The students at cheese school on a recent night were trying hard to follow instructions. You taste cheese, it turns out, the way you do anything well – with everything you've got.

Judy Creighton, a proud cheesemonger and longtime expert, was in front of the class of 20, telling us to involve all our senses. Touch it. Poke it. Look at its colors. Smell it. Then put a piece in your mouth and let it sit there.

"Slow down," Creighton said. "Make a connection to your food."

Oops. Shoot. I'd already swallowed the mozzarella di buffala. It was creamy and earthy and wonderful. I looked at my class neighbor, Liese Schadt. She'd already swallowed, too.

"This isn't so easy," she whispered.

Meanwhile, Creighton was still genially giving instructions. "Move it around in your mouth," she said. "Sense the texture. Let all your taste buds get a chance with it."

Schadt and I quickly cut new pieces of the mozzarella and tried to catch up without looking guilty.

"Now you can swallow," Creighton said. She looked around at the faces and smiled. "You probably already did, didn't you?"

So that's the first lesson of cheese school, and it's the same as in most schools. Things work out when you do what the teacher says.

Here are a couple other details we learned right off:

• Buffalo mozzarella, an Italian invention, comes from the milk of a domestic water buffalo, not those big ol' shaggy critters that once roamed the U.S. plains. (Maybe you knew that. Many in the class didn't.)

• Americans eat on average 32 pounds of cheese a year. No doubt, loads comes from pizza.

• Cheese school is pretty fun. Also pretty yummy.

• There actually is something like a cheese school.

These Sacramento classes aren't, technically, at a school designed to lead students toward some kind of professional cheese standing. What we really have here is a series of individual evenings from a new, small, spunky company called C'est le Cheese.

The classes are two hours long, cost $45 and cover topics from cheese basics to the cheeses of France to cheese and beer pairings, because, of course, who doesn't pair an elegant, aged cheese with beer?

C'est le Cheese – motto: enhancing your cheese experience – is the brainchild of Jody Lagorio, who regards cheese as one of the prime sources of joy on this planet.

"I find the whole process fascinating and romantic," she said with great enthusiasm, "from caring for the animals to making the cheese, to what it goes with to the deliciousness. Especially the deliciousness."

When the subject of cheese comes up, Lagorio gets electric. She grew up in an Italian-American family that made food a focus of life, and often while her grandmother was cooking, she kept Lagorio busy by sitting her on a stool and giving her a big chunk of Parmigiano and a cheese grater.

"These days, that might be considered child endangerment," Lagorio said. "That's when I fell in love with cheese."

Lagorio is a former flight attendant, and the traveling let her exercise her cheese-tasting muscles. Last summer, she and her husband, Dan Hague, went to the Cheese School of San Francisco – that's the real name – and it got Lagorio thinking she could start some classes in Sacramento.

Brian Lewis is a friend and an east Sacramento neighbor of Lagorio and Hague. He was in Lagorio's recent class, a bit humbled, actually, because he remembers her talking about the idea, and thinking, "Boy, good luck with that."

"I was completely supportive," Lewis said, "Jody was so enthused about it. But I was thinking: 'Are people going to go to this?' Now look at this. Every class is full, and I had no idea I'd learn so much."

Lagorio recruited cheese experts like Creighton, who also teaches at the San Francisco Cheese School, and started offering classes this spring. They've been held three times a month at the Penthouses at Capitol Park on 15th and L streets, but they might move next month to lofts in midtown.

The sessions start with someone pouring the "students" something to drink – "Usually it has bubbles," Lagorio said – like the Italian wine prosecco served on our night, because our topic was Italian cheeses. The idea is to get people relaxed and thinking of this as a culinary experience, not something serious and bookish.

Call The Bee's Rick Kushman, (916) 321-1187. Listen to him Tuesdays at 8:40 a.m. on NewsTalk 1530 (KFBK).