On May Day we always close the store in solidarity with the workers of the world. We celebrate the day with a morning philosophy session and an afternoon picnic.
This year more than ever there seems to be a frontal assault on laborers and labor unions. I urge everyone to speak up for the rights that where so hard won.
Below is a copy of a sign we put in our window that helps explain the events of the Hay Market riots.
May 1st, International Worker’s Day, commemorates the efforts by workers throughout the world to attain control over their labor. Though the day has its historical roots and was first celebrated in the United States, we are one of the few countries where it is currently not a holiday.
International Worker’s Day began in the 1880’s with the struggle for an eight hour work day. Support for the movement grew quickly for at that time laborers were often working 12-14 hour days. The most famous event in May Day history took place in 1886 at Haymarket Square. There, on the evening of May 4, a meeting was called in support of strikers who were killed the day before. 3,000 persons assembled. As the hour grew late and the crowd dwindled to a few hundred a detachment of 180 policemen showed up, advanced on the speakers’ platform, and ordered the crowd to disperse. A bomb exploded in the midst of the police, wounding sixty-six policemen, of whom seven later died. The police fired into the crowd, killing several people, wounding two hundred.
With no evidence of who threw the bomb, the police arrested eight anarchist leaders in Chicago. The evidence against the eight anarchists was their ideas, their literature; none had been at Haymarket that day except one, who was speaking when the bomb exploded. All eight were found guilty and sentenced to die, four were hanged, one killed himself in jail, and three remained in prison. To this day it has not been discovered who threw the bomb.
While the immediate result was the suppression of the radical movement, the long term effect was to keep alive the class anger of many. Sixty Thousand people signed petitions to the new governor of Illinois, who investigated the facts, denounced what had happened and pardoned the three remaining prisoners. It is this event, both the tragedy of Haymarket and the labor victories which followed, that we remember on this day.
The Cheese Board has celebrated International Worker’s Day for the past 40 years by closing on May 1st. We choose to spend the day together, enjoying a picnic and discussing the beliefs that underlie our business philosophy and have brought us, as workers to the Cheese Board. For us May Day is not only a day to remember the past, but also a day to recognize that labor struggles still exist throughout the world. We celebrate labor on a day which has historical significance and political context to workers in other countries as well. We hope that you, our customer, will support us in our celebration of workers throughout the world.
I wanted to share this amazing photo of our mixer filled with sour dough. It looks alive (and it is). 
The conference is right here in Berkeley on April 8th and 9th. You can learn more about the conference and sign up to attend at http://www.cccd.coop/events.
This Thursday, March 17th we will be baking Irish Soda scones, Light Rye Bread and Irish Soda Bread. The scones will be out of the oven first thing in the morning and the two breads should be available by 10 a.m. We also have some Irish cheeses in house. My favorite is the Cashel Blue cheese that is creamy, sweet and has plenty of blue veining.
With all this rain we are sure to have a rainbow. In the mean time stay dry.
The year is filling up with co-op conferences. The one closest in location and date is the California Co-ops and Communities Conference (sponsoed by UC Davis) right here in Berkeley at the Clark Kerr Campus on April 8th and 9th. Look here for more information.
We brought up a wheel of Gruyere that had been aging in our “cellar” for 8 months. When we originally recieved the cheese it was already at least a year old. To our surprise and pleasure the aging brought out the flavors of spring grasses and sunshine that I associate with a spring Comte. We liked the results so much that we may put aside another one for next year.
In our most recent shipment of cheese we got in a few wheels of Moses Sleeper from Jasper Hill Farm. It is a small 1.2 pound wheel of sweet, unctuous heaven. It is made from pasteurized Ayrshire cow’s milk and aged for 2 months. I tasted this cheese last year when I was in New York and brought a wheel back in my suitcase to share with my fellow cheese mongers at the store. It has just become available to us via normal shipping routes.
In other cheese news, Janet Fletcher is offering cheese and wine classes in Napa. They will be held on the first Thursday of the month starting in May. For more information check out her website at www.janetfletcher.com. Click on Cheese Classes.
Mateo Chavez of “The Cheese Board” in Berkeley, CA talks about his life as a member of a worker cooperative.
