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June 29th, 2019
08:53 am - Looking for cheese?
All my cheese entries are now over at my website: Gordonzola Dot Net. If you're an LJer there is a feed set up you can subscribe to here: ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/syndicated.gif) gordon_edgar. See you there!
(This is dated 2019 so it stays on top of my journal.)
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July 14th, 2009
09:20 am - Co-op developement
I start a course in co-op development today: “From Workers to Owners: Steps to Start Worker Cooperatives”. It’s part the economy and part the recent press our store has gotten, but we are getting calls or emails multiple times a week from people wanting to start co-ops. In addition to the cheese buying, one of my jobs is to field those calls. It’s an online course – and not a free one -- and I heard that 83 people are signed up.
I don’t want to out anyone before they are ready so I won’t name any places or details, but I talked to two incredibly different groups last week. One group of African Americans from an urban area in another state who want to do something – anything – that will help provide jobs and better health in their community. They were information gathering in general, without a specific plan of the type of model they wanted.
The other was an API ethnic group with a very specific idea of taking an existing, successful franchise model and converting it into a worker-owned version of the same thing. I don’t know that business model well, but they seemed pretty sure they could make it work.
It’s almost unfair to have people come for a tour and answer questions about our modes of operation since our blueprint for success is uncopyable. They see the result of nearly 35 years of work, starting in a totally different economy and era, with the good luck to be starting in an industry that – at that time – wasn’t an industry. I think there could be a blueprint. (The Cheeseboard/Arizmendi model is certainly a very good one) We just haven’t figured it out yet.
Historically-speaking I also speak to about 25 groups for every one that actually starts a co-op. I hope that this course – and two other Rainbow workers are taking it as well -- helps provide some groundwork to increase that ratio.
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July 7th, 2009
08:56 pm - Roseanne Riot Grrrl
Ha! The Roseanne episode where they pick up the riot grrrl hitchhiker (Jenna Elfmann) and listen to Bikini Kill. (thanks to ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) kristy_chan
Awesome
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June 29th, 2009
12:00 pm - Maggots and Men
I saw “Maggots and Men” last week at Frameline. It was amazing. Like seriously amazing.
When I go to see art produced by people I know, and starring people I know, my expectations are low. I don’t mean that my friends aren’t talented. I mean that I’m already on their side and pre-disposed to be positive. I’ll laugh at the in-jokes. I’ll forgive hammy behavior. I’ll wince with them at hard moments, not be thinking “someone else might have done this better”.
“Maggots…” however, exceeded every expectation I had.
When I moved out of my apartment on Valencia St. 15 years ago, Cary (the Director) moved in. We had known each other through Epicenter and the punk scene. Indeed, the house I was moving out of, and that he was moving into back then in 1994, was a hub of the queer punk scene. My housemates had helped found Q-TIP (Queers Together in Punkness) and also produced shows under the name “House of Failure” (our phone number was 552-FAIL… what a happy coincidence for the “beautiful loser” generation). I’m not aware of any touring queer punk bands of that era didn’t drop by at some point, even if just to change outfits or use the bathroom before the show since we were only a half block from Epicenter.
When I saw that his movie was finally finished I knew that it was the one thing I couldn’t miss in this year’s film festival, even if it was just to see what an old friend had done over the last 5 years. “Maggots…” is the re-telling of the Kronstadt Uprising of 1921. The last hope of the real Russian Revolution, sailors at the Kronstadt naval base made 15 demands to the revolutionary Bolshevik government, which might have altered history and prevent the Soviet Union from becoming the tyrannical, farce of a revolution that it became. After a few minor victories, the sailors -- many of whom had fired on the Winter Palace during the 1917 revolution -- were killed, jailed, or forced to flee over ice to Finland. (Kronstadt, like the Spanish Revolution of 1936, has always been an anarchist talking point.)
“Maggots…” certainly owes a debt to Eisenstein’s “Battleship Potemkin”. While I don’t know if anyone has every been a better visual filmmaker than Eisenstein, “Maggots..” is a beautiful, beautiful film. And brilliantly scored.
Cary also made the incredibly smart decision to make the film narrated by a rebel sailor in Russian, with English subtitles.* In this way, the film could be made with its mostly transgender/gender queer cast of friends and not have the varying levels of acting ability affect the final product. ** I was overjoyed to see lots of people I knew on the big screen of the Castro, (including House of Failure housemates) but this film rose above the art-of-friends category and is seriously a film I would recommend to anyone. It’s gripping, assumption-challenging, and, in the end, tearfully sad. Of course, the place to see it is at a film festival because it’s only a 50 minute movie and it deserves to be seen on the big screen. Watch for it! Request it from your local festivals!
