Don't Light a Match!

We were invited to lunch at Sara and Christian’s place and agreed to bring the cheese.  Christian is from Normandy and loves the famous Normandy Camembert so Val went to the cheese shop to get one.  

 

She didn’t want the kind you often get, tasteless and rubbery, but a true Camembert, strong and runny.  And smelly.  Really smelly.

When she walked into the house with the Camembert the odor preceded her.  It smelled like when someone has just…well…you know why we use the expression “who cut the cheese?”  Exactly like that.

Of course, I figured it must have been Val.  Lucca is usually the source of such silent-but-deadly attacks but he was in the other room.

“Whoa, was that you?” I demanded.  “What the heck did you eat?”

“It’s the cheese, you idiot,” she said, and smacked me.  I guess I believed her.

But what to do about the smell, with the lunch still two days away?  Luckily, we could wrap the Camembert and put it in the fridge.  But the day of the lunch we had to take it out early to warm up.  No way you can eat cold cheese.  The odor wafted through the house.  I hid in the bedroom.

But the worst part was the 30 minute drive to Sara and Christian’s house.  Do you know how small the inside of a car is when you are sharing it with a Camembert?  I kept casting suspicious glances at Val and she kept pointing at the cheese.  I guess I believed her.

When we presented the cheese to Christian he inspected it carefully.  He looked, he poked.  He inhaled deeply, a smile on his face.  Then he took a little taste.  “Parfait”, he said.

Christian explained that in Normandy, the taste of Camembert varies based on what the cows eat – grass, apples, or a combination of the two.  The strongest and smelliest Camembert, and thus the best, comes from cows who eat only grass.  Christian told us, approvingly, that this cheese definitely came from grass-eating cows.  Success!

Our lunch that day was a special Normandy dish that is finished with a flambé of Calvados.  As Christian got ready to light it, I edged away.  What if that smell wasn’t really because of the cheese?  But luckily nothing exploded and Val gave me an I-told-you-so look.  I guess I believed her.

KVS