Wake me up when September ends...

I think Green Day had that wrong. As I began writing this on the last day of August, with the temps cooling and the greenhouse tomatoes ripening, I'm looking forward to the transition to Fall, with the anticipated (and maybe delusional) slowdown of the busy tempo from the summer, the upcoming family gatherings over holidays and in all honesty, the end of outside chores.

Non-Cheese related musings

This summer has been a transition for me of sorts. A bit sad but mostly exciting. For those who knew me in my previous life, before becoming a cheese monger, I had a full time job, an ever-expanding garden, 2 growing boys at home, a multiplying chicken flock and endless hours to putz and keep things managed. While this all started back in 2022 when the business first launched, 2025 has been the year of letting go of what my life looked like before and moving towards something new and fun. Less weeding and more time with cool people in the shop. One son is out in the world living his life and the other is heading into grade 12 and making plans to move away for school. About the only things that remain the same are the other full-time job and the fact that the chicken flock keeps growing whether I want it to or not. Chicken math.

We made it through our first shop summer, not really sure how it would go. Would we be slow as people left town, would tourists be interested in a shop that carries mostly imported products? As we approach our one year anniversary at the shop we continue to be surprised and humbled by the positive feedback and excitement about the space we have created and the products we offer. And I mean that, we are humbled. We love our customers, the people who come back every week, or every month, and the new faces that saw the sign at the corner of 5th and came up to check us out. Ankia and I are so incredibly proud of the shop, and while we continue to learn and improve, we thank you for coming back each day.

Alright! Enough of the reflective, emotional ponderings! Nobody comes here to read my thoughts on the world or pontificate about the ups and downs of running a shop! You come for the cheese news, the charcuterie stories, upcoming events and yep, September Christmas hype!

For the Love of Cheese Event - Saturday September 20th @ 630pm

Join us for an evening of wine, cheese and beautiful art. We will be hosting a talented, local artist, Monica Meyer Huisamen with whom we have collaborated to create beautiful oil renderings of some of our favourite cheeses.

Tickets are limited and are available here: Tickets

Holiday Shop Talk

Big holidays and family gatherings are coming up over the next few months. We are opening up the pre-ordering for all the holidays to help us plan.

If you are a social media follower you will have seen the post about the 2025 Cheese Advent Calendar pre-sale which launched September 1st. We are changing things up this year and prioritizing local sales first. So for September, we will only be accepting Vancouver Island orders. If we have any left we will open up sales to the rest of Canada on October 1st. I know that for many of you this will come as a disappointment, particularly since this is our 4th year and some of you have been along for the ride since year 1! But this change is mainly due to the cumbersome nature of shipping cheese across the country. It's stressful and requires a lot of effort on our part to bring all the moving parts together.

Fast Lane Pickup - A great way to be in and out of the shop in record time... if you know what you want! Head to the Thanksgiving Pre-Order page and put together your order for pick up the week of Thanksgiving. This allows you to come to the Fast Lane pickup counter (aka the checkout counter) without having to stand in the long line at the deli case. If you want to add anything to your order at the shop you will have to stand in the deli line however. So plan ahead! This is so helpful to us for many reasons, it keeps things moving in the shop, people don't get frustrated waiting in line and it allows us to order the quantities we need for things like paté, cheese and other fresh items. We don't have years of experience under our belt, this will be our 2nd Thanksgiving weekend, and last year doesn't really count since we'd only been open 3 days before heading into Thanksgiving. So, to steal the famous line from Tom Cruise, Let us Help you!

Oyama Fresh Sausages

We are now bringing in Oyama fresh/frozen sausages. We will be posting the sausage list the week before the order arrival and they will be packaged and frozen. The deadline for these types of orders will be every 2nd Friday @ 5pm to ensure they can get our orders together for the delivery date.

Cheese News

This has been a summer of blue cheeses! We've had some great new flavours hitting the deli case over the last few months and they've all been different.

Bleu Rossini is an Italian cheese from the Lombardy region. This unique cheese is immersed in grape marc, the leftovers from pressing grapes during wine production and aged for 70 days. It's then brushed with red wine and topped with the grape marc. Flavour wise, it is full and a sweeter than many blues. In stock at the shop!

The other favourite in the lineup was Valdeon Queso Azul. This cheese is made in Spain and is about as tasty as it is beautiful. Aged for 2 months, it is wrapped in plageru (sycamore) leaves, resulting in a soft and pale yellow paste. Intense and salty. Not currently in stock but will definitely rejoin the roster!

Barrel-aged Feta! This Greek beauty is made with a mix of raw sheep & goat milk and texture wise sits between a regular, crumbly feta and the smoother Macedonian feta. Tangy and smooth, it is one of our more expensive cheeses, but definitely worth a try. A great addition to a watermelon & feta salad!

So many other new products hitting the shelves over the next couple of months, including our ever expanding range of in-house preserves, soups and frozen entrées. We are working hard to keep the shelves filled with everything beautiful and tasty!

Thanks for the great summer everyone.

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