Adam Moskowitz is the King of Cheese—but his path to the throne was anything but straight. In this delicious episode of Infinite Loops, Adam shares his wild journey from a failed rap career and a battle with addiction to becoming one of the most influential figures in cheese and the host of A Cheese Course.
Whether you are a foodie, a creator battling gatekeepers, or just someone who loves a good comeback story, this episode will remind you to bet on yourself—and maybe eat some better cheese while you’re at it.
I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did. We’ve shared some highlights below, together with links & a full transcript. As always, if you like what you hear/read, please leave a comment or drop us a review on your provider of choice.
— Jim
Links
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Books & Ideas Mentioned:
My Dinner with Andre (Movie)
Candide by Voltaire (Dr. Pangloss)
Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Claude Shannon (Information Theory)
Highlights
What is a Cheesemonger?
Adam Moskowitz: I love my community. I’m a part of the artisan cheese community. Cheese... So there’s cheesemakers and there’s cheesemongers. Cheesemakers are the people who make the cheese. Cheesemongers are the people who sell the cheese. The cheesemonger community is my people. They are a bunch of outcasts. They’re a bunch of second career people. They’re a bunch of passion, purpose people. I have spent the last 15 years mentoring cheesemongers and trying to get them to believe that they’re more than just people who cut the cheese. Because I love cheese and cheese needs a mouthpiece, a puppeteer, an advocate, and the cheesemonger is that person.
[…]
We began pitching. And I just started having the same experience. We’re in the pitch rooms and they’re like, “So a cheesemonger makes cheese?” And, like, “No, dude, that’s a cheesemaker. It’s right there. Cheesemonger.” “Well, what’s a monger?” “Well, have you heard of fearmonger?” “Yeah.” “What do they do? They sell fear. So a cheesemonger sells cheese.” They’re like... “Like a sommelier?” “No, like a butcher, dude. Like a fucking butcher.”
“Not Olive Garden-y Enough”
Adam Moskowitz:For the last 15 years, I’ve been having the... The entertainment world approach me about, we... “Oh my God, Adam, you’re so funny. And I love cheese. Let’s make a show about you.” And I’m like, “All right, cool.” And then what happens is the... The establishment, right, has been like, oh, “Wait a second. You’re too funny. Less funny.” And I’m like, but I don’t... And they’re like, “Oh, and can you grow your hair like a boy band?”
Jim O’Shaughnessy: No. Come on.
Adam Moskowitz: Where to? God. “And cheese is too narrow. You know, the flyover states, they don’t like cheese.” And I’m like, “Have you ever been to a flyover state?”
Jim O’Shaughnessy: Hey, I grew up in a flyover state.
Adam Moskowitz: No, I know that. He’s got a great cheese shop there. France 44. Shout out.
Jim O’Shaughnessy: That’s right.
Adam Moskowitz: And so, like, I just kept hearing the gatekeepers telling me, no, no. The closest I got to my own show was a specific channel sent me to Montreal to eat cheeseburgers for three days because we were doing a show about comfort food. And then they told me I wasn’t Olive Garden-y enough. Which, by the way, I was like, you’re damn fucking right.
The Accidental Origin of Cheese
Jim O’Shaughnessy: How did they first discover the milk turns into cheese?
Adam Moskowitz: There’s a few different anecdotes. One is that the shepherd... The goat shepherd used the stomach of a calf as a canteen. If you think about the canteens, and drank milk, and it was a hot day, and it was traveling a long distance. And the enzymes in the actual canteen is where the rennet comes from. The heat... The jostle... That all combined basically coagulated the milk.
Jim O’Shaughnessy: Yeah.
Adam Moskowitz: And the first cheese was like cottage cheese. But he’s out there in the desert. He’s still got... He’s got to eat. So he’s like, fuck it. I’ll eat this shit. And it was fucking good. That’s one anecdote […] But I’ve got, like, I’m not the nerdy guy. I’m the passion guy. The nerdy guy is Alex. Alex, come here. Come in real quick. Come in. Come in real quick.
Jim O’Shaughnessy: And make sure our film crew gets some of the cheese too. I promised. Yeah, yeah, I did promise.
Adam Moskowitz: So real quick, you’ve got... He likes to go the long way around the lake. And we got to go straight to the boathouse. One way ticket straight to the boathouse. How was cheese invented? You got 10 seconds.
Alex: The first cheese is yogurt. Yogurt is just simply what you were talking about, coagulated milk over time, so bacteria are acidifying the milk and make it into a solid. And what’s amazing about cheese, you can’t go back, you can’t take that solid and turn it back into milk. That’s a one way ticket. So that’s the initial... The very first cheese is yogurt. And it just becomes different and different based on different cultures, religion, wars. Like the entire industrial cheese complex of the US is World War I.
🤖 Machine-Generated Transcript
Adam Moskowitz:
My world is artisan cheese, right? Right. If there was an artisan cheese Illuminati, I have a seat at that table. It is an international table. If there is an artisan cheese mafia, I’m one of the families. If artisan cheese was Game of Thrones, I’m the Starks. Okay.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
Well, hello, everyone. It’s Jim O’Shaughnessy with yet another Infinite Loops. I’ve been looking forward to today’s guest for a long time because he has fed me, literally, some of the best cheese I’ve ever had in my life. Adam Moskowitz. Did I get that right?
Adam Moskowitz:
You did. You sounded it out and said it perfectly. Thank you, by the way.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
Tell us about the course. Tell us about what led you into your absolute love of cheese. And it is infectious.
Adam Moskowitz:
Part of me thinks it was preordained. I actually lived in a place called Cheesecake. My nickname in camp was Mouse. It is a family business. I never thought I’d go into the family business. Frankly, I thought going into the family business would mean I failed in the real world. And then at the age of 32, I realized my career as a rapper was a failure. So I guess I did fail in the real world.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
All right, time out.
Adam Moskowitz:
Sorry. We’re all over the place.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
Give us just a couple of rap lines.
Adam Moskowitz:
All depression needs room for aggression, marinated me, sessional wrestle and attention, comprehension incites apprehension so reflection can direct reflected direction. Trying times to his dangerous minds in the past they can...
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
Actually pretty good lyrics, man.
Adam Moskowitz:
Thanks, bro. I love... I do love poetry. I love art. I... And I’ve turned my career of art into a career of artisan, because you can’t have artisan without art. And I tripped and fell backwards into the cheese business. I worked on the Internet. I worked at Yahoo, and people thought it was a chocolate drink. So I made and lost the quick fortune with that Internet bubble 1.0, but found my creative voice there and then kicked around in the Internet for a bit, did some startups, what have you, and then at the age of 30, decided to be a rapper. Had a really cool transcendental experience at Burning Man, where I realized that being an artist was my path.
At 32, I realized I was not the next Eminem. I had burned through all my money, and my grandfather, who was the first man to import cheese in the US, passed away. So I thought it would be a cool honor to kind of go and learn about cheese in honor of my grandfather. So I got a job at the Essex Street Market, and cheese saved my life. Didn’t change my life. It saved my life. How? I was rudderless. I’m now in recovery, but I’m a recovering drug addict and alcoholic. I was really just kind of partying, downtown Manhattan vibe, really burnt out by the Internet and just burnt out by corporate America and burnt out by bureaucracy and politics. I just really was just lost. And cheese gave me passion and purpose.
It became a North Star for me as a salesperson, to be able to see the lights come on in somebody in real time and help people find a flavor that they didn’t know they liked. It was just really an enlightening experience. And that was in 2007. And my father was actually selling his business, so that wasn’t even on the table. So it was a really pure pursuit. And then the deal my dad was trying to close fell through, and he offered me the opportunity to buy his business, and I did. And so that was 2007. And then I launched a sister company in France in 2008, I launched an import company in 2009, I launched my event business in 2010, all cheese related. I’m a big believer—a guy named Jerry Shereshevsky taught me not to chase butterflies.
And so all my businesses are in concentric circles. So it’s a cheese warehouse, it’s a cheese import company, it’s a cheese event company. And then recently, in conjunction with you, I launched a cheese media company. So A Cheese Course is basically, the original idea was like Charlie Rose with cheese, but he got canceled, and millennials don’t know who he is. So then I was like, Larry King with cheese. And then the millennials didn’t know who he is. So then I said, Hot Ones with cheese, and everybody knew what I was talking about. But then it got weird because I got to explain to people that, no, I’m not going to burn my guest’s face off. Like, the show’s not a progressive torture to really cool famous people. It’s a show where we ruminate on what we love while we eat what stinks in a good way.
