Charlotte Kamin is co-owner of the Bedford Cheese Shop. Established in 2003, the Bedford Cheese Shop has spent the last ten-plus years building a neighborhood store that welcomes both new and familiar faces. Based on old-world ideals with a loyalty to a family of local and international food producers, they are a small, independently run business dedicated to the time-honored traditions of the culinary and agricultural world. Appreciating the seasonality of cheese production, they work directly with farms in order to select cheeses at their perfect peak so as to provide a constantly evolving array of prime goodies. Committed to a small staff of knowledgeable cheesemongers, they guarantee experts in the field who are happy to teach through taste, and have been trained in the art of properly maintaining cheese so that you can be assured of receiving the highest-quality products available. In 2012, the Bedford Cheese Shop opened a second location in the Gramercy area of lower Manhattan that includes a fifteen-foot cheese case, three aging facilities, and an education and event space-the Homestead. Proud of their focus on individualized, education-based customer service, they offer classes, cheese tastings, and more. Nathan McElroy is a native Northern Californian who broke into the cheese business in San Francisco, where his work ran the gamut from counter service to importation and distribution. He relocated to New York City to help open Bedford Cheese Shop's Manhattan location and continues to be humbled and fascinated by the wonderful people and products he gets to work with on a daily basis. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.