Cheese ~ Storytelling ~ Authenticity ~ Creativity

Something Tasty: A cheese pairing to try

Mimolette

If there is one cheese that has become synonymous with Halloween, it's Mimolette.

Stats: Cows milk ~ French ~ Typically Aged 18-22 Months

Remember annatto from last week?

That is also how this cheese gets it's bright orange pumpkin-like paste. From the outside it looks like a melon or a really big geode or something that might be a souvenir you bring back from the moon.

This rocky dimpled rind comes from little cheese mites that eat away at the exterior of the cheese.

The paste of the cheese is delightfully waxy, which makes it a great pairing with another waxy October favorite- candy corn!

The textures are very similar to me- try it and see if you agree! It's like the cheese is salty candy corn…except I know the 5 ingredients in Mimolette (milk, salt rennet, cultures, annatto) and I have no idea what's in candycorn besides sugar.

I highly encourage you to see the content my fellow cheese pals Michelle Vieira and Erika Kubik have about this pairing, it's gorgeous and delicious.

And if you wanna get realllly spooky- you can listen to the first episode of my former podcast Is This a Brie (RIP).

Dead podcast! Candy and cheese! The sound of my own voice in 2019! Creative projects pre-covid! Very scary.

Something True: A truth about myself

Supporting the Strangeness

Here’s the truth.

I’ve always been… theatrical.

But with the exception of my second grade musical The Ugly Duckling ( I was Mama Duck- typical), I wasn’t really involved in theatre until middle school. So Halloween was my favorite excuse to dress up like someone or something and put on a character.

Most years I reallllly leaned in. The year I leaned in the hardest was probably when I was Dr. Phil in 6th grade (above). I proudly donned that bald cap, mustache and eyebrows drawn on with my mom’s eyeliner, and my brother’s old suit.

But here’s the thing I’ve been thinking about a lot lately:

Where the heck did I get that bald cap?

Even when I think about the ridiculousness of that costume, and the audacity of little me choosing to dress up as a tv psychologist instead of a witch or a princess-

what makes me laugh even harder is the thought of my mom helping her 11 year old daughter find a bald cap for her school’s costume parade.

Yes, this was absolutely my idea, and I take full credit (and full responsibility/blame) AND pride for the things I said while I was “in character” therapizing the PTA moms taking pictures at school…and yet…

It would’ve just been a silly idea if I didn’t have the help and support to do it.

My mom could’ve easily said “No. Too weird.” or “It’ll be too difficult to pull together.” or “How do you even know who Dr. Phil is? This is why we don’t have cable.”

Instead, she somehow got me a bald cap. And found my brother’s old suit. And let me absolutely destroy her eyeliner.

And instead of my dad saying “smile for the picture”- there I am, in character, with him smiling next to me.

That photo has become a touchstone for me whenever I’m in a show and feel like an imposter- that little girl reminds me how wonderfully weird I’ve always been and how lucky I was to have parents that supported my strangeness.

When we grow up it’s really easy to think we should be able to do it all on our own. We’re not kids anymore, we shouldn’t have big dreams or kooky ideas. And if we do- we’d better be able to do it without any help.

But it’s just so not true.

What ideas do you need support with? Whose strangeness can you support?

Farm to Fable: How food shows up in storytelling 

The Poison Apple in Snow White

One of the first scary witches I ever saw in a movie was probably the Witch in Snow White. And the first fruit I ever knew to be used as a temptation in storytelling is, of course, an apple.

Okay there’s a lot of debate and scholarship that says Eve was not tempted with an apple in the Bible, it was probably a different fruit, but it became the iconic image nonetheless.

In Disney’s Snow White (1937) the witch uses her cauldron to make a poison apple for Snow White. It starts out green and black with the image of a skull to show it has become poison. Then she turns it red to “tempt Snow White and make her hunger for a bite”.

There’s countless examples of the color red being used as a symbol of temptation. It is also a very common color used to advertise food. Coincidence? I think not.

What other stories can you think of that use apples as temptation? Other red fruit? Other ways food and temptation are linked in storytelling? Let me know!

Until next time,

Anne-Marie

P.S. - Sunday Scaries

A terrifying AI image to help us all rest knowing AI bots could never replace a real human artist:

OKAY I owe you two because the AI bot was down last week for some reason SO-

Last week the prompt was “Sweeney Todd and the grim reaper sitting at a table eating pies.” MY MAIN QUESTION IS- WHICH IS WHICH???

This week the prompt is: “Dr. Phil and the witch from Snow White bobbing for apples.”

..and the bot is down again. Stay tuned to see it next week.

www.annemariepietersma.com