"Protect Me From What I Want": Why Eating Cheese Shouldn't Be a Sin

"My gym coach won't let me"

Rubén and I were in the car talking about that CrossFit box near our house. Customers who say hello warmly, look at the cured meats, wine, or chocolates with nostalgia... and confess with a laugh that they love everything we sell, but that their gym coach won't let them "sin." As if aged cheese were a call from your ex at 3 a.m.

We aren't talking about guilt here. We're talking about pleasure.

A good early-harvest EVOO, an artisanal raw-milk cheese, a tin of razor clams that looks like it was sculpted by an Atlantic God... that shouldn't be forbidden. It should be subsidized by social security.

And then we remembered Rosalía before the MET GALA.

Yes, the t-shirt that went all over half the internet:

"PROTECT ME FROM WHAT I WANT"

We saw it and said: THAT IS US!

That is what we feel when we open a €10 tin of mussels in vermouth escabeche. When we slice into a wedge of aged cheese. When we smell and spread one of our artisanal sobrassadas.

We don't need protection. We need bread.

We know you take care of yourself. That you do intermittent fasting, burpees, skip carbs at dinner, and have your own personalized stainless steel water bottle. But we also know that when you walk into our shop, your brain does a backflip and screams at you: Do it!

So, if the gym guy gives you a dirty look, tell him you're in a loading phase... an emotional one.

We don't just sell food: we sell little "yeses" in a world full of "nos."

And if you feel bad for craving cheese, chocolate, or a vermouth with an olive on a sunny terrace, think of it this way: if a message on a Rosalía t-shirt can sum up how you feel, we can give you the perfect excuse to eat it anyway.

Because we aren't here to protect you from what you want.

We are here to celebrate it with you.

This is D'12 Gourmet.