Shootin' the Bries - Episode 2

Hello, I'm Jordan Morris.

This is not your regularly scheduled podcast, but rather episode two of Shootin' the Breeze, a very occasional cheese chat show featuring myself and John Hodgman.

John and I are both podcasters, but also have both worked in cheese shops, hence the inspiration for this very sporadically released series.

Later on in the episode, we'll be talking to author Joe Berkowitz, whose book, American Cheese, An Indulgent Odyssey Through the Artisan Cheese World, is now available wherever you get your books.

If you want to enjoy episode one of this podcast, you can go to maximumfund.org slash join and support all the great shows on the network.

That will get you access to the bonus feed with hundreds of hours of bonus content, including Shootin' the Breeze, episode one.

A quick note about content.

We do talk a bit about dieting in this episode.

That talk starts around the five minute mark.

If you want to skip that section, head to the around 17 minute mark.

Okay, enjoy the show.

Jordan, hi.

Hi, John.

I'm speaking to Jordan Morris, right?

Yes.

Hi, it's me, John Hodgman, your friend.

Oh, I know you.

From the world of friendship.

From the world of friendship, and of course,

our award-deserving

one-episode podcast spectacular called Shootin' the Breeze.

And guess guess what?

This is our second episode.

We're back.

2018, Jordan Morris and I got together because we both had been cheesemongers in our past.

I had worked at a wine and cheese store in London called Jerobones, where I sold some cheese, some épois, some pave daffinois, and also the famous chump cheese, Stilton.

And Jordan, you cheesed monged in Silver Lake.

Yes, I monged out here.

It was an early job when I moved out to L.A.

to try and make it in show business.

And yes, I monged at a place called Say Cheese in Silver Lake, LA's hip Silver Lake district.

I was terrible at the job.

Could not show up on time.

Broke many things.

What things did you break?

Just little glass things, little glass things that were around.

They also had a little

shelf of, you know, gift baubles.

I broke more than one of those.

Oh, yeah, excuse me.

I'd like to get some cheese, but also, where are your breakables?

You have a breakables section?

Why, they're right over here.

Whoa!

And I think we discovered, or at least it was our fancy to imagine that since I remembered going to that cheese shop in the year of our God or whatever, 2005 or 6,

that I went to say cheese.

And you may have even monged cheese for me.

That is our friendship love story.

We never never knew what it was going to blossom into.

Our cheesy meat cute.

Sure, yeah.

And by the way,

is say cheese still there?

Say cheese is still there, still thriving as far as I know.

Amazing given its dumb name.

Yeah.

Say cheese.

And I think it's a beloved local institution.

And I have not been in since I worked there because I am terrified of going in and having the owner recognize me and

call me out as being the worst employee they ever had.

Well, I can never go there now because I just publicly trashed their name on America's North America's probably leading

every three-year cheese podcast.

Bobby, you know what?

I take it back though.

Say Cheese, it's definitely a cheesy name.

That's sure.

Yeah, there you go.

And I think that in 2006,

you know, that was before the big artisanal cheese boom really hit hard in the United States.

Do you know what I mean?

Yeah, so I mean, definitely Say Cheese was doing it.

You know, they were, you know, they're the CBGBs of

small batch artisanal cheese.

Right.

It was before every cheese and food institute, like every Subway tiled, Edison bulb illuminated foodie place was, you know, named after a rubric that involved an ampersand.

Like

slate and branch or pitcher and

clavicle or something like that.

They were on the nose, but it was fair.

Yeah, they were doing artisanal before we were all sick and tired of the word artisanal.

And they're still doing it because people remember it's called get it.

It's called Say Cheese.

So I take it back.

You're doing great, Seychees.

Thanks for hanging in there.

Thanks for providing Jordan and I our meet cute as friends.

And here we are.

Our meet sharcute.

Is that something?

Does that work?

Wow.

Meet Charcute.

Wow.

Anyway.

I think the podcast is over now.

Yep.

All podcasting, actually.

The medium is now done.

I think that's it.

Yeah.

Everything after this is just a post-credit sequence to podcasting.

Right.

That's incredible.

People are walking.

After Meet Charcute, that's like people walking out of the theater after watching The Winter Soldier get dusted at the end of Infinity War.

People didn't know what they saw.

Black Panther died.

It's over.

It's over.

There's nothing.

There's no other thing.

People are just walking to their cars agog.

What did I just, did I, what?

Yes.

Did I just see that?

Did I just hear Jordan Morris say meet shark

But guess what everybody it's not over cuz end game is coming it's called

shooting the breeze this episode maybe our last It will be yes like end game.

It'll be three and a half hours and feature some time travel stuff that maybe doesn't make sense.

That's right.

We'll probably try to do a phase three of shooting the breeze in a couple of years, but everyone will know the story has really come to a close.

There's really no reason.

Right.

Yeah.

No offense, Kumail, but there's no reason to do the Eternals.

It's just done.

We did it.

Anyway, we are going to talk a little bit more about artisanal cheese in the United States a little bit later on in this episode with our guest, Joe Berkowitz, who is the author of a book that's out now called American Cheese, an Indulgent Odyssey Through the Artisan Cheese World.

But for now, it's just you and me, Jordan, talking.

I have a question for you.

Yes, please.

So when we last spoke, things were different in this world of ours, 2018.

It was a different time.

How has your relationship with cheese

changed specifically in in a pandemic situation where you're not going out of the house a lot and all there is to do is eat things that's boy it's true i so i had an interesting beginning of 2020 pre-pandemic we were still going outside and hugging like maniacs just hugging everyone we see uh attending coughing contests you know was we didn't we didn't know we didn't know what was on the horizon.

You remember when kids were getting together to doing strep swab swaps?

Oh, man, those were the days.

They'd swab their own strep and then swap it.

Yeah, you'd swab your friend.

You'd strep swab your friend.

Yeah, I know.

That was such a thing.

That and butt-chugging were so big.

Yes, I know.

In 2013?

Anyway, kids.

Kids.

Kids in their butts.

So what's your relationship?

How's your relationship with cheese?

I had a cheese-based incident take place early 2020.

I had a, you know, just a regular

doctor's appointment.

And, you know, in our debrief, he's like,

I, you know, I should mention you've gained a little weight.

You're in a zone where you might want to think about losing some weight.

So I tried to take that seriously.

So I had, you know, I, through a health plan that I no longer have,

had like three visits with a nutritionist like at my disposal, which I had never done.

So I'm like, oh, great.

I'll, you know, I'll start this journey, you know, this kind of health and fitness journey that I am on by, you know, starting off by visiting a nutritionist.

I'm on my journey, and so I'm, I'm, I meet with this nutritionist, and kind of by the time

the meeting happened, I had already kind of changed a lot of stuff about my eating habits.

And so part of the meeting was

I had to give her a, a food journal of my, of what I had eaten for the week.

And I thought I was doing pretty good.

I had already kind of like, you know, cut back the carbs.

You know, the carbs I was having was like, you know, Dave's killer bread.

You know, not a lot of sweets, not a lot of alcohol.

And,

you know, so I turned her in this food journal that I was pretty proud of.

