Cheese!

This past Saturday we went to a friend's house in Pasir Ris for dinner. It was the farthest I've traveled on the subway/train here, all the way to the other side of the island. It doesn't sound like much, but when your daily life consists of shuttling back-and-forth on a single bus between home and the office, a long ride on the train becomes eventful. Dinner consisted of chicken curry on noodles (instead of rice), pork sausage from Taiwan, and some of the best chicken wings I've ever had. They were Philippine style, and they would put many U.S. happy hours out of business.

Sunday we went for a four-hour hike around MacRitchie Reservoir in the afternoon. It was a great day for it, until it began raining with about an hour left. We were pretty wet by the time we caught a bus home. But it was a good day nonetheless. You can't beat tramping around tropical forests for an afternoon out. We saw some butterflies, including a purple one (maybe the purple duke), plus some long-tailed macaques.

We also crossed the HSBC TreeTop Walk -- a 250m (273 yards or 820ft) long bridge above the rainforest that rises as high as 25m (82ft) above the ground. It is quite narrow, so it is strictly one-way only. Once you reach the far side you have to pass through a gate, which clanged shut behind the person in front of us, temporarily making H think we were trapped on the bridge. That would have been terrible, but the door just closes so that no one can enter from the far side.

Once home, we went out for dinner at Everything With Fries in Holland Village. As you can imagine, everything comes with fries. And the fries really were the food highlight. My best memory, though, was the conversation with the waitress about, of all things, cheese.

Being friends with Wes, I have come to appreciate a quality burger, plus, when you eat a burger at most U.S. restaurants, you have any number of cheese choices. So when I asked, "What kind of cheese is on the cheeseburger?" I didn't anticipate any problems. However, she paused before answering, as if she'd never heard the question before. So, I shouldn't have been surprised when she finally answered, "Melted."

Of course.

I really have to laugh, since the interaction reminded me of a previous cheese-related conversation I witnessed ten years ago in Winterset, Iowa. A friend was visiting from England (where they know a thing or two about cheese). While at a grocery store, she was eyeing a whitish-cheese in the case labeled "Swiss", and she inquired of the man behind the counter, "What kind of cheese is that?" He replied, "Swiss." She repeated, "What kind of Swiss?" And he repeated with a somewhat heated tone, "Swiss." She fired back, "I can read that it's Swiss, but what kind of Swiss?" At this point I felt compelled to step in and stop a potential international incident.

Growing up in Iowa, I knew that Swiss cheese is the generic name given to a cheese with holes in it. The fact that this is related to the Swiss Emmental is something never learned. In fact, I probably never heard the word "Emmental" until I was in my 20s. The cheese in the case certainly was not imported from Switzerland. In the U.S. this holey cheese is called Swiss cheese, despite the fact that there is nothing particularly Swiss (as in the country Switzerland) about it.

However, my friend had grown up with similar grocery stores and similar cheese cases in England, where some of the cheese actually was imported from places like Switzerland and France, and it was labeled as such. However, since there are many kinds of cheese from Switzerland, calling it "Swiss" did nothing to help her understand the flavor of the cheese. The cheese man in Winterset may or may not have known that the country Switzerland produces a large variety of cheeses, but at that moment, there was a great disconnect in cheese communication, one which I was able to experience when ordering my burger.

Incidentally, it was melted cheddar.