It starts with a pail of warm milk and ends, months later, with a wheel worth the wait. Sixty-three watercolor-inspired illustrations follow the milk all the way to the table: the curds lifted dripping in cloth, the wheels going gold and grey on their cellar shelves, someone with a brush turning each one and leaving it to the dark.

Partway through, the collection slows and lays the cheeses out one at a time, the way a good counter does when you ask what's ready. The crumbling cheddar, the blue running through a wedge of roquefort, the burrata torn to its soft center. Then into the shop, to the monger in his window light and a wedge folded into paper and passed across the counter.