And so the idea was a deep interview, a meaningful interview while serving cheese in a way nobody’s ever seen before.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
So what is it about cheese? Because, like, I’m a yapper, and I tell a lot of people about your show, and it... No matter what kind of personality they have, whatever, the minute I tell them that I’m making a show about cheese, like, their face changes. They’re like, wow, you know, how can I watch it? Where is it?
Adam Moskowitz:
I don’t fucking know. No, not true. Let’s start with, like, what do we say when we’re taking a photograph?
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
Cheese.
Adam Moskowitz:
Right. So, like, you just said it and smiled, and I had tingles down my neck. I don’t think we say cheese because of, like, the ergonomics of my mouth smiling with that word. I’m sure there are better words out there. I’m convinced it’s related to our limbic system. And so our limbic system is where our memories and motivation are stored, but it’s also where our sense of smell lives. And so I think cheese is one of our first food memories. I think milk is, in fact, our first food memory. Right. Our first food memory is suckling from our mother’s tit. Right. So the happiest place on the planet. Who wouldn’t want to, like... I just want... I mean, I just... Could we just take a moment and go back there, you know? And then if you think about the original meal plan of a child, it’s grilled cheese, it’s noodles with cheese, it’s macaroni and cheese, it’s pizza. Shout out to my kids, chicken fingers and French fries. But a lot of it is cheese. And so I just think that cheese is part of our... It’s part of our diet DNA as a specific human. And then I would go past it and say it’s part of our original diet DNA. It’s like epigenetic in terms of, like, since 8,000 years ago, we’ve been eating cheese.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
Yeah.
Adam Moskowitz:
And in fact, cheese is a main food sustenance that allowed humans to tip into civilization. Right. It comes from the Fertile Crescent. So I just... It’s just... It’s just... It’s just a happy food. It’s also, well, unlike many foods, it’s welcome at breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snack. Right. So you could put it in your eggs. You could have it on a sandwich.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
I actually had never thought about that. It is... It’s one of the few foods that is ubiquitous. You eat it anytime, anywhere.
Adam Moskowitz:
Yeah. I mean, this is all theoretical. I am not a scientist by any stretch of the imagination. I’ve just... I’ve noticed that people really like... It’s like this... Everybody just gets so tickled. Like, I like... It’s at a point now where people know I’m coming before I get there. And it’s not because I have, like, really stinky cheese in my pocket. It’s like, people talk about what I do for a living. I show up at a party and they’re like, oh, you’re the cheese guy.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
Right.
Adam Moskowitz:
I’ve got questions.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
I am in Europe a lot.
Adam Moskowitz:
And...
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
They seem to really look down their nose. Your average European. Now, you can correct me, right? So I’m not dealing with the cheese people. Maybe they’re not the same.
Adam Moskowitz:
Oh, no, no. They are.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
But, like, if I mention cheese, American cheese in Europe, I mean, literally disgusted, like disgust.
Adam Moskowitz:
Yeah. No, I mean, this might come as a surprise to you, but there’s a lot of ignorant people on the planet.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
It does not surprise me.
Adam Moskowitz:
No, it does. And then cheese, especially... Especially in Europe, is pretty snobby.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
Very.
Adam Moskowitz:
It’s a very snobby. It’s like very much in the wine vibe.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
I mean, when we were making your show, I compared it to the one where we went and won the entire wine competition. Right. And they were so fucking snooty. And they’re like, oh, an American would never even place. You know? And we won.
Adam Moskowitz:
The irony behind what you just said is that the movie that we’re also making together, a similar thing has happened.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
Yeah. Which I just love.
Adam Moskowitz:
I need to... I mean, I cried and will cry again. I mean... Yeah. I think a lot of it just comes down to a lack of people asking the right questions and being... And forgetting how big America is. Yes. Because, like, yes, there’s 350 million people in America. Obesity is a real issue. And there’s a lot of cheese in bags. Right. But within that framework, there is like the 1% of artisan cheesemakers. We brought some today that are world class and award winning. And so why that is, I don’t know. I’ll be honest. I don’t fucking care. I’m short. I’ve been bullied my whole life. I thrive in that environment. Like, look down upon me and watch me roar. Because it’s just frankly not true. They don’t think there’s raw milk cheese in America.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
Really?
Adam Moskowitz:
Yeah. The Europeans are shocked when they’re like, you have raw milk cheese in America? Yeah, dude. Of course. Parmigiano-Reggiano is raw milk cheese, man. We have raw Gruyères. Le Gruyère AOP is raw milk cheese. We have... We even make raw milk cheese here in America. We have some for you today. Terrific. So, yeah, I mean, idiots, I guess, is the simple answer to your question. Like, why? Fucking idiots. But also great, because I love breaking stereotypes.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
That’s kind of my notion. It’s... It’s just one big stereotype.
Adam Moskowitz:
Right.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
It’s like, oh, Wisconsin, the cheeseheads. You know, your Velveeta, they always mention. I’ve never... I can’t remember the last can of Velveeta I had in my kitchen. Right. And yet that... That’s... Every European, they go right there. Or Kraft, you know, the... The cheese slices, which is, like...
Adam Moskowitz:
Fine. I mean, I don’t mind being underdogs. I also think that it is changing.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
Yeah.
Adam Moskowitz:
That, like, the reality is that an American cheese won at the World Cheese Awards within the last four years. American cheese, artisan. Here’s the thing. Let’s take a big step back. My world is artisan cheese.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
Right?
Adam Moskowitz:
Right. If there was an artisan cheese Illuminati, I have a seat at that table. It is an international table. If there is an artisan cheese mafia, I’m one of the families. I’m not the ruling family. Like, if there was... If in artisan cheese, it was Game of Thrones, I’m the Starks, okay? I’ve watched our industry grow up here in America because the reality is 20 years ago, you could maybe one hand highlight the best cheese shops in America. Right? There was Murray’s Cheese in New York. There was Di Bruno Bros. in Philadelphia. There’s Zingerman’s in Michigan. It was like, very... And now every city has independent shops, specialty food chains. Right? Like the Whole Foods movement, Wegmans. There’s gourmet artisan cheese. It’s prolific now here in the United States, which then brings up the movement.
Then there’s the artisan cheesemakers that realize that’s a viable option that comes up even within this, like, Wisconsin. Some of my favorite cheesemakers. One of the cheeses we’re going to present to you today is from Wisconsin, but it is limited batch. It’s, you know, farmstead. It’s going to blow your mind. The reality is you’re not going to know where... You’re not... You would... If I told you it was from Switzerland, you would believe.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
Do you do that? Do you... When you’re in Europe, do you mix and match? Do you bring cheeses from Switzerland and France and then slip in the Americans and...
Adam Moskowitz:
No, no, I don’t. That would be funny. I should do that. I don’t. What’s more interesting to me now is how, just like I described America, there’s great shops in France, in England, like, known. And they’ve been importing now our cheeses.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
Okay…
Adam Moskowitz:
So... So some of my best friends here in America, whether it’s Jasper Hill or Uplands, Andy Hatch, I actually am able to buy their cheese in Europe, which is actually, like, mind blowing and gratifying. And I also just want to highlight, often the same snootiness doesn’t translate or it’s not so... English cheddar. Like, I love English cheddar, but the way my mind thinks of English cheddar is like Montgomery’s cheddar, Quicke’s cheddar, Isle of Mull, Lincolnshire Poacher, Westcombe. Right? These, like, really special cheddars. And every time I hear somebody with an English accent, I’m like, oh, my God, you’re English. Great. What’s your favorite kind of cheddar? And 10 out of 10 times they go mature. And I’m like, wait, what? What about Montgomery’s? And they’re like, what’s that?
And so I think the good news for us is that the audience of artisan cheese is expanding, will continue to expand. And I think over time, really good cheese... Europe’s gonna like... Europe is already in the process of knowing about it because we just took the world championship title for a cheesemonger, which was first time ever done, and we’re having really good showings at the World Cheese Awards. Did I... Did I answer that question?
