(Cheese raptures ahead)

This blurry little post comes the morning after our second attempt at Jamie’s birthday dinner.  A far more successful birthday dinner was had than the flaming affair of Nemours at the Michelin starred Chapeau Rouge http://www.chapeau-rouge.fr/restaurant/home.htm. But, more about that some other time. ..I’m typing on the TGV train from Dijon. Today we leave France and head to Switzerland/Germany (Busingen) to visit my mother and see the Matterhorn. More about that later too. Today I will be writing an overdue post about love.

My love for Epoisses began when my good friend Kadir smuggled an Epoisses back to Derby with him from a trip to Melbourne. The pungent little cheese had flown from its namesake town in France, all the way to Melbourne, and then been carefully transported all the way to WA’s north – safely encased in its signature wooden box. When it reached its new home, Jamie and I savoured it over several days. We ate tiny pieces and we smelled the rich cheesy smell before each bite. A great love was born then, and I feel it will always endure. One lifelong cheese lover had found her perfect match.

The famous gourmand/epicurean Brillat-Savarin described Epoisses as ‘the king of cheeses’ (this quote is everywhere around France.).  I bow down to my ruler. It’s very hard to describe tastes, but Epoisses is really not to be missed. It is firm, extremely strong and flavoursome, meaty, soft…the paste can be a mix of gooey liquid and chalky centre – each sublime. I prefer it when it’s gooey all the way through.

Epoisses is a strong (stinky) unpasturised (usually) soft, washed rind cheese, made only in the Epoisses region of the Cote D’or department in Burgundy, France. It is believed to have been created by Cistercian monks at the start of the 16th Century, washed many times during its aging process in the local Marc de Bourgogne brandy. Those naughty monks and their brandy... The cheese recipe was handed down and produced for hundreds of years, only to die out a little after the second world war (poor prioritising of the diminished post-war workforce, I say). In 1956 this fabulous cheese was revived by Robert and Simon Bertaut, who started the Bertaut Fromagerie and now produce all fermier (farm) Epoisses cheese.

Bertaut Epoisses is my favourite of the Epoisses, and this is where Jamie kindly insisted I visit to meet my (cheese) maker.  

Epoisses generally: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89poisses_de_Bourgogne

When Jamie and I arrived in Montbard, we were close to the source of my affection - the town of Epoisses was only 48klms away. But to get to Epoisses from Montbard was either a long tricky day ride on roads over hills, or…a pleasant journey in a hire car. We chose wisely and headed to Epoisses in our borrowed black Opal. Driving on the right, seated on the left while changing gears with my left hand was challenging, but I stayed focused on the cheese and we arrived safely.

The town of Epoisses is charming, in the style of many charming European towns: http://www.chateaudepoisses.com/ . We arrived just before lunch time, and the Bertaut cheese factory opened at 3pm. Perfect! We explored the grandiose Epoisses castle (complete with swampy moat and ornate spiked gates), and then headed to the Pomme D’Or ('apple of gold') pub for lunch. We opted for the Epoisses lunch, and we were richly rewarded. For our entrée, Jamie had the roti espice bread…with Epoisses. Little triangles of the delicious, rich, sweet Burgundian spiced bread, toasted with Epoisses chunks melted to brown, crisped perfection on top. Epoisses is a soft cheese, but the paste is firm enough that it melts solidly and retains its form. Jamie was very impressed with his entrée and decided this was the best toastie he’d ever had.  It was delicious. I had the Epoisses millefeuille, which was also superb – soft melty gooey Epoisses encased in crisp buttery pastry. So good.

Our main (which had been specially prepared to cater to our pescatorian preference) was simply baked white fish, in a delicate herbed butter with steamed wild rice and a medley of peppers in buttery sauce. Simple and delicious rustic country fare, accompanied by crusty bread and a bottle of crisp local Chablis.

To finish, of course, we had assiette fromage – cheese plates. The cheese plates had large chunks of Epoisses as well as its cousins – Saumatrin and , from nearby Bertaut. The cheeses were partbered with a few walnuts and some toasted pine nuts, and the same crusty country bread. Sublime.

The post-lunch visit to Bertaut fromagerie was fabulous too – although the factory does not open to visitors, so we had to content ourselves with browsing and purchasing in the shop. Of course we took home some cheesy friends…

I could bang on all day about these cheeses, but I suppose I should stop.

I thoroughly recommend Epoisses to all. If you can’t find it in your local cheese importer – it is available from:  

http://www.rhcl.com.au/index.php/cheese_room_view/epoisses-berthaut-250g-cut-piece.html

Paris Reunion

After my few hurried days in Perth recently (for the nuptials of my very dear friends Deda and Stephen), I ate my way through the Perth, Singapore and London airport lounges, until Jamie met me at Charles de Gaul with flowers (not the ailing Tour de Romandie bunch – these were waiting at the hotel). After hellos and catch ups (and more feeding) – I slept from about 3pm until the next morning.