And it kind of, the meeting started with just her kind of perusing it.

And she goes, mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Wow, you really like cheese, huh?

In just

the,

I, I, boy, you, wow, you, huh, you're weak.

You're a, you're a weak baby who loves cheese.

Yeah, in this way that

I will never forget.

She cheese shamed you.

She cheese shamed.

Was your food journal written on pizza crusts?

It was.

It was written on, uh, yeah, it was written on pizza crusts and McRibs.

Really tough to find a pen that'll write on a McRib, but you can do it.

They're on Amazon.

This is before the pandemic or during the past.

Yeah, so this kind of crossed over during the pandemic.

So yeah, I've really been, you know, I've really changed a lot about how I eat.

And part of that is kind of

looking at the cheese I eat and making sure it's, you know, a little more of a treat.

So yeah, so I still do, you know, love my regular white American cheese that the,

you know, that the deli guy slices for me.

But I've also, I've also taken to doing a little bit more farmer's market shopping.

I know,

and I bring my cloth bags and my cat is a rescue.

But yes, I have been going to the farmer's market more and yeah, and kind of hitting up some smaller cheesemakers.

Trying to focus on quality rather than how much you can shove in your mouth at 2 a.m.

in the morning.

So, yeah, it's been a fun journey, and I think I'm

appreciating my cheese when I have it more.

That is a journey that I did not expect because honestly, I think that most people who had been looking after themselves, nutritionally speaking,

pre-pandemic, once we went into lockdown,

kind of gave up.

I'll tell you, I did.

Yeah, sure.

It happened this week that I woke up at 2 o'clock in the morning.

I woke up from a sound sleep and couldn't fall back asleep.

And I said, I'm just going to go eat some American cheese.

And I did it.

Yeah.

Just sliced or did you have it on something?

Just

sliced American cheese.

Hell yeah.

And,

you know, going down to the fridge and having a couple of slices of American cheese

is not something I would do at 2 o'clock in the morning.

Like, you know, maybe I, maybe I retire to my bed at 11, 10, 30 or whatever, whatever, and I read for a while and I realize I need a little snack and I'll go down.

I'll just have a slice of American cheese or two.

Sure.

Right.

There's a middle-aged dad indulgence.

Two o'clock in the morning.

Now

waking up from a sound sleep and going to get that cheese snack.

Now already I'm pushing it.

And maybe because I knew that I was pushing it too far, I decided I was going to push it all the way.

So rather than eating American cheese, bathed in the light of the refrigerator, which is

one of the greatest greatest ambiances in food.

It's a beautiful image.

I took it back to bed with me.

Oh, my.

And my wife wakes up.

She goes, What are you doing?

What's that sound?

And I realized

I didn't feel the shame until I really feel the shame until I said it out loud.

I'm eating American cheese in the dark in bed.

So that's what my relationship.

Like, I went.

You could have just said, I'm snacking, or I was hungry, but you had to lay it out like that with all the descriptors.

That does make it sound more sad, but it's good that you were being honest.

That was my food journal, and it really opened my eyes.

That was only this week.

And so I went from a place where I was definitely,

I enjoy cheese, but

I was really eating much more healthfully and really,

you know, if I were going to have cheese,

I was going to get some harbison.

a beautiful bloomy rind cheese, you know, and I'll put that out on a thing with some Marcona nuts or whatever.

Now I'm just eating American cheese in bed.

So, obviously, Jordan, as we discussed last time on Shooting the Breeze, the episode that we, and I only remember this because our guest later, we've already recorded the interview, reminded us.

The fun peek behind the curtain.

That we that we believe that as that cheese is something you enjoy both in its fanciest and in its most humble forms.

Right.

We are not cheese snobs.

We enjoy all the cheese and everything from the most

noble

European or artisanal American cheese

to the humblest, individually wrapped, the baggiest, pre-shredded.

Junk.

It all has its part.

It all has its part.

It's all part of role to play.

It's part of the cornucopia that is life.

Yeah, and in that sense.

And that's metaphor work.

Cheese is like almost any other food or culture.

The high and the low all have something to offer.

Exactly.

When we are low, we eat high.

When we are high, we eat low.

So I'm

one thing I wanted to talk about was that I don't know what we touched on last time is cheese-flavored things.

Yes.

Snacks.

I guess that's what it is, right?

Cheese-flavored,

macaroni and cheese would be arguably cheese-flavored.

Right.

What are your top cheese-flavored snacks?

Boy.

So, okay, so

in my rethinking of my eating,

something that I have given up is chips in the house.

I love chips in the house, John.

Yes.

I am perfectly happy to

sit in the dark and quietly eat chips.

Yeah.

To the to where the only sound is whatever my neighbor's doing and the crunching of the chips.

That's wonderful.

That's a wonderful.

I would, you know what?

I wish I had that on a white noise machine.

I'd fall asleep to that.

Yeah.

And,

but I'm like, this is probably

one of the things that I am doing that is not the best for me.

So I'm like, I'm going to just not have chips in the house and, you know, try and do, you know, smarter, more conscious snacking.

But boy, these cheddar and sour cream ruffles.

I pass those in the supermarket and I,

I don't want to say get

because that's gross, but I don't, I don't, I can't think of many more ways to describe it.

It is a lustful, it is a longing, it's like smelling an old, you know, lover's perfume.

When you get a waft, when I look at those cheddar and sour cream ruffles in the supermarket, I am like,

hell f ⁇

conscious snacking.

I just want them.

That's interesting.

I don't think I've had yet.

Oh, John, they're good.

Oh, think about, you know how good sour cream and onion chips are?

Yes.

This is like that, but better because it's cheese.

It has a cheese dust.

I normally don't go in for a cheese-flavored potato chip.

Yeah.

I like all flavors of potato chips for sure.

Do yourself a solid.

It was a like junior high vending machine treat for me.

In junior high, we had like one

like vending machine where you could just get like junkety junk food.

And yeah, sour cream and cheddar chips, 55 cents.

What a treat.

I will have to try that.

I'm normally not like a kettle cheddar, kettle chips, cheddar, you know, like that.

I don't, I don't love that.

That's a good thing.

You don't love the dust.

Well, no, I love dust.

I'll enjoy, I mean, it's arguably like a nacho cheese Dorito.

Yeah, sure.

No, you're right.

Is a

classic favorite.

But I tend to avoid potato chips that are flavored with cheese.

But I'll try the cheddar and sour cream.

Cheddar and sour cream, yeah.

I would love to, I I would love to hear a review from you.

Ruffles, specifically.

Specifically, ruffles, yeah.

I think they also do a wavy lay.

I think you can also do a wavy lay with that flavoring, and that is my preferred chip shape, is the wavy lay.

The wavy lay.

Yes.

Ruffles, I mean, the ridges are very tight.

Right.

I like a more sloping, elegant ridge.

Lays makes a cheddar and sour cream flavored potato chip as well.

Yeah.

Not in the wavy category, I'm sorry to say.

That's okay.

That's what I can see.

If anyone from the Lays Corporation is listening.

Yeah, how about you, John?