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
Yeah, you did.
Adam Moskowitz:
Okay, great.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
Let’s talk about A Cheese Course.
Adam Moskowitz:
Okay.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
Let’s talk about what you’re doing there. I think it’s a format that is really interesting and works really well and the fact that you have such a variety of guests, but let our viewers and listeners in on the secret.
Adam Moskowitz:
Yeah, the secret is finding people that are really passionate about what they do and are excited to share about it. The thread is cheese. Right? So, like, it’s the format. The format is a riff on what we all know and love. Meaning it’s an interview show. It’s just a lot of people think it’s a podcast, which I want to say doesn’t offend me, but it does a little bit. Only because there’s a lot of work that’s gone into it. But I digress. Part of my inspiration is late night TV. And so what I mean by that is that the food that’s being prepared for me and my guest is done so by my cheesemongers, Tommy and Alex. And we actually have them in a camera shot, and so we riff back to them so that they’re kind of like my Paul Shaffer.
I also really want cheese to not go the way of wine. I don’t want cheese to be snobby. I know it is expensive, but I choose to call it valuable. All right? Cheese is not expensive. It’s valuable. The flavor per bite in a good piece of cheese rivals any other basic cheese you might find at a store. Too much cheese you buy at a supermarket tastes creamy, which blows my fucking mind, because cream is a goddamn texture. It’s not a flavor. And so for us at A Cheese Course, what we’re trying to do is we are trying to educate the audience and the guests about cheese in a fun, creative way. I’m trying to show an audience that cheese is not just something that you melt on some bread, that it actually can be center of the plate. It can be the main protein, which I think blows people’s minds because it’s like, whoa, what do you mean? It’s just, you eat... I eat cheese with a cracker, and I’m like, yeah, dude, I eat cheese and an apple. Right? But we could also make it Michelin, like... But most important, I just love talking to interesting people.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
Same with me, obviously.
Adam Moskowitz:
Yeah. I mean, why’d you start your podcast?
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
Because a young guy at my previous firm would not let me rest until I actually did it. If you want to know the honest God truth.
Adam Moskowitz:
And what’s the experience been like for you?
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
It’s been fantastic because, like you, I... I’m just... I could talk to people like you forever. I love talking to interesting people, and I love learning about a variety of things. And so I have kind of the perfect environment to do that, this podcast. Do you ever see the movie My Dinner with Andre?
Adam Moskowitz:
No.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
Wallace Shawn, you know, he was the inconceivable guy.
Adam Moskowitz:
Oh, yeah, I love that guy.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
Yeah. So he made this movie in, like, I think, ‘81, ‘82. And I was absolutely fascinated by this movie because literally what it is is his dinner with Andre.
Adam Moskowitz:
Okay.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
And... And the... The... The entire movie is... He’s... He’s... He’s really, like... He scores very high on neuroticism. And... And so the movie opens with him walking to the dinner in his internal monologue. Right. And... And he’s just filled with self-doubt. He’s filled with all of these things. And Andre is this kind of larger than life character who’s lived everywhere in the world and whatnot. And also a playwright. Wallace Shawn’s character is a playwright, but the dinner is riveting. What they talk about is literally some of the most interesting stuff I’ve ever watched. And, like, when I first saw the movie, I was just like, this... This is amazing. And so, you know, I guess I was in the minority. It didn’t do all that well, right. Because essentially, it’s a fly on the wall of two very smart guys talking to each other.
Adam Moskowitz:
I mean, sadly, niche content is usually the best content.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
Exactly, exactly. And so when the... Jamie Catherwood was... Was the kid who wouldn’t let me off the hook, and I said, all right, here’s your assignment. Rent the movie My Dinner with Andre.
Adam Moskowitz:
Okay.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
And understand that is the only kind of podcast I will do.
Adam Moskowitz:
Okay.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
So he watched it, and he came... He’s like, that’s very limiting.
Adam Moskowitz:
What do you think you’re doing, talking or interviewing?
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
I’m having a conversation. I have a lot of new authors who come on to promote their book. And, like, I’ve had several of them say to me, did... Did we even mention the book?
Adam Moskowitz:
Oh, wow, okay. I love it. I really want to get the world to awaken their senses. Like, my... I... My life’s work is fostering meaningful connections. Cheese is my tool. I help people think more deeply and breathe more deeply through cheese. And the show for me is about highlighting the importance of passion, that cheese saved my life. And so now I’m dedicated to cheese. And when we first were making the show, the idea was like, I’ll bring on cheese people, and it’ll be like, cheese on cheese. And... And then I realized that doesn’t hit the mark because I want to make impact. I really want to make impact. I think I just... I think I was listening to, actually, the podcast of the Founders guy where he interviewed the Spotify guy. I don’t know. I could be wrong.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
David Senra is a friend.
Adam Moskowitz:
And so it was fascinating. I learned there, this idea of, like, making an impact. When you’re choosing work, are you choosing work for happiness or for impact? And I realized that happiness is such a weird construct. Very elusive, often not even real. But impact is so deep and meaningful. And what’s happening for me is I can make... If I make an impact, then I could be happy. And so the show for me now is really about trying to highlight and illustrate from all walks of life, individuals that are doing things that you wouldn’t normally expect. Right? Like Kat Craddock of Saveur magazine, a woman who worked there to make it continue, decided to buy it. Like, that’s such chutzpah. And then her first move was to bring it back to print. Like, that’s so counterintuitive, but to me, makes perfect sense.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
You know, Arthur Koestler, writer and thinker, he had this idea that the best ideas come out of putting two very different people or fields together. And I agree. I just think it’s like, one of the ways we’ve set up our team. Everyone talks about diversity, diversity, and they miss entirely. Yes, diversity is very important, but a specific kind of diversity is important, in my opinion. And that is cognitive diversity, interest diversity. The way people... Like, you could have two super passionate people, which is great. But if they’re interested in the same thing, like, yeah, they’ll huddle in a corner and, like, yap with each other. But if you get two passionate people and this guy’s really interested in AI and this guy’s really interested in cheese, those are the conversations I want to listen to.
Adam Moskowitz:
Yes. Because, like, I am so exhausted by echo chambers and in fact, believe that we are all given gifts. The God of my understanding, not a Judeo-Christian sky daddy. The God of my understanding, which is the Force from Star Wars. But I digress. Gives us all gifts. And I think my role as I walk this planet is to figure out what that gift is or those gifts are. Yeah. And then just look to perfect it, understanding I’ll never be perfect, but perfecting it. So... So I think... I think to your point, like, good work becomes great work when people identify their gifts, focus on their gifts, surround themselves with people that believe the same thing but do different things.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
Yes.
Adam Moskowitz:
And that’s how greatness happens.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
Totally agree. Totally agree. One of the biggest problems I saw when I was still in asset management is, you know, the archetype. And, like, for the most part, when you put all those people together, it’s just a really shitty experience because, like, what you need is... You need... You throw in an artist, throw in somebody who thinks completely differently. They don’t think in numbers, they think in words. Or it’s like, I love poetry, for example. And, like, I memorized 100 poems when I was a kid just because I thought it was...
Adam Moskowitz:
Do you remember? Oh, for sure.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
I mean, let’s go.
Adam Moskowitz:
Come on. What do you... Your favorite.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
A damsel with a dulcimer in a vision once I saw. It was an Abyssinian maid and on her dulcimer she played, singing of Mount Abora. Could I revive within me her symphony and song, to such a deep delight ‘twould win me, that with music loud and long, I would build that sunny dome! Those caves of ice! And all who heard should see them there, and all should cry, Beware! Beware! His flashing eyes, his floating hair! Weave a circle round him thrice, and close your eyes with holy dread, for he on honey-dew hath fed, and drunk the milk of Paradise.
Adam Moskowitz:
Yo, that’s... That’s like... That sounded like Shel Silverstein and Dr. Seuss went back to medieval times. I love that.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
That’s Coleridge.
Adam Moskowitz:
Nice.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
When he was absolutely whacked out on opium, okay? He was on opium. And the... The... The full poem is called Kubla Khan, okay? And it’s... It’s... It’s about this mythical leader. But that last stanza, I just think rocks.
Adam Moskowitz:
Yeah.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
So good.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
Because he’s like... And he wrote that what, 150, 200 years ago?
