Dave Hatfield

Given the cheeses you are serving I'd tend to keep it simple. Crusty French bread. Good salted butter. Fruit (pear, apple & grapes) I'd also go with either a strong red wine (zifandel for example) or a good vintage port. Not fond of sweet wines with cheese, but if you must you might want to try a Nightingale from Beringer if you can find one.

Will you still speak to us of cheeses now that you have been so rightly anointed? Be kind oh Lord of Affinage. Your humble servant Yank

I'm probably a bit late here, but I'll post this anyway. For an authentic cassole try here. They seem to have no problem shipping to the states & their prices seem reasonable. As to the need for one I'm doubtful. Like Paula Wolfert I think any oven proof glazed clay pot with a wide open top will do the job. I happen to prefer one with a lid because I like to retain all of the moisture during the first cooking. I then take the lid off for all of the finishing & crust making. anyway... I suspect that the cassole is indeed traditional if you are making a casoulette de Castelnaudry. As pointed out earlier you would take your dish to the boulanger for cooking in his bread oven. ( we could do this as recently as 3 years ago in our village. I never did it for a casoulette, but did for various daube's.) In other places such as Toulouse & Carcassone As best I can tell other wide mouthed casseroles were used. Certainly I've rarely seen a cassole used further North. I don't pretend to be a real expert, but I have been eating casoulette in France for slightly over 40 years so have a certain amount of experience. I've been making my own for over twenty years. And I've lived in SW France for the past nearly 6 years. My proudest casoulette moment came last February when Marie-Therese, our village friend's 83 year old mother who speaks mostly occitan, not only praised my casoulette, but asked for the recipe! I was insufferably vain for weeks.

I thought the Economist article was great and spot on. Hard though we may try to ignore economics in favour of our 'ideologies' and what feels good you can't avoid them in the end. I just wish The Economist would do a similar article on GM (genetically modified) foods. The hoopla here in Europe over this issue is huge. I'd love to have more facts. I'll keep my subscription to the newspaper, as they call themselves, for the foreseeable future.

Whenever! Try my blog below to see what you can get when you go out to a restaurant around here. Amazing; but the cheeses aren't much at this price

Well, we normally have a spare bedroom or two so what's stopping you? Amen! Whenever & wherever you feel the urge (to eat cheese) works for me. For instance: I'm going to have lunch now. Home made soup. Four cheeses (2 chevre, 1 Vache & the rest of the Pechegos). A nice whole grain bread & a nice bottle of 2002 Chateau Vyella madiran to wash it down with. Linda, Jacques & I will be well satisfied afterwards.

Been eating the Thanksgiving extravaganda of cheeses up to today when I decided to try the other cheeses I bought. The Pechegos is outstanding! Just look at it! It tastes even better than it looks. I think the 3 weeks in our cave did it good. Its very ccreamy with a lot of flavor coming out. I haven't been able to find out a lot about it other than that its a raw milk chevre made in the Tarn during the fall & winter. Here's another picture. Note the band which looks like bark around the cheese. Diameter is about 4 inches. I know the cheese is pressed, but I don't know what gives it the orange rind. I do know that its really good & won't last long now that we've started it as Linda likes it as much as I do.

