This is Kelsie Parsons. Well, it’s Kelsie if he were to be made of cheese (St. Albert Mild Cheddar in fact). Kelsie is the cheese manager at Sobeys Ira Needles in Kitchener.
As you can see from his cheese doppelgänger, Kelsie is not only compact and shelf-stable but he’s amazingly passionate about cheese and knows a lot about it.
Kelsie speaks to his cheese peeps at Sobeys.
I bumped into him at the Great Canadian Cheese Festival at the beginning of June and told me he’s taking the summer off to write a book about Canadian cheese. He’ll be touring Canada over three months and researching his book along the way.
If any of you cheese lovers own a copy of the great cheese reference book by Steve Jenkins “Cheese Primer” this is Kelsie’s blueprint for his own writing.
I was instantly smitten with his cause and also dying to hear about his adventures. I figured the people reading Cheese and Toast would probably love reading about this too.
So Kelsie has agreed to write a series over the summer for my blog that we’re calling, “Curds and Eh”. It will be published every two weeks on Wednesdays–starting tomorrow.
I’m proud to be a part of chronicling this massive effort, and impressed with the personal time Kelsie is putting into this book. I hope all the cheese makers, cheese mongers and us cheese eaters across the country can support him along the way.
Supportive cheese mongers.
If you have some insider “cheese info” Kelsie should know about in your province leave a comment on this–or his future other posts–he in currently in Quebec and then heading to Newfoundland and the Maritimes.
Enjoy this series, I know I will.
Sue
Kelsie Parsons Bio (not messed up by Sue’s opinions as above)
Kelsie Parsons worked as a cheesemonger for Cheese of Canada and Provincial Fine Foods in Toronto and his photos of Canadian Cheese are featured in Juliet Harbutt’sWorld Cheese Book (2009). He earned his Cheesemaking Certificate from the Vermont Institute for Artisan Cheese and has since apprenticed at Monforte Dairy. In 2010,Kelsie was selected as a delegate to represent the Toronto Slow Food convivium at Terra Madere in Turin, Italy. Kelsie is the Cheese Manager at Sobeys Ira Needles in Kitchener and is currently writing a book about Canadian cheese. He blogs at Sobeys.com/foodiefeature
cheese and toast 