Your first exam will occur in class on Tuesday, 4 March 2014. It will cover all the material we’ve done from chapters 1 and 2, including material from today’s lecture. Next week I will start chapter 3 material, which will not appear on your first exam. I will also review on Thursday the topics that will be on exam one.

Don’t forget your homework 3 is due tomorrow in class. Also, the solutions are posted for the previous homeworks, in case you’ve not noticed.

For the past five weeks or so I’ve had manchego cheese with membrillo (quince paste) almost every day after dinner as part of my nightly cheese plate. It’s a classic Spanish pairing, and the treble is completed with a bottle of Rioja. It’s one of Spain’s greatest accomplishments, right up there with Velázquez’s Las Meninas, the recent edition of La Furia Roja, and Penélope Cruz.

I’ve also been eating a lot of aged Gouda because East Village Cheese sells it for $9/lb and it’s delicious. East Village Cheese is a great store because their cheese is super cheap. However, the quality is admittedly hit-or-miss. For instance, I bought some Comté at $14/lb, which would be an amazing deal for good Comté, but it was a huge disappointment. But there’s nowhere else you can get taleggio and Saint Andre for $4/lb. And this Gouda is as almost good as what they have at Murray’s (the premier cheesemonger in New York City), where it’s often twice as expensive.

“If trees could scream, would we be so cavalier about cutting them down? We might, if they screamed all the time, for no good reason.”