Nostalgia Cooked
September 22, 2026
No. 14

“Hands, please”

Why cheese deserves the same obsessive curiosity we hand to wine without a second thought; the lunchbox that decided your social standing and three things worth your time this week, including the reason critics keep picking the same kind of restaurant as "best new."

Coffee, then read on.

- Chef Tim

As more people rethink drinking, I would like to nominate cheese as something worth becoming slightly obsessive about. Gallup reports that 54 percent of American adults drink alcohol in 2025, down from 62 percent in 2023.

We give wine permission to be complicated. Cheese deserves that same curiosity, and I think America’s commercialization of it has done a noteworthy job of lowering our expectations. As any good American, I love Kraft singles. But folks, there is more to life than the fake, chemically composed, 100 calorie each, death trap. There are real craftspeople at work every single day in this country creating works of art out of milk!

The American Cheese Society puts the number of artisan and specialty cheesemakers in the United States at nearly 1,000, based on its 2018 industry survey. That’s an extraordinary amount of work to overlook while reaching for the same block of shredded mozz every week. ACS supports this community through education and an annual competition. It even administers a Certified Cheese Professional exam: 150 questions with three hours to finish.

The easiest way into this world comes from Liz Thorpe’s The Book of Cheese. She organizes it around nine “gateway cheeses”: mozzarella, Brie, Havarti, Taleggio, Manchego, cheddar, Swiss, Parmesan, and blue. You probably know most of them already, which gives you somewhere to begin without needing to pronounce everything in the case.

Each gateway leads toward cheeses with related qualities and different levels of intensity. Mozzarella opens a conversation about fresh, milky cheeses, including burrata with its cream-filled center. If Brie is your cup of tea, Vermont’s Moses Sleeper offers a familiar soft texture with flavors that give cauliflower and mushroom notes. Starting with something you like gives the cheesemonger useful information. “I like cheddar” is a perfectly respectable opening sentence. It’s the same as telling a server in a restaurant, “I like Pinot Noir.” Then if they don’t have it, they give you the next best thing.

Then you discover how far this can go. Oregon’s Rogue River Blue became the first American cheese named World Champion at the World Cheese Awards in 2019. Its wheels are wrapped in grape leaves soaked in pear spirits, and the creamery releases a new vintage on the autumnal equinox. We have seasonal cheese releases worth putting on the calendar. How many people know that?

There are also cheese-of-the-month clubs. Murray’s sends selections with information about what you’re eating and tasting guides. You can have an ongoing cheese education delivered to your house, then invite someone over to argue about which wedge deserves another order.

If you’ve never walked into a cheese shop, go this week. Tell the person behind the counter what you usually buy and ask to taste something a little further along that “gateway.” Buy a small piece of whatever makes you want another bite, and write down its name before you throw away the wrapper. Let’s be cheese collectors together!

Email me your favorite cheese this week and I will check it out and include it in the next newsletter.

Before service, the whole crew huddles up and someone tells the story behind the food. Pull up a crate, you’re on the line tonight.

The lunchbox may be the first status symbol we humans are conscious of. Do you have a brown paper bag, a structure made of tin, or the latest Spider-Man zip-up bag from Target? Do you buy lunch at school and skip altogether?

By the 1880s, American children carried lunch in empty cookie or tobacco tins. By the 1950s, television characters had turned the thing carrying your sandwich into a statement about who you were.

Japan’s packed-lunch tradition goes back well over a millennium. The bento box is still the most effective use of a packed lunch I’ve ever seen. In India, Mumbai’s dabbawala delivery system dates to 1890. Workers collect home-cooked lunches, deliver them to offices on foot, bicycles, carts and trains, then return the empty containers home.

I grew up in a Catholic school where lunch was obviously the most exciting part of the day for me. We had pizza, chicken patty sandwiches, pasta bar, Mexican bar, and a salad bar on rotation. But even with all that, I wanted what somebody else had. And for some God-awful reason, the Lunchable became the pinnacle of life when you were six years old. Parents, are you still giving your children these? As a youth I begged for these. Begggggged. The Lunchable was the early 2000s way of saying I am elite. Ridiculous, but that’s how a six-year-old feels.

Reading about them now, I’m not sure I’d offer one to a squirrel.

In April 2024, Consumer Reports found lead, cadmium, or both in all 12 lunch kits it tested, including Lunchables and competing brands. None exceeded applicable legal limits, but five reached at least half of California’s daily exposure benchmark for lead or cadmium per serving.

Geoffrey Bible, former CEO of Philip Morris, which owned Kraft, recalled this criticism to journalist Michael Moss: “One article said something like, ‘If you take Lunchables apart, the most healthy item in it is the napkin.’ ”

Today, roughly 30 million students eat school lunch daily. Some schools use “share tables” where kids can leave eligible unopened food for someone else. I hope that curiosity about each other’s lunch lives on, too. Some of my greatest memories were at the lunch table with friends sharing a meal. Some packed from home, some bought from school, and the variety was always intriguing to me. I was always curious what the lunch ladies were up to or what Connor brought from home that day.

At the time, I wasn’t thinking about becoming a chef. I just wanted to know what everybody was eating. What was in that sandwich? Could I try some? That intrinsic curiosity was a real stepping stone for my becoming a chef.

Every lunch brought a little bit of somebody’s home with it. Different backgrounds, different family habits. Something ordinary to one kid could be something another kid had never seen before.

So I know it’s a challenge, but I would encourage making that two-minute PB&J for the kids. It doesn’t have to be elaborate. Ants on a log. A whole orange they have to peel themselves. There’s something to discover in all of those things. I begged for the Lunchable. Now I’m grateful for what my mom put in the bag. A packed lunch can be the beginning of a wonderful exploration of food for a kid. Mine helped lead me into a kitchen. At the time, it was just lunch with my friends.

This week, I’m pairing grilled cheese with Bell’s Amber Ale. Its toasted malt works beautifully with golden, buttery bread, and the bubbles keep all that melted cheese from wearing out its welcome. Serve it cold. I’m partial to sharp cheddar, but I respect any sandwich that leaves a little cheese crisped onto the pan. Apparently, “good boy” is the entire compensation package. I’m contacting my union.

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