Lilah turns ONE!

Happy Birthday Little L!

I've heard the saying many times, 'the days are long but the years are short', but I really never understood it until becoming a parent.  These little humans who you love more than you ever thought possible and who provide so much joy in your life, also suck up so much of your time, energy, and patience on a daily basis.  I look into Lilah's big brown eyes and am overcome with the amount I adore her; and then she screams for no reason and slaps me in the face.  Each day is a whirlwind of playing, diapers, cleaning up the food she's thrown on the floor (I swear only like 1% of what I feed her makes it to her stomach), reading, figuring out activities so she won't be bored and so she and I get out of the house for a good chunk of time, and repeat. By the end of each day, I am totally exhausted and feel like that day took it out of me.  So how has it already been a whole year?

I definitely didn't think I'd ever be a stay-at-home-mom (and still, I like to refer to myself as a 'stay-abroad-mom'), but I feel incredibly lucky to have the opportunity to spend Lilah's first years at home with her.  She is a wonderful little girl, full of light and life, curious about the world around her, cuddly and loving, a really great traveler, and very kind-hearted.  She loves dogs (her first word was dog-dog), other kids, scooting around on her butt, going for walks with her Dada, and snuggling with us pretty much any time of the day (unless there's a dog or she'd rather be scooting).  Her smile lights up a room, and we are pretty proud to be her parents.

The birthday girl in all her glory

We threw Lilah's first birthday party at the Versailles Chateau Gardens, because you know, if you're going to turn 1 in Versailles, you should probably have a princess party at a real castle.  Her friend Audrey turned 1 in August as well, so we joined forces with the Gambey family for the girls' party.  It was a great afternoon hanging out with some of our favorite families we've met in Versailles.  And to make it even more special, our good pals Ann and Mart (who just moved to Zurich, yippee!) came in for the weekend!

Here are some pictures from the party!

We set up the party along the main branch of the Grand Canal

Cupcake tower.  Sugar-free for the kiddos, sugar-ry for the adults!

Pawing that cupcake and licking off the frosting.  That's my girl.

Why walk when you can fly?

Kimmy, Lilah, Katie, and Audrey

Birthday girls in their matching outfits

Seattle meets Riverside meets Europe.

This baby loves the water. She demanded dipping her toes in the canal.

Cheese Tasting #2

I came home from work to another cheese surprise the other day. Kimmy had picked up two new cheeses at the Versailles market again. Lets dig in.

Selles-sur-Chers, Fermier au lait cru

We started with Selle sur Chers, an unpasturized goat cheese. This cheese was actually recommended to us by Kimmy's friend Marta. If you look at the photo above, you can see that even in the display case it was already losing its form. We had left it out in the kitchen while cooking, and the heat of the oven had caused the cheese to spread out even more across our new cheese plate. This was a really gloopy cheese, with a dark rind of long strands of purple mold. But don't let that description disgust you because it tasted absolutely amazing. It was extremely rich, and tasted as though it had been seasoned with beef stock, garlic, and herbs. Each bite was like eating a whole Thanksgiving meal drowned in French onion soup. It amazed me that such a rich flavor could just come from sour milk and mold.

St. Nectaire, affinage traditioneel, Fermier au lait cru, AOP

Next was a semi-soft washed rind cow cheese called, Saint-Nectaire. This cheese isn't supposed to be named after the Saint, but instead the Marshal of Senneterre who served it to Louis XIV. It was an unpasteurized "fermier" variety with an AOP designation. AOP (Appellation d'Origine Protegee) is the top step of the new quality ladder used mainly for wines and cheeses in France and throughout Europe. AOC (Appellation d'origine controlee) used to be the old designation that wine drinkers should be very familiar with. But now, there is a new system in place, to cover all of Europe. In the case of cheeses it indicates that every step of the cheese making process (from cow rearing to curdling) follows strict guidelines that are unique to each product. These ranges from the health and happiness of the cow, to the time and temperature to age the cheese, and of course the region from which it is manufactured.

This St Nectaire cheese had a strong stink to it, typical of washed rind cheeses. I found the taste light, and slightly metallic with a almondy roundness. On the first night we really did not prefer it, it wasn't until the Selles-sur-Chers got older and gloopier that we started to turn our attention more to the St. Nectaire. It may have just been the deterioration in quality of the Selles-sur-Chers, but I really started to prefer the St. Nectaire by mid-week. It was so much lighter than the goat cheese, while maintaining a very complex flavor profile that I can't really explain. It had many notes to it, that while strong didn't stick around on your palate.

The second we finished these cheeses we got two more...

