Crottin, especially “Crottin de Chavignol” is one of my favorite goat cheeses. It is small (about 2 inches wide and 1.5 inches high), it can be eaten at various stages of maturity – either mild and soft or strong and dry.

It normally looks like this: (photo courtesy of Wikipedia)

The rind is slightly moldy, the shape is fairly even and the center is fairly solid and smooth. It actually can get quite chalky and crumbly as it ages. A beauty.

I found a recipe in my favorite cheese recipe book right now, “200 Easy Homemade Cheese Recipes” by Debra Amrein-Boyes. I also got 4 crottin molds from The Beverage People a couple of weeks ago when we visited our friends up in Santa Rosa.

Yesterday, the crottins reached their 10th day of maturity, which is technically when you can start eating them. The result looked pretty good!

Except, it looks not as high as the one above and a little softer/wrinklier than intended.

Uhhh maybe a lot softer?

I mean look at this gooeyness!

This looks way more like a mini goat camembert than a crottin.

It also tasted like a mini goat camembert! Super creamy, with a strong tasting rind and deliciously balanced with a glass of Côtes du Rhône.

I’m not sure what I did wrong in the process, but I am embracing the mistake.

While we were in France, I wanted to take advantage of my grandmother still being alive, to tell us some stories of the “good ol’ days”. My grand parents’ experience (like for most of our generation) has the particularly interesting layer to their past, being that they went through World War II. In fact, WWII was when my Mamie Lise and Papou Robert met and fell in love.

I don’t feel like I ever got the full story, or at least not consciously – you know, when you’re younger and hear your family’s love stories, you say “yeah, yeah, very cool, mmhmm, that’s really cute” – so this time, I didn’t want to miss it.

To paint the picture a little bit, my grandmother’s family owned a farm for several generations in the town of Egaules, central France. My grandfather’s family lived in Clermont-Ferrand and his dad was a train mechanic. Now in those days, we have to realize that there was a big difference in social class between industrial workers and farmers. This will be relevant later in the story…

Part of Mamie’s family business was to deliver butter and other foods to people in the towns nearby. One day, in 1942, the government required young male students to join a farm to help out during the war. At the time, Papou was studying medicine to become a family doctor. He had to drop his studies and his mom sent him to Mamie’s farm, since she knew the “butter lady”.

Papou ended up spending 3 years at the farm, leaving lots of time to get to know the daughter… one thing led to another, they started dating when she was 14 and he was 20. He got to return to college for a short while during this time, but only to come back to the farm instead of being sent to work for the Germans.

The photo below was taken with Papou’s camera… on self timer. Notice Mamie’s dress and how the fabric wasn’t uniform? She told me they didn’t have enough fabric at the time to make full dresses, so they would patch up different pieces. Turned out quite nice if you ask me!

Papou would take her to his family once in a while, in Clermont-Ferrand. But one day, his Dad decided to refuse to ever see her again. The reason being they were getting too serious and she was the daughter of a peasant, which was too disgraceful to approve of their love. They ended up getting married at the farm, with close family, except for Papou’s parents who didn’t attend the ceremony. His sister walked him down the aisle instead.

Below is a picture of their very modest wedding, with Papou on the left and Mamie’s brother on the right. It was on July 23rd, 1949.

Papou and Mamie ended up having 3 children, Bernadette (center), Christiane (right-Mom) and Alain (left). They were all three born in their house with the help of Dr. Roux at Ardes-sur-Couze, a very snowy part of France in the winter.

To get away from the snow they would take vacations on the French Riviera in little towns like Seillans (which is their current next door village) and Le Bar-sur-Loup. I believe that this picture was taken along the shore, near L’Esterel. I love the Vespa leaned against the wall! Classic.

So can you believe it? I was born because my Mom was born because her Mom’s Mom delivered butter to my Mom’s Dad’s Mom!
I think that’s pretty cool.

I did something bold. I brought Camembert… to France. As if France needed more Camembert! Ha! As if France didn’t have enough delicious, fine Camembert! Ha! Ha! Well, I just thought that if I could make Camembert, bring it to France and share it with my family (provided it survived the trip), then yes, France needed one more Camembert. Mine. Not because it’s better (definitely not… although turns out, quite close), but because it’s something I made with my hands, with care, with love and with my family in mind the whole time.

I packed two of them tight is a double zip-lock bag for both exposure to air and to prevent the smell to leak! Uh yes, it was smelly. I didn’t want any airport dogs detecting it and wanting to eat it, so I sealed it really well and put it in one of those thermal lunch bags. Turns out it came out pretty soft and stinky, but apparently, so my family says, pretty good!

I loved writing on that label, origin: USA, producer: Stephanie, and crossing out “purchased” for “made”. Ha! So funny… to me.

The first glimpse of the small wheel was promising.