While the movie does not have much humor, the funniest part of the screening was when asked a question about the maggots filmed in the movie, Cary told how they had to grow them for the film a number of times. He said that his relationship to them really changed after all that. After all, they’re really only “going through their own transition”.
The film doesn’t over-polemicize. With its mostly trans cast, it draws out questions between revolutionary moments in history and a time when gender can be revolutionary transformed, but doesn’t try and make them direct parallels. It’s a beautiful look at the potential of revolutionary moments to be beautiful, perhaps even challenging folks to appreciate that beauty before stronger social forces can organize to take back control. It's also a love letter to rebels who have the courage to take up these fights.
*There is an agitprop retelling of the history of Kronstadt by a theater troupe in English as well
**An example of this is the Bratt Brothers’ early film “Follow Me Home”. It’s a masterpiece in some ways, painful to watch in others. The Rainbow Grocery joke was hilarious though.
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June 25th, 2009
06:45 am - Big cheese announcement!
Hey folks, as of now I am posting all my cheese content over to my personal website Gordonzola dot net. I am posting cheese stuff there more or less regularly. If you are an LJer, and you really want to keep reading me on LJ, someone has already made a feed: gordon_edgar.
Sorry for the change of venue. See you there!
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June 20th, 2009
07:47 pm - Report from work
They're filming a movie on 13th St. outside the store. They seem to be blocking our parking lot. It is very slow here.
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June 18th, 2009
10:33 am - Rainbow in the news again
Now Channel 5 thinks our coupons are newsworthy!
Best part is our Rainbow person plugging my book while talking about the cheese department.
Otherwise there are some factual inaccuracies (we started the coupons originally because we were trying to make the weekends less crowded, not because we were having hard times), and it would have been nice to hear the word "cooperative". But you can't get mad at free publicity.
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June 15th, 2009
02:57 pm - The return of Pinky the clown
Long time readers may remember my ex-co-worker/clown stripper entry from a few years back.* Well, Pinky showed up the other day at the store. She was all hunched, tweaky, and sniffly and was trying to quietly pass by the cheese section and into the backstock area. She had a bag, but I couldn’t tell if she had any products in it. I yelled out to her to stop as she shuffle-sneaked past.
“Don’t you remember me? I used to work here.” Pinky said. “I just need to use the bathroom.”
“Oh, I remember you. But you can’t go up there. You don’t work here anymore.”
She had every intention of just blowing past me, but four or five other workers -- who had just finished dinner – were blocking the stairs. Actually, she was blocking them too. Impasse. One of them, who just happens to look really, really tough, said, “This is workers only.”
Pinky saw that she wasn’t going to get past and that she was all of a sudden drawing a lot of attention. She also, between me, the workers on the stairs, and the people doing produce prep, was outnumbered 10 to 1.
“Whatever, Show-off!” she yelled non-sensically as she huffed away.
Luckily on of the produce workers followed her and saw her trying to get into our other backstock area across the store. This made her excuse even less believable since – as an ex-worker -- she knows there is no bathroom on that side of the store. She left then, before we had to officially kick her out.
Sigh. Another day at an urban grocery store…
*It's a very good story for context. I recommend this link.
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01:09 pm - Gordonzola.net housekeeping
If any of you folks are using my gordon at gordonzola dot net email, you should go back to an old one or this username at LJ. That email no longer works and I'm not sure if/when it will again.
I do still own the domain which (except for links) I have updated. If you want to mutual link, (especially if you write about cheese/food/farming/ag issues) let me know in the comments.
I haven't decided exactly how to handle it, but I wanted a non-LJ web presence for when my book comes out. Right now I am duplicating my cheese entries here and there. I like it here better, but gordonzola.net is let confusing for the non-LJ literate. Go make some comments over there if you want. It's lonely.
Here's the link: gordonzola.net. Feel free to spread that link around the internet. It even has an rss feed if you use a different aggregate page than LJ.
Thanks!
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June 13th, 2009
11:42 am - Rainbow in the Chron
Ha! Awesome and big front page article on our crazy coupon days. Coupon days will be even more insane now. For non-coupon shoppers, I can wholeheartedly recommend Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays for calm, peaceful shopping. It’s like going back in time a decade on those days cuz everyone is coming Wednesdays and Thursdays.
This is my favorite picture. Both Stagey and I independently thought of those old Mervyn’s ads.