Jamie had promised me a proper rest day in Paris, to get over the jet lag/sleepiness my 30 hour return journey may have caused. He delivered a pretty unrestful rest day. We started by walking around, frantically hunting out a map shop. Once found, it sadly disappointed my map loving beau and precipitated more map shop hunting. We continued to 'rest' by returning to the bike shop we'd left our velos at, and riding/walking/dragging our retrieved bikes 15klms through central Paris. Avoiding crazy French drivers, pedestrians and their entitled hounds all the way back to our hotel on the outskirts of Paris while very tired (and needing to go to the toilet) was not so restful.

However, Thursday rolled around and we were both well rested as we set out for the forest south of Paris on the start of our route to Dijon. We managed 40klms only on our first day back on the bikes – due to a late start and the frustrating hours it takes to get out of a large city. I had two falls – once I wrapped my trailer around the front of a van parked into the street, and so stacked it into the oncoming traffic (no injury). The second time I (again) rolled my trailer on a kerb and fell off - to the amusment of some smarmy van driver, who took it upon himself to laugh out his stupid smarmy van window and shout something at me in French. He was lucky I didn’t understand him and that I don’t know many French swear words. Merde!

Jamie and I camped out in the Park de Boef (Yes – Park of Beef!) the first night. It was our first night camping in the wild (au savage...) and a large animal/serial killer close to our tent terrorised us during the night. We were pretty sure (in the cold sane light of morning) it was a deer, but I had Blair Witch flashbacks and we spent a few uncomfortable moments scaring each other, as Bambi pranced around nearby.

The next day, riding conditions being superb, we managed 66klms - our top day so far. This was quite a triumph given we’d arrived in Blandy about 4pm and had a beer to celebrate the end of a day’s riding. After chatting with the barmaid, we sadly realised our intended (only) campsite was closed and so then had to ride another 23klms onto La Rochette. We set up camp, and were soon indulging in a fantastic Brie de Meau topped pizza with beer. And then cider, and then more beer - as we sat on the bank of the Seine watching the French folk drive home from work on the opposite bank. All was very well in our world.

Random Paris:

I saw a trendy middle aged lady dragging her shaggy little dog along on an artfully knotted floral pashmina. Only in Paris…

Jamie’s Birthday

So, this didn’t go quite as planned.

Probably because there was not really a plan. I made a few plans (in my mind), and had some far-fetched ideas – but I didn’t know where we’d actually be until the day before and so forward planning was challenging. In my mind, I would cook Jamie a delightful birthday camp breakfast of oeuffs, we’d ride a little way on smooth downhill bike paths, picnic on the banks of the Seine, cruise into a delightful village where we would eat at a Michelin-starred restaurant and then stay in a fancy hotel where all the staff would sing ‘happy birthday’ to him. The birthday would be a tremendous success and Jamie would feel very special and fussed over.

The day began sans cooking because our new camp gas did not fit our stove. Epic fail from the outset as I’d forgotten Jamie’s lifelong tradition of cocoa pops for bithday breakfast and not brought any with me from Aus. I obtained some sub-standard pastries (ridiculously no boulangerie was available on this of all days). For the first time ever I let Jamie eat three while I had one. Although we’d left ourselves only a pleasant 35 klms to ride on Jamie’s birthday, this somehow turned into 45klms and the conditions were horrible – we had the full complement of being lost, no cycle path, crazy traffic, headwinds, (MASSIVE) and frequent hills, gravel, sand and being lost again. It was pretty horrible and we soon had sore backsides and sore wrists. We arrived in Nemours about 4pm. We’d had no lunch. By this time I had severe hunger psychosis from being too generous with the breakfasts, but was trying very hard to keep it together for the sake of the birthday. Trying to keep it together made the psychosis worse. After stalking around the town and deciding we hated it (I won’t name an equivalent town – but think of any trashy bogan mecca where youth skulk around feigning boredom – the males alll look like they want to punch someone, females all look like they’re soliciting/chasing a pregnancy - it’s that town, sorry Nemours), Jamie found a truly delicious lunch which eased our pain and brought back some festivity. Finding a hotel was also tedious, but we made it in the end….our hopes were raised.

To be dashed.

