Say Cheese!
Silver City's Cut the Cheese Club is gourmet good fun, no matter how you slice it.
Story and photos by Donna Clayton Lawder
Self-admittedly given to high theatrics, Rob Connoley leans back in his chair and adopts a mock seriousness, speaking in a tone that might bring Shakespeare to mind. Okay, if Shakespeare could be corny, this would be the bard at his corniest.
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Big Cheese Rob Connolley shows off this month's selection. |
"Yes, the legend is true," he begins, "that back in January of 2004, Rob and Tyler (Connoley, his partner) and Sam Castello were sitting around, drinking. We were talking about how we all like cheese, bemoaning the lack of good and exciting cheese in Silver City."
At that time there was no Curious Kumquat, the international grocery and specialty foods shop the Connoleys own and operate in Silver City. By his standards, offerings at local grocery stores were "pretty average," he says.
And so, from an informal and mildly inebriated discussion at The Twisted Vine wine bar, Rob Connoley says the three friends decided to act on their lust for cheese and create a cheese club, now known as the Cut the Cheese Club.
"We'd had a few drinks and things got sillier and sillier. We thought about getting bumper stickers made up: 'You have a friend in Cheeses' and 'Cheeses Saves!'" Connoley says, adopting a humorous tone in imitation of a fire-and-brimstone preacher, perhaps. "But ultimately we decided against that."
Bumper stickers or not, the trio decided to kick off an experiment. Rob Connoley ordered some fancy cheeses via the Internet and invited a few friends over for a party. The format was simple: Folks brought a snack and bottle of wine to share, Connoley said a few words about the cheeses, and then the cheese was cut, sampled by the attendees and sold to them at cost.
Of course, much fanfare would be made at cheese-cutting time, with Connoley adopting his overblown theatrics–"And now, ladies and gentleman, it is time to cut the cheese"–to a roomful of giggles. Then Connoley–the self-described "Big Cheese"–or a helper would unveil the month's three selections, whipping a gold cloth from the table with a flourish.
The first party, Connoley recalls, was attended by about 15 people and held at someone's home. By word of mouth, so to speak, attendance more than doubled for the second party to about 40 people, he says. By the third party, held at the Blue Dome gallery in Silver City's Texas-Yankie Street Art District, the group was up to 60 people.
"By the third party, we knew we'd made it, that there was real interest in this community for good cheese," Connoley says. "And we realized that we couldn't cut the cheese while they (the attendees) are waiting anymore. It took too long."
These days, Connoley holds a cheese-cutting party a couple of days before the club's monthly "meeting" party. Several volunteer members of the club show up to pre-cut the cheese offerings, wrapping, weighing and pricing them. A goodly amount is cut into sample-sized bites so members can taste and decide what to buy.
Connoley laughs over the club's success and growth. "The whole thing started as a joke!" he says. In addition to the name that obviously is designed to elicit a laugh and set a non-serious tone, the club's bylaws are tongue-in-cheek.
"We have a dissolution clause. Very important," Connoley says, again with mock seriousness. "It says right in the bylaws that the club was created to have fun, and if it ever stops being fun, it will be disbanded immediately and any monies held by the club will go to buy a big case of liquor and throw a huge party."
All of the organizers and cheese cutters who make the monthly parties happen are volunteers, after all. "I mean, if it gets to the point where we're not having fun, why do it?" Connoley adds. He admits to having been tempted to disband three times–once when a member whined about having to wait to get to the cheese table, and twice when members were slack on helping out as volunteers.
The rules of the game are simple: Only club members and their invited guests can attend the parties, for the protection of the club and the party hosts. After all, wine is served with the cheese. "They have to be on the list or they don't get in," Connoley says. "For everybody's protection, we have to know absolutely everyone who comes and partakes. Responsible host laws, you know."
Members pay $15 for a family membership, $10 for an individual, for the entire year. Dues help pay for plates, napkins and such, and also go to defray the cost of the cheese given away as samples.
Attendees must bring both a food offering and a beverage to share. Connoley says that in the beginning, some attendees brought store-bought offerings, some perhaps a bit lackluster.
"We went through the Doritos phase," he admits, looking down his nose at the memory of some pedestrian offerings of the past. But these days, attendees go all out, trying to top each other and their own personal bests with gourmet homemade appetizers and tasty imported goodies. "People just want to knock each other's socks off."
