After rising through the ranks to various executive chef positions throughout the San Francisco Bay Area, the desire to develop her interest in writing was the magnet that drew her to the unsurpassed beauty of the Monterey Peninsula. For five years, she was the food writer for Monterey County's Coast Weekly Newspaper, She currently writes for Carmel Magazine and works as a private corporate chef in Pebble Beach.

Penning the verse in this first of Monterey Jack's adventures was her "pure delight", a joy-filled effort she hopes will be savored as much by children as adults – as well as advocates of "real food" for kids of all ages.

A true labor of love

Author of The Adventures of Monterey Jack, Jack's Original Recipe for Rescue, Catherine Coburn never dreamed she would give birth to a cheeseboy. "But," she laughs, "Monterey Jack became the muse that would embody my latent inner child's appetite for adventure – he's that Nancy Drew/Hardy Boy character that I would've liked to be as a kid.

The fact that he's cheese is attributable to both my profession and geography: I'm a chef and food writer and home is the Monterey Peninsula. So I guess he was bound to end up with some of those traits!" There was a deeper draw to do something that would give meaning to her prevailing interests. "I was already a member of Slow Food, a wonderful worldwide organization devoted to preserving both regional food and food culture.

Then I got the dream interview, an exclusive with Alice Waters, the vanguard of post-modern cuisine as well as being on Slow Food's national board of directors. She was in town to visit a local elementary school, where teachers, parents and kids had created a huge vegetable garden in hopes of modeling it after the Edible Schoolyard Project that Waters spearheaded at a middle school around the corner from her amazing restaurant, Chez Panisse, in Berkeley. She managed to generate enough enthusiasm and elbow grease to turn an abandoned, litter-filled schoolyard into a half-acre garden! With the kids growing and cooking their own school lunches!" Coburn enthuses. "Now I was impressed. And I remember this great quote. Alice said, 'It has to be a kind of seduction that goes on. I want the kids to come to food because they fall in love. Because that's where the habits that are formed for a lifetime come from.

So, that's when I started thinking about cheese. Cheese is good for you. Kids love cheese. What kind of cheese do kids like? Gorgonzola might be a little much, but kids love Monterey Jack. Put him on a scooter! Fly him off to Wisconsin and get him in the kitchen with Cousins Colby and Brick – and then see what happens!"