Hi! My name is Charlie, and I'm The Tattooed Cheesemonger.

Well, let's be clear, I'm certainly not the first or the only tattooed cheesemonger out there, but I am a cheesemonger by trade, and I have many tattoos. And apparently I'm the first to think of using this combo as a brand.

My personal mission is simple: Make a living doing what I love. I've had a wild number of jobs (and entire careers!) in my adult life, and of the many lessons I've learned in that time, one that has become a guiding principle is that chasing money, achievement, or acclaim will only ever provide shallow victories. Finding fulfillment in your life's work is a vastly more elusive, but immensely more rewarding quest.

The mission of The Tattooed Cheesemonger is also pretty simple: to supply Marquette County and Michigan's Upper Peninsula with some of the very best specialty foods I can find, and to cultivate a community around food culture and the storytelling that brings it to life. I plan to source traditionally-made and small-batch products that celebrate the locales and cultures that produced them, including domestic and imported cheeses, cured meats, craft chocolate, and more. And wherever possible, I'll endeavor to share the stories of those products and those people.

Let me step back for a moment. Our global food system is deeply, deeply flawed. You might even say broken. We've become completely detached from the notion of our food as anything but an anonymous commodity. Global trade---but particularly that of perishable food goods---consumes an incredible amount of resources. I don't pretend that it's possible, let alone easy, for myself or anyone else to escape the realities of the society and systems we live in, but I strive to be a more mindful participant, and to share that mindfulness when I can.

I'm also just getting started on this crazy endeavor so it's entirely possible that this quest will change along the way. But for now, I plan to start out later this year with pop-up engagements at the Marquette Farmers Market and other local establishments with a complimentary mission (hit me up if you're one of these... 😉) . If things go well, I'll work towards identifying and establishing a brick-and-mortar presence that will serve as both cheese shop and tasting room, offering small-group experiences wandering across the products, regions, styles and flavors that my inventory represents. I hope to operate the tasting room as a nonprofit benefitting local organizations, especially those focused on food systems and sustainability.

I also plan to do a fair bit of content production for social media so those of you not local to Marquette can follow along and enjoy sharing in the journey, and to offer a membership program for those who want to support this effort and enjoy special access to new products and offerings.

Stay tuned to @tatted.monger on instagram for all the latest updates!