Dinner was another matter – I frantically searched online for something suitable, and found a few potentials in nearby Fontainbleu. It was taking a while to get reservations, but, still hopeful I went to book a cab. No cabs. ‘Nemour’s a small town, they all go to work in Paris’. Fantastic. We now had Japanese, Chinese, a French pub and two franchise carnivore grills to choose from for the birthday dinner. I coerced Jamie into the French place, which seemed least offensive. We overdressed ridiculously (each in our only wrinkly 'going out' outfit) and popped some champers in the room (ultra bublly after being hidden in our trailers since Heathrow duty free). Dinner wasn’t as bad as it could have been (or as good). I had babelfished a French request for candles in Jamie’s café gourmand. When his little flaming desert came out Jamie was so overcome with emotion he could only manage to tell me I was “So naff”. Whatever. ‘So naff’ is so 90s, old man. We had fun. We got boozy. We returned to the hotel and continued to celebrate with birthday presents and more candles, including a tacky (naff?) little plastic number to represent Jamie’s chronological achievement. This was well and good until the morning when we blearily realised through our hangovers that the birthday candles had created a festive black smokey mark up the hotel wall, almost to the ceiling, and burned right through the wooden headboard. I was hungover enough to think that a wet towel, pocket knife, masking tape and some makeup would cover/repair the damage. We sneaked off, collecting and destroying all evidence of burning -  including the lonely plastic number 3 whose partner had melted away.

We’ve not heard anything yet, but I guess now we’re officially on the run from the law. Or just from a moderately budget hotel chain that shall remain nameless. We’ll be redoing Jamie's birthday dinner at the first Michelin restaurant we come across but probably won’t redo the candles.

Note on photos:

Since I returned to France, I read and Jamie finished reading Alain De Botton’s ‘Art of Travel’ (thanks Stef for the loan!). Ridiculously good book – made us both feel fine about despising Paris. Anyway, the point is – there are no photos for the moment, and we feel ok about that too. Photos can be artificial attempts to capture the moment, apparently. Really we just forgot to take any. Anyway, the actual point is – we’re determined to be mindful philosophical travellers and not just snap-happy tourists, so – photos from now will be well thought out attempts to capture a moment, not mindless holiday snaps – although I think these still have their place. We may also follow Botton’s advice and paint ‘word pictures’ of our adventures. We’ll see.
 
Au ‘voir!

While I am slightly hungover and can't write too much (or maybe even in proper words/sentences) - some fun has been had, and some minor tragedy has passed.  

My sister left her holiday in Costa Rica to visit mum in Busingen last week, and then jet-setted her way back to Barca on Friday morning - she then nabbed a hire car and sped across to visit us in Perpignan.

Out first night passed in a fury of booze fuelled amusements, and much good food was consumed (along with much beer, wine, dessert wine, sangria etc etc). We pulled some bad poses to amuse little Kimmy (our famous peasant faces - come so naturally) who is languishing away in Perth and swamped in study. After watching some v amusing salsa dancing at a little club near our hotel, we stumbled on home to bed. I enjoyed stereo snoring. Tam and I half made breakfast,  JB was not quite up for it.

We finally hit the streets some time mid morning (or mid arvo - who can say?) to discover our beloved pimped-up biciclettes/velos/steeds were not where we'd left them. Theivery! Bastards. We were sad...we visited les gendarmes for assistance - only to be shooed away 3 times as they were too busy to take our complaint. Must go back Monday. Fabbo. The insurance company was even worse - almost impossible to get on the phone and then quick to assure us that 'bikes aren't luggage' and so aren't covered, despite wording to the contrary in their brochure. JB politely set the woman straight and we must file a claim when the cops finally let us report the theft.

We nursed our broken hearts over crap lunch, and returned to the bunker where we were at a loose end most of Sat. Poor Tam - must have been a sweeeeeet Saturday to drive 2 hours from Barca and then watch Jamie and I in mourning in our little hotel for a whole day.

About 5pm, the will to live slightly returned - along with the will to eat, and perhaps to imbibe again. We're not alcoholics - we had to drink to kill the pain. We plodded around, boozing randomly at cool looking places, and finally found a splendid dinner place. MUCH seafood was consumed, along with some splendid apertifs (Martini bianco - GOLD) and a couple bottles of blanc. Our spirits lifted...we cruised home (by way of last night's dodgy dance club), and Tammy momentarily rose above her heinous back injury to pull some extremely wrong dance moves with me for Kim's amusement back home. Everyone ended up with minor injuries, dirty clothes and finally, hangovers again.

A very good weekend (besides the bike theft, of course).

Even though we do miss our metal friends - the most annoying part is we now need to wait here for the special trailer hitch fittings to be sent again from Holland, then buy new bikes (that the fittings will fit) - and then attempt to find fittings/attachments etc to fit our bike luggage. Or buy all new bike luggage/panniers etc. And new "I love my bike" bells. And new safety flags...the flappy top half we are left with is not much use without our special patented masking tape flag fittings, securing the flag bases to the missing bikes.

Random incident - across the dark floor of the dance club, I saw a woman in her mid forties coming towards me - in what I thought was a trick of the light, I announced to Jamie and Tam that a lady with her nipple out was approaching. No trick. She sauntered over, grabbed and smilingly held my hands for a moment - all the while her entire (enhanced) right breast was, well...out there. It had escaped from her shirt entirely. Random.