Le Divorce

Divorce can siphon off a person's  joie de vivre.  I've been waiting for Monsieur EX to sign off on the division of  our community property so I can indulge my ooh la la in one of my favorite places. Lately
I've been picturing myself stationed at the end of a Freeway ramp near LAX. The sign I hold aloft will read, WILL WORK FOR FRENCH FOOD...IN FRANCE.
So I'm dreaming of fall drizzling into winter in a little village near Carcasonne...and of course Mr. Ex prys his way into my fantasy. Our love felt infinite twenty-five years ago when we toured the ramparts in the rain and had our umbrella turned inside out as we sloshed over the cobblestones to dinner in a little candlelit restaurant with walls made of stone.
I had tarragon ice cream for desert.
Why do I remember these things?
How much cheese do I need to eat to harden a few arteries and reduce the bloodflow to my memory banks?
WILL WORK FOR FRENCH CHEESE...ANYWHERE.

Petit Suisse

I've been craving the dessert cheese called Petit Suisse ever since I came back from France. Not anymore. This past weekend, a person who is quite aware of my passion for cheese spooned a dollop of this Trader Joes's product into my mouth. Et Voila! If you'd like to try this as a dessert, Petit Suisse is served with a sprinkle of sugar on the top. Maybe a couple of raspberries or a sliced strawberry on the side. Or a square of chocolate. And think small. We're talking rich. The real Petit Suisse comes in containers the size of a shot glass. After you finish one, you're drunk on cheese.

Got Cheese?

I miss the cheese.

During my last week or so in France Clos Chevrel, Ossau, & Étorki were added to my previous list. Before I arrived back in the States, I asked my daughter to be sure there was Brie in the house for my homecoming. A day later I went to the store and bought a wedge of the delicious American blue cheese, Maytag. Today, I've been paging through a book titled, French Cheese. The photos are beautiful.

Luckily, the grocery store just down the street has a fabulous cheese selection. But according to my calculations, there are about 230 French cheeses that they don't have.

My Cheese Census

The list so far: comté, cantal, morbier, luberac, manchego, petit suisse, petit billy, p'tit Basque, roquefort--and the mystery cheese I bought from the guy in Valence d'Agen.

The fantasy: a delivery service that shows up at my door with a serving of a different kind of cheese every day.

Food for the Palate; Food for the Soul

The word for breakfast in French is petit déjuner, which translates literally as "little lunch." And logically, the word for lunch is déjuner. The word for dinner is dinner. Last evening, inspired by a wonderful dessert cheese called Petit Suisse, we had a petit dinner. Small glasses of Pastis as an aperitif accompanied by skewers of little pieces of pork served with cornichons and pearl onions.

A cup of vegetable soup, ramekins of "mac and cheese"--the cheese was a combo of Roquefort and Luberac and there were cherry tomatoes on top. The next two courses were salads. (The French do not eat the salad first.) Salad #1 was tiny new potatoes in creamy dressing. Salad #2 was lettuce and petis pois topped off with a baby carrot in a mustard vinaigrette. Then came the Petit Suisse served with a miniature plum drizzled with Armagnac and a single square of dark chocolate on the side.

Finally, a real dessert--canelé. A pastry we'd complain about in the U.S. because it's so small. Then Armagnac served in lovely hand painted glasses--tiny glasses, of course, with lilies of the valley painted on them.

The obsession with food in France is anything but petit. When I first visited France as a 19-year-old, all the fuss over food struck me as enjoyable, but a bit over the top.

But now, I see that relationships are nourished at the table. That love and friendship as well as food can be served up on a pretty plate. Three or four hours lingering in the candlelight with family or friends is a feast for the palate and for the soul.

Cheese Please

"How can anyone govern a nation that has 246 kinds of cheese?" DeGaulle once asked. This says as much about French cheese as it does about France.

The cheese man at the open air market in Valence d'Agen yesterday was quite generous with samples. He had only a small selection--maybe 6 or 7 varieties of cheese produced in the Pyrenees which is about a 2-hour drive from here. I selected a hard cheese--a little sharp, good for an omelette or grated onto a salad. But after he told me he liked my hat and that I was beautiful and that he'd like my phone number, I got a little discombobulated and forgot to ask him the name of the cheese.

I told him I had only a USA number for my Blackberry, and then he asked me to stop back and see him when I finished my shopping.

I didn't.

But for the next couple of hours as I strolled past the fish, and the couscous, and the bread, the dishes, the clothes, and jewelry and yes, even the lingerie, I noticed that all of the couples I saw seemed to be well-matched in age. Maybe the French appreciate une femme d'un certain age.

Maybe cheese merchants, who know that the aging process enhances the cheese, are especially appreciative of older women.