Say Cheese

Whenever I travel I like to explore not only the various towns, but also the food. I find it fascinating to wander through village markets and check out the new tastes and smells. My dad lives in Provence, which is home to some of the most delicious food in the world. In any tiny town that has a market day, you will find the loveliest local cheeses, produce and charcutrie.

These gorgeous veggies were in his local supermarket in Lorgues.



Every time I visit my dad, I love to sample the cheese. Last time I came I barely fit into my pants by the end of the trip. I find my father's illness stressful, so who could deny oneself a little comfort in the way of tangy, stinky or creamy cheese? My sister came along on this trip and is as eager as I am to taste as many different kinds of cheese as I am.

Here is a sampling of cheeses we bought today.


The plate on the left:
The bright orange cheese is a mimolette extra vieille. The extra vielle means that it was aged an extra long amount of time. 18 months in this case. I think this cheese was the hardest for us to describe. It looks like a cheddar, but doesn't taste like one at all. It was a hard cheese, but wasn't crumbly or hard. I said elastic and Lisa said waxy. Neither description sounds particularly appealing though. Here's a more professional description. The next photo is a close-up of the rind of this cheese.
The creamy white cheese is a Tomme de chevre, which is a goat cheese. It was the most creamy decadent cheese we bought. And when I say creamy, it wasn't bland. Absolutely delicious! I searched for a good description from the pros on this cheese and didn't find any that resembled this little circle of heaven.

The plate on the right:
The large cheese on the bottom is a brie according to my stepmother. It is a perfectly good cheese. Seems a little sweeter and milder than bries I've had in the states.
The cheese to the left and above is a Ecorce de sapin, which is a triple cream cheese from the Franch-Comté region. It is wrapped in spruce bark, which imparts a subtle piney flavor to it. Sounds weird, but is delicious!
The cheese on the top is a Saint-Félicien Moulé å la louche. It's a stinky cow's milk cheese. It is very soft and drips off your knife when you bring it up to your bread. Yum.

My friend just sent me the funniest quote about the French and cheese:
"France is a country that understands…the range of smells that makes life interesting includes some rather severe ones…When they smell [Soumantrain, a particularly pungent cheese], Americans think 'Good God!' The Japanese think, 'I must now commit suicide.' The French think 'Where's the bread?'" - Luca Turin



Oh, and did I mention that they have zillions of olives here. Growing in my dad's yard, in fields, and on random trees along the street. Don't try and eat one from the tree unless you want your mouth to be stuck in a permanent pucker. It's a joke the locals play on olive-loving tourists. These guys need to be cured or pressed to be edible.

Cautiously Optimistic

I am so hopeful listening to various reports that Obama will win the election. I keep thinking about the world series a bunch of years ago when the Yankees were losing to the Red Sox. At a certain point the Red Sox started to paint their field (the game was at Yankee stadium) with the words World Champions. They lost. Oops. I can wait to do my victory dance.

Who looks the part?

Is there any question of who looks more presidential? An elegant man who refuses to get pulled down into the muck? Or a pathetic man grasping at anything to get attention?

Obama Roasts McCain

A couple of nights ago John McCain and Barack Obama made speeches at the Alfred E. Smith dinner. It's a Catholic charity that has always brought in presidential candidates and other high-powered politicians. Alfred E. Smith was mayor of NYC and the first Catholic to run for president. So every 4 years they have the presidential hopefuls make speeches, and they are required to be funny and roast one another.

Here's Obama's speech.

Bearded Ladies

When we got back from visiting my father in France (photos to come), the girls were 2 weeks older. They weren't appreciably bigger, however two of them grew beards. I think these ladies might be of Eastern European descent with all that facial hair! But, in their case it looks awfully cute.



This is Edie.


Here they all are in their coop.


Lou Lou and Edie on top of their coop run.


We didn't get a photo of Andie that really shows off her nutty hair doo, but I think you get the idea.

Chick Magnet

The coop arrived a few weeks ago and the girls are now used to living outdoors. The first photo shows Andie with her increasingly crazy hair-doo outside of the coop for a little free-ranging. Chickens are omnivores and love a varied diet. By eating grass and plants (along with all kinds of bugs), they get a lot of beta-carotene in their diet. Much more than the mostly corn-fed factory chickens get. The yolks of the chickens who eat their greens are a much deeper, richer yellow than we are used to getting from the grocery stores here. In Europe, the yolks are still quite orange. My girls haven't started producing eggs yet. That should happen sometime around Christmas/The New Year.

The second photo shows my friend Ruth the chick magnet. She came to visit right before we left to visit my dad in France. The girls absolutely adored Ruth and kept trying to eat her shirt. They are 6 weeks old in this photo. At this point they were still making cheep cheep noises.

So Many Expressions

Okay, so I know this blog was originally about knitting, and now it seems to be about all things chicken. I'm assuming the novelty will wear off a bit, and I will start knitting again...

In the meantime...Neil and I were talking about how many expressions are derived from our poultry friends. Here a list of a bunch. Please add to the list.

-chicken/ chicken hearted (acting cowardly)
-strutting like a rooster (showing off)
-cocky (I guess pretty much the same as above)
-hen party (a party for women only, especially one that is organized for a woman who is soon going to get married)
-hen pecked (a husband who suffers from a nagging or domineering wife)
-laid an egg (to fail to make people enjoy or be interested in something) Anyone know why this has negative connotations?
-egg head (again, anyone know the origin of this one?)
-crowing (announcing something great)
-cock-eyed (this is to do with how a rooster sizes up a potential threat. They won't look directly at the foe, preferring to try and seem nonchalant and look straight ahead. All the time they are trying desperately to see via their peripheral vision.
-chicken feed/scratch (a very small amount of money, especially money that is paid for doing a job)
-coming home to roost (if you say that chickens are coming home to roost, you mean that bad or silly things done in the past are beginning to cause problems)
-a bad egg (someone who behaves in a bad or dishonest way)
-a good egg (a person with good qualities such as kindness)
-egg someone on
-a chicken and egg situation (a situation in which it is impossible to say which of two things existed first and which caused the other)
-have egg on your face (to seem stupid because of something you have done)
-a nest egg (an amount of money that you have saved)
- put all of your eggs in one basket (to risk losing everything by putting all your efforts or all your money into one plan or one course of action)
-as scarce as hen's teeth (to be very difficult or impossible to find)
-be no spring chicken (to not be young any more)