Hummmm... A few comments to start. - did you let the cheeses come up to room temperature before the tasting? - My personal preference is to NOT have anything sweet, like fig spread, when eating highly herbed cheeses & drinking wine. - You choose a nice spread of cheeses. - Again, a personal preference, but I prefer a cabernet to a pinot with cheeses. Your cheeses: Fleur - From Corsica, pateurised sheeps milk, herb crusted (savory & rosemary). Needs a very hearty red wine. Corsican ideally, but a nice Zifandel should work & be easier to obtain. Brie - Make sure it has been out of the fridge for quite a while; it should be soft & slightly runny. This 70% MG brie will be very mild. Your chard should have worked so I suspect that the brie was too cold. Sotto - Italian, Pasteurised cows milk, lots of herbs in the crust & truffles in the cheese. I've never eaten this one so my advice in general in nature. I would try it with the chard or perhaps a savignon blanc. The blue - Raw cows milk. American attempt at Roquefort & a good one. I suggest you try it with a decent port. Failing that try a cabernet or zifandel. Question for you? What cheeses in addition to the sharp cheddars have you tried that you really like? Might give the real experts on this thread some ideas as to what you might want to try. Have fun with it! ← Yes, I let all the cheeses come to room temp. for over an hour. I had read cabernet should be paired with hard cheese, but we defintely will try it with the Fleur Du Marquis and see how they are together. The Brie was very bland tasting, maybe that is because of we are used to buying the less expensive brand which to me had more of a nutty flavor and thicker consistency.. Should I have warmed the brie in the oven? Will definitely try chardonney with the Sotto. I will go a buy a nice port for the blue when we get ready to taste that. What kind of cheeses do we like: cheddar, boursin,jarlsbirg. One interesting thing I have learned by going on line is the parmiganna reggiano, gruyere, and pecorinos can be using for table cheese. Do you recommend that? I have always used them just for cooking. Any other suggestions would be greating appreciated. We are willing to try different types and experiment. Have never had a goat cheese. Can you recommend one that I can buy here in the states. Thanks ← With all due respect an hour is really not enough. Especially for the brie, it should have at least 4 hours. Do NOT warm the brie in the oven unless you are trying to make brie on toast or are melting one to put on a salad. (both very good things to do!)As before a well ripened brie of this calibre should be slightly runny & have turned a bit yellow when ready to eat. Yes, everything you mention can be served as a table cheese. I am particularly fond of aged gruyere. Also, these was a good controversy earlier on this thread about 10 year old Gouda. Don't know about the 10 year claim, but well aged Gouda is absolutly delicious. I'll leave the goat (chevre) recommendations to our friends in the states. I've been living away for the last 5 years so am not current on what's good & what would be available at Wholefoods. While experimenting see if you can find a sheep's milk (brebis) cheese to try. These are some dymamite ones around. Again, get recommendations from the knowledgable Americans who lurk around this thread. Another easy experiment you can try since you like boursin is to buy some Philadelphia cream cheese & then lightly coat bits of it with herbs. Cumin seeds, coriander seeds, oregano, Herbs de Province, celery seeds and thyme are all interesting. See what you like & try your own inspirations for fun. Keep trying & have fun.

My champ is The Middle of Nowhere Diner near West Kingstown, Rhode Island. That really is the name & it really is in the middle of nowhere. We used to live near nowhere, so we know about nowhere and it really is nowhere. The diner opens at about 4:00AM to catch the fishing/ hunting trade as well as the cops, ladies of the evening & other assorted early risers. The booths are plastic with lots of tears & the 'curtains' are older than I am. All waitpersons have real thunderthighs & hips that would stop a battleship. The evening crowd fits that profile perfectly. The food is classic diner. Great grilled burgers, hot turkey sandwiches with gravy from a menu that hasn't changed in umpteen years. THE best fish & chips I've ever eaten outside of England. Friday nights you could get the special for $4.95; a big bowl of chowder, coleslaw, fish & lots of chips. Wine? Comes in miniture bottles.

Hummmm... A few comments to start. - did you let the cheeses come up to room temperature before the tasting? - My personal preference is to NOT have anything sweet, like fig spread, when eating highly herbed cheeses & drinking wine. - You choose a nice spread of cheeses. - Again, a personal preference, but I prefer a cabernet to a pinot with cheeses. Your cheeses: Fleur - From Corsica, pateurised sheeps milk, herb crusted (savory & rosemary). Needs a very hearty red wine. Corsican ideally, but a nice Zifandel should work & be easier to obtain. Brie - Make sure it has been out of the fridge for quite a while; it should be soft & slightly runny. This 70% MG brie will be very mild. Your chard should have worked so I suspect that the brie was too cold. Sotto - Italian, Pasteurised cows milk, lots of herbs in the crust & truffles in the cheese. I've never eaten this one so my advice in general in nature. I would try it with the chard or perhaps a savignon blanc. The blue - Raw cows milk. American attempt at Roquefort & a good one. I suggest you try it with a decent port. Failing that try a cabernet or zifandel. Question for you? What cheeses in addition to the sharp cheddars have you tried that you really like? Might give the real experts on this thread some ideas as to what you might want to try. Have fun with it!

A trick we've learned & used several times is to just paint our 'backsplash' whatever color fits the kitchen. Or tile it in the normal way. THEN paint over the other paint or tile with a clear matte polyurathane (sp?). Two coats is best. The clear matte is pretty much invisible, but being hard & tough is easy to clean as well as long lasting. Just soap & water usually takes off any splashes or grease from cooking. On a daily basis we just wipe it down with a damp sponge. Seems to last for at least 5 years & is then easily renewed by painting on another coat. Doing it this way solves any installation problems, saves money and looks good!

