‘Say cheese … curds’ and Wisconsin Death Trip

2 comments September 22nd, 2008

Went to the every-other-year Cheese Days last weekend in Monroe, Wis., an hour’s drive northwest of Rockford. What a bucolic Green County seat of about 10,000 people surrounded by gently rolling countryside and cows.

OK, now let’s get to the real point of this post: I should have known better.

Let me explain. Sure, Cheese Days includes sampling lots of cheeses and spreads for free, watching parades, drinking beer and enjoying small-town life and its people. But the big draw is the beer-battered cheese curds. (js online photo)

And I may have blown my opportunity to tell all those who watch video at discoverwisconsin.com how highly regarded and tasty these morsels are. Let me explain.

I had to stand in line for 20 minutes early Friday afternoon just to get a ticket to buy the curds. Then I had to stand in another line for another 20 minutes or so to actually buy the curds. I visited most of the time with a local woman who was on her lunch break getting curds for several coworkers at the insurance firm where they worked on the downtown square, where all the action for the weekend was taking place. She told me all about how these curds are better than the ones sold at bars around the downtown square, because they’re coated with beer batter. And she told me that the lines to buy the tickets for the curds and the lines to buy them would be four-deep Saturday night at the height of the festival. It could take 1.5 hours before a curd hit your mouth.

I’d seen a TV camera filming the people who were frying the curds. But all of a sudden, a woman with a microphone was interviewing the woman I’d been visiting with. She asked her a few questions, and I listened while still waiting for my curds. The local woman never offered the interviewer a curd, so after their interview ended, I asked the interviewer if she’d like one or two of mine.

Well, the interviewer thought that was so nice of me, that she told the cameraman to film me for a Discover Wisconsin video (to be posted next May) while she asked where I was from. “Loves Park, Illinois,” I said. And of course, she liked it that yet-another Illinoisan was coming to Wisconsin to spend money. Then she asked me if I go to lots of Cheese Days.

That’s where I may have blown it. I told her the last time was four years ago, the day my mom died. I remember I was at Cheese Days when I was called back home because her caregivers believed she wouldn’t have long to live. I returned to Belvidere, and she died early that evening when I was with her. I didn’t tell the interviewer all of that. And thank goodness, I didn’t make any other “Wisconsin Death Trip” analogies. But I could see by her look that she was wondering why in the heck she’d spent a minute interviewing me when I associated Cheese Days with death.

I’m not a seasoned TV personality, but I do go on WREX Thursday mornings to tell about fun things happening for the weekend. And here at the Register Star we are gung-ho on videotaping stories. So, I should have thought about the purpose of the interview before I opened my mouth.  I could certainly understand the interviewer’s blank/quizzical look.

Recognizing the error of my ways, there was little I could do to make up for it, except offer her cheese curds on camera. She took a bite and grabbed the long hot string of cheese that she was trying to separate from the breading and marveled at its goodness. I did the same. To close the interview, the interviewer asked me to sum up Cheese Days. I said, ‘Say cheese … curds.’ She said, “A little cheesy humor,” into the microphone. Cute, even though not terribly original.

A second after the interview was over, I offered the camera man a cheese curd. She said, sure, you can offer him one, and we were back on film. My final question on tape, to the camera man: “So, how did you like it?” He said nothing but moved the camera up and down in a nodding motion.

Now, that’s a wrap.

I’m assuming they’ll edit my comments about my Wisc0nsin death trip out, if they use any of them at all.

Moral of my story: Think before you speak, especially with beloved cheese curds in your mouth.