Adam Moskowitz:
So what was he saying?
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
Basically, he was saying that, like, he has that urge, that creative urge to... To build that... That incredible cave filled with ice and just endless ceilings and everything, but that anyone at that time, at least anyone who would even entertain that kind of idea was batshit crazy.
Adam Moskowitz:
Yeah.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
And it’s like William Blake is another one, right? He was also a great artist. And if you look at William Blake’s etchings today, like, it will fucking blow your mind because he’s got, like, the Stairway to Heaven, right? And guess what it is? It’s a double helix. And then, you know, he wrote, of course, Tyger, Tyger, burning bright, in the forests of the night, what immortal hand or eye dare frame thy fearful symmetry. And, like, literally, I kind of think about the market that way, right? The market is a fearful symmetry that ultimately gets things sorted out. But people are, like, really afraid. So in... In... In my instance, I did it just because I loved it. I love T.S. Eliot is probably my favorite poet and Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.
Let us go then, you and I, when the evening is spread out against the sky. I won’t do the whole thing because it’s fucking half an hour long. But what it is...
Adam Moskowitz:
Do you write any poetry?
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
No.
Adam Moskowitz:
Why? You say it indignantly. Why?
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
Well, because I would suck. I... I just... That you were talking a moment ago about gifts, right?
Adam Moskowitz:
Yeah.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
So mine is not for writing poetry. It’s for writing other things and maybe reciting it. But I think poetry is, like, really interesting because we were talking earlier about information theory. Claude Shannon, right? And... And he had this great line which really cuts through to the chase of what information is, right? And it’s... He explained it this way. He was like, okay, so read a political speech. I can guarantee you there is zero information in that speech. Read a poem. It’s chock-a-block full of information. And so his entire thesis is that information is what is new and attracts your attention. And essentially, when... When I got done with the whole poetry thing, I just found it coming in handy so many times. Right? Yeah, because, like, literally, it’s like, oh, yeah, you know, Shakespeare said that. Or Coleridge, or, you know, and then the other fun thing, like, Andrew Marvell wrote this poem, which I also memorized, To His Coy Mistress. Right. And all of it, when you translate it, is, like, it is not safe for work.
Adam Moskowitz:
Okay.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
And things like, you know, had we but world enough and time, this coyness, lady, were no crime. But then he starts going into, like, don’t shun me because, you know, your quaint honor. You know what quaint was Elizabethan for? Vagina. So, like, when you start looking up the actual words, you’re like, God, this guy... He was an X-rated writer.
Adam Moskowitz:
I just love the fact that, like, now anytime someone’s ever been like, oh, my God, that’s so quaint. They’re like, no, that’s pussy. So I love poetry because I love the jazz of it.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
Yeah, I love jazz too.
Adam Moskowitz:
I love the beat of it. I love the, like, English was my worst... Like, my worst... I was really good at math and science and really bad at English because the rules in English were just something. They just felt too rigid and it doesn’t feel appropriate. Like, it makes sense for, like, geometry was my favorite math because I liked that you could actually get to the theorem, the proof, in a variety of different ways. But I also love algebra. Excuse me. I also... Hearing you riff about, like, passion, purpose, and how you bring people together, it made me think of Willy Wonka.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
I love Willy Wonka.
Adam Moskowitz:
I love Willy Wonka. Well, just because, like, problem solving... Solving problems that, like... And this idea of, like, you know, you’ll figure out how to shrink a chocolate bar by learning how to take a gigantic one into a little... Like, I just... Yeah, I... I find... And so A Cheese Course, to me, is like a very sneaky way to get people to eat more cheese. But more importantly, it’s a... Because cheese is such a hook, it’s really a sneaky way to expand people’s perception of passion and purpose.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
Yeah, I agree. Having watched them all, I love the fact that we were talking about an artist that we collect, Barry X Ball.
Adam Moskowitz:
Yeah.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
And you were saying a lot of people were like, yeah, that was okay. I loved that. I loved that episode.
Adam Moskowitz:
I... Same. And I... What’s cool about the Internet is it’s evergreen. I think Barry’s episode is really informative. But it’s really off topic.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
Yeah, right.
Adam Moskowitz:
It’s really off topic. Like, we get into, like, Duchamp, and I don’t think a lot of people were expecting to learn... That’s not how the series was set up. It also makes me feel like there’s... I wasn’t sure if it was going to be eight episodes or it could be 100 episodes. And it’s an episode like Barry that makes me realize it could be 100 episodes, definitely. And that people will find... They’ll find the long form off the short form. That’s the other interesting thing that I really... One of the reasons I want to make the show is I want to prove that long form content, quality production can be made at a fraction of the price and have an audience online. It feels like right now, a lot of what’s online is, like, made on your phone, really, like, over lit.
And I want to, like, remind people that, like, color saturation matters and, like, thoughtful editing matters. But what’s interesting is the data showing that they’re not really tuning in on the long form. It’s really the short form that everybody’s clicking on. Which is great, right? Because it turns out that the whole Internet economy now is like, it’s an ad for an ad for an ad. Right. I got to chop it up in little pieces to spoon feed it to you. So maybe at one point you’ll decide to sit down and watch the full episode, or maybe you’ll just... I’ll just be part of your doom scroll. Either way, if we’re getting people to see that, what seems crazy isn’t crazy, right? Barry... The Barry episode. Here’s a guy that’s actually convinced the greatest museums in the world... He’s convinced them to let him and his team come in and scan the greatest works of art in the world.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
I know.
Adam Moskowitz:
To then make riffs off of it.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
Yeah.
Adam Moskowitz:
Not copies.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
No, I know. I know how he works.
Adam Moskowitz:
Like, holy... Like, who... Like, talk about, like, the fine line between crazy and genius.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
Yeah. Like, but you know what? That’s back to your passion, right? It’s absolutely... What the... As I watched them all, that’s what I saw. I saw you talking with other really passionate people. And those conversations, to me at least, are always interesting because, like, you know, you’re talking about Duchamp, right? Oh, isn’t that the guy who turned the toilet into a piece of art? Right? Like, well, yeah, but there’s so much more to... Why did that happen? Why? You know, what was the whole thing going on?
Adam Moskowitz:
You’ve conversated with a lot of fascinating people. What’d you learn? Because the Barry episode, I came into that episode with a preconceived notion that the guy who made the banana on the wall...
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
Yeah.
Adam Moskowitz:
Like, that wasn’t art. And that was really stupid and trivial. Yeah. And by the time I finished editing that episode, I realized that artist is an actual genius who has done the most prolific types of installations. And that was just a statement. Yeah. And actually is, like, so fucking punk rock, what he did.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
CBGB all the way.
Adam Moskowitz:
All the way. Like, oh, my... Banksy.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
Banksy.
Adam Moskowitz:
Yeah. I mean, better than... It’s...
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
I would fight you on that one. I think Banksy’s...
Adam Moskowitz:
No, Banksy’s my favorite. Yeah, yeah. I wasn’t saying better than Banksy because, like, it’s so subtle. Like, Banksy selling a piece of art at auction and then destroying it in front of everybody. Like, to me, there’s nothing cooler.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
Yeah.
Adam Moskowitz:
But the fact that the guy with the banana, literally bought the banana, went in and then taped it to a wall and was, like, done is like... I went in... I went in with a pre... I went in being like, that’s not art. And I came out of that episode being like, yeah, that is totally...
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
You know, that... That is a really interesting observation because it happens time and time again, and it’s not just art, it’s everything. So people naturally react with hostility to things that they haven’t been able to tune into yet.
Adam Moskowitz:
Right.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
Like, we didn’t know about the microscopic world until we invented a microscope.
Adam Moskowitz:
Yep.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
And... And so all of a sudden, looking through it, we’re like, holy shit, there’s a whole other world in there. But you’ve got to have that to get tuned in. I think the same is true with art. Right. Like the Impressionists, the... The... The dominant school in Paris was academic art. Right. Which sucked. And anyway, they were the ones who derisively named the Impressionists. That was... That was meant as an insult. They’re like, basically, oh, you know, it’s like, my child or granddaughter can make impressions with her finger paint. That is what they are doing.