“Open… open… open…”
Next year will be different so enjoy the insanity until October when the coupons end. Hey, since I’m doing an ad anyway, we’re having a customer appreciation day today. 3-6 there will be giveaways, Rainbow bands, and other stuff. It’s at the 13th St. entrance (My total pet peeve is my co-workers who insist on calling it “Division”. Especially on the website. Grrrrrr.)
And don’t forget: closed on Pride, open on July 4.
Current Mood: .coop is a top level domain
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June 11th, 2009
09:51 am - Neko Case sets the tone
We had a big cheese contingent at the Neko Case show last night. Neko was amazing. I actually left liking her music more than I did when I went in, and I liked it plenty upon arrival. It’s poignant, sad, hopeful, nostalgic, and filled with the detail of every day life, sometimes all in the same song.
When we all got to the BART/MUNI stop after the show I was struck by something. Maybe it was a reflective mood inspired by an hour and a half of Neko Case. While we once all lived in walking distance from Rainbow, now I was the only one left in San Francisco. This entry/article/rant has been said many times before, to be sure. But I felt the sadness for a moment. Our communities that once existed and the way they could have grown – and we could have grown old – together.
It didn’t help when the first song that came on this morning as I sat down to the computer was J Church’s “The Satanists Convene” which is a song about everything this city has lost. And of course we’ve lost Lance too. His songs occasionally made me cry when he was alive. While his songs were also part sappy/part serious, some certainly have become more poignant since his death.
Perhaps returning to the Warfield also contributed. I hadn’t been these since (I think) a 1992 Cramps Halloween show. Just to prove how old we are, I attended that show with friends whose youngest daughter was one-ish. These are wonderful people that I’ve been friends with since the ‘80s who fled the Bay Area for more affordable living in rural Pennsylvania, but returned last year. Earlier this week that daughter won a $10,000 scholarship for her singing from Beach Blanket Babylon. You can’t predict these things. And some of these things are good.
I suppose poignancy was the theme of the last 24 hours. I didn’t choose that theme. It just happened.
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June 10th, 2009
06:14 am - Early morning cheese thoughts
Well, it’s 6 AM. I’m getting so used to getting up early every day (while subbing anarqueso’s receiving shifts for her vacation) that I’m waking up before my 6 AM alarm now. I don’t know what to think about that. Except that I’ve already made tea, washed dishes, and cut a dozen day-old bagels in half and stuck ‘em in the freezing.
Going to see Neko Case tonight with Stagey, Dairryiere and Dairryiere’s boyfriend (who I think had a nickname at one point, but I forgot it). I hope I can stay awake to a real adult bedtime.
Oh well, off to welcome the cheese to our store. Get on little Gouda. Welcome Winsome Washed-rinds. Bienvinidos both basic and bodacious Bries. Join us so-low-priced-that-you are-probably-driving-farmers-out-business-until-enough-cows-get-killed-to-lower-production Jack! Hop off those trucks and settle in to the walk-in!
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May 28th, 2009
09:24 am - Puffy
After 15 years of cheese selling (my anniversary was May 18!), it’s not like I think I’ve seen it all, but I feel like I have a general handle on the questions I will get. Last weekend however, one threw me for a loop.
A guy walks up to me and says, “What’s your margin on cheese?”
“Are you asking as a customer or as a food professional?” I respond. Something about his manner is odd, not the least of which is that there’s no lead up to this question at all and he asks as if it were just as normal to ask this as “where’s the brie?” I ask this question mostly because I want to know if he understands the difference between margin and mark-up,* and also because I want to try and figure out where he’s coming from.
“Food professional.”
“I’ll answer your question, but I find it strange – if you are in the food business – that you can’t tell by looking at the prices. There are not a lot of secrets in the food world. We pretty much all know what each other pay for things. Where do you work?”
“I work at a company that sells products online.”
“Ok, so you want me to tell you how we do our pricing but you won’t tell me where you work or why you are asking. I mean, I’m standing here at my workplace so you know where I’m coming from but you won’t give me any information about yourself and you expect me to tell you what are generally considered trade secrets. Doesn’t that strike you as a little odd?”
“I didn’t mean it that way. I work on the computer systems.”
“Ok, for what company?”
“…” Clearly this is a secret for some reason.
“Ok, here’s the deal, our cheese margins are between 35-50% which is low for the industry. What our margin is depends on how much labor goes into a cheese. Does that answer your question?”
