Northshore magazine showcases the best that the North Shore of Boston, MA has to offer.
Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/589641
72 | NOVEMBER 2015 nshoremag.com For truly dedicated cheese lovers, a great cheese store is more like a museum than a shop. There's nothing perfunctory about the ex- perience: Every last nook in every last case is an adventure in flavor profiles, preferred textures, the family history of its makers, and long conversations about which wines, chutneys, olives, crackers, nuts, fruits, and assorted other ac- coutrements would be most wise to serve with it. And then, of course, there's the matter of understanding exactly which animals the cheese came from, where they were raised, what they ate, whether they were free-range, and which languages they were taught on the farm. If that all sounds a little sarcas- tic, you'll have to take it from me, a longtime food writer and cheese advocate: We may take our cheeses seriously, but not always ourselves. One of the first people from whom I learned this was cheese industry veteran Peter Lovis, founder of The Concord Cheese Shop. Under him, the enterprise thrived and won over legions of previously cheese-agnos- tic folk; his wit and wonder about all things cheese (from Vermont goat milk cheese made at small family farms to annual street-wide parades in Concord featuring the arrival of a 400-pound wheel of Crucolo made in Scurelle, Italy) has for years taught people that cheese is both a way of life and a reason to celebrate. Now two of the people he taught that lesson to have opened up their own outpost: The Cheese Shop of Salem. After working for Lovis for years, Peter Endicott and Brie Hurd (Yes, that was her birth name. And no, oddly, her parents didn't give it to her originally hoping that one day she'd be a cheese buyer.) are well on their way to spreading the gospel of Left, Peter Endicott is co-owner of The Cheese Shop of Salem; they carry craft beers, fine wines, and gourmet foods, too.