Sweet Home Lunch

                The first Monday of the month means spending the morning at a Sweet Home Grenoble Cafe… a get-together over coffee at someone’s house. There is a lot of talking, some nibbling, some coffee, then a little meeting where the women who organize everything tell us what’s coming up so we can mark our calendars.

                I got off to a bang messing up my French (big surprise), then chatted with some different women. There is one French lady who attends and who I’ve sat with a couple of times during the language exchange.. she is so nice. So I asked her how to say something in French about the morning traffic (I only got one word wrong. Ok, so the sentence only had three words in it.)

                After the meeting wrapped up, I was among the last to leave because I was so busy talking. As we stood at the door to head out, the hostess said “oh, well, a couple others were going to have lunch here, why don’t you stay, too?” So her lunch went from three people to six, and she acted like it was no big deal. There it was: my first invitation to a meal at a French home.

                She served two kinds of chicken (one, she confessed, was leftovers), rice, frittata and peas. Oh, and, of course, wine. I had a small amount, because she said it was from a local winery and I wanted to see how it was. It was pretty good. Then there was the cheese course. Our hostess told us that traditionally in France, you just put the cheese on the tablecloth in front of you. For us, she got out plates. I admitted that I have a horrible fromagephobia. I tried three that looked safe. One turned out to be camembert, which I have been afraid of. But it was pretty good. I don’t know that I’d call it mild, but it was good. The others I don’t know the names of. One I’d recognize in a second because the rind was a nasty gray. It looked like mold growing at the bottom of a glass that once had Coke in it that you’ve left on the table too long. Not that I know that from personal experience, of course. Anyway, it was good. It would be better if I hadn’t had to see the rind. When lunch hit the two hour mark, I realized I’d have to pass on the coffee.

                I may not ever get another invitation to a French home for a meal. It was a fun experience.

One Response to “Sweet Home Lunch”

  1. Todd Hollst says:

    Don’t fear the cheese. Cheese is our friend.

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