On the last Friday of every month we have a sort of cut-down village fair here at the retirement home. A few stall owners set up tables and display their wares. The stalls are aimed directly at the senior population, meaning there are no tee-shirts or brief shorts on display, but there are comfortable clothes, flat heeled shoes, a make-up table with a selection of guaranteed wrinkle remover creams (a big seller) and a few different food stalls. Oh yes, and walking sticks.
The food vendors offer foods not usually found here: sugar-free cakes, too-hard-to-chew, toffee, olives, spicy eats, super-spicy eats, ultra-spicy eats, indigestible snacks and my favorite, goat’s milk cheese. After managing to avoid eating it for the past 79.8 years, I have thrown caution to the winds and am thoroughly enjoying myself. Once I get past the odor-barrier surrounding the table I start picking up small pieces and slices that the cheese merchant has set out for tasting. The truth is that I could stand there all day and make a whole meal out of this. In years past I would check the fat content of each cheese, smell it, taste it, examine the color, shake my head and move on. Today I went strictly by taste. If it was good on my tongue, I bought. And then I had to pay. There are no cheap goats in the retirement home!
What makes it different? I don’t know. A few years ago we stayed in a winery in Tuscany and pigged out on sheep’s milk cheeses. We loved those too. For my next cheese adventure I am going to travel 40 miles south to an interesting farm and try the buffalo milk cheese.
