CUT TO: Salzburg, Austria. A misty-eyed Christopher Plummer and a dreamy Julie Andrews singing in a moonlight-diffused glade. "Somewhere in my youth or childhood, I must have done something good."

CUT TO: New York City. A misty-eyed me staring at the doors on 32nd Street, bathed in the gray shadows of the skyscrapers. Again with the singing. "Somewhere in my youth or childhood, I must have done something good."

Touring New York City on a food consulting project, I'd emphatically put Artisanal on my itinerary. And now I stood at her entrance, contemplating the possibilities. Concealed behind those doors were the answers to 40 years of troubling questions. Everything in life would soon make sense. Trembling, weightless, I entered. Trays of cheese and pots of fondue covered the tables. Surrounded by the near-palpable odor of pressed, aged and seasoned milk curd and the din of chatty, urbane diners, I knew I'd discovered my Mecca.

Considering my boundless passion for all things edible, you might think I'd be hard-pressed to pick a favorite food. Not so. Cheese easily tops the list. And (apologies to Murray's Cheese Shop) here I was in what is, arguably, the cheese galaxy's sun.

I started with gougères, little puffballs of cheese pastry with the heady bouquet of Gruyere and the lightness of a snowflake on the tongue. Absolutely enchanting. By the time the basket was empty, I was a lifeless puddle. That is, until I saw, balanced on the waiter's palm, the biggest, fattest, most glorious platter of goodies moving my way. I smiled and sat politely but, inside, I was tackling him, throwing that tray to the ground and feasting from the floor, rising only to dance the dance of the blissfully cheese-obsessed.

He set the platter before me, and there lay a sample of the world's finest. Most of these were a mystery to me; I was stunned to reverence. To select from 250 cheeses is a scary, napkin-twisting, reckless task. But I did finally choose and wasn't disappointed. The brief, intense journey began with Tourmalet, firm and buttery with a manly hazelnut finish. Then, the woody, sharp overtones of Ibores. The sing-song fruitiness of the Beaufort with its dense, creamy finish. Fiscalini. Oh my. It started with a bulbous buttery force, followed by hints of verdant, herbaceous summer, and finished as what can only be called savory and meaty. The Piave dazzled with its profound fruitiness and clean almond denouement. And, in Roomano, the Dutch created my favorite cheese. Unspeakably complex, it was aged for six years, prompting me to think: This cheese was born as we were wringing our hands in anticipation of Y2K disasters. In blissful ignorance, the Roomano began its development into a bold, spiky, milky saltiness with crystalline butterscotch flavors. A dozen different trills and swells of flavor bloomed with each morsel.

I was in lactic Nirvana.

Jonathan Gold expressed it so beautifully:

I was—and remain—ruthlessly humbled by the vast universe of cheese, where I could spend the rest of my life exploring and still never reach its boundaries.