Chef Opens Gourmet Cheese Shop

One chef is bringing the world to downtown Cranford – in the form of cheese.

Cheese…Please, located at 26 Eastman Avenue, offers over 60 different cheeses from around the world as well as candy, snacks and canned goods from England and Ireland.

"I've never met a cheese I didn't like," boasts owner Maria Tisdall, who officially opened shop Aug. 31.

Cheese…Please stocks cheeses from France, Italy, Spain, Ireland, England, Switzerland and Austria. Tisdale rotates her stock every week and is happy to make special orders for customers.

Tisdall says she's been in the food business for 22 years. She's culinary school-trained and has worked all over the country. For 13 years, Tisdall cooked for the Benedictine sisters at St. Walburga in Elizabeth; she wrote a book called The Convent Cook about her experiences with the sisters. It was only recently that she decided to branch out and work with cheese. After having run the cheese department at the Shop-Rite in Garwood, Tisdale decided to open her own store.

"It's something she's always wanted to do," says longtime friend Kim Stevens-Redstone.

Cheese…Please is a family affair; Tisdall's parents and her two sons help out around the store; she describes another employee as "like a daughter." She comes from a food-loving family of six and remembers hearing, "Cheese, please, pass the cheese, please," around her childhood dinner table so often that choosing a name for her shop was easy.

Tisdall is looking for two more part-timers to join the work family and seeks to hire local cheese lovers. She's delighted to be doing business in Cranford.

"I love Cranford," she says. "I love the people and the business community. I love that there's a real sense of support."

Tisdall's personal favorite is a French bleu called Saint Agur. She expects brie to be very popular, and describes the Prima Donna gouda as life-changing. With 60 cheeses, it's easy to feel intimidated, but Tisdall says she 's well-educated about her product; she will answer questions and make recommendations.

Her knowledge base runs from the best cheese-and-wine pairings to how varying conditions affect the way cheese tastes. She says it leans heavily on the both the type of milk used – cow, sheep or goat – and the conditions in which the dairy animal was raised. The type of grass the animal eats affects the taste, as does the altitude at which the animal was raised.

For cheese neophytes, she recommends the so-called "Holy Trinity" of cheese: a mixture of sheeps' milk, goats' milk and cows' milk cheeses with hard, semi-soft and soft textures.

"Cheese (to the culinary arts) is like bedside manner in the medical profession," Tisdall says. "It's so important, but nobody teaches you about it."