What about

when we're talking about

chemically manufactured, artificial, dusty chip cheese snacks?

Well, what do you go in for?

You know,

I would have said

number one

with a spherical bullet, the cheese ball.

And I'm talking specifically about...

Cheese ball.

I haven't had a cheese ball in years.

Those are good.

You can suck on those until they disappear.

I like that.

I'm not talking about an Amy Sederis entertaining cheese ball, which is like a cheddar, like a large soft ball of cheddar cheese and port wine cheese stuffed with nuts that you serve at a cocktail reception.

I'm talking about like a puffy

Cheeto, like a puffy Cheeto, but in the shape of a ball.

Vacuum sealed and something that looks like it would hold tennis balls.

Yes.

And, you know, Utz, which is one of my favorite snack food brands, even though they refuse to sponsor the Judge John Hodgman podcast over years, they've got a lot of money.

That's a mistake, Utz.

That's a mistake, Utz.

You're leaving money on the table.

That's right.

Or maybe they're keeping money that they don't want to waste.

I don't know.

More like nuts.

Have you done that anyway?

Oh, right.

There we go.

Guess what?

The podcast is back on again.

Yay!

Podcasting can start again.

Hooray.

Jordan should have left it with meat chart cute, but he went with Utz.

You're being nuts, and now we've got a lot of room to play in now.

But I grew up eating planters' cheese balls, planters, peanuts.

Yes, yes.

Planters had a line of snack food,

and it went away for a while.

Spoiler alert, they're back.

But for years and years,

when I was growing up, my favorite was these planters cheese balls.

They also made planters cheese curl, which is like a crunchy Cheeto.

Which those are not for me, by the way.

As much as I love cheese and fried things,

I am a puffed Cheeto person 1,000%.

I like those big fat worms of puffy cheese-flavored corn extrusion.

Yeah.

But the cheese balls, the planter's cheese balls were a little denser.

They were a little bit more like orangey moon-like.

They were like cheese, like large cheese-flavored Captain Crunch without the sugar.

More savory.

Yeah.

And you put them in your mouth and they would just chew up the roof of your mouth.

Like in the the Captain Crunch style.

Right.

If you had a little cut on your gums from maybe brushing your teeth too hard, that dust

would just go to the cut like a magnet.

Yeah, that's what happened.

That's how I became Cheese Ball Man.

That's how I got my superpowers.

Wow.

Oh,

I got Cheese Ball dust into an open wound in my mouth.

That's going to be in phase four of Marvel, right?

Please, I wish.

Yeah.

I'll do anything.

I'll do anything.

I'll be as strong as Kumale.

I'll do it.

I guess probably Cheese Ball Man doesn't need to be cut, though.

No, I don't think you need, I don't think you need abs for cheeseball.

But I mean, maybe everybody just needs abs in those, you know?

Maybe it's.

Yeah, Cheese Ball Man is just me in a yellow t-shirt.

So I'm already, I'm in wardrobe, basically.

So I love those things so much.

Yeah, those are crazy.

In my book, Medallion Status, I talk about

how

my love for cheeseballs became dangerous because

in

the culminating scene of the first season of the FX TV show, married a Nat Faxon, Judy Greer, Brett Gelman comedy, in which I played someone else who was not the main character, but I had a recurring role.

And we were all having this party in the backyard of Nat Faxon and Judy Greer's characters.

And

props had put a big bowl of cheese balls out for this backyard barbecue that was the culminating scene.

And in the big, wide master shot, I decided my character was going to get a big plate of cheese balls and eat a bunch of them throughout the scene.

That's a strong choice, John.

Well, I was still a relative neophyte in acting and shooting TV shows.

So my love of cheese balls overcame the common sense.

I should have known that if I did this, I was going to have to do this a hundred more times.

Because we had established this shot of me shoving a big handful of cheese balls in my mouth.

And as we covered the scene from different angles and got different coverage, I was going to have to do it time and time and time again in the hot sun until I was just a cheeseball.

It was, I've never felt more disgusting.

Yeah, that is, I guess, why you see, you know, when you're watching movies and TV, why you see people having dinner and they're just constantly cutting their food and very rarely taking bites is because, you know, over the course of a scene, you would have to eat five steaks or whatever.

Yeah.

By the way, also sounds great.

Yeah, that does kind of sound fun.

Do you have an estimate of how many cheese balls you ate over the course of that shoot?

Could you ballpark it?

Could I cheese ballpark it?

Okay, we've got to get it.

Podcasting is over again.

No, podcasting continues.

We've been canceled.

Oh, okay.

Yeah.

They're like, two episodes is too many.

This is far too many episodes of that.

People thought they wanted this, but they didn't.

No, sorry, they were wrong.

Our live ratings are coming in very, let's just say, not what we were shooting for.

I mean, I would say that I probably ate seven

to eight balls per handful at the beginning of the scene, and we probably covered that scene, you know, eight times.

Right.

So 64?

That's that's a that's the square of eight, isn't it?

It's a lot of balls.

It was a lot of balls.

I had a lot of balls that day.

But did it make me hate them?

Did it make me hate them?

No.

This was not a Donald Duck making his nephews smoke a box of cigars situation.

No, we did that later too with a duck.

Hollywood stories that didn't make it into the book, believe me, I'll tell you something.

Right.

So

when me and that duck raged at the catch party, I alluded to the fact that Planters Cheese Balls are back.

Yeah.

I saw them for the first time at a rest area a couple of years ago in New Hampshire, and there was that familiar sort of like squat Pringles can with the 1980s graphic, cheat planters, cheese balls.

It even had a little sunburst on it that said, they're back.

Right.

And I bought them very excited.

And I don't know whether they've changed the recipe.

And this is a really stupid thing for me to say, right?

Because I've already pooped on Uts for not sponsoring Judge John Hodgman.

I could turn to planters now and say,

This was the taste of my childhood.

They're better than ever, better than Utz.

Right.

Yeah, you could planters now the run into the bottom.

How the Verizon guy went to Sprint.

You could do that.

Yeah, they'd come running to me.

Sure.

To sponsor Judge John Hodgman.

But I'm going to tell you something.

They weren't doing it.

They weren't doing it.

Well, it's good that your journalistic integrity is intact.

I still love the Uts ones the best.

They're the better ones.

They're the better balls.

I would love to hear about the cheese consumption of the other people in your house.

Do the other people in your house love cheese as much as you do?

And also the snacking?

Because I think you have some, you have kids, and I think that

our taste for

these kind of vending machine snacks

kind of gets established in childhood.

What kinds of snacks are you noticing your kids gravitating toward?

I'm glad to say that I've not passed along my habit and cursed our children with the eating slices of cheese while standing in front of the refrigerator.

Instead, you know, our daughter has a fairly refined taste,

and she likes a European Gruyere or a comptee and would like to have that toasted on bread or a grilled cheese with some Gruyere.

She's very into making, I mean, she's an adult now.

She's 19 years old, and she cooks, and she makes a lot of really interesting contemporary pasta dishes.

cheese is a big part of, you know, a really, like, really good

pasta dish with a lot of locatelli romano cheese or grano or like parmigiano-reggiano.