Adam Moskowitz:
Oh. And okay.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
And so... But see, the thing is, same thing happened in literature. James Joyce came on the scene and everyone was like, what the fuck is going on with this guy? Like, what the fuck? And it was because they’d never read anything like that. And so now, of course, you’ve got Bloomsday every year in Ireland, and it’s celebrated, but it took people time to understand the new form.
Adam Moskowitz:
I also appreciate time in the extended life of an artist because, yes, I think what’s new, people get afraid of it. Right? Yeah. I mean, look at it in technology. I remember when the microwave came out, it was like, don’t stand three feet... Three feet, you know, can I get the lead apron? And then this week I drove in a Waymo self-driving car. And, like, the first three minutes I was like, oh, my God, I better call my wife. And by the end of the day, on my third ride, I’m like, this is the greatest car ride I’ve ever had in my life. I feel so safe.
But I also think time in a different frame is also important because my issue with the banana was like, versus we’re talking to Barry X Ball who could spend 10,000 hours on a piece of art. I’m like, that’s like... Time matters. But what helped me see is that time matters in the life of an artist, not the life of the piece of art.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
Right, exactly.
Adam Moskowitz:
And that is a revelation.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
And let’s bring it back to cheese. I mean, because that is an art form as well.
Adam Moskowitz:
I think so. Well, you know what, let me show you it. Actually, can we eat some cheese? All right, are we ready for some cheese?
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
Sure, let’s.
Adam Moskowitz:
What’s interesting about cheese for me is that so much of cheese is happening at the microscopic level, but the microscope is not that... That we’ve been making cheese since 6,000 BC, right. So if you think about cheese 2,000...
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
Look at that presentation too, it’s beautiful.
Adam Moskowitz:
Oh, what do we got on the side for you?
Alex:
So the bottom is cucumber, fresh cucumber. Okay, we have La Tur. So that is from Alta Langa over in Italy. So three milks, cow, goat, and sheep. Soft, ripened cheese on top. We have smoked salmon from Alaska, little capers, little dill.
Adam Moskowitz:
Oh, my God, you’re going... You’re going Jewish bagel.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
Yeah, he’s got a Jewish bagel for us. Cheers.
Adam Moskowitz:
So is this art?
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
I think so. Look at it. I mean, wait, more importantly, oh, my God.
Adam Moskowitz:
Oh, my God. So what is art?
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
Incredible.
Adam Moskowitz:
It’s incredible. What is art?
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
You tell me, you’re the guest.
Adam Moskowitz:
I think art is helping people change their perception.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
I agree.
Adam Moskowitz:
I thought for a long time that art... If an artist is on top of a mountain making paintings and then he burns the place down and nobody sees the paintings, for a long time I thought that was art, I thought that was just an exercise of an individual. And I’ve come to realize that is actually wrong, that the artist is his first audience and that he changed over time by the art that he created. But great art winds up finding a large audience. And then the audience, as you just described with James Joyce, all of a sudden goes from, like, what... What is happening here? Because it’s, like, so uncomfortable. It’s so uncomfortable. And then you become comfortable. And that, to me, is what art is. And art happens... I think all human beings are artists.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
I agree.
Adam Moskowitz:
I think life is the stage. I think life is... Or the canvas, if I may. And so cheese for so long was even bigger than art. Cheese was like... Think about it as it relates to, like, before there was, like, organized religion that, like, they would drink this milk and it would make the babies grow.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
Right.
Adam Moskowitz:
And then all of a sudden, they figured out that if they made... They took this milk, it would magically turn into cheese. Because they didn’t have a microscope. They didn’t know what was happening. They just knew that, like... Do you...
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
Know the origin story of... How did... How did they first discover the milk turns into cheese?
Adam Moskowitz:
There’s a few different anecdotes. One is that the shepherd... The goat shepherd used the stomach of a calf as a canteen. If you think about the canteens, and drank milk, and it was a hot day, and it was traveling a long distance. And the enzymes in the actual canteen is where the rennet comes from. The heat... The jostle... That all combined basically coagulated the milk.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
Yeah.
Adam Moskowitz:
And the first cheese was like cottage cheese. But he’s out there in the desert. He’s still got... He’s got to eat. So he’s like, fuck it. I’ll eat this shit. And it was fucking good. That’s one anecdote. I mean, I think the original way of perceiving it is like, it was the lactic or the acid set. You take milk, it sits overnight, and it begins to curdle. But then what are you going to do? And you’re like, oh, I’ll try a little. And I think they realized, and then I think over time, and... Or terroir, like, just the actions associated determine what would happen. Meaning cutting it fine... Like just experimentation. Right. Cutting the curds fine versus just ladling the curds, adding salt, not adding salt, adding a lot of salt. How you press it, like, over time.
But I’ve got, like, I’m not the nerdy guy. I’m the passion guy. The nerdy guy is Alex. Alex, come here. Come in real quick. Come in. Come in real quick.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
And make sure our film crew gets some of the cheese too. I promised. Yeah, yeah, I did promise.
Adam Moskowitz:
So real quick, you’ve got... He likes to go the long way around the lake. And we got to go straight to the boathouse. One way ticket straight to the boathouse. How was cheese invented? You got 10 seconds.
Alex:
The first cheese is yogurt. Yogurt is just simply what you were talking about, coagulated milk over time, so bacteria are acidifying the milk and make it into a solid. And what’s amazing about cheese, you can’t go back, you can’t take that solid and turn it back into milk. That’s a one way ticket. So that’s the initial... The very first cheese is yogurt. And it just becomes different and different based on different cultures, religion, wars. Like the entire industrial cheese complex of the US is World War I.
Adam Moskowitz:
Huh? Okay. Okay. Thank you.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
Well done, Alex.
Adam Moskowitz:
Well done, Alex.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
I don’t know, Adam, maybe I should have him sitting there.
Adam Moskowitz:
I get that a lot, actually. I get that a lot. I employ him. Don’t make me fire him, Jim. I’m kidding. I’m kidding. You’re safe, Alex.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
For today.
Adam Moskowitz:
For today. And what’s interesting with cheese is that depending on where... French cheese, dairy maids, the women were making the cheese from the goats. And so that form is small because they were using their hands as forms, whereas like Pecorino Romano, the Romans were taking large... A lot of curd, packing it into a big mold, the mold being like the thing that holds the curd. And they needed to travel over long distances because they were conquering lands and such, but they needed sustenance and so they had that. Right?
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
Yep.
Adam Moskowitz:
So...
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
So is there anywhere in the world that you’ve discovered where they, like, just don’t eat cheese?
Adam Moskowitz:
Think about it in terms of dairy culture. So there are definitely places that don’t have dairy culture, but even that is changing. And then when you think about cheese, let’s think about it in a different lens. Think about it as a fermentation. And if you think about it in terms of a fermentation, then it becomes even more widespread. So a natural inclination would be like, is there cheese in China? And no, China is not really a dairy culture, it’s a rice culture. But tofu, right? So fermentation.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
Right, right.
Adam Moskowitz:
So tofu is kind of like cheese. Oh, man, the comments. The cheese people are going to, like, lose their fucking mind on that one. But then, like, you... But Ireland, dairy culture, but not cheese, butter.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
Right, right. Absolutely true.
Adam Moskowitz:
So you think about in terms of dairy culture, but then, like... But then where’s yak cheese from?
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
Mongolia.
Adam Moskowitz:
Right, right. So Mongolians are making cheese out of... From yak milk.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
Yeah.
Adam Moskowitz:
You know, and then camel cheese. I have a dream one day of making whale cheese. Okay. It’s going to taste real fishy.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
I was going to say it’s like sushi. What is that going to taste like?
Adam Moskowitz:
It’s going to taste like fish.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
Yeah, exactly.
Adam Moskowitz:
It’s going to taste quaint. Wow.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
You’re lucky that this podcast is the anything goes.
Adam Moskowitz:
Yeah, totally.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
Like, we’re not... Swear as much as you want.
Adam Moskowitz:
Yeah. Now we’re at the dark... The dark corners of the Internet right now.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
Yeah, the... The quaintness. Very quaint.
Adam Moskowitz:
No, I mean, but everybody’s very quaint. Very quaint. Like, no. I mean, no, there’s this, like, cheese is from milk, so mammalian. Right. So, like, there was a movement. I wouldn’t... I haven’t... It’s gross. But there was, like, some chef that was making cheese out of his wife’s milk, which is…
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
Really...