A nice white and yellow, wrinkly crust, wrapped a soft body when pressed down gently.

Indeed pretty soft when the knife went through.

Ta-da! A really creamy, gooey thick edge with a slightly firmer center.

By now Justin was in another room pinching his nose. Just kidding, he had a piece. I think. Hmm I’ll have to ask him. Maybe he’s traumatized forever with my stinky, but – so my Mom, Dad, Sister, aunt and grand-ma say – accurate cheese.

I can’t believe it! I made Camembert! In my kitchen! In San Francisco! I put it on a plane for 14 hours and it made it onto plates in France! And people liked it! Or everyone was very polite with me. Hmm…

We just recently went to France to visit my family. We had a wonderful, very eventful time. Justin has been posting about many events and adventures we went on with various family members, but I want to talk about my sister today.

My sister, Aurelie, just turned 25 while we were there. She’s married and has an adorable two year old, Luna. Her life is full to the brim which makes talking window opportunities a little slim at times, especially with the time difference. I love her very much and wish I could chat with her like we used to when I still lived in France or would visit for a whole month.

But this visit, we managed to carve out some time to just the two of us…. at a spa. Yes, in a spa! How perfect. The spa day was a gift for our birthdays from Dad (our birthdays are not really close together, but who cares). So the next day I arrived, we headed to the Thalazur thalassotherapy center in Antibes (specializing in sea water treatments) for the day.

Check us out in our robes! That was pretty much the outfit for the following 6 hours. (Photo not so awesome, but the thrill and anticipation was there).

In the morning we had 4 treatment each, including a sea water massaging bath (awesome!), a marine mud wrap for joints (heck of hot, but completely erased all pain from my right knee), a sea water high pressure -super jet- shower (invigorating) and a massage (so relaxing).

Once we were pampered and loose, we had a wonderful lunch with a view from the mountains to the sea.

They served us a fresh fruit smoothie.

And a delicious 3 course meal.

As if this wasn’t enough bliss, we had access to their pools for the afternoon.

Sure enough a sweet nap took place on our lovely poolside spot.

When do we ever get to be pampered like this? It was such perfect time (right after the long, body-wrecking plane trip and before visiting people and eating like *French* pigs).

Thank you Dad for giving Aurelie and I the very rare opportunity to relax together and enjoy ourselves. This moment is very dear to me. I love you Lili! Big bisous :-)

Last weekend we went camping in Pinnacles National Monument. It was the perfect occasion to play with Justin’s new camera (Pentax K-7).

One of the results… me hiking out of a cave. Arrrgghh.
here.

Some of you might know…. I’ve been making cheese. At home. I started out with fresh cheeses such as Mozzarella, Ricotta and fresh Chevre and then upgraded to hard cheeses.
Being French, I of course cannot just stop at fresh cheeses and simple hard cheeses. No, no. I need some mold. I need some moldy rinds, some smells and some texture. I need some wrinkles and some fuzz. Naturally, I had to try.

Don’t get me wrong, there are some excellent fresh cheeses and complex hard cheeses out there. Some of which I probably will never be able to reproduce. But this time, I was feeling mold.

My first shot to a moldy rind was a bastardized St Maure style cheese, which is a mold ripened goat cheese. The first batch had to go to the trash. The mold didn’t grow everywhere, the cheese hardened and smelled like mushrooms. Yuk.

For the second batch, I used a different recipe, which made more sense to me and had more mold added to the milk. Sure enough, it worked. The mold grew homogeneously, the cheese softened a bit and adopted a nice, rich scent. It did not resemble any cheese I know, but it was definitely decent.

I thought to myself, if I can get mold to grow now, I can go the next level. I took a deep breath. I attempted St Marcellin.

The process was familiar to me, with some extra steps in the middle. Roughly, you have to heat up milk, add cultures and rennet and let sit overnight. In the morning you ladle the curds into the mold and start the draining process… let drain, flip the cheese, let drain, flip the cheese… about 3 or 4 times. Once you’re done draining, you let it sit at room temperature for a couple of days flipping it regularly and a nice coat of mold starts to form. Then you put it in a container with a lid and stick it in the cheese fridge at 56F for 2 weeks, flipping it every day. The cheese gets softer, moldier, smellier and wrinklier by the day.

Here’s what it looked like one week before it was ready to eat.

Traditionally, a St Marcellin is served in a little clay dish adopting the exact shape of the cheese. It helps finish the ripening process by keeping its shape (which is important, because the older it gets, the softer it gets) and retain the appropriate moisture.

Of course, I had to have that clay dish. Solution? We got a store bought St Marcellin, just to get the clay dish so I can pretend I’m all professional… haha!

My little cheese turned out looking like this:

With a moldy, wrinkly and quite pleasantly fragrant rind.

Pretty good, huh?