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Happy (belated) Birthday, Barb

My mentor, boss, and sweet friend of nearly 25 years, Barbara Fenzl, celebrated her birthday last Saturday. She was traveling at the time, so I celebrated with her yesterday.

barb linda and jacques

We didn’t take a photo together, so I’m posting this vintage picture of Barb, Jacques Pepin, and me… one of my all-time favorites. And it is the perfect picture to post since I bought her a vintage item as her gift.

fromages

Do you know what it is?

cheese safe

Does “les fromages de la ferme” or “Aux bons Fromages” give you a clue?

To loosely translate… “the cheese of the farm” and “good for cheese” – does that help?

with cheese

It’s a vintage cheese safe. It is used to bring cheese to room temperature, or to its perfect serving temperature, all while keeping the cheese safe from flies, pests, or dare I say – a mouse!

When Barb opened it, she said, “Now I can be my own affineur!”

“Your own what?”

She explained that affinage is the most crucial step of cheese making as it involves the aging process. An affineur is a person in charge of that process. In France, cheese-makers will often send their cheeses to the best affineurs, even if it means sending the cheese to the other side of the country.

The affineurs receive the cheese completely fresh before they’ve developed, and then, they take care of the cheeses in such a way that each acquires its own unique characteristics. The affineur ages the cheeses in the right humidity and temperature, often in caves.

Cool! Take a friend to lunch and you might learn something new at the same time!

the paper

Over the weekend, I found the perfect paper to wrap my gift in. I popped into West Elm on a whim and went directly to the “clearance” section, as I always do in all stores… and found this wonderful “Cake Paper” runner roll. I knew it would also make great gift wrap, especially since it was marked down from $29.95 to $9.97 a roll! (In the store it was marked down 66% off – looks as though, online, it’s only 50% off.)

the gift

How cute is that!?!

rusconis sign

We had a wonderful lunch at Rusconi’s American Kitchen on the northeast corner of Tatum and Shea. If you haven’t been there yet, I highly recommend it.

rusconis front

In fact, Chef Michael Rusconi will be one of the chefs teaching, along with Barbara and me, at Les Gourmettes Cooking School in the fall.

If you are interested in being added to the email list – so that you too can receive class and registration information – then send an email with your name and phone number to: [email protected].

The new schedule will be emailed out next month. The Birthday Girl and I would love to see you in a class!


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6 comments

1 Marissa { 08.09.13 at 8:36 AM }

I want a cheese box! …Someday when I have a kitchen.

2 Linda Hopkins { 08.09.13 at 8:41 AM }

Marissa, you mean someday when you have a real kitchen.. right now you have something akin to a doll playhouse kitchen. 🙁

3 barbara fenzl { 08.09.13 at 9:06 AM }

What a great post! Almost as much fun as our lunch together yesterday. Merci Beaucoup, dear friend.

4 Rita { 08.09.13 at 9:12 AM }

How very wonderful. The two of you are such fun. I heard a review of a book on NPR. It’s called “The Telling Room”. You and Barb might be interested. Happy belated birthday, Barbara!

5 Dave { 08.09.13 at 5:40 PM }

Since I haven’t commented for a while (unlike your favorite daughter who does it every day!), if I wasn’t a CPA, I think I would like to be an affineur. What better job for a boy born in Wisconsin.

6 Linda Hopkins { 08.09.13 at 9:13 PM }

Thanks Rita, I’m gonna check out that book. And, yeah, Dave, my favorite daughter is beyond awesome!

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