The Accidental Cheesemonger
A lechero circa 1800s I never expected to become a lechero (a milkman), or a quesero (a cheesemaker), and much less a fromager (a cheesemonger). Yet I have become all three as I cross into my sixties. In 2014, after a failed venture growing organic sweet corn, losing more than a million pesos in the gambit , our town's patron Santa Maria Magdalena , so it seemed, lit me a path of recovery with a challenge. As a lapsed, when-I-feel-like-it Catholic, I am not a particularly religious person prone to spiritualizing good fortune, nor am I one to petition God for a venture's favorable outcome. In retrospect, however, Heaven (again, so it seemed) handed me a divine mission . Despite a somewhat false reputation as a capable salesman, I was " blessed" with a near impossible mission to help a desperate band of dairy farmers profitably dispose of their 700 liters of gatas ng kalabaw within a week! Our town's agriculture officer, Cecille Sy, approached me, seeking he...