Good-bye Cheese

Cheese. Delicious, yummy cheese. There are few things I love more than this wonderful offering from the goats, cows, and sheep of the world.

Well, there are truffles, mmm truffles. Yes, but those are prohibitively expensive.

Oh, and scotch. Yes, scotch. Especially with bacon. I do love a fine glass single-malt. Though it, too, gets pricey.

Ah, but cheese. It's rich in flavor, but not necessarily in price. Oh, I have enjoyed some sinfully delicious and radically expensive ash-covered goat cheese, but most of the time a few bucks' worth satisfies the palate.

So why am I giving up cheese? Why, if I swore I would never become a vegan because of my love of this delicious animal by-product, am I walking away?

Here's a little story: when I was four years old, my parents found me lying in the middle of our (thankfully) quiet residental street. After they finished freaking out and scooping me out of harm's way, they asked WHY ON EARTH WOULD I DO SOMETHING LIKE THAT???? My answer: just to see what would happen.

(That story started off the essay that got me into college.)

So yeah, I have no other reason to give up my entire raison d'être than my own curiosity as to whether I even can. It's a battle of will. Discipline.

And also, given the amount of cheese I eat, I might very well be an addict. If cheese were heroin, this is what you might call "the intervention" stage. Therefore I'm taking a bit of a break, and it seemed like today, being the day a bunch of other people around the world are sacrificing something in their lives, was a good day.

So good-bye cheese. I'll see you again in 40 days.

Unless your attraction proves too tempting. But I think I can handle this.

*fingers crossed*


And so begins the great Cheese Fast of 2011.