These days, about 125 people come to the average monthly Cut the Cheese party, at which some 60 pounds of cheese are offered for sale. Connoley deals with multiple distributors to get interesting and unusual cheeses, and is even working with cheese artisans to find unique offerings.
Parties are held at area retail businesses and galleries, the social time before the "cutting of the cheese" allowing members to schmooze and peruse goods for sale. Connoley says he appreciates the galleries that host the club's parties, and that he's proud that the monthly event brings people into storefronts and showrooms for the merchants' benefit, too.
He recalls one party at Home Furniture on Bullard Street in Silver City: "Someone said to me, 'Wow, I've lived here for years and have never been in this store!'" At another cheese party at the JW Gallery in Hurley, the Corre Cantinas DUI-prevention service offered by Silver City's Corre Caminos bus company brought people there and back. Attendees "were saying 'Boy, I've been meaning to get out here and see this place.' So, I know it brings people into new places and experiences and is good for the merchants that way."
Rick Johnson, co-owner of Manzanita Ridge, a furnishing and decor business on Bullard Street in downtown Silver City, was quite pleased when his store recently hosted the club party. "Oh, we've done it before and it's always worthwhile," Johnson said, as partygoers milled around couches and wrought-iron floor lamps. "We always wind up selling things. We all sell stuff when we host."
Building good will for and in the business community and the fun, of course, are two big reasons Connoley says he finds the time to run the club. After all, he stays pretty busy between co-owning the Curious Kumquat and his supervisory position with Border Area Mental Health Services in Silver City.
"I'm not kidding. It feels like we just had a party, which we did, and here I have to order cheese again!" he says with mock exasperation. "But then my OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder) kicks in," he jokes. "I have a passion to organize things."
And then there's the reward of simply bringing unusual and wonderful cheeses to the community. Some of them, he says, have been very special indeed.
"We brought in some castelmagno," he recalls. "Oh, that was a coup! Only 200 wheels are in the United States in a given year, and we got two!" The chic cousin of gorgonzola went over well, especially with attendees who appreciate the blue mold family of cheeses, Connoley says.
Given the club's two-year track record now, Connoley says he's learned a lot about the Silver City palate. While folks are suitably impressed by a rare and rather pricey cheese, many are just about as happy with a good $3-per-pound cheddar as they are with a brie costing $20 pound.
He recalls a few of the club's "milestone" parties. "This summer we had the party of all parties, quite possibly. It was at Elemental Day Spa and it was huge. We tried to do something with a unique theme. We got Australian and New Zealand cheeses and the club bought a rack of lamb. People brought Australian wines and food to share, and I mean people went all out! I had no idea what Australian food was, and neither did a lot of our guests. But people researched it and really went to town, and the food was really fun and just top notch. And we had live music, too. Ron McFarland played some fantastic guitar for the event."
Connoley says another memorable party focused on one of its members' milestones–Larry deBickish's 80th birthday. To celebrate the octogenarian, whom Connoley affectionately calls "quite a character," Connoley created a "special surprise" for the big cheese unveiling. The outdoor party for the cheese club's season was held in early fall in the courtyard at College Street Plaza, a small office complex in Silver City. Guests milled about, socializing, the big table in the middle draped with cloth, awaiting the unveiling of the club's cheese of the month.
"I asked Larry to stand at the table and help me with the unveiling," Connoley recalls. "Then, before the unveiling, I went up into the balcony."
At the appropriate time, Connoley went into "an overblown Rapunzel, Rapunzel routine," calling down to deBickish.
"It got ridiculous, and I said something about how much I loved Larry, but that at other times I wanted to see his head on a silver platter," Connoley says. Then he told deBickish to remove the cloth and unveil the cheese, which he did "with a fittingly grand gesture, I might add," Connoley says.
There in the middle of the table was an orange likeness of Larry deBickish's head, which Connoley had expertly carved out of Velveeta cheese. Connoley says he was most proud that even deBickish recognized himself in the painstakingly sculpted orange glob of what passes for cheese in some quadrants.
"Oh, that was a fun night," Connoley says. "But then, they always are."
They have to be–it's in the bylaws.
Information about the Cut the Cheese Club can be found at the Curious Kumquat, now located near the College-Bullard Street intersection in downtown Silver City.
Donna Clayton Lawder is senior editor of Desert Exposure.