Adam Moskowitz:
Yeah, dude, look it up. Google it. It’s like, I don’t know why you would do that. Like, just drink it. But... So weird. And then, like, people...
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
The baby might get a little pissed off about that.
Adam Moskowitz:
Dude, the vegans. Wait a minute. The vegans are going to lose their mind.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
Yes, of course. But, like, dad, what the fuck?
Adam Moskowitz:
What the fuck? And he’s like... The dad’s like, I’m making this for later. So, you know. And, like, I get a lot... Like, I don’t know. Like, the least favorite question I get is, like, what’s your favorite cheese? And I’m like, chicken cheese. It’s just a bitch to find those teats. And people are like, huh? And I’m like, oh, my God, dude. Those people usually misspell my name. And so where are we? Want to try another cheese? That was good.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
Yes, of course, the first one was so incredibly delicious. That’s right.
Alex:
This is a very interesting riff on Gruyère. So this is 1655 Gruyère. This is probably the best expression of Gruyère in the world. We have a papadum shell, so an Indian little semolina shell. Inside is coconut candy, papaya, and a little turmeric and garam masala.
Adam Moskowitz:
Okay. Wow.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
Absolutely. Now, again, we’re back to art, right? Look at this.
Adam Moskowitz:
Is this art?
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
This... This is definitely art.
Adam Moskowitz:
That’s what I’m saying. Cheers.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
Cheers.
Adam Moskowitz:
All right. What do you taste?
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
It’s fantastic. And I could definitely see having just this for your meal.
Adam Moskowitz:
You taste the cheese in there? Yeah. But also the curry.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
Oh, all of it.
Adam Moskowitz:
And there’s fruit.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
Yeah, yeah. Papaya.
Adam Moskowitz:
Papaya.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
That was amazing. I mean, honestly, that was amazing. So is there a restaurant in Manhattan that does this?
Adam Moskowitz:
No.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
I mean, that kind of blows my mind. So you would expect, of all places, Manhattan would have that restaurant.
Adam Moskowitz:
I think there was... There was one place, and there still might be a place. I’m not really sure. And even if they are, they’re not doing it at the level that me and my team do it. And... Because, I mean... Yeah, I mean, yeah, there’s a restaurant. Seems like a lot of work, but we do private events.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
Okay.
Adam Moskowitz:
All right, Jim. Yeah. So if you want to have us back for a private event...
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
Oh, definitely.
Adam Moskowitz:
More than happy to come. Definitely. And I don’t even have to come. We could just send Alex.
Alex:
Send me.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
But I... I view you, Adam, as an asset, though.
Adam Moskowitz:
Thank you. Thank you. Nice. I’m like, can’t have... Can’t have ass without an asset. So I think what’s interesting also, because the way... The way my brain works when serving cheese is, like, you want to tap... You want to check a lot of boxes, right? So, like, check a lot of boxes. You got milk type, cow, sheep, goat, whale. You got yak, camel, chicken. No, cow, sheep, goat, buffalo. Yeah, but really, cow, sheep, goat. And then you have make type. Right. Or rind type. So you have soft ripened. The first cheese was soft ripened. Three milks with candidum.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
Yeah.
Adam Moskowitz:
Geotrichum, geotrichum and candidum. Or just geotrichum.
Alex:
They usually hang out together.
Adam Moskowitz:
Yeah, they... Right, sorry. Cheese that looks like an old man, wrinkly. Yeah, that’s what we were just talking about. So, like, that first cheese ticked a lot of boxes. We knocked out all the milks. Cow, sheep, goat. And then we got soft ripened. And then we got the rind being geo. And then the second cheese is Gruyère. So now we pivoted to just cow. Yeah, I love cow cheeses. That’s usually my favorite. Alpine style or alpine. Not even style. Alpine. And then... Yeah. So I’m like, what is he going to do next? Because, like, we’re ticking a couple of really good boxes…
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
As we wait for the next serving, which I am really looking forward to...
Adam Moskowitz:
Jim wants to eat more.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
Let’s talk about the movie a little bit. You know, you were taking a pretty big risk, right. Because they could have gone and...
Adam Moskowitz:
I bet a house. Actually, let’s be real clear and simple. The cool story. Sorry. Yeah, I’m learning how to be a better interviewer. But I’m interviewing... I’m being interviewed. I’m interrupting.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
That’s okay.
Adam Moskowitz:
I’m sorry. I took it. You were saying, you were saying, Jim.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
No no no. Tell us about betting the house.
Adam Moskowitz:
No, I want to finish you. I want to allow... I want to be a respectful guest and allow you to finish your question before I talk too much.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
All right, so I was going to say... And you anticipated what I was going to say. You literally bet a house on a highly unlikely outcome.
Adam Moskowitz:
Yes.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
What was it that was like, you know what? I really have to make this movie.
Adam Moskowitz:
I love my community. I’m a part of the artisan cheese community. Cheese... So there’s cheesemakers and there’s cheesemongers. Cheesemakers are the people who make the cheese. Cheesemongers are the people who sell the cheese. The cheesemonger community is my people. They are a bunch of outcasts. They’re a bunch of second career people. They’re a bunch of passion, purpose people. I have spent the last 15 years mentoring cheesemongers and trying to get them to believe that they’re more than just people who cut the cheese. Because I love cheese and cheese needs a mouthpiece, a puppeteer, an advocate, and the cheesemonger is that person. And so I’ve been fostering this community of cheesemongers through an event called the Cheesemonger Invitational. And what I’ve been seeing at this event over years is that what they were creating with cheese just kept being mind blowing.
So I’m sitting at, like, the forefront of a movement that nobody knows about and nobody’s seeing, but I have a front row seat to this incredible dynamic group of people and this ridiculous thing they’re doing with cheese. Right. Like that’s Alex. How did I meet you?
Alex:
Cheesemonger Invitational.
Adam Moskowitz:
Cheesemonger Invitational. Right. So hundreds of... Hundreds, almost now, probably thousands of people have come through Cheesemonger Invitational. So I have this firsthand look at cheesemongers and what they’re doing. And it’s a super cool community. And I love documentary films. So, like, Spellbound. Great movie. Born into Brothels. Sad, but amazing movie. Like all these different glimpses. Right? Great documentary film is like a glimpse into a place you never thought to even look, perhaps.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
Right.
Adam Moskowitz:
And cut to... For the last 15 years, I’ve been having the... The entertainment world approach me about, we... Oh my God, Adam, you’re so funny. And I love cheese. Let’s make a show about you. And I’m like, all right, cool. And then what happens is the... The establishment, right, has been like, oh, wait a second. You’re too funny. Less funny. And I’m like, but I don’t... And they’re like, oh, and can you grow your hair like a boy band? Real? No.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
No. Come on.
Adam Moskowitz:
Where to? God. And cheese is too narrow. You know, the flyover states, they don’t like cheese. And I’m like, have you ever been to a flyover state? Like, casserole, you idiot.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
Hey, I grew up in a flyover state.
Adam Moskowitz:
No, I know that. He’s got a great cheese shop there. France 44. Shout out.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
That’s right.
Adam Moskowitz:
And so, like, I just kept hearing the gatekeepers telling me, no, no. The closest I got to my own show was a specific channel sent me to Montreal to eat cheeseburgers for three days because we were doing a show about comfort food. And then they told me I wasn’t Olive Garden-y enough. Which, by the way, I was like, you’re damn fucking right. At what point, motherfucker, did I ever let you think I was... I could, like, Olive... Like, I’ve never even eaten, so...
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
So I’ve never been to one.
Adam Moskowitz:
I’ve never been to one. So no disrespect to you, Olive Garden. Like, none of your... Actually, let’s be honest. None of your listeners go to Olive Garden.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
Nobody who listens to this podcast…
Adam Moskowitz:
They’re like, no. Some of them are like, we have a garden where we grow olives.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
Is this what you were referring to, Jim?
