perfidy

Al Bundy may well have been on to something when he said, "It is good to hate the French," and indeed it is easy and often pleasureable to do so. But it is important to compartmentalize. I do get riled at French government, French foreign policy, and French collective opinions. But the French themselves, and the wonderful bon-vivant culture they have created.... now, those are wonderful things.

For Christmas, I was the beneficiary of an extraordinarily generous gift, a gift certificate to Formaggio Kitchen, a store over in Cambridge who are serious about food. Dead serious.

Yesterday I ventured over there, and aside from a small bottle of 20 year old balsamic vinegar (which is the culinary equivalent of a fine Cuban cigar) and a few impossible to find odds and ends like grey Normandy sea salt, preserved lemons, and black sesame seeds, I picked up dinner for tonight. To wit: a very nice and somewhat pricey Burgundy, a hunk of aged goat's milk cheese from the same region, a hunk of Trois Laits, which is a soft and stinky three-milk cheese also from the same region, and a quarter loaf of pain Poilâne, the signature bread from the most famous baker in France.

Formaggio Kitchen aren't messing around. The cheeses I bought were purchased green from the source, and aged to perfection in a stone cellar purpose-built for that in the basement of the Cambridge store. The bread was baked Wednesday morning and flown via Federal Express to Boston. Lionel Poilâne himself claims that his signature pain Poilâne, a large round three-build sourdough loaf made with 85% extraction flour which he calls a miche, is best eaten about three day after baking, so I'm in business.

Tonight I will sit in my little kitchen in Salem, Massachusetts, and I will eat bread, cheese and wine from Burgundy and Paris nearly as fresh as if I were there. It is modern times, and it is good to love the French.

[wik] N.B. I did try a slice of pain Poilâne last night, and I see what all the hoopla is about. Holy crap. And I, I have the recipe.