She's inherited the pretension from me.

Our son is a little bit younger, and he's got the metabolism of twin white-hot sons.

So he'll just, he'll just grab a container of cheese curds.

And you know what cheese curds are, right?

I do, yes.

Yeah.

So he'll just grab a container of cheese curds and go back and watch TV and just eat them all and then

you know,

look

thinner and more handsome than he's ever looked in his life.

And my son will eat a whole box of them.

What kind of cheese do you have in the house right now?

Oh, actually, you know, maybe I'll uh, maybe we'll pause here.

Maybe I'll go grab my latest farmer's market cheese so I can shout out the specific cheesery.

Yeah, go get it, but we'll take a break.

We'll be right back with more shooting the breeze.

Hi, I'm Esus Ambrosio.

I'm a producer here at maximumfun.org.

I work on Bullseye, I work on Shooting the Breeze, I occasionally edit Judge John Hodgman.

I help out with a bunch of different things here at Maximum Fun.

So we're just taking a quick break here from Shooting the Breeze.

And I just want to acknowledge that Maximum Fun is a member-supported network.

We can't make fun, cool podcasts without your help.

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Thanks.

And we're back.

on Shoot in the Breeze with me, John Hodgman, and he, Jordan Morris.

Jordan has just come back from his refrigerator to show us what his farmer's market cheese, the fancy cheese he's got in his fridge today.

What's the cheese?

What's the cheese of 2021?

What's the cheese of this episode?

So my monger that I've been visiting at the Farmer's Market is the Spring Hill Jersey Cheese Company.

There's a little bag of it right there.

This is some raw white cheddar.

I've been putting that in eggs and it's really delicious.

Yeah, and this is just.

Where are they from?

Where's Springhill Jersey cheese?

Not Jersey.

That's the Jersey Cow, I presume.

I think so.

I think that's probably it.

So they are at the Studio City Farmer's Market

next to the stall that sells Indian sauces.

Great local recommendation for

everybody.

But yeah, so yeah, that's kind of something I've been doing is, you know, on this eating a little bit better kick is going to the farmer's market and also just...

you know, seems maybe a little bit safer pandemic-wise than going into a, you know, grocery store, it's outdoor, etc etc uh so yeah so this is uh

this is my kind of like nice treat cheese um it's a little expensive but um

you know you deserve it sure

it's raw milk and what that means is that the milk that is used to make the cheese is not pasteurized for many many years you could not get a raw milk cheese in the united states yeah although that is traditionally how cheese was always made in europe with raw milk you get a lot more flavor especially the flavor of the local grass that the cows or the sheep or the ewes or the goats are eating.

It doesn't get boiled out during the pasteuration process, and you get a very, very, very, very

small chance of listeria.

And that's what I like.

I like the danger.

The danger makes me feel alive.

Yes, why?

You spread that all over your fugu puffer fish and you're alive for once in your life.

I eat it on my street luge.

No, but you know, responsibly, sure.

Responsible cheese making with raw milk, you are not going to get sick.

So do not worry and enjoy it because now, as we'll learn more with an interview we'll go to soon, there's a huge artisanal cheese movement in the United States that are making raw milk cheeses because you can't import raw milk cheeses from Europe, but you can make them here and sell them, and they're fantastic.

And then my junk cheese that I have in the house is just white.

white American sliced from the deli counter at Ralph's.

It's a Kroger.

It's a Kroger variant.

I love it.

I thought, you know what?

I knew we were friends.

I mean, that is my number one junk cheese.

It's so good.

And yeah, and 2 a.m.

Bathed in the light of the fridge.

That is the way to eat it.

That is

one of life's greatest simple pleasures.

I love American cheese.

I think it's essential for,

for me, a classic grilled cheese sandwich.

It's essential for a cheesesteak.

Though that's controversial because a lot of people are partisans either for cheese whiz or provolone for a Philadelphia cheese cheese steak i like white american cheese yeah i'm a partisan for white american cheese i like because i like my cheese the way i acknowledge my privilege white and american

i do think it tastes different from yellow american cheese or i do too yeah i don't know if that's actually true but i also think it tastes better i am a big i'm a big fan uh i used to be a like a craft deli selects white american cheese guy not the individually wrapped, but the fancier mark that they have there.

But it's too salty.

I'm a big Lando Lakes

sliced white American cheese.

So I got a lot of that.

I got a lot of that in my fridge.

But also in my fridge today, I'll let you know, I have a few, I'm in Maine right now, and I have a few Maine, local Maine products I'd like to shout out.

I've got a Middleberry Blue from Blue Ledge Farm.

That's a cow's milk blue made here in Maine.

I want to see where.

Excuse me, made in, not made in Maine, I apologize, made in Leicester, Vermont.

I have a Cotswold,

which is a farmstead cheddar with onions and chives.

That's an add-on cheese.

It's a flavored cheese.

And that's made here in Maine at Balfour Farm.

They make a very good cheese.

And a raw milk cheese, speaking of, from a dairy here in Maine called Sun and Tall.

It's an extra sharp cheddar called Buggy Whip.

And that's made in Wales, Maine.

And I also have some Shropshire Blue that was part of a...

a Christmas gift from my mother-in-law that she brought with her from New York from the very famous Murray's Cheese Shop in the West Village, one of the original purveyors of international and fine domestic cheeses.

It's one of the best-smelling rooms in the world, and we're going to hear about that and more when we speak to our guest.

Shall we do that?

Let's do it.

Our guest is an opinion columnist at Fast Company.

His work has been featured in GQ, Gentleman's Quarterly, Salon, and The Village Voice.

He's the author of three books.

The latest is called, guess what?

American Cheese.

An indulgent odyssey through the artisan cheese world.

Welcome to the show.

Joe Berkowitz.

Hi, Joe.

Hi, thanks for having me.

Well, of course.

I mean, look, I'll be honest with you.

Jordan and I, we were always talking about getting the Shootin' the Breeze gang back together for one last job.

Yeah, Joe, this is a heist, by the way.

It's a cheese heist.

Technical cheese heist.

So, like, but we needed a a reason to come back.

And all of a sudden, Joe Berkowitz comes out with a book called American Cheese.

Joe, you're the reason we're here.

We're here to talk about you and your book.

We wouldn't have done this episode without you.

So thank you.

Oh, wow.

Well, I am so honored to be the impetus for the second episode of a one-time podcast.

And what an impetus you are.

So, Joe, I have a question for you.

First, Is the Village Voice still around?

I think it exists in some zombie form, but it was definitely bought out

at some point in the last five years.

And the new leadership, everyone I know in journalism is not happy about it.

Gotcha.

I was always a timeout New York guy, so I didn't,

you know, that's where I made my bones.

Guys,

let's just scrap the cheese theme and talk about alternative weeklies.

Alternative weekly freelance writing in the 80s, the 90s.

Well, not the 80s.

I never wrote in the 80s.

In the 90s, the 2000s, and today.

Anyone else a fan of The Good Times out in Santa Cruz, California, the alternative weekly that I picked up in college?

What was your favorite column in The Good Times?