Adam Moskowitz:
Not at all. So what happened was about five years ago, I was like, you know what? I’m just going to... I’m going to make shit. So I packaged up a TV show idea that’s kind of like... It was like Top Chef meets Iron Chef with a ton of cheese. But it was super... I made it way more complicated than it needed to be. I started pitching it, and I started hearing again... Like, I was getting into the rooms this time. They were telling me, the industry’s dying, everybody... Nobody’s spending money. It’s a fucking bloodbath, man. I don’t even know if I’m going to have a job next week, right? At all. And I was like, oh, okay. That’s really... I’m like, I keep going to Netflix, and, like, there’s a new show coming out, so, like, who’s fucking making it then?
And then while I was doing that, an amazing documentary filmmaker reached out to me over Instagram and was like, I want to make a documentary movie about cheese. And everybody I talked to says, I need to talk to you. And I was like, all right, cool. Let’s take a meeting. And we took a meeting. And brilliant filmmaker Sarah Jolenski, working for The New Yorker. Love that magazine. Did a bunch of shorts that I really enjoyed. And most important, she loved cheese and she was nerdy. And those were two really important things for me. I don’t... I didn’t... I wanted... I wanted real charisma, not fake charisma. Passion, charisma. And she told me a story about going to Murray’s Cheese and eating a cheese called Chällerhocker and it blowing her mind. And Chällerhocker is a cheese that I introduced to the United States.
So I’m a big believer in the Force showing me the way. Yeah, right. That, like, that was a... That was a... That was a fortuitous moment of serendipity, an important one. And so I was like, let’s do it. But we’re going to do this together. I’m going to be your partner. I’m not going to just, like... Like, like, the industry is all about, like, talent hold agreements and shopping agreements, and we’re going to lock you up, but take your shit and give you nothing. You’ll be famous. And I’m like, I don’t even fucking want to be famous, you fucking assholes. I just want to tell a good story. So with her, I was like, we’ll be partners. And she was rightfully so, very concerned about being partners because she didn’t want to compromise the integrity of the content.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
Yeah.
Adam Moskowitz:
So I said, here’s the partnership. Let me handle the business side. You handle the creative. I have zero creative decision. And we began our journey. And our journey was we put up some money. We did a couple of shoots. She wanted to partner with a traditional production company. So I was against that at first. I still am technically, but I was against that. But... And in the spirit of collaboration was like, okay. We had three amazing production companies interested. We went with one production company and we began pitching. And I just started having the same experience. We’re in the pitch rooms and they’re like, so a cheesemonger makes cheese? And, like, no, dude, that’s a cheesemaker. It’s right there. Cheesemonger. Well, what’s a monger? Well, have you heard of fearmonger? Yeah. What do they do? They sell fear. Exactly. So a cheesemonger sells cheese.
They’re like... Like... Like a sommelier? No, like a butcher, dude. Like a fucking butcher. Anyway, so... So all the pitches weren’t closing. And then... So Cheesemonger Invitational is an event for all cheesemongers in the United States. You just have to be employed as a cheesemonger. Then the best of the best, I go through CMI Masters, which is a master level event modeled off of my dear friend Rodolphe’s world championship cheese contest called Mondial du Fromage. And so CMI Masters was coming up and we had to get the shot. And so I’m like, we got to get the shot. And the production company I was partnered with was like, well, we don’t... We don’t spend money. And I’m like, but you’re a production company. They’re like, no, I know, it’s weird. We don’t spend money. I’m like, oh, I get it. You’re a gatekeeper.
Got it. Okay, cool. What if I spend the money? And they’re like, all right. But we’re, like, not scrappy, you know, we’re Academy Award winning production company. I’m like, all right, how much? They’re like, this much. I’m like, oh, wow, that is a lot of money. I’ll bet on myself. And so I put up the money, and at this point, I was about 40 grand in. And it was during that shoot that the production company’s team, the EP and her DP and all them were like, oh, my God, dude. Like, we always thought you were funny and interesting, but we really had no idea what your universe was like. We really didn’t. We were still figuring that out. But holy shit, you create, like, this... Your universe is amazing. Let’s just make the movie. And I’m like, really?
Well, they’re like, no, we’re not going to make the movie. What we’re going to do is make a line budget and we’re going to raise money and then we’ll make the movie. And they told me we couldn’t make the movie for less than $1.5 million. And went out to raise money. And I wound up bringing money to the table that was ready to close. They didn’t. And so we parted ways and I... And we, at that point, me and Sarah had to, like, come to... Come to Jesus. And I was like, let’s just do it. Like, let’s do it. Let’s do it. I believe in this. Let’s do it. And she was like, fine, I believe in you and I believe in me. Let’s do it. So I put up half the budget. We hired our own line producer.
We set a budget of $600,000. I put up half the money to get the project started. And then Le Gruyère AOP, like you’ve heard of Gruyère, like the organization behind the cheese gave me some money. And then we found you. And you are... Dude, you’re fucking amazing, dude. I’m going to be really honest with you. I was invited to your house to meet you. I immediately fell in love with you. You are just such a down to earth, amazing, smart, funny, interesting, real person.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
Thank you. That flattery will get you everywhere. Well, honestly, I felt the same about you. See, we think along... With you. Like it’s all fucked up. It’s all gatekeepers and all of their power is in saying no because it makes them feel important and, like, they’re not doing anything for the art. Not doing... In fact, they’re retarding the art.
Adam Moskowitz:
Yes. And, you know, innovation. No creativity.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
None of it.
Adam Moskowitz:
Yeah. Vanilla, vanilla, vanilla.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
Yeah, yeah.
Adam Moskowitz:
No risk.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
Oh, I know. Let’s make another superhero movie.
Adam Moskowitz:
Right?
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
Right.
Adam Moskowitz:
Baking show. Baking show. We need another baking... Let’s do a show that’s about baking. But we’re going to trick you and say, is it cake or is it not cake?
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
At the same time that this is happening on that side of the house. Right. No creativity. Copy, copy, copy. We have this explosion of truly, like you’re the perfect example, truly creative work being done. And I believe deeply there is an audience for that work. I believe that there’s a not that small part of society that is like, hell yeah, I don’t have to watch another fucking baking show.
Adam Moskowitz:
And not only that, but the distribution’s democratized. And it’s not even just thinking about it in terms of America. It’s now thinking about in terms of the globe. And there’s unequivocally, if there’s one thing I learned when working at Yahoo back in the day, is if one person’s thinking about it, 100 people are thinking about it.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
Absolutely.
Adam Moskowitz:
If 100 people are thinking about it, a thousand people are thinking about it. And good, like, good shit always finds a home.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
Totally. You know, there’s an author, Howard Bloom, who used this great analogy, which I use often, and it fits with you, I think, or with what we’re doing together. And that is if you take a bunch of salt and you put it into a big clear beaker, right? You put a whole box of Morton table salt in there, then you boil it and let it cool. The salt disappears. You can’t see the salt anymore. So as the beaker is sitting there, it looks like a beaker of water. Walk over to it with a single grain of salt and drop it in and it all comes together. And that’s what we’re doing there. Like the gatekeepers, right? They’re looking, they’re saying, that looks like a beaker of water to me. I’m not going to try anything different with it.
Meanwhile, there’s a huge audience there that they just can’t be bothered to drop a single piece of salt in there to find out how big that audience is.
Adam Moskowitz:
And just to be clear, if they want to make a deal with us, we’ll make a deal with you. You just got to pay us fair market value, right? We’re going to do deals if they come to the table, but we’re going to get you to the table after we prove the audience. And that’s the thing, right? So that’s where I think we’re at in the media economy is that YouTube, Instagram, TikTok is, like, we’ll build the audience, we’ll prove the concept. And so there’s no risk takers on the gatekeeping side. But there are toll booths and, like, I’ll gladly make them pay the toll booth for us to build the audience. But you also asked a different question, which was, what’s the movie about? Where was the risk?
Because the risk was the movie’s about competitive cheesemongering, following American cheesemongers going to France to compete in a world championship cheesemonger contest, where we’ve never done well. Right, right. Never done well because it’s European, it’s French. Bring it back to the beginning of the conversation. Like, they don’t even know we have good cheese here. And the cool thing, I don’t want to spoil the movie, but let’s just say that, like, also part of it was I went to the... I went to the contest as a drug addict and alcoholic, so it was an excuse to party. Never took it seriously. I just paved the way. And then in recovery, I decided to take it seriously, and that’s when we decided to make the movie.