The National Kitchen and Bath Association recommends the following minimum widths: 36” for walkways; 42” for single-cook work aisles; and 48” for multiple cook work aisles. Providing adequate passageways may not leave much room for an island in an 11x14 kitchen unless the long side is open. Our 10x12 kitchen opens to the dining room on the short side. Pre-renovation, a peninsula between the kitchen and dining room was a major bottleneck. After evaluating several island and peninsula configurations, we decided that a galley layout was the most efficient and functional. Good luck! ← If you can use the 14' dimension I think you'll be OK. My calculation is: 2 X 30" countertops = 5' leaving 9' , 2 X 36" walkways/work areas = 6'. This leaves 3' for the island width. More than enough; in fact unless you really do have two people cooking a lot of the time a 30" wide island works well. We had one kitchen where we only had space for a 24" island. That worked. I think the association recommendations are great & ideal IF you can plan the kitchen from scratch. In the world of this is the space I have; how do I best use it corner cutting is necessary.

Glad that I now live in France where tipping in restaurants is no longer expected. It took a long time, but the French have succeeded in stamping out the practice pretty much. You leave, maybe, the odd change. Same in Germany, The Nederlands and all of Scandinavia. England is still a tip. And the restaurants there are expensive. Hate it when we come home & have to tip again. My pet peeve is those places where they automatically add 15-25% tip to the bill of parties over 6 people. How dare they! A rip off as far as I'm concerned.

Dave - You need a french press cozy (cosy? sp?). Same idea as an old fashioned tea cozy. Keeps the coffe hot while it brews & then does a pretty good job after you've taken the plunge. Unfortunately, I don't know where you can buy one. Ours was made by a talented friend & given to us as a stocking stuffer. I'm sure, however, that the eGullet band of intrepid gadgeteers can meet the challenge & come up with a source. Othewise its back to the sewing machine. yank

Knew you were kidding, but can never resist any opportunity to expound upon the benefits of a cheese & wine diet. Love any chance to tweak the noses of the "fat nazi's". Jacques is a one off, you couldn't imagine a better friend. He brings cheese, homemade pates, wild mushrooms and other local dishes. In January he has set up an old fashioned pig day. We'll kill the pig then take two days butchering & turning it into all of the traditional pork specialities. I'll be taking lots of pictures! Keep up the good numbers! I'm 69 now & still have my (vitually) daily cheese fix. LindsayAnn - You sound like a person after my own heart. I'll forgive any cheese lover a bit of junk food so long as they keep up their wine quota.

1) I as is not untypical spelled it slightly wrong. The correct spelling is: BOUYSSET. Maybe that helps. Otherwise all I can tell you is that its a raw milk goats cheese from the Tarn (just South of us.). I did find it once before (see my blog below) and loved it. The one I found this summer was far riper. 2) As a matter of fact I did have my cholesterol checked only a month ago. It was fine was were all the other blood tests. There is a reason why people in this SouthWestern area of France live longer on average than those in almost any other region in the world. The secret is in what you eat & drink. As follows: - eat lots of good cheese. Not the stuff pumped full of chemicals. - Use only goose, duck & olive as fats. - Eat plently of meats - Eat plenty of good organic or home grown vegatables & fruit. - Eat no (or as few as possible) processed or refined foods. Such as sugar & white flour. Not to mention preprepared meals. - Drink about 3 good sized glasses of red wine every day. Not a lot more & not a lot less. Drink no other booze except some good white wine, a bit of sherry & only good port. Sorry for the soap box, but I do believe this or something close to it works. The Montignac diet comes closest as a book. PS: The luck of 'good' genes helps.

Here's a post on the cheeses we were going to eat, but didn't. At least not at Thanksgiving. I had put these together as a more modest cheese plate. This pechegos was to be the centerpiece. Lovely to look at & with an in your face taste. Here's some bouyesset (creamy goat) and a St Nectaire Fermier. Yummy We were going to have a nice Bleu de Causses to finish off with. Milder & creamier than a Roquefort. So many cheeses, so little time. I'm now going to see if I can find a gariotin, but I suspect I'll have to wait until the next time we're up in Burgundy. Something to look forward to.

I'm afraid that you are being naive. I'm pretty sure that under the transitional arrangements for the new EEC entrants the right to work is restricted. This period can last for up to 7 years from 2004. France was one of the countries that was very worried about a 'mass' influx of workers from the East. This does not mean that your wife cannot apply for a work permit in France & get one. It does mean, if I'm right, that she needs to start soon & allow plenty of time for all of the paperwork. By all means check this out with the French embassy in Washington. I could well be (and I hope I am) wrong. No matter what allow as much time as possible for paperwork. Bureauocracies work slowly.

We had trifle for Thanksgiving. A total hit with everyone. Ours, I should say my wife's, is is a traditional English version. It just can't be beat! She is from the North of England and really knows what she's doing. I'll be persuading her to post the recipe in the next few days. As to seasonality; yes it is better in the summer with fresh berries, but frozen work well & you can usually get pretty good fresh strawberries. Traditionally a trifle is topped with toasted almonds, but they can be left off or sprinkled over each individual portion. If you try this you'll love it!

