cheese.

Cheese is a precious commodity around here.

Since we arrived, there have been two shops that sell cheese.

The first brings down cheese from Chiang Mai, and I was optimistic. However, upon tasting them, they are very similar in consistency to rubber. And, the three types–parmesan, smoked cheddar, and French–taste the same and are the same texture. I’m not a cheese or food connoisseur, but I do know that parmesan should not taste like cheddar, nor should it be flexible. Really, cheddar shouldn’t be all that flexible.

The other place is Tescos, which has offered three varieties that aren’t processed. All three are cheddar that are, again, shockingly similar in taste, although it is a good taste in this scenario. They are also imported from New Zealand and shockingly high in price. Our Tescos is also one of the smelliest places in the world–even worse than the rest of Mae Sot and Thailand–and I work very hard to visit there as little as possible. The smell has pushed me to buy my milk locally, so we only need to visit Tescos for cheese and yogurt, which thankfully last a relatively long time.

Anyway, we still couldn’t really afford, or I suppose justify, to eat a whole lot of it. But it was a fun treat to have for Western meals.

Until Tescos stopped selling it. Oh, they still sell the processed stuff in abundance, but they bailed on the actual cheese. I told myself it was just temporary while we used the rest of our stockpile in the fridge. And then we bought a block of the processed kind, which I just couldn’t bear.

And then, a glorious little shop in town found it’s niche market. They cater to the white folks, shipping things in from Bangkok and beyond, in bulk.

And so we now have cheese available, in bulk.

Yes, that is five pounds of cheese now filling our small fridge and freezer! But Stephen is thrilled. And it tastes real–even better than the New Zealand imports, because this is straight from the US of A!

It’s the simple things.