cheesing

Add half of the cheese, the salt and pepper, and stir until the cheese is melted and the mixture is smooth, then remove from the heat.

It’s also produced by the Penicillium mold that grows on rotting coconuts and it’s what gives blue cheese its distinctive, pungent odor.

While no single precaution is perfect—each slice of cheese has holes—taken together, steps like wearing masks, hand-washing, and keeping rooms well ventilated will push down the risk.

If you do want to manage the risk, one way is to combine various precautions, using what the virologist Ian Mackay, at the University of Queensland in Australia, calls the “Swiss cheese” model of prevention.

Then, while we suited up and formed a water brigade outside, passing buckets up from the mountain stream, she transformed the dining table into a smorgasbord of steak, homemade bread, deli meats, cheeses, and veggies for our picnic lunch.