Edible complex.

• Author: Guzman, Pilar
• Position: Specialty cheese merchants Dean & Deluca

This year marks the 20th birthday of one of New York's most flavorful institutions -- the Vatican of Vichyssoise, the Pantheon of Porcini, the Alhambra of Arugula: Dean & Deluca. With "you eat with your eyes first" as its mantra, the store's carefully cultivated mystique has lured countless pilgrims into its 9,700-square-feet of converted SoHo loft space since founding fathers Giorgio Deluca, Joel Dean, and Jack Ceglac first set up shop at the comer of Broadway and Prince. But make no mistake, this is more than just an overpriced gourmet grocery. With its signature medley of marble slabs and crusty breads, stainless steel and Moroccan trout, wooden crates and runny Stiltons, Dean & Deluca has pioneered an overall aesthetic that is more lifestyle museum than mere food Mecca.

As a seasoned Dean & Deluca voyeur, I was familiar with the sophisticated, bespectacled grad-student type that worked the cheese counter. And so it was that, finding myself with time on my hands between writing gigs and a hankering for cheese knowledge, I recently filled out an application to join their ranks. The store manager was perplexed by my eclectic and oddly unrelated job experience (not to mention a lack of retail experience of any sort), but he was clearly desperate and hopeful enough to take a chance on my earnest demeanor and conspicuous passion for all things edible. A life-long student, I treated my new job like any other academic undertaking. I taught myself the basics, did some extracurricular reading, and asked a lot of questions.

The Glass Effect[TM]

I spent the first week on the back counter learning proper Dean & Deluca cheese-wrapping techniques. I took great pride in stretching the Saran wrap to the point of creaselessness. The key, I was told, was to cut the plastic just the right size -- excess Saran makes it difficult to achieve the necessary tension and too small a piece causes tears in the plastic, thus defeating the sealing function. It's one of those tricks of the trade that, once acquired, can be taken anywhere!

By day two, I was just starting to get the hang of it when suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I spied Giorgio Deluca -- aesthetic czar, foodie, and former history teacher -- across the marbled aisle. In the midst of his wildly gesticulative critique of the olive oil display, I could feel his eyes burning a hole into my novice cheese-wrapping hands. Uh-oh, he was heading toward me. With childlike logic, I reasoned that if our eyes didn't meet, he would somehow disappear. I assessed the unwrapped half-wheel of Pecorino Corsignano (a delightful aged Italian sheep's-milk cheese) and unrolled...