In Korina Moss’s cozy series debut, Cheddar Off Dead, cheesemonger Willa Bauer discovers that her new home in a small Sonoma Valley town is ripe for murder … something here stinks to high heaven, and Willa knows it’s not the cheese.
Cheesemonger Willa Bauer is proving that sweet dreams are made of cheese. She’s opened her very own French-inspired cheese shop, Curds & Whey, in the heart of the Sonoma Valley. The small town of Yarrow Glen is Willa’s fresh start, and she’s determined to make it a success—starting with a visit from the local food critic. What Willa didn’t know is that this guy never gives a good review, and when he shows up nothing goes according to plan. She doesn’t think the night can get any worse … until she finds the critic’s dead body, stabbed with one of her shop’s cheese knives. Now a prime suspect, Willa has always believed life’s problems can be solved with cheese, but she’s never tried to apply it to murder …
Release date:
March 29, 2022
Publisher:
St. Martin's Publishing Group
Print pages:
256
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“Taleggio.” I presented the younger couple with a sample of the dense, pale yellow cheese with its orange edible rind. I watched for their reaction, knowing they’d sense a pudding silkiness on their tongue just a moment before delighting in its mellow sweetness and lingering earthy aftertaste.
When their smiles told me I was right, I handed them a recipe card. “This artichoke risotto is amazing with Taleggio cheese. It’s very easy to make, but sure to impress.”
The newly married couple would be hosting their parents for the first time and were relieved to get help with dinner ideas. I could’ve kept them in my shop for hours sampling cheeses that would elevate even the most basic recipes, but I’d learned in my years training in cheese shops all over the country not to overwhelm the customer on their first visit. They agreed to the Taleggio.
I cut a portion from the refrigerated glass case by the checkout counter. My co-worker, Mrs. Schultz—“smack-dab” in her sixties, as she liked to say—was cutting and wrapping their charcuterie selections. Deluged by the choices upon entering the shop, they’d homed in on the day’s highlighted varieties, which were advertised on chalkboards hung on the raised panel wall behind the counter. In their panic, they’d ordered “one of each.” Instead, I spent time with the couple at our sampling counter so they could make a more informed choice about their cheese purchases. It was the very reason I made sure we always had a glass-covered platter of soft and aged cheeses to be tasted with accompaniments like crispy baguettes or chewy dried apricots. I never want anyone to be intimidated by cheese.
While Mrs. Schultz was finishing up their order, I scanned the shop to make sure Guy Lippinger from All Things Sonoma hadn’t arrived without my noticing. I’d been open barely two weeks, but somehow the magazine critic discovered my French-inspired cheese shop in the small town of Yarrow Glen. His review could determine whether my shop prospered or died—no biggie.
I also had my fingers crossed that a good review would be published in time for the Sonoma’s Choice awards next month. I could use all the publicity I could get. I’d sunk every dime I’d made the last eight years into Curds & Whey, and signed for a hefty loan on top of that. Receiving the most votes for Best New Business would give my shop a boost, so I needed to get Curds & Whey noticed pronto.
I smoothed the wheat-colored shop apron I was wearing over my white blouse and khakis, which were cuffed above my ankles. I had a hard time finding pants to fit both my short stature and my cottage-cheese thighs. Hey, at least I came by them honestly. I reconsidered my shoes. I’d chosen my fanciest Keds this morning from the eight pairs in my closet. Did striped navy triple platforms properly represent me as a certified cheesemonger?
Mr. Lippinger still hadn’t arrived, leaving my nerves cranked on high. I stood at the door to glimpse my shop as he might when he walked in. There was no denying my French-inspired design. The textured orange-gold walls resembled rich wallpaper above raised panel wainscoting the color of light butterscotch. It was offset by a full antique oak-paneled wall behind the counters. But the real star of the shop was the cheese. Distressed turned-leg tables held stacked wheels of aged cheeses in wax casings and wrapped wedges from all over the world, so they towered over jars of relishes, olives, and jams. Reclaimed wood shelves lined one wall, crowded with more hard cheeses. Related items, such as picnic baskets and floral tablecloths, along with pairing snacks like nuts, dried fruits, and cured meats, were scattered throughout the shop. Snug in the rear corner was a kitchenette. Everything looked perfect to my eye, but it didn’t calm my nerves.
I went to one of the front windows to fuss with the display. I rearranged some of the well-known Italian wedges—Asiago, Romano, Pecorino Locatelli, Parmigiano-Reggiano—to entice passersby who couldn’t smell their heady aroma until they stepped inside. It was meditative, tweaking each cheese wedge so it sat in harmony with the others—not too aligned like soldiers, but not too chaotic as to look messy. It was a quiet skill to achieve a measured disorder of cheeses.
Mrs. Schultz finished ringing up the couple’s purchase. I’d suggested when she started working here that she dress comfortably under her Curds & Whey apron, especially because she rode her bike to work. However, she insisted on wearing her usual attire, which was a fit and flare dress paired with a loose scarf. She looked like an updated Lucy Ricardo, but with the curly blonde hair of her sidekick, Ethel.
The newlyweds thanked us as they left and I returned the sentiment perhaps a little too aggressively as I followed them out the door, repeating “Thank you” and “Come again” multiple times. I couldn’t help but be grateful for every customer.
“They’re going to have strange dreams tonight,” Mrs. Schultz declared after they left.
“Oh? Why do you say that?”
“Everyone knows eating cheese at night gives you strange dreams.”
Mrs. Schultz was a lot like her statements—very matter-of-fact, but also a little out there. When she applied for the job, she let me know she preferred to be addressed as “Mrs. Schultz,” thank you. Perhaps her background as a high school drama teacher explained her unconventionality.