Boy, it's got to be who's coming to the Kumbua Jazz Center this week.

Always a must check out on page 18.

Yeah, you got it.

Along with the cartoon by Tom Tomorrow.

Yes, yes, exactly.

I was more of a city pages man back in the day.

City pages, city pages.

Cool.

What was your go-to in the city pages when you sat down on the subway?

First thing you turned to?

Oh, gosh.

Probably the masthead.

Yeah, right.

I love the masthead.

Great masthead.

Got to know who's there.

You did not turn to their cheese column because A, they didn't have one.

And B, you were not originally a cheese person.

In fact, one of my favorite,

my favorite lines in your book, American Cheese, Indulgent Odyssey through the Odyssey and Cheese World, was when you're like, this is a story of how I stopped being a normal person.

I'm paraphrasing.

How did you go from being a normal person to a cheese person?

Well, I always loved cheese.

You know, when I was a little kid, I would make like these triple-decker grilled cheese sandwiches.

When I got older, I would just absolutely crush a cheese plate at a party.

And then, but I never really thought about it much more than just the fact that I liked it and it was pretty good.

Crush a cheese plate in the sense that you knew how to throw some cheese onto a plate or crush it like you ate all the cheese?

Good question.

B, I

assembled a cheese plate haphazardly if ever it came up, but I would be very fastidious about eating as much of it as I could whilst undetected at parties.

I love the contrast, by the way, of applying the very, very bro-y, crushing it to something uh, to something as high-fallutin as the cheese plate.

Yeah, that's right.

Oh, I crushed that charcuterie board last night.

You don't even know.

Oh, bro, bro, bro, I'm gonna pound some Chardonnay.

You bros want to pound?

You guys want to pound some chard?

Oh, you dudes want to blaze and listen to the Marketplace Money Report?

I raged so hard last night, I stayed up all night and listened to Robert J.

Lurtzimer in the morning on WGBH in Boston in 1979.

Okay, Joe, from your book, I understand that, in fact, you were shamed

on the internet for a really basic cheese plate you put together before you got your skills.

Before I had the ability to call the bros together to smash some Manchiego,

I one time I remember just I was hanging out with friends doing like, you know, what I thought was a very adult, fancy, you know, wine and cheese hangout thing.

And yeah, I picked out, I thought the mere fact that I had five different kinds of cheeses would demonstrate that I wasn't messing around.

But no, apparently the ones I picked, which were like, it was like a flavored cheddar.

I forget which kind.

There was a Jarlsberg.

There was just a bunch of

basics that you would find at

the corner health food store.

And yes, some dude who I was pals with, you know, who worked in the food industry was like basic cheese plate.

And

I think he was, you know, just like, he was gently ripping me, but I took it as I was like, what would I need to do for this to be up to your standards, sir?

What was the name of that guy?

Actually, believe it or not, it was Jordan.

It was a different Jordan, though.

A different Jordan, yeah.

Yeah, I would, I would never, I would never, I would never shame another man's cheese plate.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

Let me say something to Jordan because I know he probably listens.

Jordan, you're a.

Don't shame,

don't shame Joe.

Don't shame people's cheese plates on the internet.

We were all young once.

We all thought Jarlsberg was fancy once.

And now look where Joe is.

Joe has written a book about fancy cheese.

He's been a cheese.

He's monged.

He's been a cheese monger.

Correct, Joe?

This is true, yeah.

And now he is the premier guest on the second ever episode of the

number one cheese podcast on podcasting.

So, Jordan, and what have you ever done, Jordan, other Jordan?

I actually haven't done a lot.

So, that question actually works with me too.

But, Jordan Morris, you've cheese monged.

I have, I have.

Yeah, Joe, that was kind of the impetus of the first episode of this: that John and I both did some time working in fancy cheese shops.

So, that was kind of that was that was the jumping off point of the first episode.

Yeah, which one did you work in, and what was your experience like?

Well, for me, as soon as I started,

as I knew I was going to make a book, I figured one of the things I would have to do was spend some time working in a cheese shop.

Getting hired was pretty difficult because

all I had going for me was that

I really wanted to taste a lot of cheeses throughout the day.

And that's not a compelling sales pitch to most hiring managers.

You're like, listen, I got this book advance and I have to write this book.

Yeah,

I probably could have, you know, dangled the publicity angle, but for all I knew, this section wasn't going to be in the book.

And it turns out it wasn't in the book.

There's no section in the book about me working in a cheese shop.

But finally, I realized I had to just specify, you don't have to pay me.

I'll just come there and work.

And they're like, oh, yeah, yeah, sure.

Come on.

Welcome aboard, sir.

Yeah, it was an apprenticeship.

Pretty much, yeah.

Well, so let's take a step back because in your transition from being shamed by Jordan the

cheese knob to becoming a becoming a monger and gaining some expertise of your own, you had an epiphanic experience at Murray's Cheese Shop in New York.

And if people don't know Murray's, maybe Joe, you can explain what Murray's is all about and what you discovered there and why it set you on your journey.

Sure.

And I will say for that other Jordan, revenge is a dish best served by having John Hodgman shame you on a podcast.

Thank you.

That's actually my

whole livelihood at this point.

Yeah, Murray's has been around since, I believe,

50s or somewhere around there, mid-century America, mid-20th century.

And it's just this long-established cheese shop that sort of turned into a brand.

And they have

little kiosks in Kroger.

Kroger.

Kroger, sure.

Kroger.

Kroger.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I don't know why I got that mixed up with Culver's.

I guess because I get cheese curds from there all the time.

But anyway.

I will be thinking about that place too.

Yeah.

So Murray's has been around a long time.

It's a hugely established cheese brand unto itself.

And one night they had a

Valentine's Day special tasting, the most romantic Valentine's tasting ever was advertised as.

So

I went there with my wife.

And at first I was disappointed because they gave you these tiny little portions that I thought we were just going to be kind of like scarfing down as much cheese as possible.

That was the idea of the most decadent Valentine's Day ever for me.

Yeah,

what made it romantic?

Was

Sade

there?

They probably graced the playlist that night.

I think what made it romantic is just

like you're having these

delicacies, these cheeses from like top tier cheeses from around the world paired with wines that were like specially selected to go together with also, you know, like the all the rigamoral

Makona almonds and, you know, dried cranberries and well, dried cherries, not dried cranberries.

Joe, what did you learn about cheese in that moment that took you by surprise that set you on this journey?

So,

to be 100%

transparent, I had this dual epiphany.

So, the first epiphany was that

cheese is a living food and it changes all the time and

so much has to go right in order for it to come out tasting the way it does that it just there was so much that was interesting about it that i just hadn't considered before that um made me just so impressed with it aside from how it tasted just uh knowing that there was just this whole universe of decisions that had to be made and people involved.

So that just really caught my attention as an interesting thing.

And then the second epiphany was that, oh, this is a topic that could potentially be explored in a book.

So it was, you know, it wasn't purely just like, I'm so blown away.

And then, you know,

after exploring the world for a while, I decided to write a book.

It was also, you know, it was kind of chasing

the investigative muse as well.

