Yesterday Uriah's restaurant had a guest-chef event, which I couldn't attend because...you know, kids, and since my husband was working, no date. Anyway, it turns out they needed some cheese for the dessert course of the meal, so it fell to me and my copious amounts of stay-at-home-mom free time to drive into Duluth to pick up some fancy Minnesota cheeses.
I made Finn a pb&j, plugged the address into my phone and we were off on a rainy adventure. We drove through a really, really, really nice neighborhood and up to a really, really, really nice grocery store (I texted Uriah - later, because I do not text and drive, mom - that he needs to make more money because I found our next neighborhood. He did not find that amusing.). I immediately felt out of place with my no-make-up/windblown hair and my son and his semi-wet pants from playing at the park earlier, his rain boots, and his sticky jelly fingers and cheeks. But we pressed on...to the cheese mecca of Duluth.
Now, I like cheese. but I was overwhelmed; top that with the fact that this is for a meal being served by a James Beard Award Nominated chef (it's like the Oscars for Chef's. It's a big deal.) and I had an anxiety attack right in the middle of the artisan cheese section. My heart started beating really fast, my palms got sweaty, and Finn decided to use my distraction to his advantage and take off his sweatshirt, swing it around his head and sing The Itsy Bitsy Spider to all of the shoppers hovering over the fresh sushi case right behind us. The cheese guy looked at me kind of crazy when I told him I needed 8 pounds of Minnesota cheese. They didn't have a lot of Minnesota cheese options; Wisconsin, however, makes a crap-ton of cheese (I guess that's why they're called Cheese Heads? Who knew...). I probably called Uriah 3 or 4 times in my panicked state, trying to choose correctly. He had a lot on his plate (which is why I was sent on this stupid errand in the first place) and really didn't care what I picked, but he tried to be helpful and keep the exasperation out of his voice when he said: "Just pick some, whatever you choose will be fine!" Then the cheese guy showed me a cheddar cheese that was $80/pound and I knew I had to get away from him. I made my frantic selections of Minnesota and Wisconsin cheeses, attempted to add the ounces and pounds up in my head (math is not my strongest subject) and prayed there would be enough.
I corralled my vocal son, who at this point had moved on to a rousing rendition of the Move It, Move It song from Madagascar (including some sweet dance moves) and we headed to pick up the last of the items on our list, which read (I kid you not): fancy tomato paste and Minnesota honey.
We finally made it to the check-out after avoiding a near-catastrophic melt-down in the soup aisle because there was a can of Cars soup with Mater on it that Finn felt he really needed to have. We did not buy it. I slung my basket on the counter, ready to be done with this chore from hell.
I was explaining to the check-out boy the reason for all the cheese when the sweet old man bagging my groceries told me that I should tell people I was trying to catch a mouse. He then asked me - straight faced - to come back and tell him which cheese the mouse preferred.
$200 worth of cheese to catch a mouse. I laughed all the way to the car.
From this morning. I had all of my laundry sorted and ready to go when Finn decided to claim the clothes for himself. He told me he was making islands for his boat.
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