France Just Does Cheese Better

I was trolling the cheese isle at Whole Paycheck the other day with limited success. Bless their hearts they do try. There are some amazing american Cheeseries (if Sarah Palin can make up words then so can I), but stores just don't have the materials to work with that a French cheese stand does. Don't get me wrong, I love american cheeses. I just think we have a long way to go.

I was lucky enough to travel to France for business this summer. Here are some snippets of the cheeseventure.

This is in an outside market in Cannes. Notice the classy grass matt and elegant use of wrapping paper.

The soft goat and the blues.

A breakfast to kill for.

Now we move north to Avignon.

Where we find a mystery not even the several random french people I asked could solve. This cheese stand had these on display along with their delicious bounty seen one picture up. They are too old even for real stink lovers and it's all different kinds. I could only think of two possible reasons to keep these on display.
1. Cheese hoarding
2. Mould seeding
If you know what's going on here, please let us know.

Here's a train lunch to kill for. The cheese is so soft that it needs that wood ring to keep it from blobbing out all over the place.

Perfect. Toast, slab of goat cheese, fried egg.

Rotten boob juice is the best.

Girl's Night Out

I can't believe we made this two years ago! We've been working on a whole new season and are hoping to shoot it early next year. We have some really great people guest staring and some fantastic writers in addition to me and Gabriel Diani. More coming soon. It's still very secret hush hush. Shhhhh...







You can follow Mary Olson herself  @MaryOlsonTweets

Lazy Useless Catalogue Living

Catalogues and their "style stories" are a great escape. It's lovely to grab an Uncommon Goods, Anthropologie, or even an LL Bean, catalogue and enjoy a window to a calm, beautiful and exciting whitewashed world. You can sit down for a minute among the urine soaked carpets and piles of empty Ephedrine bottles in your fifth floor walk up and have a moment of peace and quiet, basking in the way life should be.

But you should know something about those people in the catalogues. They are lazy. That is Janice. She is supposed to be at work right now. She called in sick. She isn't sick. Only wearing this redeems her. But how did she afford it working part time as a barista and going out EVERY night? What else is she selling besides coffee?

And as for this lovely couple? They aren't on vacation. They're the caterers. They're supposed to be inside making sushi for Linda and Larry Rosenberg's 40th wedding anniversary. Those boots are really cool, but was she really thinking ahead? She's going to be on her feet all night. Let's not even mention his shoes and their appropriateness for a night of black tie catering.

Now this is the worst example yet. This "gentleman" is wearing a very nice jacket out in the snow, walking slowly through the park enjoying his day. He is supposed to be picking up his kids from school three miles away. His wife usually does it but she has a dermatology appointment today to get that mole on her back checked out. The teacher who is running pick up is going to have to stay 45 minutes late and miss her spinning class. His kids are going to loose faith in him and get abandonment issues. His wife is going to be furious with him and this is the incident that leads her down the path of loosing respect for him completely. They end up having a bitter divorce in four years and everyone involved is screwed up forever.

So when you're sitting under flourescent lights in the emergency room waiting for them to reattach your left index finger after the table saw accident at work and you find yourself wishing for a catalogue life just remember, it isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Food

You are what you eat. Food.
Literally.