You might want to have a look at greedy goose Anne Dyson is a superb cook & superb teacher. Courses from one day to one week. Great location on the Lot with excursions to local markets. Nice place to stay as well. Good luck.

post #2 Jacques extravaganza. The French are so generous. I could not believe it when Jacques showed up with two panniers of cheeses. Sacre Bleu! And what an exercise in tasting goats cheese. They're all chevres, different ages, different shapes, different affinages & differet herb treatments. Here are some more pictures & some tasting notes. The four donut shaped cheeses. The uncut one on the left was the youngest & mildest. The big one on the right was slightly riper, but still mild & creamy. The little guy at the back was considerably older with a nice bite. And whats left of the one in front was very sharp. A couple of logs & the edge of a brick. All pretty mild although one of the logs has a very distinctive taste. I'm saving these beauties & will report in a few days on what they tasted like. (They're so pretty that I think our guests were a bit leery of cutting into these.) I love the looks of these. Where but in France? Hope they taste half as good as they look. Again, my thanks to Jacques for providing us this feast of cheeses.

Lots of cheese to report on. See today & yesterday's posts on the Cheese Board thread for the Thanksgiving extravaganza. Here I'm going to do 3 posts; the food fair cheeses, more on Jacques amazing collection and one on the cheeses we didn't eat. (or not yet anyway.) I was frustrated last week because L had all the cameras. (Must say she came back with some very high quality pics, but none of food.) Finally got to take my pictures, but Thanksgiving intervened. Anyway, here we are. Pretty little cheese. Looks like a chevre, but isn't. Its a brebis (sheep's milk) cheese. Very mild, but with a bit of tang. These are the other two I bought from the same stand. The one on the left is cow's milk. Strong with a lots of punch & a great after taste. On the right is a chevre that is very strong. From the taste I think it had been soaked in some kind of apricot liqueur. Powerful! Must visit these people. They're over near Bordeau so are only a couple of hours away. They had a lot of different cheeses. I need to spend time finding out more about them. Like, for instance what they call the cheeses. Nice touch; as she wrapped these cheeses the girl behind the counter numbered each one & told me I should eat them in that order; 1 then 2 then 3. I did , she was right.

There are four donut shaped cheeses on the basket. I think that the one in the foreground is called Rouelle. Heres a link to a better description. click here. I'll be doing more on these cheeses over in the 'cheeses glorious cheese' thread. May have to go visit Le Pic creamery which is where these came from. Its not far, but I suspect that most of the names are strictly loca, So many cheeses, so little time!

I'm almost sorry to post this for my poor deprived friends in the USA to see, but being somewhat of a sadist here goes. THanksgiving is not a holiday celebrated here in France except for expats like us. We like to do it and to invite our French friends. This year my friend Jacques & his wife Virginia were invited. Knowing my love a cheeses Jacques asked me if it would be Ok if he brought some 'special' goats cheeses. Knowing Jacques I readily agreed thinking he's bring a nice cheese. I thought no more about it & bought my own selection at market to serve after the main course & before desserts. About 9 o'clock this morning Jacques shows up with his cheeses. Here they are! Talk about flabbergasted! Wow! They're ALL chevres from a big artisanal producer near his village. All the way from very young to old & hard with lots a stages & flavors inbetween. As you can see some are flavored with herbs or raisins. Absolutely astounding. This is why you have a cheese board! Our guests were in heaven sampling & tasting. So was I; more on this & what I bought that didn't get served over in the Cheese Glorious Cheese thread later when I've recovered from cooking for 21 people. Vive La France, I say!

Well, last night, one of my most esteemed eGullet buddies disparaged this reference, but for years, I’ve found Art Buchwald’s annual IHT description of Thanksgiving to be a comforting tonic. To answer your query Dave, he says “One of our most important holidays is Thanksgiving Day, known in France as le Jour de Merci Donnant .” He then goes on to recount the tale of Kilometres Deboutish (Miles Standish), etc. So as to stay on topic I’ll end by quoting this - “Le Jour de Merci Donnant was first started by a group of Pilgrims (Pelerins) who fled from l'Angleterre before the McCarran Act to found a colony in the New World (le Nouveau Monde) where they could shoot Indians (les Peaux-Rouges) and eat turkey (dinde) to their hearts' content.” And so forth...... Happy Thanksgiving Art and Dave and all. John ← John - Wonderful reply.Thank you! Happy Thanksgiving to all & happy eating. May you & your loved ones be full of good food & good cheer.