A simple goat on the left and a tame stink on the right

From the same marche stand we picked up Le Mothais sur Feuille by Villageois (au lait cru, Fermier), and a Morbier au lait cru (AOP). The Villageois was a very simple, mild goat cheese. It had that chalky texture that goat cheeses have when they are cool. I really enjoyed it but it wasn't anything super special. It sits on a chestnut leaf that is supposed to instill the cheese with a particular flavor. It might have, but all I noticed was the visual aesthetic. We picked the Morbier because we thought it had a line of blue cheese running down the middle, but in fact it was just a layer of ash. Traditionally, cheesemakers would end the day with some leftover curds that they'd press into a mold and spread with ash. If it wasn't enough for a whole wheel, they'd top it off in the next day with morning milk, thus the ash line. In some cases this ash line is replaced with vegetable dye. I'm not sure of the exact production process of our particular Morbier wedge but I am interested to find out next time we're at the cheese stand. It has a strong stink but a very rich flavor. Both the texture and flavor reminded me of the St. Nectarie.

Les Fermes De Gally

You know that feeling when you arrive somewhere and immediately start singing a random song in your head that just sort of sets the mood for the day?  Well, whenever I'm at Les Fermes De Gally (or thinking about it for that matter), the song that always sticks is 'Home on the Range'.  Equipped with a beautiful store where you can buy fresh fruits, veggies, cheese, meats, pates, eggs, flowers, etc., all grown on the farm; a center for kids to learn how to bake breads and learn about the animals on the farm; access to pick as much deliciousness as you can in their huge fruit and vegetable orchards; and of course access to the animals - this farm is one of my favorite places near Versailles.  Lilah and I have visited the farm a few times with our good friends Nancy and Thomas, and yesterday we brought Chris with us to experience the magic.  We rode a goat, pet a sheep, felt a pig's wet snout, quacked at some ducks, he-hawed with a donkey, took a nature walk looking for bugs and snails, and then picked our way through strawberries, eggplants, zucchinis, tomatoes, and beets while Lilah rode around in a wheelbarrow with her pal Thomas.  No deer and antelope playing, but the sky wasn't cloudy all day!

Up until yesterday Lilah wasn't a huge fan of strawberries (crazy girl!), but she absolutely loved picking her own strawberries in the wheelbarrow and shoveling them in her face.

A Lilah-sized horse

Lilah's boyfriend Thomas takes her for a tractor ride.

Goats' noses are so soft

Sniff Sniff... oink oink.

Fromage Tasting at home

After a homemade dinner of squash blossom quiche we put Lilah to sleep and cracked open dessert. FROMAGE! Yep, we're trying to do the French dessert of cheese instead of (or in addition to) sweets. This morning Kimmy picked up two cheeses from the Versailles street market just for the occasion. A goat cheese and a brie. And for good measure we also brought out an aged Gouda we've been chipping away at. Before dinner we brought the cheeses out of the fridge so that they could warm to room temperature. This is suppose to open up the flavors quite a bit.

We started with the goat cheese on the right (rules are you're supposed to eat the soft and mildest cheese first), "Chēvré cendre fermier". The "fermier", means "farmer" and indicates that the cheese was made on the same farm as the goats who provided the milk. This also means that it is unpasteurized. As it is unpasteurized the milk should contribute more flavor to the cheese than a pasteurized cheese version. Also since all the milk came from one farm, it can have a very unique taste that changes depending on the season and what the goats were eating that day. The "cendre" indicates that the cheese was rolled in cinders. Back in the day they would roll cheeses in cinders from the fireplace to keep away the flies. Now it is just done out of tradition. Taking a bite we didn't notice the cinders adding any smokey flavor to the cheese. The cheese had two layers, a 2 cm thick creamy off-white skin, and a thick semi-chalky white core. The buttery skin evened out the chalkyness of the core and really made for a great texture. The cheese started out very earthy and rich with a hint of goat, and ended on a sweet note. As the cheese warmed in our mouth, it melted and mixed together evolving a very creamy texture, that in combination with the sweet-tasting ending almost fooled me into thinking it was cheesecake.

Second up was the brie on the left, "Brie de Meaux au lait cru". This is a brie made in the town of Meaux. The "au lait cru" indicates that it is made using unpasteurized cows' milk. It looked just like the brie we know from the States, but it didn't taste anything like it. The first taste shocked us, it stunk like troll foot and tasted really salty. But then a couple bites in, our opinion totally changed. It didn't smell like foot, but actually smelled like asparagus, in a green verdant way not like that other way asparagus can smell after digested. And the salt mellowed out a fair bit and was nice. It's texture was gooey and we spread it thick on our slices of baguette tradition.

At the end of a cheese tasting you are supposed to have a salty hard cheese then a blue cheese. We didn't have a blue cheese so we ended with the aged Gouda. It was chock full of calcium lactate crystals. They're like pop rocks for adults. Kimmy really thinks the Gouda tastes like chocolate, and I do kind of understand what she's saying. It's like the flavors don't hit the chocolate taste receptor exactly, but they hit a different taste receptor that still innervates the same chocolate part of the brain. It is chocolate but it isn't.

We washed it all down with a tasty white wine. Unfortunately a couple fruit flies that blew in from the open window (they don't have screens in France) also really liked the wine. Maybe we can use the dregs to make a trap.