VIVE LA FRANCE!

Le Vache de Chalais (purchased from Quality Cheese, $5-ish per serving, France) starts out looking like this: (Click for Image)

…and quickly ends up looking like this:

I demolished this cheese with loud proclamations of just how fantastic the French fucking are and anyone who says otherwise is running for something. I ate the entire wheel in a sitting on two freshly-toasted crumpets from The Crumpet Shop washed down with a really solid Dutch beer from Trader Joe’s. What a great way to start back up the Cheese of the Week.

The cheese was wrapped in slightly moldy chestnut leaves, which protected this fantastically runny and ripe (yet mild-smelling) cow’s milk treasure. Great balance of salt and Frenchy goodness. The good folks at Quality Cheese recommended the cheese after I said I was in the mood for something soft. Their recommendations have a Montero-like scoring record. GOOOOAAAAAALLLLL!

Then we had tea and chocolate truffles from Rose’s Chocolate Treasures:

Two dark chocolate caramels (for the wife) and four nut-filled truffles (including rosemary pine nut!) would impress even non-chocolate lovers. Rose has some pretty adventurous truffles (bacon!) which are a lot of fun for those of us tired of Ferrero Rocher. For the record, it takes a couple dozen in a sitting before I grow tired of Ferrero Rocher. And Rose’s truffles are $2 each, which is reasonable given the quality and presentation, but it can get expensive if you’re trying to fill a chocolate craving.

For dinner, I made corn tortillas from scratch and threw together flank steak fajitas. I think I’ll leave tortillas for their own post… I managed to break my new tortilla press on the second tortilla! Let’s see if Sur le Table will take it back.

I’m making slow-cooker lamb vindaloo this week (with a 5-lb boneless leg of lamb!) so leftovers are bountiful. Let’s hope the posts are equally so!

I’m going to tend to my food coma now,

-Phil