Jeannine & Roger's French Cheese Odyssey

Carcassonne & Roger's faux birthday - 24th May

It’s not Roger’s birthday but as this trip is supposed to be a celebration of him turning a significant age we used our rest day to celebrate. Well, he still had to walk over a kilometre up the hill to the old City and back to have €100 euro spent on him. This included a Carcassonne sweatshirt; for some reason the sales rep pointed out the small sizes to try on first.

Then we had lunch at the aptly name restaurant Comte Roger, which can translate to Country Roger or Count Roger; I’m counting the dollars. First up drinks and nibbles - all the nibbles were sourced locally, unlike the beer which came from Belgium.

Roger’s Belpech Poulet: Smoked chicken breast fillets, Lauragais lentils, mushrooms and a jus with rosemary

My Roasted Mediterranean Courbine Fish: with green asparagus, peas, broad beans, Israeli couscous and a creamy smoked anchovy sauce (plus some decorative garnishes)

Please note mother I ate my broad beans; however we both left something green on the plate, for aesthetic purposes only of course.

Bill paid, we then went to town and bought Roger’s favourite bread and pastry, a pain au raisin, from his favourite bakery who ripped us off 25cents. No complaints from the faux birthday boy because normally the bakery doesn’t have raisin pastries.

Cheese Experience No.33 - Goats Cheese The goat’s cheese in the photo below tastes really nice, just dont Google the translation of Crottin de Chevre before eating because it means 'dung of goat'. I’m hoping the crottin is just the shape. In Occitan language it would be Cabecou which means 'small goats cheese'.

Goat’s milk has smaller fat globules than cow’s milk therefore it is easier to digest, but doesn’t age very well. When buying goat’s cheese ask for Le Chevre (masculine) not La Chevre (feminine) because the later is the goat itself. That’s tea sorted, if it lasts that long.

And lastly, a cutesy cat picture or two...