You're like, I'll either, I'll either, I'll either write a book about cheese production or I'll be a roadie for the insane clown posse for a year.

Oh, yeah.

I love this so much.

This is so.

Now, look, you're not 25 years old.

I'm about 11 years or 12 years older than you.

And I know nostalgia is a toxic impulse, but this is taking me back, Joe, to those days in New York City, freelance writer, all you did was go around and figure out a way to get free food and wonder if there was a book in it.

That was the best, best time of my life.

Is there a book in this?

Is there a book in this?

Is there a book in this?

And sometimes there was.

And the book you chose was cheese.

You chose cheese.

And I think you made a good decision because the book is great.

Why did you decide to focus on American cheese?

Because when you say American, I was a little disappointed because I thought your book was entirely about.

sliced American cheese, what we call American cheese.

And I realized, oh no, it's about the long but often overlooked tradition of artisanal.

artisanal is a word that has a bad reputation now, and probably appropriately, but like traditional,

good, natural cheese-making in this country.

Because, as you point out in the book, everyone just thinks good cheese comes from Europe, bad cheese comes from here.

But you decided to focus on American cheese.

Well, I listened to the previous shoot in the breeze, and I gotta say, when you were questioning-you mean our entire bat catalog?

I breathed through the entire bat catalog.

And there was a part when you were questioning your guest,

Chef Laurent.

I don't know if I pronounced that right.

You did a great job.

Awesome.

Thanks.

Yeah, when you were asking him about, you know, which cheeses he liked, somewhere in your question to him, it seemed like you were aware that uh of the whole journey of American cheese, how it like was lacking respect, even though it was producing great stuff, and only because America is a relatively new

cheesemaker on the world stage.

And so people don't know to expect that we're going to produce anything of quality.

And I certainly didn't when I started this book.

I just was interested in, you know, there's got to be something in a cheese journey from the point of view of someone who knows nothing about cheese.

I thought that was interesting.

And then very quick into it, I just realized that

I got to the beginning of the realization that

what you were describing to that French chef.

And so, yeah, I started gearing the book toward that.

And then I super lucked out in that one of the cheesemakers I was following around while researching the book.

I was interested in him partly because his cheese was at Murray's that first time, Rogue River Blue.

The maker is David Gremmels of Rogue Creamery in Oregon.

I was interested in him partly because that cheese I tasted, it won best blue

at the World Cheese Awards in 2003, and that was a huge deal.

That was a wild year at the World Cheese Awards.

Yeah.

It's funny because there's like a best in best of show element to it of like people getting super serious about something like cheese.

But also, yeah, it was, it kind of rocked the world a bit.

They didn't expect America to take any prize at all, but that was just best blue.

And then over the year and a half or so, I was researching this book, it all led up to that same cheesemaker.

He won best cheese overall at the World Cheese Awards at the end of 2019.

So this book.

covers the year leading up to America like really making this actual like huge splash on the world cheese scene.

That would be like America winning the World Cup of European football.

That kind of yeah, trans yeah.

Yeah, boy, I'll just break in here and say USA, USA, USA.

Exactly.

I'm glad you brought up the Rogue River Blue because I really admired the way you described the flavors of cheese.

Because as a former monger,

you know, it's, I had, I had a, for me, it was always a challenge to to figure out what things tasted like.

And the result is when you're writing about food or describing food in any way, you could you lean, you lean sometimes into the twee or the pretentious or the nonsensical.

Like this thing, this thing has notes of pencil shavings or whatever.

But like when you describe the Rogue River Balloon.

It's like a secret told by a child.

It's like a secret told by a child to a corpse.

I love the way you described it.

You said the first word that comes to my mind is dank when describing Rogue River Blue.

Hell yeah, bro.

Sorry, this guy's back.

The cheese, bro.

Not in the way of a dingy basement, like a guttural current of whooshing weed buzz.

It packs a dizzy drug punch that reverberates through my body.

Rogue River Blue tastes like fruity pebble cereal milk baked into savory fudge.

That's amazing.

When you mentioned it, it is harder to describe cheese.

I couldn't come up with something like that on the spot.

But, you know, I definitely did feel as I ate it that like this is good in a way.

I'm not used to cheese being good.

I'm not used to getting a flavor and just having like a visceral, almost emotional reaction.

And that's what happened when I ate those cheeses that night.

What were some of the other surprising things you saw, learned, or did while journeying for 18 months through the American artisanal cheese making scene?

Well,

one thing I've mentioned a lot is:

I tasted

guacamole with blue cheese in it, and that was weirdly okay.

I wouldn't recommend it necessarily, but

I tried it.

It was part of my willingness to try anything that came up.

I would have had, I think it's called Casu Mirzu,

which is the maggot cheese i would if i could have somehow arranged it to have that i would have even though uh i'm not necessarily you know looking forward to it that is not that is not made in the united states that is a sardinian do you know this one jordan the casu kasu marzu yeah i don't i'm dying to hear more about it though maggots are involved yeah i believe in the sardinian dialect of italian casu marzu means the walking cheese and it is allowed to be infested with fly larvae, which then chew through the cheese and do something to it.

They make it extra pungent, and you eat it with the maggots in there.

Boy, that is

metal.

That is really

wild.

Yep, that is probably the broiest cheese there is.

It is the metalist cheese.

In researching cheese for this book, do you have any insight into the practice of cave aging?

This came up, you know, when I was monging.

The funniest descriptor I saw of a cheese was cave aged.

And I was terrified of my boss because I was so sh ⁇ the job.

So I never got the courage to ask him about cave aging.

But

do you know anything about why this happens?

Is it actual caves?

Well, it can be.

That's where the practice comes from.

When I first heard this at Murray's that first night, I heard them mention, you know, this cheese was aged in a cave.

And as soon as they said that, immediately I'm thinking fragile rock, like right away.

Yes.

I hadn't heard that expression before.

I've since heard it, you know, so many times, just casually, aside from it in my research.

But at the time, I don't think I'd ever heard of the concept of aging in a cave.

And what it is, is that a lot of cheeses,

like rokefort, for instance, was discovered in a cave, like the fungus, not the fungus, the mold that's on it was discovered in a cave.

And, you know, before there was technology, people were aging cheeses inside a cave because the temperature just helped it age just right.

And now people will throw around the word cave to describe a man-built or woman-built area that was, it's meant to mimic uh the conditions and you can adjust the temperature so the humidity is just right uh to coax the aging along in the way that the cheesemaker or the

offener are people who are their sole job is to age cheese.

So yeah, there are specifications.

I'm pretty infuriated by the idea that there are artificial cheese caves.

I feel like that should be on the label.

I feel like if I'm paying for something that is cave-aged, I want it to be in a dank, dank cave underground near some mole people.

It should be on the label artificially cave-age because I think that's just deceptive.

Sorry.

Sorry to get off on a rant here.

I'm a little surprised that there aren't more billionaire mansions that have their own cheese caves in them.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, maybe, yeah.

Like,

why aren't we ever hearing about Elon Musk's cheese cave?

We certainly heard about wine caves like a year or two ago.

Oh, yeah, wine caves.

Sure.

