{"id":225,"date":"2006-03-23T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2006-03-23T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/2006\/03\/nothing-cheesy-about-this-nun.html"},"modified":"2006-03-23T12:00:00","modified_gmt":"2006-03-23T12:00:00","slug":"nothing-cheesy-about-this-nun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2006\/03\/nothing-cheesy-about-this-nun.html","title":{"rendered":"Nothing Cheesy about this Nun"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div>\n<p>In &#8220;National Lampoon\u2019s European Vacation,&#8221; Rusty Griswold discovers, much to his dismay, that every English television station airs the exact same show on cheese-making. So, when I saw that my local PBS station was airing a documentary called \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.shoppbs.org\/product\/index.jsp?productId=2231950&amp;cp=1789689&amp;parentPage=family&amp;cid=\">The Cheese Nun<\/a>,\u201d I was both intrigued and hesitant. What <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wgbh\/sisterwendy\/meet\/life.html\">Sister Wendy<\/a> is to art, Sister Noella is to cheese.  A Benedictine nun in Bethlehem, Conn., this former Sarah Lawrence student has been dubbed the \u201ccelebrated champion of France&#8217;s famous raw-milk cheeses\u201d by the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2003\/12\/21\/nyregion\/21CONN.html?ei=5007&amp;amp;en=b7090c05be6532e4&amp;ex=1387515600&amp;partner=USERLAND&amp;pagewanted=all&amp;position=\"><em>New York Times<\/em><\/a>, which also notes that she has \u201cachieved near rock-star status among cheesemakers and cheese-lovers.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>A cloistered nun&#8211;and in-house cheesemaker&#8211;at the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.abbeyofreginalaudis.com\/\">Abbey of Regina Laudis<\/a>, Sister Noella earned a doctorate in microbiology from the University of Connecticut after the abbey sent several sisters out into the world in order to learn new techniques to help with their farming and food production routines. She soon earned a Fulbright Scholarship and traveled around France for a year, visiting with traditional cheesemakers. Not only did she learn techniques passed down from generations, but she also studied the microbes and fungi from the historical cheese caves that give les fromages their distinctive tastes.<\/p>\n<p>Due to modern methods of mass production, traditional cheese making is a dying art, and these microbes may be lost to modernity&#8211;though not if Sister Noella can help it. This is one nun on a distinctively different crusade.<\/p>\n<p>The documentary, originally aired in 2004, is fascinating for a number of reasons: The microbiology of cheese, as it turns out, is extremely engaging, as is the French tradition of cheese-making. But most delightful is Sister Noelle herself, whose enthusiasm is absolutely contagious. And while she enjoys a cloistered lifestyle, much like her cheeses as they age, she does get out to accept numerous honors, including the French Food Spirit Award.<\/p>\n<p>Check your local listings.<\/p>\n<div style=\"clear:both;padding-bottom:0.25em\"><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In &#8220;National Lampoon\u2019s European Vacation,&#8221; Rusty Griswold discovers, much to his dismay, that every English television station airs the exact same show on cheese-making. So, when I saw that my local PBS station was airing a documentary called \u201cThe Cheese Nun,\u201d I was both intrigued and hesitant. What Sister Wendy is to art, Sister Noella&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":274,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Nothing Cheesy about this Nun<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2006\/03\/nothing-cheesy-about-this-nun.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Nothing Cheesy about this Nun\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In &#8220;National Lampoon\u2019s European Vacation,&#8221; Rusty Griswold discovers, much to his dismay, that every English television station airs the exact same show on cheese-making. So, when I saw that my local PBS station was airing a documentary called \u201cThe Cheese Nun,\u201d I was both intrigued and hesitant. What Sister Wendy is to art, Sister Noella&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2006\/03\/nothing-cheesy-about-this-nun.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Idol Chatter\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2006-03-23T12:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"ellen leventry\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Nothing Cheesy about this Nun","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2006\/03\/nothing-cheesy-about-this-nun.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Nothing Cheesy about this Nun","og_description":"In &#8220;National Lampoon\u2019s European Vacation,&#8221; Rusty Griswold discovers, much to his dismay, that every English television station airs the exact same show on cheese-making. So, when I saw that my local PBS station was airing a documentary called \u201cThe Cheese Nun,\u201d I was both intrigued and hesitant. What Sister Wendy is to art, Sister Noella&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2006\/03\/nothing-cheesy-about-this-nun.html","og_site_name":"Idol Chatter","article_published_time":"2006-03-23T12:00:00+00:00","author":"ellen leventry","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2006\/03\/nothing-cheesy-about-this-nun.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2006\/03\/nothing-cheesy-about-this-nun.html","name":"Nothing Cheesy about this Nun","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#website"},"datePublished":"2006-03-23T12:00:00+00:00","dateModified":"2006-03-23T12:00:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#\/schema\/person\/4679b2a5898dc96dae2c922e84d4bb2f"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2006\/03\/nothing-cheesy-about-this-nun.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2006\/03\/nothing-cheesy-about-this-nun.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2006\/03\/nothing-cheesy-about-this-nun.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Nothing Cheesy about this Nun"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/","name":"Idol Chatter","description":"Beliefnet Entertainment blog, TV blog, Movie blog, Religion in entertainment blog","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#\/schema\/person\/4679b2a5898dc96dae2c922e84d4bb2f","name":"ellen leventry","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"ellen leventry"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/author\/ellen-leventry"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/274"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=225"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}