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I spread some fresh goat cheese onto a baguette and bit into it. The bread was flaky and buttery, clearly freshly baked this morning, and the cheese was tangy and tart. For an instant, the cheese, the taste, transported me to my childhood, to the kitchen I remembered- the one with the red-and-white-checked curtains- to many days of happiness, to the cheese I was eating right now. I didn't remember it tasting so good.
"Oh my God," I mumbled with this mouthful of excitement, so delicious it was sinful.
"Ma puce, is something wrong?"
"No, this is the best meal I've had in weeks," I said. "It's sublime."
"Bah," she said. "It's simple. But sometimes simple is the best, non?"
I couldn't have agreed with her more. I wanted- no, needed- simple. Lately everything in my world was so complicated; I prayed for simple.
"Madame Pélissier makes our goat cheese right on her farm- also other fresh cheeses like le Cathare, a goat cheese dusted with ash with the sign of the Occitania cross, as well as a Crottin du Tarn, which is the goat cheese we use for the pizza, and Lingot de Cocagne, which is a sheep's milk cheese. Do you want to do a little tasting of her cheeses?"
"Would I? You bet."
Clothilde ambled over to the refrigerator, returning with a platter of lumpy cheese heaven straight from the cooking gods' kitchen.
"Et voila," she said, placing it down and bringing her fingers to her lips, blowing out a kiss.
There were veiny cheeses marked with blue and green channels and spots, soft cheeses with natural or washed rinds, and fresh and creamy cheeses, like the goat cheese. The scents hit me, some mild with hints of lavender, some heavily perfumed, some earthy, and some garlicky.
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Samantha Verant (The Secret French Recipes of Sophie Valroux (Sophie Valroux #1))