Bonjour French Market Friends,
This week on Saturday, just in time for the French school holidays, the Paris Plages (Paris Beaches) event takes off. This is an initiative by 
the Mayor and City of Paris to create a holiday-resort feel along the banks of the River Seine. With projects including festivals in conjunction with Brazil this year, exhibitions and plenty of entertainment. Sandy beaches are created along the paths on the Seine River banks and designated bathing sites have been organised in various locations in the heart of Paris. These sites are a result of billions of Euros invested into cleaning the Seine, not only for last year’s Summer Olympics, but also for the ambitious city improvement project. Each site is carefully organised with safety buffers between the river traffic and the swimmers. At some sites no river traffic is allowed whilst there are bathers. The sites will run during the school summer holidays up to the end of August. These sites also have amenities to assist mobility challenged visitors, changing rooms and refreshments available. With the intense heat that Europe is experiencing, I m sure the Parisiennes will greatly enjoy this refreshing idea in the heart of their beautiful city.
Back here in Cape Town we are expecting over 150kg of cheese to land from Paris. If all goes according to plan the cheese will be in the shop late tomorrow afternoon. This stock includes the cheeses for the French Consuls’ parties celebrating the national holiday on the 14th of July. W
e have several new cheeses arriving tomorrow. One is a creamy goat’s cheese spread flavoured with truffles, made by the famous Picandou brand from Perigord, where truffles also grow. I sampled this when I visited my supplier in Paris in May and really enjoyed it. This cheese has a delicate flavour and beautiful hint of truffles. (Remember we still have fresh winter truffles in season at the shop.) Another new cheese I sampled is the Tomme de Montagne, this cheese is similar to the Tomme de Savoie, originating in the mountain pastures, the cheese is round with a 
dry, grey crust and ivory coloured, dense textured centre and subtle flavour. There are plenty of small boxes of Camemberts, Epoisses, Pont l Eveque. There is a 50kg wheel of Comte which has been ripened for a minimum of 16 months in the Fort Saint-Antoine in the Jura near the Swiss border, at an altitude of 1000 metres. The re-purposed fortress contains about 100,000 wheels of cheese. The abandoned fort was bought by Marcel Petite for its location and ideal temperature, which made it perfect for maturing
cheeses. This 16month aged Comte is one of the best cheese in its category, and the rich aromas that develop during the maturing process are unique. This wheel (hopefully) will arrive pre-cut in wedges as it would be challenging to cut the whole wheel. I’m so glad we got this stock in, as there has been challenges recently getting export certification for raw milk cheese. Therefore, we have looked for alternatives or solutions where the cheese has to get additional certification. At least we won’t run out of Comte for a long time. I will keep stocking up so that we should have most of our cheese available for our clients. Do come in and taste some.
With our chilly winter weather, we are getting plenty of clients requesting “00” doppio zero flour to make fresh pasta and other dishes which we stock in our shop. There is nothing like the feeling of achieving your own home-made pasta, it takes quite a bit of work but is a lot of fun. If you don’t feel like making your own filled pastas, we have a frozen range of filled pastas from Italy, the fillings are truffle and porcini, tomato and mozzarella, spinach and ricotta and 4 cheese. All you do is boil the pasta and toss in your favourite olive oil or butter or choose one of our readymade pasta sauces from Italy. This makes a delicious and filling meal.
In our dry goods we 
have a wide stock of jars of meat terrines from France, we have coarse textured pork terrine made for us locally and smooth textured duck liver mousse pate. In our biscuits section we have a range of sweet biscuits to go with a hot cup of coffee . There is plenty to tempt you, come in a
nd enjoy yourself browsing our shelves.
One of my fa
vourite winter dishes from the Auvergne is Aligot. This ancient dish has been made in this region for well over two thousand years. Made with the local Cantal cheese, mashed potatoes and garlic, this hearty dish was created in the cowherd’s huts, perched on the slopes of the mountains, a bowl of hot Aligot would keep them warm and full during the cold winter days. I like to include the Boursin garlic cheese as well, see recipe below. A good wine pairing is a Gamay from the Chateau de Brouilly available at our French Market shop.
I hear the Best of The Cape Awards is currently happening, and one of the categories is Best Neighbourhood Shop. The nomination period is open up to 11July. I would love it if you could nominate and vote for The French Market shop, the link to enter a nomination is https://bestofthecape.primediaplus.com/nominate.html
Stay safe and warm this weekend, make a delicious Aligot cheese meal and share it with your friends. We look forward to welcoming you to our shop again soon,
Regards
Suzanne and The French Market Team