I’ve already spoken a great deal about food businesses in Forest Hills, but there are still more things to say. I don’t know if I “love” Forest Hills, but I guess I love its little stores.
Cheese of the World, a cheese and fancy charcuterie shop on Austin Street in Forest Hills, has been in operation since 1965. I knew of its existence during my childhood, I passed it regularly and fantasized about buying cheese from it on my way to more important things. To me, a trip to the store was more than an errand. I imagined it as an adventure made of pure curiosity, because the shop’s wares exist only to entertain and delight.
Nothing at Cheese of the World is for sustenance. Every food is a gesture—a display of flavor balancing, social manners, and aesthetics. These foods are meant to be consumed for a short period of time, in preparation for a larger meal or in polite company. You’d be so lucky to be entering the store at all, because it means that something indulgent, or at the very least social is afoot. At Cheese of the World, you don’t shop with everyday life in mind, you shop with what you hope could be something great.
On January 31, 2023, it was scheduled to close permanently.
I didn’t start going to Cheese of the World as a customer until I was in college, coming home to visit my family on special occassions.
I was watching a thin but noticable wall growing between my family and me. Although getting a little distance from your parents and siblings is a healthy part of becoming independent, I knew acknowledging that reality was something tender and delicate. So when I came home for holidays or anniversaries, I bought something special from Cheese of the World.
When presenting the constantly updating versions of myself to the people who make my life special, I’ve learned to offer a treat that makes them feel special, too.
Part of what formed that impulse was my love of hosting. When I was a little kid, when you asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I said “a waitress.” I like making sure people are taken care of, and even though anyone can do it, it makes a difference when that job is done well. I’d imagine stepping into a restaurant cloaked in soft lighting and a gentle auditory atmosphere punctuated with utensils clinking and muffled laughter. Or: hustling to throw down 4 plates of sizzling fajitas in a hole-in-the-wall made by a person who cares about cooking to people who love to eat. To this day, it still seems like the easiest way to contribute to a genuinely positive experience in this shitty world.
Don’t get me wrong: my family’s annual hosting event was a backyard barbeque—not a chic wine night. But that shouldn’t exclude anyone from enjoying a fancy little time!
As a private bartender in college, I got a sense of what makes a really nice gathering at home. Ambiance is part of it for sure, but when I tried a melty spoon-cheese for the first time my life was changed FOR GOOD. It popped and fizzled across my mouth in all its aged goodness, jumping for joy until it was a buttery puddle. A guest at the event looked at me, took a spoon for himself, and said “good cheese should be a revelation.”
I kinda always thought that dinner parties were for lame Costco 4-cheese assortments of like, cheddar and swiss, but oH MY GOD! We as a society have access to GOOD CHEESE! And TINY PICKLES and DARK CHOCOLATE and HONEY GRAPES!
I think I knew this was true when I first tried panna cotta.
I was probably ten years old, and I wanted a delicate Italian dessert at a fancy restaurant so bad. I was finally given the opportunity when I recognized the words on a menu at a dinner. Getting served a squishy adult jello with berries on top made me feel like I had made it in life.
I remember everything about that feeling. It made me feel like I was allowed to have something a ten-year-old shouldn’t—nice things. I think everyone deserves that.
I came into Cheese of the World a few weeks ago, before meeting an old family friend of Nic’s. I had missed his dad’s birthday the month prior, not realizing how important of an occasion it really was, and I was hoping to make it up to them. The plan was to buy some cheese for the party.
When I entered, I found the place half-empty.
Cheese of the World was closing for good by the end of the month. The employees took no joy in reporting this to me, one of them had been working there for the 11 years since he left college. (Being a cheesemonger is the best alternative to grad school I can think of.)
I waited patiently for the first customer to be done ordering, since there was only one staff member on duty. The customer lamented to the clerk about how he was going to miss the shop, and would be back before it was permanently done. I had a lot of time before I could order, so I looked around at the remaining goods.
Another woman walked into the store and went through the same motions of shock, confusion, questions, and grief as I had minutes before her. She looked to be my mom’s generation, or possibly older. We looked at each other and shared a shrug.
“I used to come here as a teenager,” she said. “My mom would double park and send me out to get something for a party.”
When it was my turn, I asked about what cheeses are best for impressing a party of strangers. We settled on a manchego and a small spoon cheese.
While waiting, I collected a few other non-cheese items I couldn’t resist taking with me. The shopkeep arranged them into a basket and let me take a picture of them.
He added a baguette and a Cheese of the World t-shirt to the bag, free of charge.
He said, “This is yours now.”
At that point, the store was filling up with more people preparing for their Saturday nights, and I said goodbye to make room for others.
This is just a nice thing that happened to me, and its profundity, if any, may lie in its humanist wistfulness. Cheese of the World reminds me that some things are just nice. Sometimes you can have a nice thing. And people who share that knowledge and work to uphold its truth deserve attention. The keepers of the Occassional Nice Thing.
A year ago, when visiting a store similar to Cheese of the World on the Upper East Side, I realized that I actually don’t know if eating something that’s $98 will always be worth it, no matter how aged and moldy. But I guess that’s what makes finding something that’s both possible to have and delightful at the same time all the more exciting. It’s a lot rarer than you’d think.
Dear Cheese of the World,
You are missed. We all loved you, and we hope to see you again someday.
