How a Reluctant Competitor Won the Cheesemonger Invitational Championship

Cara Condon did not expect to win the 2022 Cheesemonger Invitational (CMI); in fact she only decided to compete on the last day for registration. But not only did she go to CMI, she became this year’s champion in June.

A Life Changing Cheese

Condon’s journey to cheesemonger champ started when she was at a beer and cheese tasting in 2011. She remembers taking a bite of Pleasant Ridge Reserve, an alpine style cheese from Uplands Cheese, which “completely blew my mind,” she explained. She immediately wanted to know more about the person leading the tasting, specifically asking if this was her job. “I can't believe someone's job is to talk about cheese,” she recalled from the moment.

Condon had grown up with the standard American fare of American cheese singles and preferring cheese sandwiches over peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. “I was a little cheese freak,” she said. Condon even remembered going to Wisconsin and having a Havarti cheese sandwich, which she described as magical.

Beautiful Rind photo credit Beautiful Rind

But that was about it for cheese until college. That taste of Pleasant Ridge tipped the scales for Condon to search for more delicious cheeses. She ended up taking a job at Pastoral, a Chicago cheese shop that closed in 2019, and learning about the 150 plus cheeses thanks to her coworkers and her own hard work. “I've been here ever since I quickly knew that I was going to stay in cheese,” she explained. She’d go on to work at Goose Island brewery as an educator and then returned full circle to cheese mongering at Beautiful Rind early this year full-time.

Competing photo credit: Kathryn M. Sheldon @kathrynmichael

Preparing for CMI

And that was part of her hesitation when offered the opportunity by her mother to go to CMI as a birthday gift. She dismissed it due to all the preparatory work that she would have to do for the competition including three challenges that had to be prepared ahead of time. Two of her cheese friends also chimed in to encourage her to go but she was dubious. “I haven't been cheese mongering this whole time. I'm out of practice. But at the same time, I was back in this role that I used to have and I loved,” she said. It took a lot of convincing and peer pressure but she decided to sign up for the competition.

From sign up to the competition, Condon had two weeks to prepare for 10 challenges. Three of them required prep work ahead of time including the Perfect Beverage, Perfect Slate, and Perfect Bite. The Perfect Beverage she had to prepare a beverage with an assigned cheese, in her case Chällerhocker, a Swiss brined cheese that means “sitting in the cellar” that she paired with Galliano coffee liqueur and pineapple juice with a dried orange wheel garnish. “I'm just still blown away that those two things work so well together. It's truly a surprising combination,” she said.

The other seven challenges include a written test, taste test, aroma test, cut test, paper test, plastic wrap, and salesmanship.

For the Perfect Slate, she was also assigned Chällerhocker that she had to make an 11” cheese slate within 30 minutes. For the Perfect Bite, she had to prepare 100 bite size portions with a preassigned cheese. She paired Caveman Blue, an organic bleu cheese from Rogue Creamery, with dried tart cherries, Mini Toast, chocolate almond stout ganache, with a piece of thyme on top.

Not only did she have to study for the competition for the other challenges, but she had to figure out the logistics of getting all her cheeses and other foods to New York.

Finalists with Adam with linked credit photo credit: Kathryn M. Sheldon @kathrynmichael

Education is the Real Prize

When Condon got to the competition, she was ready to compete, and more importantly, learn. Adam Moskowitz, aka Mr. Moo and founder of the competition, told the cheesemongers that “this is not a competition even though it's called that. There's a lot of education leading up to it and it's really meant to bolster you as a monger but also as a human being…This is about cheese but it's not about cheese,” Condon recalled. There was a sense of shared community; she met people, made connections, and everyone even helped each other out despite the fact that they were competing against one another.

Winning with Adam photo credit: Kathryn M. Sheldon @kathrynmichael

A Surprising Win

But Condon also described the experience as “investing in yourself” and likening it to self-care. Condon explained, “You don't get to eat thoughtfully and meet producers and have these really great conversations. That’s a rare thing. That is your job for three days to learn in taste and be exposed to more cheeses and more stories.” She came away from the experience with a notebook filled with notes, even from cheesemakers she already knew a lot about previously.

As for winning, that was “insane.” She told people that she just wanted 6th place, which was the best finish without having to go on stage where all the cameras would be. She certainly hadn’t expected to be a finalist, which meant five more challenges, before the cheesemonger champion was announced. She kept expecting to hear her name in 5th thru 2nd place and couldn’t believe it when her name did not get called.

Condon couldn’t believe that she had won, wearing a gold Michael Jordan jersey to represent Chicago and her love for the Bulls. Her cheesemonger number was 23 as was Jordan’s numbers with the Bulls.

Since her win in mid-June, Condon has been interviewed in the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, on the radio. People have been coming into Beautiful Rind just to see her. “It's been a weird, weird ride. I've been giddy and I'm smiling,” Condon said.

Congratulations again to Cara Condon for her extraordinary achievement and representing the Chicago cheese scene! Read more about 2022 NYC Cheesemonger Invitational.