Anne Saxelby Always Wants Two Breakfasts

By Alan Sytsma, Illustration by Margalit Cutler

“For me,” says Anne Saxelby, “‘fancy’ cheese as a kid was the ‘sliced white American’ kind.” These days, it’s a little different, since Saxelby and her namesake cheese shop have been crucial to the explosion of interest, understanding, and appreciation for actual American cheese. This fall, her expertise will spread even further when her book, The New Rules of Cheese, is published in October. It is, she says modestly, “a little guide to the things I wanted to say,” but given Saxelby’s reputation, it’s safe to assume the “little guide” will also be an authoritative take on cheese in all its forms. Speaking of multitudes of cultured dairy products, Saxelby spent the past week vacationing in Vermont, sampling what seems like every cheese and pastry she and her family encountered along the way. (This, in Grub’s estimation, is the correct way to vacation.)