Coming down from my Favourite Daughter’s (FD) wedding weekend I did not expect to blog about cheese. However since I bequeathed myself sole responsibility for sourcing a Cheese Tower for these nuptials – as an alternative to a traditional wedding cake – I feel an update is warranted. Besides, I have been milking three family weddings since September, and my loyal reader tells me that they are finding tales of my wardrobe malfunctions about as gripping as my wedding fascinator.

Without wishing to boast I feel that my future may now lie in cheese; I am in talks to convert my fascinator into a plateau du fromage.

Before continuing I should point out that FD did share her wedding with my Favourite Son in Law (FSIL) on Saturday and so the event did not belong only to her good self as I indicated in my first sentence. I can report that I thoroughly approve of FD’s choice, but that mentioning FSIL would have made my opening paragraph overly complex. I go on record to say that I appreciate FSIL’s easy going nature for he was easily persuaded to allow his future MIL to go rogue and churn up a new dairy drama. FSIL is the Big Cheese as far as I am concerned.

I should also point out that I have absolutely nothing against wedding cakes. No, the idea came about when we were discussing a savoury alternative to the mountain of delicious Guinness cakes that my daughter’s MIL had already agreed to bake. As my reader knows, I am not renowned for my baking skills and FD and I quickly digressed our conversation about ceremonial desserts to reminisce fondly about the glut of cheeses we have consumed together over the years.

I have seen FD mature from her infant Stringy Cheese fixation, through to her Dairylea and BabyBel packed lunchable era before landing at a more sophisticated melted seasonal Camembert. We have history in the ‘picky bits’ department, and one Covid Lockdown December ruined a good Christmas feast by overindulgence on a range of artery-clogging melted cheese before we hit the main course – do not start me on our chosen cheesy condiment accompaniment (ok, it is hot cranberry sauce). It transpires that three melted Camemberts is too much for two people.

WhileI was also excited about being invited to choose FD’s wedding dress with her, I confess that I reached new Laughing Cow heights when I was given free rein to purchase a wedding Cheese Tower. The happy couple were so engrossed in seating plans and wedding bans that I was allowed total cheese project management and gave myself the grand title of Nuptial Turophile (Cheese lover). Naturally a fair bit of sampling was involved – I knew that Feta, Goats Cheese and Edam would never make the Big Day, but that did not stop me from nibbling my way through my own personal cheese vat. Then of course, selfless as ever, I needed to taste accompanying crackers.

The responsibility I had awarded myself became a little overwhelming on account of the weird dreams I now found myself having. With all this sampling there was also a risk that I would never fit into my Mother of the Bride outfit (I was taking my Big Cheese duties so seriously that my Spanx were already admitting defeat), but I reasoned that at least FD would still be able to grace her dress of choice and enter the church without any cracker debris in the folds of her veil. Selfless.

Fast forward to the evening of the wedding. Guests were nicely replete – full of Guinness cake and sloe gin – but I was fretting that the Cheese Tower had not yet made its triumphant entrance and that the wedding photographer had now left the building. I rallied the caterers in a needy fashion and walked toward the happy couple brandishing the biggest knife I could lay my hands on. Before allowing the couple to slice the ‘cake’ I talked them through the different wheels of cheese, believing myself to be the only Turophile on hand to offer appropriate tasting notes: Base layer of Devon Oke (a lovely rustic outer rind and a creamy, delicate flavour); second tier of Cornish Blue (sweet, mild and creamy); third tier of Brillat Savarin (a rich decadent triple cream dessert cheese and the Chaource Crown (rich, soft and creamy). Let us not bother talking you through the biscuit accompaniment. Ok, there was a box of Jacob’s crackers available; no expense had been spared but no tasting notes here.

I can then settle back, content to see a queue of cheese lovers now staggering from the dance floor in need of sustenance. I am basking in the glory that some guests are now nodding in my direction but later learn they are whispering things like, ‘I know you are lactose intolerant, but the bride said please keep her mother happy by pretending that you are still hungry. That Cheese Tower will not eat itself’.

Being an early riser and having successful bypassed the sloe gin the night before, Sunday morning sees me helping to clear down the wedding venue. I give a satisfied nod when I see an empty cheese board and only a slim slice of Cornish Blue remaining in the fridge. I file this information away for future weddings – I muse that more Oke and less blue veined cheese may be the way to go.

In the pub at lunchtime, I am more than a little chuffed when one of the groomsmen comes up to tell me what a hit ‘my’ cheese tower has been the night before.
‘It was nearly all eaten,’ I tell him. ‘So satisfying’.
‘Well, not quite all of it’, he mutters. ‘There was still a spare wheel left’.

Reader, it transpires that a wheel of Savarin had been smuggled up to bed by another of the groomsmen, believing it to be a wedding favour. His wife had been less than enamoured to find this melting decadence (see tasting notes) upon their pillow and so shared it out at breakfast (while her husband was still asleep). She declared, ‘Cheese on toast is the best hair of the dog ever’.

Although I am delighted that the wedding guests will be discussing ‘my’ Cheese Tower for many years to come, I do feel slightly sorry for the cheese smuggler. I find him cradling his beer in the corner of our hostelry of choice. As the matriarch in the room, I feel I should benefit him with a little cheese parable and remind him that, back in my marketing days, a chap called Spencer Johnson had a best seller with his motivational parable ‘Who Moved My Cheese?’. I tell him that life is a maze, change is inevitable and that it requires us to quickly let go of old cheese (habits) to find new cheese – ‘I am thinking Cornish Larg here,’ I tell him. (new opportunities).

I decide that like a good Camembert, ‘my’ Cheese Tower legacy will run and run. I raise a glass to the happy couple and remind them that cheese – a little like marriage – represents what we all want in life; a loving relationship, good health and a full stomach.

I scurry off in search of my nephew. I hear he is getting married next Spring and he will probably want to lock me in as Mistress of Cheese.