(48) It would be so nice (celebrate)

I hope that many of you recognise the lyrics, well, at least part of it, of one of the most famous songs sung by Madonna. I had the chance to serve this great performer three times in my life when I was working in restaurants, twice in one where she came with a famous other friend and once in a more foody place where she was in for business. However, I should say that the most famous person that I served is now a king, and that I resides in his country, still it was pretty amazing to serve the queen of pop and I was blessed to attend to others as well.

It is the beginning of August now and many people are going, or just been, on holidays. This means that these people have already made arrangements to go somewhere, and with the weather in Europe this year the lucky ones have avoided being too warm or being drawn from the soaking rain that we enjoy at home, this would have been quite a feat! On top of all of that there is the problem of having to take a flight and contribute to global warming. This is why I prefer to take the train, even if this is more expensive that any plane ticket at least it takes as much time overall anyway. Of course, you have to go where it is convenient to do so, and there I am lucky being French.

My cactus in bloom, offered by The French Market

But more on that later, I will tell you now that I own a cactus, not any cactus mind you, a cactus that gave me twice six flowers last year and with twelve growths this year, I already enjoyed five flowers this year. These seems to grow one after the other, like the cactus brain was allowing one to grow before giving the green light to the next one. So, what about this cactus story?

Well, I got this amazing plant while I was delivering cheese to a bakery shop in north London, and not any kind of shop, a beautiful shop that I reviewed some time ago with nice people working in it and some great stuff too inside. They used to give a piece of bread or a croissant or pain au chocolat every time I was delivering. I should say that it is pretty far north compared to the other customers, and even if it is worth going that far, it took me some time to get there. And then once they offered me a flower or a plant. To be honest, I thought that I would rather have the sweet treat, but I was to choose a plant. After a little time thinking about it, precisely about having to care for a flower in a pot or to care for a cactus with minimum requirements, I chose the easy option. This proved to be a very good choice with many rewards.

With all this talk about weather and holidays, it is a bit slower at work at present, and this is expected during the summer month in a capital city anyway. So, we have a bit more time to spend talking and thinking at work nowadays. Television is a good topic, and we talked about some sitcom that I like to watch. The Big Bang Theory is one of my favourites at present, I was introduced to it by a charming Canadian co-worker in my last restaurant, and then we went to the most famous of them all, Friends. Then I realised that it is quite old, it started in 1994 and lasted ten years, quite a feat with the last season rather short even if it was good. But the most striking fact was the apparition of the mobile phone in the last season.

Obviously, mobiles have changed a lot since their apparition on Friends, they now have internet connection, you can waste a lot of time on your mobile with social media and all of the negative comments, you can get badly influenced by some intriguing stories (with not much truth in them), in brief you can forget to think with your mobile. At the same time it is brilliant tool if you want to keep in touch with your friends, the real ones not the one from social media…, and you can take pictures as well, even if I prefer to use a real camera for good quality picture taking, this way you can use them to do a lot of things, once again you need to spend the time for best results.

When you go on holidays, you switch off, you see different things, you do not do what you do the rest of the year, and hopefully you get some sun! and maybe you get a book to read…

As you might have seen on my last two posts (www.cheesefromage.com) I manage to combine my interest with my free time, I go to visit some cheese people and places. At least for the last twenty years or so I tried to do so. I even did a nice trip on the east side of France starting at Aix-en-Provence and finishing at Luxembourg, driving in the process some 3500Km through the mountains of the Alps, the Jura, and the Vosges. I looked at the areas where famous cheeses are made, watched the vistas afforded by these beautiful mountains, and started to understand a bit better the products that I loved, these marvellous cheeses.

And surprise, surprise, I like to read! One of my first love in books was Les Misérables, no shock here, it is one of the best books ever. After a popular French writer at the time, I discovered science fiction with Dune, and I was hooked, it is fabulous, and there were six books in the original series. After that came Tom Clancy and a few others before I moved to England. I that stage I tried to read Dune again in its original version, it took me some time before I could understand it correctly. I went back to Tom Clancy of course, and then I discovered David Baldacci, loved him from his first book, with many other writers. I varied my pleasure with some biographies, some history books, some geography books, many books about catering in general and in particular.

My biggest collection, and there is no surprise there, is about cheese, I have many more than a hundred. The first one that I bought was in French “Fromages et vins de France”, a 1989 book that I got before leaving to work in Switzerland to further my catering career. I was working at Troisgrois at the time and I became fascinated by the cheese tray, I always liked cheese since very young. However, there was no room for me to expend my knowledge from my colleagues, so a book started me on my path to discovery and understanding. Since then I delved into some complex written tomes from academia (2004) that I understand better now with the other knowledge acquired in the meantime.

I found out that some cheese books are interesting as long as you make sure that you see the perspective of the author, even though I can usually find a mistake in each one. There is one that I can not fault, it is a book on cattle breed with very nice illustration and description of particularities of each breed, it is hefty but beautiful and amazing. There are a few books that I would consider as reference due to their instigators, most notably Patrick Rance, Roland Barthelemy, Arnaud Sperat-Czar, Pierre Andouet, Steven Jenkins, and then there is the unmissable book for any person working with French cheese (especially in catering with the custom turnover of staff) which was written by two Japanese ladies. And then from time to time you have the rarity, a book that speaks from the heart about the world of cheese like “Reinventing the wheel”, and a few others about the history of cheese that I dare not rate…

Which brings me to the subject of this long piece of writing really. I bought very recently two books written by American ladies, one is a journalist, written in 2013, and was in the Amazon books of the year for 2014, the other one is from a cheesemonger based in New York and dated 2020. I read them in this order, I have just a few pages to finish for the last one, and I should say that I enjoyed them in a very dramatic and opposite way!

One is negative and the other open-minded, one is original and the other not so much but a trip experience narrative, one is informative and clear while the other confused with tits bits of information put there and then.

The journalist had done her research and it showed but the negativeness of the narrative makes it not enjoyable, furthermore, when you go to see people in their own habitat, I believe that you should respect them, not criticize them at every turn possible. I understand that she brought prejudices with her to France, but this is not an excuse to try to impose the USA way of doing business on the poor French farmer high in his mountain. Even more shocking is that she managed to contradict herself throughout the book as to business, tradition, modernity, and history. If she is still a journalist, I think she might be covering politics in her own country (she only has to criticize one side to please the other!). I do believe that a journalist should be presenting facts with for and against explained for the reader to judge, she definitely failed in that respect.

Anyway, the cheesemonger book was very interesting, much more that what I expected it to be if I should be honest. She is not pedantic and present some information clearly in a positive way. I wish I could be one of her customers, this should be fun. Unfortunately, she died in 2021 aged only 40 and I am really sad to have learned that just now. On top of a nice family, she left a good looking business behind, I hope that both are doing well.

What could I say after this very sad news? Well, “c’est la vie” as we say in French. I am glad to have been able to read a good book about cheese written by a nice human being called Anne Saxelby, respect.

So, enjoy you holidays and make it a bit cheesy. And if you happen to visit New York, please do visit this wonderful shop that encourages great quality American products started by a good writer.

And remember, give life to your taste buds, and above all, enjoy real cheese.