Two weeks after Christmas we still have leftover Comté. Unbelievable but true. Because the doorstopper-sized hunk of 40 month cheese turned out to be terribly disappointing. It seems that age has just made it super salty instead of intensely umamilicious. It could be because I bought it from a new fromager who, erm, specialises in goat cheeses. So this monstrous chunk sat in the fridge, together with its soft brethren Brie which was even more of a lost cause, on the top shelf where I can see it as soon as I open the door, sending out waves of hope and expectancy. It was OK melted on top of some bruschetta, but we are on a post-holiday bread embargo. My usual way of eating Comté- like munching it on its own, in between meals and especially when watching television- is out of the question now.
But one day I had a brainwave. How about pairing it with dried apricots, a whole kilogram of which I had procured at the organic market at Raspail? The apricots are gorgeousness personified in their deep jewel-brown tones untainted by artificial orange colourings, and super-delicious, all sweet, meaty and warm, like the sun. I chopped up some, and tasted. Bham! A pairing made in heaven, they are so perfectly matched. The sweet playing off the salty, the full bodied fruit making up for lack of it in the cheese, finishing with a pleasantly gritty salt crunch. Not the most novel pairing, but I've never had it so in sync. No wonder then that Mimi was waiting by my side, hoping for some cheese to fall off by accident.
Donc, quoi de neuf? What else is new? Not much. We're still feeling very full from all that eating in December. All that crabs, the multiple forays to Nasi Kandar Pelita (KL) for roti canai, the double bowls of beehoon-pok at Lai Heng and that blowout on Christmas Day has taken its toll. The only remedy is healthier eating which means more soups and vegetables, and less of the féculants (French for starch, doesn't it sound so very bad?) and deep fried anything.
It started with the Salade Toute Orange at Delicabar in Bon Marché, which every other table was also ordering. Served in a deep orange plastic bowl, the salad mixes clementines, shards of carrots, boiled lentils and emmenthal cheese, the whole pile topped off with an orangey nutty dressing that could well have contained more emmenthal. Delicious and a perfect antidote to a Figue Farcie au Foie Gras, which is a whole poached fig stuffed with creamy foie gras mixture, available in the food hall downstairs at only 2.50 euros a pop, crazy!
It means sushi instead of steak frites. I get my sushi fix at one of the not-so-few tiny joints in the 16th arrondissement. It is hard to get reservations, and the chef prefers if you order takeaways instead. He is not very friendly and his waitress even more unhelpful. Yesterday she proposed something off-menu to some other regulars, but when I asked her about the day's specials, she pointed me to the stupid carte of which I can recite by now. But my French is not good enough, and my Japanese negligible, so I resigned myself to some nigiri sushi. Just she wait, I'm coming back every week (my French conversation teachers- they both take turns to host classes- live in the very neighbourhood) and I will impress her with my immense greed. One day I might even work up the nerves to order a whole bowl of spicy tuna don, easily the most popular item on the menu for their French customers but quite incomprehensible to me.
Next week of course, the sales start. Running for six weeks from 9 January, discounts can go as deep as 70%. V needs more stockings, husband some warm housepants which is quite difficult to find because the French of course don't wear elasticated anything at home. I also have to polish up my miserable French in order to sit for the placement exam in my soon-to-be French school, don't want to be placed in a junior class by now do we? Excuse me while I go stroke my electronic Larousse and have yourselves a Très Bon Weekend.
