5 Things

 1) Goat cheese season!

 

2) Frilly tulips

    

3) Une baguette française

      

 4) Organic

     

5) Île Saint-Louis

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5 Things

1) Apéro




2) Spring green

3) Homemade applesauce happened during confinement (along with banana bread and a lot of homemade yogurt!). Apples courtesy of a neighborhood shop called Paysan Vrac.

4) No filter

5) Spinach, onion, ham and goat cheese tart



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Keeping Warm at the Café

As a person who gets cold quite easily, I love it when cafés offer blankets when it's cold outside.



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Happy New Year!

We kicked it off with a long walk through the quiet streets of Paris and ended it with the holy trinity - cheese, wine and bread. A good start to the new year!

Wishing you all a very happy 2020!


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Can I Eat That Moldy Cheese?

Cheese + Mold. Is it safe to eat? This is a question I get asked a lot!

This article on the Bon Appetit website came across my radar the other day (even though it was written in 2018!) and after I read the following paragraph, I knew I had to share it.

"The first thing you’ve got to understand is that, by and large, microorganisms like mold are what makes cheese, well, cheese. “In a lot of ways, cheese is mold,” explains Morillo. With the notable exception of fresh cheeses that are meant to be consumed shortly after they are made (mozzarella, ricotta, queso fresco, etc.), most cheeses owe their distinct deliciousness and texture to the microbiological alchemy that occurs when mold, bacteria, and other microorganisms feast on the proteins and sugars present in milk, transforming them into a wide range of flavorful compounds. (Science is cool!)"

Yes, science is cool! And mold, when it comes to cheese, can definitely be our friend.

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Today's Cheese

The minute I started to unwrap this one, I was in heaven! SO lusciously smelly, oozing and sticky. We haven't tasted it yet, but I expect wonderful things.

Oh, and for those of you who are curious, it's an ewe's milk, washed rind cheese from Corsica. I can't wait to try it!


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5 Things

1) Our neighborhood

2) Enzo really needs to learn to chill out

3) Drinks on the terrace at Treize au Jardin


4) Evening light in Saint-Germain-des-Prés

5) Goat cheese - ash covered and sprinkled with sarriette


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Off The Beaten Path In Paris: La Ferme d'Alexandre

Located just a block away from La Grande Épicerie in Saint Germain, la Ferme d'Alexandre doesn't feel "off the beaten path," but I wanted to share it with you anyway. I've come to love this place, not only for their fabulous cheese selection, but for the kindness and knowledge of  the owner Alex, and the entire staff.

I shop here every week to  buy fromage for the French cheese workshop we offer at Paris by Mouth, so I've gotten to know them and what they offer very well. And if you follow me on Instagram, you've most likely seen many of their cheeses and their beautiful blue and gold tile floor!



They always have some interesting sheep milk cheeses from the Pyrénées and right now their goat cheese section is amazing! You can also find the last raw milk farmer produced Époisses in France here, as well as a handful of delicious Italian cheeses.
And in addition to cheese, there is a good selection of charcuterie, unpasteurized butter, cream straight from farms in Normandy, honey, small producer wine and jam, and bread on the weekends.
If you find yourself near either of Alex's fromageries, they are definitely worth a visit!



La Ferme d'Alexandre
19 rue Saint-Placide
75006 Paris

and

21 rue Mouton Duvernet
75014 Paris

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Sweet Dreams Are Made Of Cheese

March 27 is la Journée Nationale du Fromage, or National Cheese Day, here in France. Today we will be honoring rare, small production, farmer produced, raw milk cheeses.

You can be sure that I'll be celebrating!





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French Cheese and Wine

Over the last (almost) 13 years I've covered a lot of topics here on Chez Loulou, and the one that I still love to talk about and am most passionate about is French cheese.
But lately cheese has been getting some competition.

My project to taste all the cheese slowly progresses and I continually nerd out with books like The Oxford Companion to Cheese and Mastering Cheese.
I always want to learn more, read more and eat more cheese.

Also, for the last few years I've had the incredible opportunity to offer a French cheese tasting workshop with Paris by Mouth. It is the highlight of my week and the most fun I ever imagined a job could be.



French cheese will always be my greatest love, but now I've fallen for something else.
I'm having a little fling with French wine.

(shhh....don't tell cheese)

Over the summer I enrolled in an intense, online French Wine Scholar certification program and I honestly had no idea what I was getting myself into. I thought that after 15 years in France, enjoying the regional wines and even living in a wine making region for 8 years, I would have a pretty solid base to work from. Well....



Now I wake up in the middle of the night and my mind automatically starts listing the principal villages of the Côte de Nuits from north to south and notes which ones have Grand Crus.
I spend time on the Métro memorizing the unusual grape varieties of SW France and remembering which grape dominates which area of Champagne. Terms like gneiss, semi-carbonic maceration, Portlandian marl and sur lie swirl around in my head. I have flash cards and a dozen highlighters.

I am in awe of how much there is to learn and just how much I didn't know. And it's so much fun! I mean, my brain hurts most of the time and I'm slightly terrified of the exam I have to take at the end, but wine is a fabulous subject to study.

Here's to my new love!



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5 Things

1) When you're craving Italian cheese, especially homemade mozzarella, burrata and scamorza, head to La Maison de la Mozzarella!




2) A soggy Sunday ride home




3) You better show up hungry if you reserve a table at Bofinger




4) From the farm to the market

5) A favorite wine bar of mine



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5 Things

1) Coffee




2) Love

3) End of summer at le marché

4) Les Deux Plateaux




5) Montmartre colors



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Les Halles De Lyon

Train travel spoils you. No need to get to the airport 2+ hours before your flight, no waiting in long security lines, no strict weight and size limits on your luggage. You arrive a bit before your train is scheduled to depart, stow your bags, find your seat and away you go!
Living in Paris spoils you too. You quickly learn that much of France and many parts of Europe are just a few hours from the city. (and escaping from time to time is good for le moral)

Feel like going to Amsterdam? No problem! Jump on a train and you'll be there in just over 3 hours. Want to taste some wine in Bordeaux? It's only 2½ hours away. Craving some bouillabaisse and time on the beach? You can be sitting in the sun in Marseille in a little over 3 hours.





And of course there's Lyon, a city that is considered paradise for the French food lover and a place that had both intrigued me and been recommended to me by several friends over the years. So last summer I hopped on the TGV and just 2 hours later was climbing up a steep flight of stairs in La Croix-Rousse neighborhood to meet up with old friends.

Lucy, a brilliant cook and owner of the cooking school, Plum Lyon, who I met in Gascony at Camp Cassoulet almost a decade ago, and Mardi, the writer of the fabulous food blog, eat. live. travel. write, who I met in Paris several years ago, were waiting at Lucy's house to welcome me. The first thing we did after I dropped off my bag was head to the covered food market, Les Halles de Lyon.

I instantly fell in love with this place, for the cheese alone! The quality of the food on offer was superb and the people working at the market were genuine and helpful. There was no snobbery here, just people selling products that they believed in and wanted to share with us. I noticed the same thing at the restaurants where we ate. The chefs were proud of their dishes, but they didn't do a great job for the recognition, they cooked amazing food because they are chefs, and that's what chefs do. The lack of pretension was so refreshing.

It was a whirlwind trip, and with Lucy and her family's help, we packed a lot of delicious food, cheese, wine, walking and laughter into 36 hours. But that's all the time it took to convince me; if you love French food, you can believe what they say about Lyon.
It is paradise!

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