lack of my delicious MontAmoré cheese. My poor coworker had to listen to me sadly discovering the cheese, while available online on both Sartori's website and Amazon.com, had a shipping cost of $20. Librarians cannot afford that sort of shipping, even for cheese sent to earth by God himself.

Part of my soul crushed like a grape under the wheel of a grocery cart, I took to social media. I hoped that my grocery store chain would hear my misery and decide to order the perfect MontAmoré cheese for all its stores forever. The Sartori people reached out at once, but I would still have to contend with shipping costs...

And then I remembered our local fancy wine and cheese store. I thought, "They aren't a chain--and I bet they'll special order cheese for me if I ask really nicely or maybe offer to marry whoever is working behind the counter!"

I called.

"I need some cheese," I said. "I was wondering if you could order it."

"What kind are you looking for?" The woman at the wine and cheese store seemed nice. I could so marry her, I thought. Plus employee discount on cheese, so match made in heaven.

"Sartori MontAmoré," I replied. "It's from Wisconsin." Maybe I could move to Wisconsin, I thought. Wisconsin is a land of cheese.

"We don't need to order it," she said. "I have three blocks in the fridge. Would you like me to save you some?"

YES.

YES I DID.

I went home with all of the cheese. I ate one block in less than three days. The other I hoarded for a while, then attacked on Tuesday. It is nearly gone now. It's time for another trip to the wine and cheese store.

And that is why local shops are made of awesome, folks. Shop local, support small businesses, and for goodness sake, buy the cheese if you see it. It is the best cheese ever, and you need that kind of love in your life.

*Again, no one paid me to write this post, because really, I get paid for almost none of the things I do on a daily basis, except for the library things.