Like very few good stories, this saga began on Twitter when, late one night, I saw an article on Food & Wine about a Tillamook Cheddar special edition release of a 40-pound block of cheese they're calling the Mother Loaf. L-M-A-O I thought to myself, deliriously sleep deprived. "My body is ready," I dashed off.
A day later a representative from the brand had emailed me that not only is that cheese behemoth a real thing, really going onsale on Tillamook's website on Feb. 13 (for $112, because true love don't come cheap), but that it's part of a capsule collection for National Cheddar Day (a holiday I can't believe I don't already have on my calendar) — and there's fashion, to boot.
Feast your eyes, as I have been all day already, on a cheddar-toned matching tie-dye sweatsuit (sweatshirt, $50; sweatpants, $55); cheddar-inspired nail polish for the cheerfully orange mani you didn't know you needed; and an honestly very cute see-through mini bag that they say is the perfect size for carrying a block of cheese, but that I also suspect would work for your iPhone and a mask (or two). The Baby Loaf Bag was made by woman-owned Portland Garment Factory, a zero-waste studio that has worked with Eileen Fisher and Nike in the past and currently sells some cute, colorblocked masks and home goods.
Now it's no secret that pretty much everyone is living in head-to-toe sweats right now. And I'd be lying if I said I hadn't already impulse bought one tie-dye item in the middle of the night since this pandemic began. I'm about one more targeted ad away from becoming the ashamed owner of those tie-dye socks that inexplicably cost more than $90.
But back to the cheese at hand: The Tillamook capsule goes live at noon EST on the 13th, but there are untold numbers of actual edible cheese things to purchase on the site right now. "We've heard time and again from our fans across the country that they wanted access to their favorite and harder-to-find Tillamook cheese products at the touch of a button," Sue Kapllani, the brand's VP of Marketing, said in a statement. And while on one hand I want to laugh at that, I literally was up at night wishing I had more cheese products up with me. Now there's a website for that specific need, and the perfect outfit to wear while I peruse it.
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So, listen. We're coming up on month 12 of pandemic isolation. I've probably eaten at least a Mother Loaf's worth of cheddar cheese, and my work-from-home wardrobe consists of choosing one of my good sweatshirts for a day of not leaving my house. If you were about to tell me this launch doesn't make perfect sense, well, I guess I'm still waiting.