I would love to host a

fundraising dinner for Pete Buttigieg in a cheese cave.

So,

what are your favorite American-born cheeses?

What are the ones you would put on your cheese board today and then carefully arrange them, the finest American cheeses, and then shove them into Jordan's face?

If I wanted to

make you shove them into my face too, by the way, it sounds pretty good.

Anyway,

either Jordan, really.

Yeah.

Pick up Jordan.

There's a cheese out of Wisconsin that I really, really like called Pleasant Ridge Reserve.

It's made by Uplands Dairy, this guy, Andy Hatch.

It's meant to taste, it tastes like an alpine cheese, which turns out to be my favorite kind,

you know, like the Swiss style.

And I guess to diverge for a second, you know, what we call Swiss cheese, I've always not liked that at all.

I've always thought Swiss cheese was garbage.

but the word Swiss cheese, it's meant to cover a specific kind of cheese called Ementaler.

And actual Ementaler is very, very good, I found.

And it's weird because it has so little in common with what we call Swiss cheese, like the sliced variety.

You can, you know, there's some things that are similar, but real Ementaler tastes like a hit of uh pure almonds.

I think I use the expression almond nitrate to throw a pun in there in the book at some point, but that's what it's like.

Yeah, very nutty.

Yeah.

That's my B-min version of what you said.

Yeah, so to go back, I guess

those, so a lot of alpines taste like Ementol are kind of, you know, they have that nutty flavor.

And yeah, one of the great ones in Wisconsin, it's called Pleasant Ridge Reserve.

There's the Rogue River Blue.

That's like probably my favorite blue.

That's from Oregon.

This is a

place in Vermont called Shelbird Farms.

They make amazing cheddar.

Like they're

three years, really good.

Jasper Hill has all kinds of good ones.

Cowgirl Creamery in California.

I got to step in on that Jasper Hill, the Harbison cheese, the Harbison washed rind that they make.

Yeah.

I'll fall over in a chair if I eat that.

I can't eat it anymore because I'm all bruised up from falling over in deliciousness.

So, Joe, as you know, we have our beloved

long-running character, Cheese Bro,

who was invented very recently for this episode.

17 minutes ago.

Yes.

What a 17 minutes it's been.

Yeah.

Already a legend.

I think

that character would love to hear about your experience with weed cheese.

I had heard that there was this big connection between weed and cheese that goes beyond just being like hungry for cheese when you're stoned.

And after investigating some leads,

I found that there was a company called TH Cheese that made weed-infused cheese.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And so I sought them out and I interviewed them.

And it turned out that they had been kind of shut down as an operation.

But they still had a bunch of weed cheese and they'd found this new venue for it, which is

in the Bay Area.

Fire Festival.

I think it would definitely go over well there, yeah.

But

yeah, it was this event called the Cannisseur Series.

It was like

every month they would have a different kind of food that was infused with cheese and have like this, you know, make an event out of it.

And their most popular thing was the T.H.

Cheese Edition.

So I talked to all parties involved in that, and I bought a ticket to San Francisco and I was all set to go.

And

then they canceled the TH Cheese event.

So

I

never got to experience this meeting cheese.

Yeah, I contacted

the guys who run it.

And not the Canada Sewer series, but the TH Cheese people.

And I was trying to find any way to like salvage this trip that I had booked.

You You know, I had an Airbnb, I had a flight, I was all set to go.

So I was like, can I come there and you'll just give me some of the weed cheese?

Like no event, but I'll at least know what it tastes like.

Because that's what you're interested in, Joe, right?

The flavor profile.

It's got a nutty character and it makes Family Guy funnier.

I mean, you know, I

looking back, I bet it just tastes like not the best cheese.

Like it tastes like probably okay cheese, and then you get high.

And that's not that interesting.

But

I disagree.

That sounds rash.

Okay, yeah.

Okay, admittedly so.

But

did you get to try it or no?

No.

I was just...

you know, kind of negotiating them for with them for like what kind of experience I could have if I went.

And they just said it was too complicated to go get some of the cheese out of storage just for

me coming and not like this whole event.

When they were complaining about how complicated it was going to be, were they sitting around in the living room wearing a tank top and sandals?

Going, yeah, man, I don't know.

It's just like it's across town.

It's all in the storage area across town.

And I don't even know if I can get over there.

Maybe I could borrow my girlfriend's car, but I don't know.

I don't know, man.

You want some of this cheese BD, though?

I got that.

You can have some of that right now.

Dude, in your book, you should do a chapter about how rad Donnie Darko is.

So I have a question.

It says here: you have a lifelong fondness for making a grilled cheese sandwich.

What's your technique?

It's highly personal.

Well,

I wish

I had a better way.

I'm trying to be less lazy with cooking.

Like, ordinarily, it's just how can I get the hunger defeated fast enough?

But if I am going to take a little more time with it, I would hopefully have some

Gruyere d'Al Page,

which, you know, it's not the easiest cheese to get in America, but

my local shop has it.

So I have been regularly having that in the apartment.

And yeah, that's a Gruere from the top of a mountain that's only grown or only made over the summer.

So it has summer milk.

And I can explain the difference between summer milk and winter milk, but that might be a little too much detail for right now.

I love a fall milk because you can drink it wearing a nice cardigan.

Indeed.

Yeah, right, exactly.

Or like a puffy vest.

Right, yeah, exactly.

So Gruyere de Page is, if you can get it.

And then what kind of bread do you use for your grilled cheese?

I actually

kind of like a brioche bun.

All right.

And I mean, you know, it's ordinarily,

I think I fell into this habit just because

I'd been picking those up for hamburgers and

just had them on hand and was like, let's give this a shot.

But yeah.

you flatten them a little bit uh like you know sort of panini style uh after slathering them with butter and you know put a little

uh black pepper on it and uh yeah it's delicious

yeah and are you putting them into a panini press or what are you doing oh oh not an actual panini just kind of flattening a bit yeah and then you can skill it yeah and if i um i learned this from that guy uh from david gremmels of uh rogue creamery putting a little bit of uh of blue cheese into your grilled cheese sandwich just adds like a bit of spice.

And, you know, if you don't ordinarily like blue cheese, definitely don't do this because it's not going to make you like it more.

But if you already do like it, I, that, uh,

I don't know, the contrast between that and the Gruyere is pretty good.

I don't do it every time, but I do it sometimes.

That sounds like a solid, that sounds like a solid special Joe Berkowitz special grilled cheese that I'm going to have to give it a try.

When you're making this grilled cheese, your lube of choice, you mentioned butter.

A lot of people are with mayonnaise these days.

Do you have an opinion on

how to lube the pan?

I haven't tried it with mayonnaise yet, but I would.

When I was, you know,

I grew up making those grilled cheese sandwiches.

And yeah, I did use mayonnaise when I was grilling them, but I think that had more to do with like, I was an obese child.

And I think that was rather that than like a gourmand sensibility.

Where did you grow?

Where did you grow up?

I grew up in Orlando, Florida.

And you were putting mayonnaise on, you were, you were cooking your grilled cheese with mayonnaise?

