Cheese Party!

The much anticipated cheese and wine party kicked off here at Kyobashi on Saturday.

The day prior we’d acquired oh-so-much cheese, bizarrely enough in pairs. In fact as commented at the cash register, it was like the Noah’s Ark of Cheese. So we had quite the delectable and plump spread covering many surfaces when students began filtering in just before 6pm. The wines had been carefully chilled, and as a couple of teachers poured these choice drinks, another teacher and myself made sure to survey the cheeses and provide them with labels of name and origin. A little minihistory of each cheese was good for both interest and a conversation starter. Actually, having different cheeses in different places was a good excuse to move around and talk to all different people.

Wow, this Swiss Emmental was good, have you tried it? Come this way! I will lead you to the cheese of the moment! and Excuse me, I’ve just got to try the Dutch spicy Gouda over there…

On a serious note it was a really fun night, and the atmosphere was positively ripe with English. One of the students even took on a role us a cheese cutter and server for the others sitting with him – again, with opening lines like “Would like some Cheddar?” Students who had never talked before found they had something in common, and were less reliant on the teachers to lead the conversation.
There were even a few pretentious moments where we had an opportunity to compare a couple of the red wines, and judge the sparkling grape juice. Devious moments to, like drawing people towards the intimidating blue cheese. We figured that serving it with ginger thins would be a welcome step toward trying it, and in the end it was consumed for the most part. New English school situations call for trying new things…
The most popular cheeses were the soft ones – Brie and Camembert – and they, of course, slipped away first, much before the first of the partygoers began their goodbyes.

A few pictures were taken, though not as many as we perhaps would have liked. Everyone was simply too busy eating cheese, drinking wine and conversing! The pictures that were snapped will hopefully make it up on the website soon – so look out for them!