The squeal of metal upon metal brought our attention outside, where a delivery truck braked to a stop in front of the shop. I took a detour to the sampling counter, then hurried to the sidewalk.
The driver hopped out of the box truck he’d double-parked. “You Willa Bauer?”
“I am,” I said.
He opened the back of the truck, then took a second look at Curds & Whey. “That your shop?”
I nodded and looked at it, too, beaming with pride like a new mom. The façade was encased in wide cream-colored molding with Curds & Whey painted in teal in a sweeping font. Beneath the name, the matching teal front door with a six-paneled window was kept open in the pleasant April weather for customers to wander in. On either side of the door, plate-glass windows displayed shelves of aged cheeses in differing shapes and sizes, their wheels cut open to reveal their speckled textures and varying white and yellow coloring. On the top tier of the wire shelves were brightly painted milk jugs and metal sheep and cow sculptures beside a stack of cheese-lovers’ cookbooks. It was a feast for the eyes.
I knew my cheese shop would have to compete for attention with the dozen other wonderful stores on Pleasant Avenue, directly perpendicular to the busier Main Street in the center of town. The street was a hodgepodge of mostly older flat-roofed buildings, which were renovated into shops and cafés with second-story offices or cozy apartments. Shoppers strolled the wide brick-lined sidewalks dotted with crepe myrtle trees awakening for spring. Curds & Whey was adjoined on one side by Carl’s Hardware and abutted on the other by an alley, separating it from the next pair of shops.
“It’s new, huh?” the driver noted.
“Brand spankin’,” I answered. “Here.” I handed him a cocktail napkin with the last square of cheese from the sampling platter.
“What is it?” He took it from me.
“Aged goat Gouda.”
His eyes squinted skeptically at the unfamiliar offering. “Never heard of it.”
“I promise you’ll like it.”
He put it up to his nose. The crease between his brows disappeared. “Smells kind of like…”
“Butter pecan ice cream?”
“That might be an exaggeration.”
I laughed. “Try it.”
He popped the nugget of cheese into his mouth, then nodded in approval. “It’s not butter pecan ice cream, but I like it.”
I smiled. There were few things more satisfying than introducing people to flavors and textures they’d never experienced before. “Come in anytime. We’ve got lots more.”
“I think I just might.” He returned his attention to his clipboard. “It’s just the one box, otherwise I’d have pulled into the alley.”
“This’ll do.”
I rubbed my arms over my rolled-sleeved blouse to ward off a chill. April weather in Sonoma Valley was warm when the sun was high, but as soon as it dipped behind the mountains in the late afternoon, the temperature followed suit.
Nineteen-year-old Archie, my other store clerk, came to meet us at the truck. His affable smile was as ever present as his freckles and the port-wine stain birthmark across his left cheek. His board shorts mostly hid his knobby knees, but he didn’t seem chilled in the least under his T-shirt and Curds & Whey apron. The driver passed his clipboard to me. I checked the sheet carefully. This was a custom order and I wanted to be sure it was right before I signed it.
“Willa, where do you want this?” Archie’s strained voice matched his reddening face as he cradled the heavy wooden box of cheese in his skinny arms. He staggered from the truck through the doorway of the shop. I hastily passed the clipboard to the driver, shouted a thank-you, and raced to the checkout counter ahead of Archie. I cleared off the corner, helping him lift the round box onto it. He shook his arms and squeezed his nonexistent biceps, probably trying to get the blood flowing through his rangy limbs again.
“You should’ve let me help you,” I said.
“It didn’t look that heavy. I was excited to get it inside. It’s what we’ve been waiting for, isn’t it?”
What my new clerk lacked in cheese knowledge, he made up for in enthusiasm. I thanked him and walked behind the counter to remove the aged artisan cheddar from its box. Even though I bought my clothes in the petite section, I was used to pulling palettes and heaving cheese wheels during my decade working in cheese shops across the country, so I was able to lift this particularly heavy custom wheel on my own.
“So this is the secret cheddar wheel we’ve been expecting?” Mrs. Schultz asked.
“It is. We’ll be encouraging the customers to guess its weight. We’ll put a jar next to it where they can put in their written guess along with their email address. At the end of the month, whoever comes closest without going over will win a sample of it, delivered if they choose. It’ll be fun. Hopefully we’ll get enough addresses to start sending out a newsletter.”
“It’s gotta be over a hundred pounds,” Archie ventured his own guess.
I didn’t want to correct him and bruise his ego. “Cheese wheels are usually standard weights, so I had it custom made so nobody can find the answer on the internet.”
“So how much does it weigh?”
“It might be easier to keep it a secret if I don’t tell you.”
Archie looked dejected, but Mrs. Schultz nodded.
“Mr. Schultz had a tell whenever we played poker,” Mrs. Schultz told us, which left me wondering about her poker-playing days. “His left ear would burn red if he had a really good hand. No one else seemed to catch on to it but me.”
She often interjected her late husband into conversations. It was understandable—I was still occasionally reminded of my ex-fiancé, and we’d only been together a few years. After forty years together as the Schultzes had been, I imagined pretty much everything would be a reminder of him.
“Should I take a picture for the website?” Archie pulled out his phone.
“Good idea.” I turned the cheese wheel one way and then the other, futilely looking for its best angle.
I was able to get Curds & Whey on the California cheese trail, an online list of creameries and cheese shops for cheese-loving travelers to visit, so our linked website was important. All tourists had to do was venture off the beaten path to this nook of northern California’s Sonoma Valley, and I knew they’d fall in love with our small town of Yarrow Glen, as I had. Hopefully, they’d fall in love with my cheese shop, too.
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