Pizza

I'm allergic to cheese. I'm not lactose intolerant, and milk and yogurt are completely fine, but cheese gives me the sniffles, the coughs, the watery eyes, and basically the symptoms of a cold minus the annoying feeling in my throat.

Some cheeses, like Provolone or Mozzarella (especially when it's fresh) are perfectly alright. I can eat them three meals a day (not that I do, though my roommate is wont to eat cheese straight off the wheel/out of the bag/etc.) and nothing will happen.


Then there's Parmesan and Cheddar. Oh god, cheddar. In middle school and high school, a handful of Goldfish or Cheez-Its (and I have small hands!) was enough to bring on the full-blown everybody-asking-if-I'm-sick list of symptoms. White cheddar was the absolute worst.

But guess what my favorite food was from childhood.

Pizza.

Guess what my favorite snack was.

Cheez-Its. Especially white cheddar.

It wasn't rebellion or my wanting them because I couldn't have them. On the contrary, I ate them by the pies and by the boxes, respectively, despite the consequences. And then I walked around with a permanent sniffle.

By the end of high school, I was mostly managing to avoid cheese, but it's much more difficult as a college student. At any rate, I can now manage a handful of white cheddar Cheez-its without the allergy, so maybe if I just keep holding out a little bit longer, they'll all be gone!

Wouldn't that be wonderful? Then I could eat Cheeseboard pizza all the time!
(Seriously though, their pizza is amazing. We had it for lunch during our lab meeting today and it inspired this whole post.)