Saturday Cheese

Posted: 28/04/2010 2:54:46 p.m.

“It needs a Saturday home,” said Rosa as I delivered a smelly, salty, creamy piece of heaven into my mouth on the end of a toothpick. “It is on special. It needs you to eat it.”
She needn’t have bothered with the sales pitch. I was bundling it into my basket because I am addicted to Grès des Vosges, a particularly noxious cheese from Alsace.
“I am its Saturday home,” I told her before grabbing a baguette to go with it.
I buy this cheese every week at NOSH with its little fern leaf splayed on top because it is just the right size in its oval wooden case for one, lone smelly cheese addict to consume over the course of a week. I am a Kiwi, therefore I eat smelly cheese alone.
I am the person who buys smelly cheese instead of chocolate at Easter. Who hopes and prays that the dessert menu in every restaurant she dines at will have smelly cheese. I much prefer it to sickly puddings and tarts.
“Who died?” say my children when they enter the kitchen in which I am indulging my addiction.
“You will brush your teeth?” checks my husband after my little snack before bed.
I apologise in advance to my dinner guests for the smell as my cheese slowly melts on the bench into sublime, silky, stinkiness.
And then we found Matt and Ben. Our two friends from France.
“I have never seen anyone eat cheese like that,” said Ben as I dived headfirst into a smelly cheese after dinner at their place. “Except in France, of course” he added.
“You have quite the taste for it,” said Matt as he sliced more baguette to keep me going. They never eat cheese with anything but bread and say their friends at home think the Kiwi habit of cheese and crackers is hilarious.
Matt and Ben once bought a proper smelly cheese to a party we were having. I could smell it 10 minutes before they arrived.
“This is for you,” they said handing over the package lovingly. “Enjoy.”
It went straight into the basement for the duration of the party and I wasn’t allowed near it until the following day when it had fumigated the entire house.
“It’s no good,” I admitted to my husband. “I can’t eat it, not even if I block my nose.”
We later passed the good cheese onto a friend who loves fine wine and food but has no sense of smell. He was delighted, I’m not sure how his wife felt once he got it home.
So now I know my limits and I stick to the Grès des Vosges which takes seven weeks to make, is lovingly dipped in Kirsch and then transported to my home as a Saturday bargain buy.
I can’t wait to ask Rosa what else needs a Saturday home this week.