Wine and Cheese

The news today is good. I am no longer living on my friend Meredith's couch. Last night I moved in with a 26 year-old French guy named Samuel. I found him online through a site called Appartager.com (which I highly recommend to anyone who might ever be looking for roommates in Europe). The place is perfect. It's a recently renovated, two bedroom apartment, with a well supplied kitchen (including a dishwasher). The building is on a small street which is full of bars and cafes and sees a lot of traffic Thursday- Saturday, but is separated from the street by a courtyard and a three-story brick wall. It is also precisely half-way between the two high schools I work at.

The building was built in 1601 but Sam renovated the apartment himself, with help from his father. He attended a trade school for construction before deciding to make a career change when he discovered his passion for cheese. I am now living with a French fromager (artisan cheese maker). Sam's best friend from childhood, Fabien, is a cavist (wine connoiseur/salesman) and the first time I met them was at a wine and cheese party that Sam hosted Saturday night. Meredith and I attended, but the only other guests were Fabien and his girlfriend Valerie (who brought a few bottles of wine), and a girl from Bratenahl, OH who graduated from Cleveland State. Sam, of course, had a selection of cheeses to accompany Fabien's wines, and everything had a history.

Fabien had brought a map of all the regions of France that produce wine. He had chosen wines from all different regions, largely for the benefit and education of the Americans. Of course the grand finale was a wine from their hometown of Angers.

Sam had stories for all the cheeses as well. There were probably about nine different types, some from cows, some from goats, and even one from sheep's milk. We learned about how you could tell that a gruere had been produced in the spring by the color; a darker yellow means the cows were eating more flowers. One goat cheese evidently had a slightly acidic taste which was completely imperceptible to my novice pallet. Clearly the producer had been cutting corners. Sam knows him and assured us the man's cheese was usually exquisite.

In addition to being located conveniently in relation to my lycees, Sam's apartment is right around the corner from my new favorite bar. It's called Le Clou qui Resort (The Nail That's Comming Out). It's full of students and young people and is owned by the boyfriend of one of my co-workers at Lycee Guist'Hau, a young woman from Montreal named Sarah. The place is clean, but casual and serves cheap, delicious beer, which is a real novelty in France. The first night I was there some one was filming an amateur film, so there was lighting set up and I got to watch some of the regulars pretend to get drunk, take off their shirts, stumble around, fight and make up over a pint. Je me sentais chez moi.