comfort food
Often, when I have an awful, no good, terribly bad day I want comfort food. For me that means snooty cheeses. Sometimes with a little fruit on the side, sometimes not. If I’d remembered that I had grapes in the fridge last night I totally would have eaten those, but I forgot.
Our Kroger is in the midst of expanding into a Super-Mega-Kroger that can be seen from space. They’ve finished the first section of the renovations and have added a Murray’s cheese shop. Last night, I finally gave them a proper perusal instead of just glancing as I walked past.
The first thing I found that caught my eye was a Fromager d’Affinois. While I was reading the sign, the fromagiere (ok, I might have made that word up, like a sommelier but for cheese) offered to give me a sample. It was a Prima Donna gouda with a tiny bit of strawberry basil jelly. I was immediately in love!
Prima Donna gouda is drier and sharper than a regular gouda. It’s reminiscent of a parmesan, only not quite that sharp. I got a wedge of that and a wedge of the fromager d’Affinois and a jar of that strawberry basil jelly and headed home.
I think that a good cheese plate will always have three cheeses. Any more and you start getting confused, any less and you don’t have enough variety. Each cheese should be of a different type, too. One needs to be creamy, one stinky, and one somewhere in the middle. So, I dug in the bottom of the fridge and found a chunk of stilton that had been there for at least a year. No worries, it was still vacuum packed, so it hadn’t even molded. Well, it had no more mold than stilton usually does. I added these rosemary crackers from Kroger that I’ve been grooving on for quite a while.
Lo’ back in the stone ages, when I was but a girl, I loved a TV show called Twin Peaks. If you haven’t seen it, check it out. In one of the very first episodes, Jerry (who has been overseas) introduces his brother Ben to a butter and brie sandwich on a baguette. It sounded so good at the time, that I just had to try it. I’d never even had brie at that point. It was the most amazing thing I’d ever put in my plebeian mouth. I still love that combination and it’s another of my comfort foods.
Fromager d’Affinois is like butter and brie already mixed together. It’s creamy and mild and buttery and scrumptious. It is absolutely wonderful. This will definitely become one of my favorite cheeses, and I do lurves me some cheese.
After partaking of my cheese plate and a couple of cans of the “house wine” (otherwise known as Pepsi for me or Mountain Dew for Sparks) I felt a lot less frazzled. I went to bed and read for the next few hours until it was time for sleep. A very relaxing evening indeed!
October 27th, 2013 at 10:57 pm
being in cincincincincincincincincinnati we have tons of god dang kroger markets here.. and many times one will come in, run out the mom and pop shop and then pull up stakes, so we have honest to gawsh food deserts here in town.. but the one thing.. cheeses..NO FUCKIN’ BEER CHEESE HERE.