Just Cheese? Mais non!

In France, naturally, everyone takes cheese seriously. Very, very seriously. The local grocery store we went to during our ski-trip had a collection fit for an small cheese museum. There were infinitely more varieties than your typical Wal-mart, despite, in all appearances, the store being a French Wal-mart. A lot of signs urged us again and again to "n’hestitez pas in asking questions!" American store representatives carry aprons with similar sentiments declaring “how may I HELP YOU?!” but, as a former grocery store worker myself, I am aware that these signs are crafted by people far removed from actually the privileged of being allowed to help you.

So if it were up to me, upon entering the supermarket with my Belgian and French companions, I’d have grabbed the cheapest cheese and ran for it, out of respect for both my bank account and the store-worker's lack of enthusiasm for their job. But I had Belgian and French companions; so grocery shopping wasn’t that simple. The encouragements to "n’hesitez pas!" were taken to heart and a detailed conversation with the store representative regarding cheese followed. 

It turns out that the store representatives at French supermarkets are indeed the cheese experts the overly enthusiastic company signs proclaim them to be. I don’t know if they are being paid more than their American counterparts, or if French cheese is simply easier to be passionate about than American cheddar, but the woman seemed to vastly prefer being peppered with questions than have use walk away with with anything less than the best reblochon to make tarteflete. 

I understood nothing of the conversation. I did not know of the existence of tarteflete or reblochon before this fateful grocery store trip. I only knew something of life-threatening importance was being discussed. This is a great-rule of thumb when trying to understand the French-speaking people I know: when emotions are running high, it’s always about food.  

Fifteen minutes in, I was bored, and beginning to subtly convey this boredom by marching away decisively and then returning sheepishly when the cheese-conversing people took no notice, and then repeating the process. It was the definition of insanity, because the fromage-laden conversation ragged on. 

It was an hour and 100 euros later  when we left enough cheese to feed entire Chinese population in a year. (I have also been in the literal Chinese Wal-mart, and I can exclusively tell you hunting for any type of cheese at all is a fools quest. I was lucky to find  cheese-flavored plastic yellow slices.) The tarteflete was delicious and completely worth it.

About a Costa Rican

People have told me that I tend to talk a lot about myself. No more. This begins my series on people who are not me. Considering my readership, I doubt anyone's privacy will be violated, but I can always remove things if they are not liked by the subject matter, as I am hoping my readership will double by the subject matter actually reading their entry.

Cesar is Costa Rican, and patriotic enough to insist that America should not refer exclusively to the United States, but not enough to believe the country is perfect (too touristic for the Americans. Wait, I mean, "residents of the USA"). He speaks English well and slowly. I thought this was a result of English being a second language, but Spanish-speakers have told me he speaks Spanish the same way. English is just one of the many things he does causally well. He is the same with cooking, art-work, or brewing beer. He never seem strain himself, but the end results of most everything he does is good. Surprisingly good, because I always underestimate him.

This is posed. We never actually hugged. Perhaps due to the underestimating.

Confirmation bias is a psychological phenomenon where you remember and process only things that fit with your preconceived biases. For example, if you are convinced that someone dislikes you, you notice, remember, and angst when they don’t make eye-contact, when they are quiet, or slightly curt. When they are friendly, you attribute it to the nice weather, and forget about it.

I bring this up because Cesar being a Gerber baby, as he claims, completely fits my confirmation bias of him as an over-grown baby. That’s not meant as an insult. He’s a baby in the best way: adorable, present-orientated, beloved by all except the heartless. 26 years have done nothing to thin out his cherubic face or diminished his dimpled smile, and he still has the benevolent air of a well-fed baby who knows he’s really in charge.

The former Gerber baby is on the left.

Likewise, I can easily believe that he was stolen as a baby by a monkey up a tree, as he also claims. In my imagination, he’s completely calm and cheery through out the whole ordeal, while increasingly frantic audience mills around below the palm tree. If it’s not true, it should be. Perhaps I feel this way because I first meet him on a ski trip where he ended up skiing serenely backwards throughout our entire beginners ski lesson. Nobody understood how he managed it.

 

Sometimes, he didn't manage.