“(Looking at a two-year aged gouda) I just find it strange that you can sell cheese for $15/lb. Why don’t people just buy it at Costco?”**
It’s certainly not limited to selling cheese, but this is how people get themselves into trouble. If he had identified himself as a customer I would have been much friendlier, answering the question after I generally explained the issues behind cheese pricing: high labor to sales ratio, higher cost of refrigeration that regular grocery, need to cover shrink, etc. as well as the fact that pricing also reflects that people can ask questions to workers who get paid a living wage (with benefits) and therefore tend to have more knowledge and experience than people at other stores.
By puffing himself up, he unknowingly violated the unwritten rule of the food trade which is that the first thing you do when asking questions to someone else in the food trade is identify yourself. He thereby put himself in the category of people like the sales rep who once called me up pretending to be a customer asking me about Cheese X*** and saying that we really needed to carry it and that he and all his friends would buy it etc. Liars and time-wasters are the most reviled people in the business. That doesn’t seem like an unusual concept.
*Margin is the percent you make after subtracting the wholesale price of a product. It is related to – but different from – the mark up. For example, if we pay $1 for something and our mark up is 50% we charge $1.50. Since .50 is the amount we net, 33% is the margin because .50 is 33% of $1.50.
**It’s not that this is not a valid question. It’s simply that a cheese professional would know the answer to this. This is food retail 101.
**Since they dealt with him quickly and appropriately, I will not ID the company.
Current Music: X - "Call of the Wreckin' Ball"
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May 22nd, 2009
06:30 am - My book: the update
While this is all good news to me, this announcement may sound a little good news/bad news to you folks. But, here it is: I have changed publishers for my book.
The bad news is that it will not be published until early 2010, nearly a full year past the original pub date.
The overwhelmingly good news is that I have reached an agreement with Chelsea Green, a environmentalist press who have put out some of my favorite cheese books (including one that I actually quoted in my manuscript – how incestuous!). I am incredibly excited to be involved with Chelsea Green because I have admired their work for years. Plus, I think they will actually print the book!
I wish my old publisher well. They have put out some books I love and while they are going through some hard times right now, I do think they will eventually rebound. I just couldn’t stay in limbo any longer.
I will link to ordering information and all that when it’s up in a few months, but just wanted to update you all on the state of the Cheesemonger.
Thanks for all your support.
Current Music: Santogold
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May 21st, 2009
07:08 am - Bye Bye P!
I should note here that my co-worker of over ten years has moved back home to Oregon. Kelly the P was an awesome Rainbow worker, a good friend and an important part of the cheese department. I miss her every day.
And – as this picture shows – she shares the love of cheese that one needs to have to be a great cheese worker.
Good luck up there P!
Current Music: Roger Miller - "Chug a Lug"
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May 19th, 2009
09:04 am - Graskaas is coming!
Usually I just use this space to mock bad cheese industry advertisements. But I actually kind of like this one.
Sure the ye olde ship may be a little misleading. But few people find containerization as aesthetic as I do. And the Keane eyes on the cow are, like Allison on the most recent ANTM, a little disconcerting. Plus she’s waving at the cheese as if they are her babies, emigrating to a better life. In the cheese business no one likes to talk about the real cow babies, especially the males.
And what’s with the one wheel in the water? Is it trying to escape? A non-believer in the American dream trying to escape back to its homeland and community? Or a non-selected Graskaas, maybe even a Vlaskaas that painted itself blue and tried to stowaway and got thrown overboard. Perhaps it’s a Graskaas that overslept and literally missed the boat? No matter what, it doesn’t see to be headed towards a pleasant fate.
Still, it’s miles away from most inter-industry cheese advertising that tends to be ugly, crass, and less subtle about discussing units and profit. The cut and paste is pretty cute and it actually serves a purpose since this is a really a note reminding me that our pre-orders for the first Dutch cheese of the year made from grazed (Spring) milk are on their way.
I can’t shake the feeling however, that our Graskaas might get stolen by pirates.
( There's a bigger version here behind the cut )
Current Music: Wat Tyler -- “Coming Home”
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May 18th, 2009
10:38 am - Judgmental once again
It’s official. I will be judging cheese again at the American Cheese Society competition in Austin, Texas in early August. I’ve always wanted to go to Texas in August… ha. I’m guessing I will spend a lot of time in the air-conditioned hotel.
Regular readers of this journal will remember that I judged cheese at the 2007 ACS competition too. Tasting and grading 50-75 cheeses a day plus all the individual category winners. Whoo-hoo! Cheese judging is probably the only time I ever feel like I have my fill of cheese. It’s also what gave me this great icon.