Yeah, triple-decker mayonnaise on each deck.

Oh, oh, oh, oh.

Wait a minute.

Wait, what's the, that's, what are the, what are the decks in this situation?

Hang on.

Let me, let me talk to Jesus for a second, our producer.

Jesus, we're going to need another 45 minutes for this.

Talking about triple-decker.

Tell me, tell me your triple-decker,

little Joey.

I'll call this the little Joey from before the Gruyere DePage

era, Joe.

We got a lot of characters in this interview.

There's Jordan, Lil Joey, Cheesebro.

Cheesebro.

A cast of thousands.

Give me Joey Orlando's.

Little Joey Orlando's Triple Decker.

Little Joey Orlando.

Mayonnaise Bomb.

That's a guy.

That's a guy who's introduced at the top of an episode of The Sopranos and then dies at the end.

Little Joey orlando tell me the recipe

um

so

it really is uh very simple it's just uh craft single mayonnaise bread um i guess i should say there was a piece of bread under underneath that right and then

yeah it's just So let me see if I get no three slices of bread or some shoot.

Was there?

I think there, I think what I was doing was experimenting by adding to it.

So first I made a double decker and then at one point I definitely went for the triple decker.

I think maybe it was just messy and a little, you know, I think I realized I had icarised and like, you know, flown too close to the melty yellow sun.

You had deckered too close to the sun.

Sure, it's an important lesson about hubris.

You're talking about white bread.

craft sing yellow craft single,

mayonnaise, white bread, yellow craft single, mayonnaise, repeat, repeat, repeat until done.

And then you would toast that

in a skillet on the stovetop, right?

Yep.

And, but here's my question.

The oil that you're using on the exterior,

you know, that you're, that you're melting in the skillet and that you're spreading on the top piece of bread, is that butter or is that mayonnaise?

Oh, okay.

Yeah, the mayonnaise was a between

decks situation.

Oh my gosh, we're using butter on the pan and we're using plenty of butter, too.

The journey from Little Joey Orlando's triple-decker mayonnaise bomb to the

Gruyère de Page

brioche with a sprinkle of blue cheese, the Joseph Berkowitz, the sophisticate.

That's what I call that.

That's what I call that grilled cheese.

Joseph's Sophisticate.

It's very hard to say.

It's never going to take off, but I love it.

Joseph's Sophisticate.

It really beats the hell out of the Little Joey Orlando sandwich.

Well, the journey is all and the journey's fantastic.

And I really enjoyed reading the book and talking with you.

The book is called American Cheese, an Indulgent Odyssey through the Artisan Cheese World.

Thank you very much for joining us, Joe.

Thank you so much for having me.

This was a lot of fun.

Hey, producer Jesus Sambrosio here.

One more time.

We're almost at the end of Shooting the Breeze, episode two.

And once again, I just wanted to remind remind you about the Max Fun Drive.

This is the one time of year when we ask people to become members of Maximum Fun.

So I hope you'll consider becoming a member of Maximum Fun so we can keep making cool, fun stuff like this.

Your contributions make our work possible.

Again, if you'd like to make a pledge during the Max Fun Drive, please go to maximumfund.org slash join to become a member today.

Thank you.

Well, Jordan, that was our conversation with Joe Berkowitz in his his book, American Cheese.

I hate to say it, especially since we probably won't speak again for another two or three years.

But we're almost out of time here on Shootin' the Breeze.

What's going on in your world that you'd like listeners to know about?

John, something kind of exciting that I would like people to look out for is I co-wrote a graphic novel that is coming out in July, July 13th.

It is called Bubble.

It is a graphic novel adaptation of the scripted comedy podcast that was on Max Fun in 2018.

Good year for Max Fun, huh?

Episode one of Shooting the Breeze.

And

John, you actually did a voice in that podcast.

I know, I'm a cast member.

You're a cast member.

And you were nice enough to write us a blurb for the jacket for the book.

So I really appreciate that.

The World of Bubble is one of

my favorite worlds.

Frankly, it's one of my favorite jokes.

You all took the very tired, boring trope that young people live in in their own bubble and literalized it to a future dystopian scenario where a bunch of young people live in an actual bubble to protect them from the monsters that live outside the dome.

Yes, it is a

little, it is a kind of a sci-fi version of a Portland or a Brooklyn or a Silver Lake.

And yeah,

it's got lots of swears, it's got lots of gore, it's got monsters, it's got robots.

I co-wrote the graphic novel with the great comedy writer Sarah Morgan.

The art is by Tony Cliff, a great, great comic book maker who does the Delilah Dirk series.

And the colors are by Natalie Reese, who does a great kids' series called Dungeon Critters.

And yeah, it was just an awesome team.

I'm a lifelong comics fan, so getting to do this was a literal childhood dream come true.

Yeah, and people should look out for it.

You can pre-order that wherever you pre-order books.

Maybe call your local indie bookstore or comic book shop.

And as for me, I've got the Judge John Hodgman podcast coming out each and every week.

It's not a podcast that comes out.

It's not like one of your regular podcasts that comes out every two or three years.

It comes out weekly.

Weird.

Yeah.

Weird.

We pretty much decided that

we would just do it.

We'd just do it every week.

Okay.

Wednesday afternoons.

You will find it in your feed if you subscribe at maximumfund.org.

The show is called Judge John Hodgman.

We've been having a grand old time resolving people's petty disputes and just having fun with my friend and yours,

Jesse Thorne, the co-host of Judge John Hodgman and the Jordan Jesse Go podcast.

And of course, we started Shooting the Breeze, love these many years ago, as a thank you to all of our supporters of Maximum Fun, the network to which we belong.

We couldn't do it without your support.

Go ahead and go there, maximumfun.org slash join.

If you want to throw some support to the network, to the shows you love, and you get all kinds of wonderful members-only content like Shooting the Breeze and many other special bonus episodes from all your favorite shows.

Thank you very much for making this possible.

Jordan, thanks very much for taking the time to talk about cheese with me.

John, it's been a treat.

Oh, before we go, I just need to clarify for everybody.

Yes.

I love the sound of Little Joey Orlando's mayonnaise bomb.

But when you are talking about mayonnaise on a grilled cheese,

you were talking about something that has become a little bit more faddish lately, but was always a New England specialty,

which was to make a grilled cheese in the traditional way, you know, white bread,

yellow American or white American cheese in

between,

and then you would butter each side of the exterior sides of the bread and toast it in a griddle.

In New England, because we love mayonnaise that much, we skipped the butter.

We would spread mayonnaise on the exterior slices of of the bread, and it crisps it up so good.

As they would say, as they would say in Boston, it's damn delicious.

So that's what I'm leaving.

I can hear everybody's brains exploding.

Thank you, Jordan.

It was great to meet Charcute you again.

Shootin' the Breeze is an occasional cheese podcast for maximum fun interstitial music provided by Dan Wally, also known as DJW.

Thanks to Reddit user/slash funchog, P-H-U-N-T-S-H-O-G.

For the name of this podcast, our producer is Jesus Ambrosio.

MaximumFun.org.

Comedy and Culture.

Artist-owned, audience-supported.