Wednesday 21 January 2015

Perks of parenthood

This past weekend we had the pleasure of the company of our "French" daughter Fiona and her family. When I say family, I mean Fiona, her husband Juan Fernando, and their daughter Luna, who is now 13 months old. I had only met Luna in person once before - in March 2014 - and although we had "Face-timed" occasionally and thus been able to watch her develop, the opportunity to see her in the flesh had only arisen that once. It was lovely to see them all. Other than holding your own child in your arms, the best thing in the world is to cuddle your baby granddaughter! Luna was understandably a little apprehensive of me at first, though she was keen to play with all the toys we put in front of her, and I'm sure if she had been here longer she would soon have come to terms with the situation and accepted me as a friend and ally.

Unfortunately, since both Luna's parents work for the UN they are reluctant to have the internet plastered with photos of her so I am not going to publish any. Instead, I am going to write today about another of my favourite things: cheese!

Fiona and Juan brought with them from their home in France some French cheeses. These are cheeses that are commonplace in France, but relatively rare in the UK. Yes, you can buy them in specialist shops, but not in everyday supermarkets.

This is probably my favourite cheese of all (and that is a VERY contentious subject!). It is Brillat Savarin:


"Brillat-Savarin is a soft, white-crusted cow's milk cheese with at least 75% fat ". This one comes from the "Reflets de France" range, which showcases archetypical French food products.


Treated properly, this is a really first-class cheese, creamy, tasty, delicious. Ideal for spreading on a salty cracker, served with a ripe apricot.

It is very different to this next one, Comté which is a hard cheese. It originates from the Franche-Comté region of Eastern France, geographically not far from Geneva where Fiona and Juan work.


According to the label, this one is aged 30 months. It is slightly reminiscent of a good Cheddar -  almost nutty. Good to eat with a nice crisp apple.


You can see that despite being a local, ordinary everyday cheese, it is not cheap - nearly 20 euros per kilo. Still, it is definitely worth it!

This is the final one - Cantal. It comes from the Auvergne area, right in the geographical centre of France. Technically, this is a "semi-hard" cheese. Not as firm as Comté, but a lot firmer than Brillat-Savarin. Read about it by following my link to the Wikipedia entry.


These French cheeses are a pleasant change for us, having recently been eating mainly Stilton , Cheddar, Lancashire and Shropshire Blue, all very English cheeses. Cheese, generically, is one of my favourite foods, but there are just so many different types of cheese that it is practically impossible for me to say which is my favourite one. It just depends on my mood, and on what else I am eating at the time. Can you say which is YOUR favourite one?

18 comments:

  1. I do prefer English cheeses and my absolute favourite is Wensleydale, which is quite handy as we're fairly close to the Dales so we pop in to the Wensleydale Creamery where it's made when we're visiting Hawes. They make Wensleydale with different things added, apricots, cranberries etc. but I prefer it just as it is. Lovely that you got to see Luna at the weekend, she's at a lovely age, though I don't know where those thirteen months have gone, it doesn't seem two minutes since you were announcing her birth.

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    1. Yes, we've been to the Wensleydale creamery in Hawes too - and I agree that the plain cheese is best. After all, you can eat it WITH fruit if you want fruit.

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  2. I'm glad you got to spend some time with your granddaughter & look at all of that cheese. I'm like Jo I prefer Wensleydale but I also like a good goats cheese too. I don't eat a lot of cheese now since Mike became lactose intolerant but the farm shop close by does a lovely selection of smaller pieces of cheese. I used to like a pick & mix selection with crackers on a Saturday night.

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  3. I used to be a big cheese eater, but I don't much anymore. My favorite is probably cheddar.

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  4. this is just like heaven for me... anyone who brings cheese is more than welcome to come back time and time again...

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  5. Nice to have a visit from your granddaughter. Mine will be 1 in February. No photos on here nor may I publish her name. I surprised they let you give her name.

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  6. I was going to say that I wasn't really a cheesy person then, Jo reminded me of the creamery at Hawes in Wensleydale that make done tasty cheeses. You can also watch them making it using the old method. They also have a good restaurant which coincidentally we are planning a visit to - snow permitting,

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    1. I wonder if you will have cheese for lunch...

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  7. Mmmmmmm, a most welcome present I would imagine. My favourite French cheese is Ossau-Iraty which is becoming increasingly available over here :)

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    1. Yes, I like that one too, though being from the Pyrenees, I think it goes best with Spanish-style food.

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  8. With you Mark about cheese!
    The "Reflets de France" range is now available from Ocado which is great. My favourite British cheese at the moment is Stichelton- a raw cows milk traditional English blue cheese made on the Welbeck Estate in Nottinghamshire by Joe Schneider. Lovely and creamy and a touch less salty than Stilton. I also love the cheese made by Charlie Westhead of Neil’s Yard Creamery in Herefordshire-his goat milk cheeses-the Ragstone, Dorstone and Dill Perroche are divine...And not forgetting St James, a wonderful unpasteurised sheeps milk cheese made by Martin Gott up in Cumbria...

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    1. Wow, those cheeses you mention sound fab! The only one I know is the Stichelton.

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  9. Sounds like you're having a great time with family and baby. Cheese looks interesting. I'm a huge fan of most cheese!

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  10. There are some great tasting cheeses available.

    One that I've only recently discovered is Epoisses, I buy it from Waitrose and it's simply delicious. Their web site describes it as gloriously sticky, pungent with an abundantly fruity tang. Made in the small village of Epoisses in Burgundy, the rind of this cheese is washed over and over again in Marc de Bourgogne.

    It really is worth trying - if you haven't already.

    All the best Jan

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    1. Hi Jan; Yes, I have tried Epoisses, and I agree it is very good. That's the trouble: there are just so many good cheeses to choose from! Have you tried my local cheese - Tunworth? It has won lots of awards recently. It's a bit like Camembert.

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    2. Haven't tried 'Tunworth' - I will have to look out for it, many thanks

      All the best Jan

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  11. So nice to spend time with your family, too bad about no pics for us to see. We have some wonderful french cheeses from nearby Quebec Canada (I'm next door in Ontario). But hard to get really great cheese here. After visiting a friend in Belgium many years ago, she came to visit and we met up in New York City - she "smuggled" in some wonderful cheeses for us to enjoy - I actually don't know the rules about U.S. customs, but, in Canada, we cannot transport any dairy in from other countries. So sad. So so sad.

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    1. Not being able to import foreign cheeses must be so annoying! It was a bit like that here when we had the BSE in beef crisis - we were not allowed to import any meat or dairy products.

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