My Strangest Adventure Yet, Part I

If you haven't already done so, watch the video below, which will take much of the suspense out of this entry. If you're unable or unwilling to watch video while wasting time at work, read on. Even if you already watched the video, you need to see what happens at the end.

I'm going to preface this story with a quote from figure skating and wine wizard Amy Shipley. I worried in the past about my readers not believing me when my twin passions of New Zealand curling and cheese happened to randomly intersect, but I think this one was even weirder. I got home from My Strangest Adventure Yet at around 1:30 a.m. Tuesday night. I told the story about 10 times. This was Amy's reaction:

Oh my God. I CANNOT believe this story. This is like a setup. Your readers are NOT going to believe this.

Anyhow. My editor has been piping hot for me to get some video up here, and, if you've been a regular reader, you'll remember that I've been foiled by not having my camera with me at key moments, and by poor battery power, and by several other things. So my editor told me to go to the cheese shop and get video of my interactions with Teresa and Angela, my cheese suppliers. Tuesday evening, I finally set off for this mission.

I was armed with what I thought was a list of cheeses to purchase, supplied by the Official Guest Cheese Commentator of these games, Steven Jenkins. Actually, I had the wrong e-mail, so I called back to the office and had IT expert Aimee Sanders read me off the cheeses. So I'm on a bus in Italy, and she's screaming the spelling of these cheeses to me: "C as in Charlie, A as in Apple, S as in Sam," etc., and for all the bad reputation I thought Euros had for talking on cell phones, I haven't seen that many people over here blabbing on cell phones on public transportation, certainly haven't seen many people spelling out the names of Piedmontese cheeses on cell phones while on public transportation. The excitement somehow convinced me to get off at the wrong stop, and then I got on another bus at random and wandered around some streets randomly before finding the shop. The mission was off to a dandy start.

The video started from the street (what's posted below is edited). I walked up to the cheese shop and walked inside. I showed my list to Angela, who told me which they had and which they didn't. We had our usual ineffectual conversations. A large man entered the store. When discussing sheep, Angela said "Baaaa." I said "baaaa," and she said "baaa" again. For cow, Angela said "moooo." The large man couldn't take it any more, and he started translating for us.

"You speak English?" I said.
"Yeah, I'm from Washington, D.C.," he said.
"You're from Washington, D.C.?" I asked. "I'm from Washington, D.C. I work at the Washington Post. You know the Washington Post?"
"Yeah," he said. "Phyllis Richman is with me. That's why I'm buying this stuff."

Phyllis Richman is our former restaurant critic and food editor, one of the most famous food critic in American history, a legend at The Post.

The large man and I talked about cheese. "Do you know who I am?" he eventually asked? "I'm Roberto Donna from Galileo."

"Splat," went my insides, as my head exploded yet again.

When I first hatched this wacky Cheese!Of!The!Day! plot, I began bugging The Post's food section to plug my blog. They said sure, and asked whether I could track down Roberto Donna, a Washington legend and Turin native who was in town to do some spots with Katie Couric on the "Today" show. I said sure, but I never got around to finding him. Now, we met randomly while he was translating a conversation between me and Angela at the Official Cheese Shoppe of these Games.

The video camera was turned off at some point. I told Donna that the food section wanted me to write about him. He said he was leaving the country the following morning. I asked how I could do a story if he was leaving the country the following morning. He said, you'll come with Phyllis Richman and I to my mother's house for dinner tonight.

Bear in mind, I was supposed to meet up with Washington Post sports writer Barry Svrluga at his Alpine ski chalet in a few hours. So I had a choice: go to dinner with one of the most famous food critics in American history, and one of the best chefs in America, at his mother's house, in the picturesque Piedmontese hills. Or hang out with Barry Svrluga in his small Apline ski chalet.

"Barry, I'm not coming," I said into the cell phone. "I have to go to Roberto Donna's mother's house for dinner."

To be continued.

By Dan Steinberg |  February 16, 2006; 9:59 AM ET
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