Nacho cheese!

My sweet friend Neriman came to my house one day and told me that her building's storage area had been broken into.


Me: Oh no! Was anything stolen?

Neriman: Well, the whole area was a mess when we discovered it. He went through drawers and tubs. He really messed things up. Lots of us keep things down there - pickles, cheese, onions, ya know, that sort of stuff.

Me: Did he take it all?

Neriman: (smiling) Just my cheese. Out of all the food down there he just took my cheese. Some of my neighbors had cheese down there too, but he only took mine.


Turkish women make a lot of foods from scratch. In my entire life I've never made my own cheese, but these women do it all the time. Neriman lives in the city, but she (like many Turks) still has lots of relatives in the village where she grew up. When she visits her village, she comes home with plenty of fresh veggies (tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, cabbage) that she'll pickle, and a bunch of cheese she's started. She keeps the cheese down in the building's cool storage area until it's done, which I guess means it's finished firming up, or fermenting, or cheese-ifying... you know, whatever it is that cheese does. Anyways...

Me: So what did you do?

Neriman: I took my daughters with me down to ghe station and tried to file a police report.

Me: (laughing) Really?!

Neriman: (with a big proud grin on her face) Yeah, They told me there's no way they could get my cheese back. But they said it must have been great cheese if that's all the thief took, especially because he left everyone else's there. Jamie, I wish you could have tasted that cheese.


I'm sure if Neriman had gone down to the basement storage and come across that evil, greedy, cheese eating theif, she would have chased him right up the stairs and out the front door shouting, "That's not your cheese! That's not yo' cheese! That's nacho cheese!" Or at least the Turkish equivalent...

I know it's a really bad joke but I just couldn't pass it up.