Musings update.

I didn’t anticipate posting another musings blog post so soon after the last one, but a couple of things have arisen that deserve an update.  I guess the primary trigger was another sizing mistake.  Can you guess what it was?

As I’ve mentioned a few times before, there have been a few things that we thought would be available here in Portugal but are not.  Take, for example, Italian sausage.  Face it, we’re in Europe.  Italy’s only a hop-skip-and-a-jump away.  And, sure, we didn’t expect it to be the same as US Italian sausage, but the notion of a good sausage with cumin seeds and whatever other spices they throw into the mix . . . of course they’d have it!  Well … no, we don’t.  There are a dozen types of Portuguese sausages available and even some from other countries such as knockwurst and bockwurst from Germany, but no Italian sausage.  Nothing even close.  Now, we didn’t expect US breakfast sausage and . . . well, we were saddened to be right.  But Italian sausage?  Come on . . . .

Another thing we’ve been frustrated with is French style goat cheese.  Like the kind we find in the US that is imported from France.  Hey, lower shipping costs, EU free trade zone and all that; hey’ve got to have it!  Again, plenty of goat cheeses, even goat cheeses from France, but nothing as soft as that in the US.  It’s good, but not only is the texture different (key for certain recipes - see below) but it tastes a bit different too.  Enough different for it to matter.

Now, different tasting foods might not be such a big deal except for the fact that my favorite meal is a tomato, black pepper and French style goat cheese crepe that Ann makes.  It’s not only my favorite breakfast, it’s my favorite meal.  Period.  Yeah, above excellent biscuits and gravy with a side of applewood bacon, or anything else you may want to throw on the plate.  Ann’s first effort here was, to put it kindly, not up to snuff.

So Ann has been on a major quest to find the right kind of goat cheese.  And with Ann, that means deep-dive research into cheeses and variants of goat cheese.  She wants to know what she’s looking for instead of just looking at what’s available (because, in part, we’ve already tried that).  As a result, we’ve found out (read: Ann found out) there is such a thing as French style goat cheese and it’s not just from France.  It has the characteristics of what we’ve come to expect.

So I was excited when Ann mentioned that she’d found a French style goat cheese on the Continente (Read: Albertson’s or Safeway) website and she ordered us some for our next home delivery.  Unsurprisingly, I decided to keep my hopes down because I’ve had enough culinary disappointments since I’ve arrived in Portugal (not to take anything away from the culinary wonders I’ve discovered as well, but . . . ). 

So, when Ann was unloading the delivery I hear this, “Uhhh, Dan, I might have made a mistake.”  As I walk into the kitchen I see this huge package on the counter.  Ann continued, “When I pulled it out of the bag, I was thinking, ‘What in the world . . . did I order a pastry or something?’  And then I realized - Oh my God!  It’s the Cheese!”

I then realize it’s a 3-1/2 - 4” thick, 8-10” long, 1 kg (2.2 lbs) log of goat cheese.  Check out its size compared to a normal container of Ricotta cheese.

“How are we going to eat all of that?” Ann asked.  I responded, “I don’t know, but we should probably try.”

Well, so far so good.  When Ann started talking about this morning’s breakfast I said, “How about a goat cheese omelette?”  “Oh, yeah, I’d forgotten about that.”  It was excellent!  Soft and crumbly like we’re used to, and incredibly flavorful.

Next stop, an effort at getting the crepe batter right . . . and to find some decent tomatoes!

Now for an update on Honking Man.  

I am sure all of you will be relieved to hear that around 8 am yesterday and today, Honking Man did his thing driving by.  There’s something to be said about the return to normalcy after the holiday season.  Something comforting about it, even if it is a bit annoying.  Still, while it answers the questions about whether something had happened to him or whether he was just taking a vacation, it really does leave unresolved the question as to why is he doing this?  Who takes a several-week vacation from honking your horn in front of someone else’s house?

It just might remain an unsolved mystery.