Breast Milk Cheese

We've had three consecutive days of relatively nice weather here in NYC, and I've thrown open the windows of the Fortress of Solitude to let in a little fresh air. Because the Fortress has started to smell like an old sock passed through the digestive tract of an elephant, I've decided to take my coffee and scones on the verandah and read the newspapers. I see that, according to the NY Post, the most important, pressing news of the day is cheese made from breast milk. Who knew?

It seems there is a chef here in Manhattan who decided to make cheese out of his wife's breast milk. Now I'm certain he's not the first chef to look at the miracle of his newborn child nursing at the breast of his wife and think "let's make cheese." But I'm also certain these other chef's had the good sense to keep the information to themselves. But not the chef at Klee Brasserie. Oh no. He had to blog about it.

This, in turn, lead to gastronomes across the city to show up at Klee Brasserie and ask for a taste. According to the vice president of Murray's Cheese (a hoity-toity cheese shop here (and I rarely miss a chance to write "hoity-toity")), the breast milk cheese is "slippery, slightly crunchy and tastes like pickles." Now, dear readers, allow me to assure you that I could have lived the entirety of my life without having known this information.

We also learn in the article that according to the New York Department of Health, there is nothing in the health code expressly forbidding the sale and consumption of breast milk cheese. I would think someone had better get on that. You'd think that in the most over-regulated city in America, someone somewhere would have already put this one on the books. And because New York pols just love to write regulations, I'm sure by the end of the week some councilman will hold a press conference announcing the express banning of the menace of breast milk cheese. The mayor will dutifully sign said regulation. And health inspectors will fan out across the city, checking for human breast milk cheese in the refrigerators of the city's restaurants. And not a moment too soon, because now that the cat is out of the bag, soon everyone will be offering breast milk cheese. You'll be able to get a ham and human breast milk cheese sandwich at the corner bodega. It'll be a cavalcade of human breast milk offerings. Because that's just how New York City rolls.

What I find most disturbing about this story is that it's on the front page of the freaking NY Post. We're fighting two wars. The Iraqis are facing bombs as they go to vote in a pivotal election. Millions of Americans are out of work during what we've come to call the Great Recession; meanwhile, our politicians try to give us "hope and change" instead of giving us job stimulus. We've got serious problems. But the Post chooses to inform us of the dangers of human breast milk cheese. I'm certain that while Rome was falling, the NY Post was reporting about score-fixing at the gladiator bouts.

I've eaten dog. I've eaten snake. I've eaten shaved, pickled pig's ear. Because I lived in a China for a time, this was actually all in a single meal. China's national motto seems to be: if it's disgusting, we'll eat it. And right now, the entire nation of China, upon hearing about human breast milk cheese, is saying "ew!" So, just in case you were wondering, allow me to say that human breast milk cheese is disgusting, and I'd wished Chef Angerer had kept his curiousity to himself.

Now if you don't mind, it's time for me to do my Kegel exercises and water my pet iguana. And then have some tasty, tasty human breast milk cheese.