THE PARIS LETTER: Sunday Afternoon Snack

Oh, Paris letter, how have I been writing you for so long without mentioning one of my favorite subjects, CHEESE? 

Those of you who have been following this letter for the last year know that in fact many of my culinary adventures in France have to do with finding NON-FRENCH food - I've looked for burritos and bagels, made traditional Thanksgiving dinner and served chocolate mole to dubious Parisians. What can I say? I like variety on my plate.  

However, there are a few areas where France just excels, period. One of these is bread. And the another is cheese. They are just consistently better here than in the US of A. Yes, we have some very good homegrown cheeses and you can get a great diversity of breads. But look at that picture, people! That's our Sunday afternoon snack! And we can get that kind of good-lookin' snack easily in our neighborhood, no trucking out to Murray's Cheese or Acme Bread. Yes, there's a huge variety when it comes to cheese and bread here, and you can get a super shitty baguette and some boring emmental just about anywhere here as well.

But again, I refer you to the picture above. Let's discuss....

Here, I'll recap the pic after the jump for you, so you can get a better look:

Sunday Afternoon Snack

 You know how Sundays are, right? You've probably got some boring work to finish up, either around the house or before you get to the office on Monday. Maybe you have to go grocery shopping (which in Paris, better happen before 1PM or its all over - EVERYTHING is closed). But you know what makes a Sunday afternoon better? The decision to split a baguette and a bottle of wine - 

So here on our cheese plate we have, starting from the bottom, BEAUFORT D'ALPAGE, a Gruyere-like cheese that's been aged for 12 months, hard and nutty and semi-strong; a BLEU D'AUVERGNE, which is like Roquefort's less expensive cousin, and an aged goat cheese, still mild but with some sharp sour goaty flavor, which is actually good on the baguette WITH some butter. 

We also have some butter from Bretagne up in the corner, since one of Matt's favorite snacks ever is just a good baguette with butter, eaten either in the late afternoon or as a midnight snack. If this were a more traditional French cheese plate, that butter would prob be replaced with BRIE DE MEAUX, a raw milk brie.  You guys think you know what Brie is, right? That mild, creamy thing with the white rind that comes in a wheel? Okay, yes but no. I can't actually fully describe the difference between raw milk and pasteurized brie - but here's one what to look at it: Does the brie you buy at your supermarket ever cause your entire fridge to stink? No? That is a major difference - here, raw milk brie has the same delicious runny consistency, creamy texture, and actually fairly mild flavor - but you will not be able to allow it to live in the fridge for weeks on end. You better eat that shit, right now - 

Of course, this has the positive side effect of making the brie way more delicious and flavorful. But also pretty much off limits for those of us who are pregnant - though I guess I probably shouldn't be eating blue cheese either. Or drinking wine. Oh well - haven't got much more time now!

For the wine that goes with this awesome snack, I've started relying on Matt, who recently read Kermit Lynch's ADVENTURES ON THE WINE ROUTE, stories of the famous wine importer's road trips around the various regions of France, and so has gained greater knowledge of French wine than I have now. Today we are drinking a 2009 Crozes Hermitages, which prompted Matt to say "I really like Northern Rhone wines". Uhh. Yes. 

I really need to catch up on my wine drinking, people! It's been a long 9 months... Perhaps this will be a good subject for me to explore post- birth .... 

Hope everyone is having a good weekend,

xo CTL