Current Music: LKJ
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May 14th, 2009
10:07 am - Beehive Cheese Company
I haven’t had time to mention that we stopped at the Beehive Cheese Company when we were in Utah. Beehive is famous for their “Barely Buzzed Cheddar” which is one of the few “cheese with stuff in (or on) it” cheeses that I actually like. The rind is rubbed with espresso and lavender that gives the cheese a deeper flavor than their other cheddars, as well as a little bitter bite. In fact, (and I mentioned this awhile back without mentioning the cheese company name) this is the cheese that one of the owners called me in a panic needing a blurb for because they were about to go on the “Today Show”. My suggestion of "Beehive Cheese Company’s Barely Buzzed Cheddar is a novelty cheese that -- surprisingly -- doesn't suck" was not used for some reason.*
Eventually they forgave me for that because they are some of the nicest folks in the cheese business. Even though I was really just passing through their part of Utah on the way back to SF, I knew that I needed to stop and visit.
The biggest thing that surprised me is how small the operation is. They had told me I’m sure, but both owners are still very much hands-on in the make room, and they don’t even make cheese every day of the week yet. We tasted a bunch of cheeses besides the Barely Buzzed, the other standouts being the Promontory Cheddar and the one with honey and salt crystals. In fact, Tim was nice enough to give us little samples to take on the road with us. While they looked unappetizingly like hotel room soaps,** they went perfect with the free samples of salami that I had brought on the trip and had forgotten to eat.*** All in all a fun visit.
Me and Tim at the Beehive storage cooler.
Thanks to the Beehive folks for the tour and the cheese.
*I actually tasted the cheese before it was for sale. I was sitting at a table at the American Cheese Society Conference and this tall guy says, “Hey, do you wanna try my coffee-rubbed cheese?” I figured – if nothing else – it would be grist for the blog, but it – even then in its unperfected infancy – was really good. A year later I had to try and avoid them at the conference because I was judging the competition and knew the Barely Buzzed had won best of category before it was announced. I knew they would be super excited an I’m not great at keeping secrets so everytime I’d see them I went in the other direction. I’m sure they thought I hated them until the secret could finally be revealed.
**The cheese you’d buy at the store looks great, it’s just the samples I’m mocking.
*** and yes, the food business is all about the free samples.
Current Music: Kitty Wells -- "Searching"
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May 1st, 2009
11:48 am - Shondes video
I don't know why The Shondes aren't already a household name in the households who like this type of music, but their first ever official video is done.
Check it out:
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April 30th, 2009
08:52 am - Back to the dentist
A few long time readers out there will remember when this journal was more about dentist visits than cheese (Hello sdn). I did so much dental work – replacing a lot of bad, cheap dental work from the early ‘90s – a few years ago that it was uncommon for me to go more than a couple of months without a dental visit and post.* I’ve been lucky recently, going in for nothing more than a cleaning here and there, but the other day at my parents’ house I knew something was wrong.
Something jagged in the back of my mouth was cutting on the base of my tongue. Since I was eating the softest sandwich known to humans – a white people special tuna salad made only with fish and mayo, on top of dough-conditioned, squishy bread – I knew that something was wrong. Yes, the back of my back left molar was now in my digestive tract. Awesome.
So I went to the dentist yesterday after work. I forgot to bring an ipod so I got their loaner ipod, pre-loaded with soothing music. I looked at the punk/alternative section: only one band. Sarah McLaughlin. Uh, no. They were all ready and waiting for me – and since I was a last minute emergency appointment I didn’t want to make them wait – so I chose the B52s mix. Usually I prefer very loud, fast music to drown out the drilling but this would have to do.
And I discovered something. There is no better drilling music than the first B52s album. That high pitched, trebley guitar mixed in perfectly, making the drill part of the music. “Planet Claire”… “Rock Lobster”… the perfect accompaniment to my molar being blown to bits like the mountain that they built that tunnel through in Zion National Park. This was a mix, unfortunately on shuffle, so I can say that even by “Wild Planet” the drill/instrumental blending doesn’t work as well. Forget later period “Love Shack”-era stuff, that’s no better for drill-noise covering then, say, Sarah McLaughlin.
I have a new, temporary crown now. I have fingers crossed that my insurance will cover this to the fullest extent possible. I have a new band to associate with oral surgery.
*see "dental hell" tag if you are a glutton for punishment.
Current Music: Chumbawamba -- "Readymades"
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