In feverish preparation for a very important upcoming entry, I spent the early morning and mid afternoon hours at several area grocery stores. The shopping trip began with a little stop at my home away from home- Whole foods market.

When you walk into Whole foods, you automatically understand why Alton Brown features them so often in his shows.

Their aisles are clean, their shelves are stocked. Their staff is plentiful and THEY ACTUALLY SMILE AT YOU. I have a choice of 15 different types of sugar there. I can buy vegetable dyed cupcake sprinkles there. If this store existed when I was a child, one trip there would make me ache for the delicious rainbow of vegetables that they offer. They have a cheesemonger. You can ask them what type of fruit would go well with what type of cheese, and they would tell you. AND they would be right. You can buy designer chocolate, or you can buy plain old delicious chocolate that isn’t horribly expensive, but is made with healthier ingreneverbashfulwithbutter.comhttp://www.neverbashfulwithbutter.comdients than a regular old Hershey bar. You can find locally produced products, fresh bakery items from local bakers. You can find every kind of hippie product imaginable.

Sorry if that sounded like an advertisement. Its just that when you spend as much time in the kitchen as I do, you form bonds with certain venues. I’ve grown to love this place so much, that I can’t help but speak highly of it.

Anyways…

My goal upon entering the store was to procure a few specialty items. Of course, whenever I write a list, I leave it on the kitchen table, and I end up getting lost in a sea of delicious food prospects, and I buy all sorts of crazy stuff. So I went with plan B. Start at one side of the store and make a clean sweep to the other side. Not skipping an aisle, save for the non-food item aisles.

I lost myself in the baking aisle. I spent over half an hour staring at everything. Finally my mom pried me away. We made our way through the veggies, the fruit, the canned goods, the massive olive oil/ vinegar selection. Then I found it. The cheese section.

This is my favourite part of any store with a cheesemonger. Stores that have cheesemongers (the proper word for a person who sells cheese.) tend to have a larger selection of cheese. This is helpful for people like me, who eat entirely too much cheese and therefore seek out stronger cheeses to satiate the need for flavour, and curb the amount of cheese that we do infact end up eating.

It was there that I found it. My true love. Crema Bel Paese. One of the best cheeses I have ever tasted. It is soft, smooth, creamy.. completely delicious. It has enough flavour to hold its own, and I’ve never had it any other way than schmeared on a slice of crusty bread. The wonderful thing about cheesemongers, is that they know that if you like a particular type of cheese, they’ll find you other cheeses that you would like..

which is what happened today.

While discussing our mutual love of the bel paese, the lady behind the counter visibly produced a lightbulb over her head (well, not really, but I could totally tell by the look on her face) and said, you know.. you might like this cheese… and pointed me to a cheese called Pannarello.

Then she leaned down closer and said “I like it with fresh preserves on a croissant”.

I was sold. I grabbed a manageable slice of the giant wheel o’ cheese, and made a B-line to the bakery for some fresh croissants.

The rest of the day was hard. I woke up too early this morning, and I wasn’t hungry because I was still tired. It didn’t take long, a few conversations about cheese is really all it takes, to get me started thinking about finding something to eat. I didn’t think I could give the new cheese the official welcome very well, throwing a lump down one a piece of torn croissant in the passenger seat of my mom’s car. I told my tummy I would have to wait, and I went through the rest of the day, dreaming of my snack that lay just out of reach.

Finally, that time came. After I dispatched with the groceries, I quickly prepared a little snack for myself. That is what the photo you see above, was.

A few baguette slices, for the bel paese (I have my traditions and habits, and this will always remain a baguette cheese.) A fresh, crispy coated, soft centered croissant, for the Pannarello. Some homemade grape jelly (from a grapevine in my brother in law’s back yard.) Some red globe grapes, and a frilly little glass filled with some wonderful raspberry lime sparkling water.

I will admit, there are no other photos because I could not hold myself back any longer. I lunged at this plate like I had never seen food before. It was nearly 2pm and I hadn’t eaten since the night before, so I blame that entirely for my ravenousness. If thats even a word.

It was most satisfying.

I ate it on the back patio. The cool breeze, the bright spring sun, the smell of fresh cut grass after an early morning rain.. It wasn’t yet late enough to fade away and get lost in the smell of the city. I loved it. It was like for one small moment, my patio was my little world, and I lost myself in the amazing flavours of each bite, and in the ambiance of this wonderful little niche I had created… Until I was jolted back to reality by the maintainance guy with the leaf blower. After that, I was relegated to consume my snack indoors, and my little world just didn’t feel the same when spied upon through a closed window.

Now that I am satiated, I must ask you all.. What is your favourite spring time snack?

-A.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 28th, 2008 at 8:19 pm and is filed under March 2007. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.