Support TEAM USA on their journey to the Mondial du Fromage!

Courtney & Emilia need your help to bring home the gold!

After earning the top 2 spots at this year’s CMI Masters competition, Emilia D’Albero and Courtney Johnson will be representing the United States in France in September at the Mondial du Fromage in the Concours Mondial du Meilleur Fromager. Together we make up the first all-female Team USA, and we are incredibly excited and honored to represent the American cheese community on the world stage. Our goal is simple: become 2 of the world’s top 3 cheesemongers standing on the podium.

Competing in Mondial is a huge commitment both time-wise and financially. Both of us have spent countless hours preparing to compete against the world’s best cheesemongers, and we both treat this as a full time job while working our actual full-time jobs and other commitments.

So what exactly are we working on? The competition is comprised of 9 distinct challenges, including a written test made of the hardest cheese questions imaginable, rindless blind taste test, perfect-weight cut test, 5 minute monologue and cheese service, and the infamous Group 3 Challenges: a 4-hour marathon of cheese cutting and design, culminating in a 1-square-meter cheese display unlike anything you’ve ever seen on an American grazing table. We’ll also be creating a “cheese sculpture” as well as presenting a Parmigiano Reggiano pairing, a bite that “transforms” Stilton into a restaurant dish, and an aesthetically pleasing cheese plate featuring 5 surprise cheeses. As you can see, preparing for this is no walk in the park. These challenges require us to have our creative concepts fully dialed in through hours and hours of practice, and our cuts must be pristine and perfectly even.

Getting this right can only happen with practice, the right tools and literally a ton of cheese. We are hoping that you can help us offset some of the costs by contributing to this GoFundMe. Some of our expenses include but are not limited to:

-Equipment & associated upkeep (such as knife sharpening)

-Ingredients for recipe testing (over and over again until it’s perfect…)

-Cheese to practice cutting

-Cheese pairings and accompaniments for practice and competition

-Presentation pieces (plates, signage, platters, supports, utensils, etc.)

-Countless PDO cheeses for blind tasting training

-Study resources (books, online courses, quizlet sub etc.)

-Boarding/care for our pets while we’re traveling

-Misc. travel costs and incidentals

If you are able to contribute financially, we would truly appreciate the support, and we will send you a thank you postcard from France. Big Thank You to The Cheesemonger Invitational, Maker to Monger and Adam Moskowitz for generously covering our airfare, Airbnb, transportation, meals, entry fee, and some incidentals for the trip to France. We are also endlessly grateful for the many makers who have graciously contributed cheese and other product for us to practice with.

If you want to show support in other ways, please consider one of these options:

-Come cheer us on at CMI NYC on 6/29 & at Philly Cheese School on 7/4

-Cheesemakers/distributors: send us some extra cheese to practice cutting with

-Other producers/makers: send us some pairings to taste cheese with

-Cheesemongers/shops: send us PDO and PGI cheeses for blind tasting practice

-Schedule a tasting event with us so we can practice assembling & serving our bite

And we are also happy to accept support in the form of good vibes and well wishes.

We are committed to giving our absolute best performance and showing the world just how good American cheesemongers can be! With any luck, one of us will take home 1st place this year, but no matter what happens, this has been a wild ride and we’re grateful to have been on it together with the support of the US cheese industry.