Fluent in Fromage

Fluent in Fromage

by Rasmenia Comment Closed
After exchanging emails, letters and phone calls for 8 months with a French guy I'd met online, it was time to go to Paris to meet him face-to-face; time to look one another in the eye and discover if our long-distance chemistry would hold up in the flesh. I'd been in Paris one other time, 7 years before, but this time was different. This time, I wasn't a tourist.This time, I was on a crazy, international, first-date adventure that would last for 2 weeks.Olivier picked me up at Charles de Gaule airport. We went to his apartment in Montmartre and listened to April in Paris. Because funny enough - it really was April and we were in Paris.httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCJRoG6W8yQHe told me he'd planned a road trip for us and that he wanted to introduce me to some of his friends. After talking every day for almost a year, I knew quite a bit about most of his friends already, so I...
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Cheddar, Chorizo & Corned Beef…Oh, my!

Cheddar, Chorizo & Corned Beef…Oh, my!

by Rasmenia Comment Closed
"Are you sure that there isn't anywhere that we can find Cheddar?"Olivier looked up at me, rubbing his beard.  "I think the closest place is England," he said."You're hilarious," I said."Why?  What is that you want to make?""Mexican food," I said.  "I've had a craving for it ever since I moved here.  In Colorado, I could just go to a Mexican restaurant, but there is a sad shortage of Mexicans here.""Oh."  Olivier shrugged.  "Well, I'm sure that we can find some sort of substitution."That was about 2 1/2 years ago.  Since then, I've become an expert at fusion cooking.  It started with a taco salad.  No sour cream to go on top.  Instead, I had to use crème fraîche.  Since I had no grated Cheddar or Monterey Jack cheese, I had to use Cantal.We found some taco seasoning & salsa in the fancy section of the grocery store, where all of the imported food is kept, like peanut butter &...
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13 Stinky French Cheeses

13 Stinky French Cheeses

by Rasmenia Comment Closed
As one might expect, moving to France required me to learn a few things.  First of all, I've had to learn to speak French - which I don't do all that well.  However, I've also had to learn about hundreds of stinky cheeses.  My French speaking may need some work, but I do speak "fromage" very well... & let's face it - here in France, that might actually be more important. * * * 1 - Bleu d'Auvergne Bleu d'Auvergne is produced in the Massif Central between Puy-de-Dôme and Cantal.  A cheese producer back in 1854 found some mold on his bread & thought to himself, "Hey, I bet this shit would be great if I mixed it with some cheese."  Kind of like the chocolate & peanut butter guy, but with mold instead of chocolate & cheese instead of peanut butter.2 - Cantal Cantal is hard to semi-hard cheese from the Cantal region of France.  It's one of the oldest cheeses in France...
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Hedwig & The Banshee Must Be Destroyed

by Rasmenia Comment Closed
I once had a neighbor who was from Arkansas. I lived in the apartment directly below hers. When her kitchen sink had a leak, she piled a bunch of towels & dirty clothes under the leak. Of course, after a few weeks of this, the result was a smelly pond that appeared in my apartment within a matter of minutes in the middle of the night.Another neighbor I had held his girlfriend's family hostage, which resulted in a standoff with the police for over 12 hours before he finally released all of the hostages & blew his brains out.One neighbor painted a deer turd with gold spray paint, hung it on a chain & gave it to me as a gift when I moved into the neighborhood.Of course, I can't forget the neighbor who raped & beat a girl to death. He was found in Guatemala 2 months later by America's Most Wanted & I watched the whole thing on...
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