The Alpkase House

Gimmelwald, Switzerland

            "I'd like to buy some cheese."

My comment is met by a brief blank stare, then a flash of recognition and a nervous laugh.  The woman standing in the doorway before me is short, with grey-brown, shoulder-length curly hair and a clean, healthy face. She wipes her hands on the back of her slacks and nods towards the sign by her door, which reads "Zu verkaufren: Alpkase, Frische Milch, Frische Eier, Rauchwurst (For sale: Alps cheese, Fresh Milk, Fresh Eggs, Smoked dried sausages)."

            "Ya, ya, alpkase-cheese. Ok.  Da cheese is in da little house.  I get da key," holding a finger up at me in the universal "one moment, please" gesture.  The heavy, rustic door closes in my face for just a second, then she is back, holding a big iron key against her knit sweater, smiling.  "Come, come."

            We walk into the bright sunshine and I follow her to the "little house," directly across from us.  It is dark, rustic, never-been-sanded, chestnut-colored wood, no bigger than a small shack, with a sloped, shingled roof peaked in the middle.  One side has shelves cut into it, packed full of freshly cut logs, with several happy-looking grey goats milling around the chop-block, snacking on verdant grass, brass bells on loose leather collars jangling slightly around their necks.  The facade has two tiny doors that would really be more appropriate as windows-only about four and a half feet high and three feet wide.  Beneath the doors there is a large wooden flower box that runs the whole length of the house, overflowing with crimson, purple, yellow, and white flowers, and on both sides of the little doors are hanging plants, soft green leaves overflowing, swinging slightly in the breeze.  The entire structure is lifted on wooden stilts about three feet off the ground, the bright flowers on the dark wood in sharp contrast to the green grass, powder blue sky, and snow-capped mountains all around.  A few insects buzz inoffensively around my head and the sun is hot on my black tank-top. 

            She pulls a small stepladder out from underneath the building and unlocks one of the tiny doors.  I climb in after her and I am surprised, first of all, that I can stand upright inside, and then my eyes widen at the sheer amount of cheese in this tiny house!  Three walls are entirely made up of floor to ceiling wooden shelving, stocked completely with enormous cheese wheels only slightly smaller than the tires on an ATV, in varying shades, from soft butter yellow to pumpkin orange.  The fourth wall, on my left, has a table on it covered with a thin blue and white checkered tablecloth with two more cheese wheels, a sturdy knife and wooden cutting board.  There are several big wooden tubs filled with pre-cut cheese and sausages wrapped in plastic.  Above the tubs, hanging from hooks in the wall, are more sausages.  The smell of feet and mold and salt fill my nostrils, inexplicably appetizing, as the clean-swept floorboards creak beneath my steps. 

            I ask a few questions and the woman tells me that she has lived in this tiny village of Gimmelwald, perched in the top peaks of the Swiss Alps, her entire life.  The sausage she makes is 80 percent pork and 20 percent beef, she explains, and is all natural and homemade, as if anything else were even possible up here.  In terms of the cheese, I have two choices: last year's cheese or this year's cheese, and offers me a sampling of each.  Both cheeses are sunflower yellow in color, but this year's cheese is softer and mild, while the old cheese has a kick to it and is nice and stinky. 

            "I'll take last year's cheese, please!" I say as my eyes follow a beam of sunshine flooding in through the tiny door, particles of dust floating weightlessly, and once again I am astounded when they land upon the colossal blue, grey, and white mountains all around us.  I watch a small white butterfly flutter in through the tiny door and hover around the hanging cylinders of meat, and I wonder if it can smell the delicious stink the same as I can. 

"And you know what, I'll take some sausage, too."

 

Currently I am writing freelance full-time now.  I have done a lot of writing work that didn't thrill me, but now I have managed to build a good thing doing restaurant reviews for a number of publications throughout Los Angeles as well as the Farmers' Market column, and I am definitely honing in on my passions and strengths as a food writer.  One day you'll see me in Bon Appetit or Wine Spectator.  For now, I am laying the groundwork and leaving myself open to opportunity! 

"The Alpkase House" was written for Tim Brooke's online travel writing course in the fall of 2006 while I was backpacking Europe.  It was recently included in the Lake Champlain Anthology Series: Best Student Travel Writing (CCPI).  "The Alpkase House," is a light-hearted piece of bona fide travel journalism. My intention with this story was purely to take the reader to a far-away place that struck my fancy in the most wholesome of ways.  I was madly in love with Gimmelwald, Switzerland, and looked for any excuse to document the experience, the people, and the place so that I could show others where I had been and where they, too, could go.  I think this simple goal was achieved in the piece. 

 

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