St. Joe’s professor turned her love of cheese into her life’s work

Tenaya Darlington, M.F.A., associate professor of English, never thought her world would revolve around a ball of cheese. However, what was once a childhood appreciation has become her life’s passion.

“I grew up eating a cheese board every Sunday,” Darlington said. “Cheese was a big part of my life as a kid.”

Growing up, Darlington and her brother André, co-author of their book “The New Cocktail Hour: The Essential Guide to Handcrafted Drinks,” lived in a traditional Swiss household in Cleveland, Ohio. Instead of Christmas dinner, her family had fondue parties. For Thanksgiving, they would have raclette, a traditional Swiss dish, instead of turkey. Cheese played an integral part in Darlington’s developing identity.

“We cooked together as a family every night,” Darlington said. “We had people over probably every weekend. It was just this household that was full of food loving souls. I grew up with all these Swiss mountain cheese traditions, and it was just a part of who we were.”

Today, Darlington has written her own book about cheese, co-authored cookbooks with her brother, hosts a biannual Cheese Ball fundraiser in Philadelphia and runs a popular blog, “Madame Fromage”, centered on her love of cheese. On top of that, she teaches a food writing course at St. Joe’s.

This year, Madame Fromage celebrates its 10th birthday. The blog came about during a journalism class Darlington attended where an employee at the Philadelphia Inquirer suggested that if someone wanted to really break into journalism, that someone should start a blog.

“Basically, I set up Madame Fromage to get a Ph.D. in cheese,” Darlington said.

However, the idea of a blog originally didn’t seem like a viable option for Darlington. Having previously been paid for writing in the food section of a newspaper in Madison, Wisconsin Darlington felt that blogging would be essentially free writing.

“I thought to myself, ‘You know what, before I negate this bit of advice from the Philadelphia Inquirer, I should start a blog to understand what it’s all about,’” Darlington said.

What Darlington originally thought of as free writing eventually led to job offers from popular cheese vendors in Philadelphia, such as Di Bruno Bros., a high quality food retailer in the Italian Market on 9th Street. In 2013 Darlington published “Di Bruno Bros. House of Cheese: A guide to Wedges, Recipes, and Pairing,” a cheese pairing book only  mentioning cheeses offered at Di Bruno Bros.

Tommy Amorim, store manager of the Italian Market location, felt that collaborating with Darlington was the best possible choice because of her deep appreciation of cheese.

“Her passion for cheese was endless, so it made sense for us to pair with her to make that happen,” Amorim said.

Opportunities to write books for businesses was something Darlington never thought she’d be doing after starting Madame Fromage, especially since the blog was only a couple of years old at the time of publication of “House of Cheese.”

“I never imagined that the cheese makers would, say, discover themselves on [my] site and then write to me or that the owner of Di Bruno Brothers would call me up and offer me a job,” Darlington said. “I kept the blog going because I just kept meeting more and more interesting people and getting more and more interesting opportunities through it.”

In September, cheese took Darlington to a conference and festival in northern Italy where she discovered that “The New Cocktail Hour” was chosen to be a part of actress Jennifer Lawrence’s wedding registry. When Darlington discovered that the Hollywood star chose her book to be on the registry, she said a former student of her’s said, “expect the Oprah Effect.”

“I couldn’t believe it,” Darlington said. “I told some French chefs who were standing next to me and they were like, ‘who?’ It wasn’t until I got back to the United States that stuff really started flooding my inbox.”

“The New Cocktail Hour” is the first installment of a “cocktail trilogy” Darlington and her brother have written regarding cocktail pairings. The siblings have also written “Booze and Vinyl: A Spirited Guide to Great Music and Mixed Drinks,” a vinyl record and cocktail pairing book, and “Movie Night Menus: Dinner and Drink Recipes Inspired by the Films We Love,” a book that pairs cocktails with classic movies. What made “The New Cocktail Hour” different from its predecessors is that it allows the reader to “drink their way through cocktail history.”

“To me, that’s what’s interesting about the cocktail,” Darlington said. “It had so many cultural moments. It’s very much a book that educates people and also shows them how to have a good time.”

For Darlington, food is all about enjoying the moment. This is something she teaches in her classes. Kevin Duncan ’20,  who is currently enrolled in Darlington’s food writing class, explained that Darlington engages her students to think deeper about their day-to-day interactions with food.

“We all deal with and need food every day,” Duncan said. “[In the class] we dive into our relationship with food and the general relationships with food that people have.”

From the beginning of the semester, Darlington made sure that her students felt comfortable when having serious discussions about food.

Shannon Scimecca ’20, another student in Darlington’s food writing class, said she sees the class as a brief getaway from her college schedule.

“The first day of class she was like, ‘My name is Tenaya, rhymes with papaya,’” Scimecca said. “She even is like, ‘If you’re stressed out about classes, this is an hour for you to just breathe and relax and talk about food.’ It’s like a class vacation.”

From Darlington’s point of view, food writing is more than just saying something tastes amazing and delicious. It’s about being able to say why the sweetness of candy corn is different from the sweetness of jelly beans and how no two salts taste the same. Like most of her recent work, Darlington’s passion for being able to define her taste buds and  palette emerged from her love of cheese.

“It was all these quirky little cheeses with unbelievably funky looking rinds and I just wanted to know more about them,” Darlington said. “I just really started to appreciate how a fine cheese and well-made cheese took you to the moon.”