The first step to coming to terms with the fact that you’re a cheese nerd is admitting it. The second step is getting something to haul around your cheese purchases. Before we went down to the Oregon Cheese Guild Fest at the Rogue Creamery, I bought a small Coleman cooler to stash our cheese purchases so that they would keep over the next day and the long car ride home. I threw in a little cold pack and then I didn’t have to worry about my cheeses.

When Nicole and I went to the Seattle festival, I brought the cooler then, too, but left it in the car. It was a hot, glorious day and I definitely would have needed to make use of it if we had bought anything. But, strangely, we didn’t buy anything at the festival. If we had, it would have been a bit unwieldy to carry the thing around and annoying to truck back to the car which wasn’t quite nearby.

So… delight! I just came across these insulated lunch bags from Mario Batali that would be perfect for a festival or farmer’s market. The Margherite Satchel in persimmon would be perfect for a few wedges of cheese and totally fashionable.

The Tufoli Messenger is understated and could go from farmer’s market to daily commute with no problem. It’s got a few different pockets so you could pack your lunch and hide away all your other daily stuffs.

The prices are great, too, ranging from $28 – $55. These would make great gifts! Oh, which one to get?!

I wonder if grilled cheese is the bacon craze of ’09. I feel like I’m seeing grilled cheese everywhere! As a long-time aficionado, I support this trend. I recently came across Melody Kramer’s Flickr photo set of a grilled cheese party that she pulled off with some amazing ingredients.

She put together an array of breads, some fancy extras including the rather scary-sounding “lardo” and a staggering array of cheeses. What a great idea! Click the image above to get her annotated Flickr photo and more photos of grilled cheese heaven.

This is one of the most insane, hilarious, painful things I have seen in a long time. Apparently this is a real event held on the incredibly steep Copper’s Hill in Gloucestershire, England. It’s like Jackass meets… uh, cheese!

You can find out more about the annual Gloucester “Cheese Rolling and Wake” on their webpage.