So the question was, how are we going to do with a real team, helping the best cheesemongers become the greatest cheesemongers? Yeah. And we performed really well when we made the movie, and then went back and performed even better recently. And the good news is the movie’s not done. And so it is done, but there’s still room for the credits. And... And we did the impossible.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
And watching the movie in, you know, the format I saw it in...
Adam Moskowitz:
Right.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
We rented a theater right over here, remember?
Adam Moskowitz:
I do. The movie’s so much different now, by the way, but... Yes.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
Yeah, no, I know. I’ve seen or been told about some of the changes, but that version, like, I loved it. I loved watching it. And I think that there’s something else in our base human OS code. People, like, kind of like competitions and, you know, it can be about driving an F1 car, or it can be about, like, making the best cheese or presenting it the best way. But the... The comments is what I really loved. Like, I was just listening to everyone around me, and they’re like, yeah... I did not think, like, one guy said to the other one, well, you know, I know Jim. And he said that we should come. And I was like, okay, I’m going to... I’m going to go. And he’s like, that was really good.
Adam Moskowitz:
So it’s funny that you said that. I am at a stage in my life where I’m just making things because I need to make them. And so it’s not about the result. It’s about the process. It’s about the journey. It’s, like, what it’s all about. At that same time viewing, there was a couple in front of me, and the woman was just, like, losing her mind. And I was, like, convinced she was in the cheese business because it was, like, with each scene, there was, like, a gasp or an awe or a laugh. It was as if she knew the people in the movie. And when the movie ended, I went around. She was like, oh, my... She’s like, oh, my God, that was great. I’m like, are you in the cheese business?
She goes, no, I didn’t even know what a cheesemonger was yesterday. And I was like, oh, my God, we’re totally onto something here. And I think the movie is not just about cheese. It’s about the same theme as everything we’ve been talking about today, which is being passionate, having purpose. Like, not taking no for an answer, like believing in yourself.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
That’s the dirty little secret. Right. Because that’s why she was gasping.
Adam Moskowitz:
That’s why.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
Because you saw that in the participants. You saw that in you. You saw that in everyone that was in that movie. And that’s what people respond to, I think. Right.
Adam Moskowitz:
More so now than ever. Yeah. Actually, I think we need heroes, and our heroes need to show up not as, like, white men with good hair and a cape. I think heroes need to show up in a lot... Like, we need more lassies. You know what I mean? We need some more like, off color, like, furry, weird heroes.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
And... And not even that. We just need people who don’t think that saying, oh, nothing’s going to work. The world’s going to end, or, you know, we need some people. And I’m not talking about being Panglossian here. I’m talking about...
Adam Moskowitz:
What does that word mean?
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
So Dr. Pangloss came from Voltaire’s Candide.
Adam Moskowitz:
Okay.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
His... His attitude was that we live in the best of all possible worlds.
Adam Moskowitz:
Okay.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
And so that’s not true. Of course not.
Adam Moskowitz:
Okay, good.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
And Voltaire kind of made that point in the book Candide, because Dr. Pangloss is, like, there’s earthquakes and fires and people are after them to kill him. And Dr. Pangloss is just going along saying, no, no, we live in the best of all possible worlds. So that’s the caricature type of optimism. Right. I believe that what I am is a rational optimist.
Adam Moskowitz:
Yes.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
Does it mean that everything’s going to work out? Absolutely not. Does it mean that even if we make these great strides and great progress that we aren’t going to still have a bunch of fucking problems? Of course it doesn’t. But it means that we little humans, putting our minds together, can come up with miraculous things.
Adam Moskowitz:
Yes.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
We can come up with better explanations, better conditions. Does that mean we’re going to have no problems? Of course not. But they’re going to be better problems.
Adam Moskowitz:
I want problems. That’s where the magic happens.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
Exactly.
Adam Moskowitz:
Remain teachable.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
Problems are portals to discovery.
Adam Moskowitz:
Yes.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
And, like, everyone... Oh, no. We couldn’t do that. That would cause a problem.
Adam Moskowitz:
Good, good. Yes. Disrupt.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
Cause some problems. Because if you don’t, you’re just, look, life is movement, stasis is death. As you’re moving, you’re taking risks.
Adam Moskowitz:
The platform that you’re helping me rise up to is this idea of believe in yourself, bet on yourself, believe anything is possible. And hard work and practice matters.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
Totally.
Adam Moskowitz:
That’s, that’s hard work and practice. Practice and hard work. But...
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
But, you know, the thing is, I think that what stops so many people is my friend Annie Duke has written several books about this. She was the poker champion. And she puts it this way. What stops so many people dead in their tracks is what she calls resulting. And by that she means, like, you and I play a hand of poker, right? I lose and then I vow I’m never going to play poker ever again. Because I lost. I resulted from that one time. That’s looking at the world like it’s a snapshot.
Adam Moskowitz:
Yep.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
The world is a movie.
Adam Moskowitz:
Yeah.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
It is a never ending movie where the cast changes, where the topic of the movie changes, but it’s a movie, it keeps moving on. And, like, people in my old business, asset management, like, we had this horrible quarter. Who the fuck cares? Are you in this? What’s your time horizon? I always say to people, my time horizon is infinite.
Adam Moskowitz:
Amen. Is that where you come with, is that where you came up with the name?
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
Pretty much, yeah. And it wasn’t even mine. I stole it. It was our first big client and he was... You would have loved this guy. Talk about authentic. So I had to fly all the way to New Mexico because he made a fortune selling his gold company to Barrick Gold. And so, like, you know, three planes, two cars and three mules later, I find his place in the middle of nowhere. And this guy is just amazing. His wife is amazing, his kids are amazing. And so I sit down, he’s, like, in his seven... This is a long time ago. And he’s, like, in his 70s. And so what have I done? You know, I’m the young guy, I’m 30, whatever. At this time I brought him these, like, really conservative portfolios. And... And he’s looking at me and every inch the rancher, you know.
And he took me up in his plane to show me how he finds gold fields and explains the... How the earth looks different. Something about an artist.
Adam Moskowitz:
Yeah, I mean, you got to see... You got to see things.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
Exactly. Right. Anyway, so he’s, like, looking at all the material and he’s like, why the fuck did you bring these conservative things to me? And I went, well, I kind of thought, you know, you’re in your 70s. You don’t want to take a lot of risks. And he points to the table next to the couch we’re sitting on, and it’s covered, overflowing with pictures of his kids, his grandkids, and his great grandkids. And he looks at me, gets this big smile on his face, and he points and he goes, my time horizon is infinite. And I’m like, I love you. And I’ve been using it ever since. And it really changes the way you...
Adam Moskowitz:
Think also in terms of, like, optimism and pessimism. I, you know, this idea of, like, the glass is half full or the glass is half empty. Yeah. I’m just really stoked to have a glass. Just really stoked.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
Cheers to that.
Adam Moskowitz:
We got glasses, and I keep the glasses clean because I don’t know what’s going to go in it.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
That’s right.
Adam Moskowitz:
But I’m ready.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
Well, Adam, this has been, like, incredible. Even more... Even more incredible than I was anticipating.
Adam Moskowitz:
I’m just super stoked that you’re doing it with the video now.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
Yeah.
Adam Moskowitz:
Like, this is great, because I’m a seeing person.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
Yeah. Now, we always get to the fun last question, Infinite Loops. Okay. And that is we’re going to wave a wand. We’re going to make you the absolute emperor of the world. A couple of rules.
Adam Moskowitz:
Okay.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
You can’t kill anybody.
Adam Moskowitz:
Okay.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
You can’t put anybody in a reeducation camp.
Adam Moskowitz:
Okay.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
Maybe if they fuck with your last name, you could put them there for a day or two.
Adam Moskowitz:
Fair point.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
But what you can do is we’re going to hand you a magical microphone. You can say two things into it. It’ll auto translate into everybody’s dreams on the planet. They’re going to wake up whenever their next day is, and they’re going to say, you know, I’ve just had two of the best ideas ever, and unlike all those other times, I’m going to actually start acting on these ideas today. What two things are you going to incept into the world?
Adam Moskowitz:
Leaders lead. Lead with love.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
I love them both. Adam, thank you so much. This has been so much fun, and I think we’re going to do really great together.
Adam Moskowitz:
We already are. This has been awesome. Thanks so much.
Jim O’Shaughnessy:
All right, cheers.
