I’m not going to lie to you, I tried to get my family to write this newsletter for me. I wanted to write an Ode to Chabichou au Poitou, my go-to cheese this summer. I was going to write prose about how much I love this wrinkly little French goat’s milk cheese, how it goes so perfectly with rosé, how it makes me feel like I’m on vacation on some beautiful coast and that I have all evening to just sip and snack and pretend I speak French and that I’m fabulous. However, my literarily inclined family said, no! Write a poem! A real ode! And I said, ok, you do it. So, sitting around my grandmother’s table at her house in Maine, they went at it. My brother came up with the line “Chabichou, I love you,” and my aunt Deb added that it sounds like “shabby shoes.” My uncle Throop threw out a few puns, which are his bread and butter (or bread and cheese, ha! I can play too). My mom couldn’t quite hear how to say Chabichou – Chabubu? Chabibo? Chab i achu? And my dad sat with his hands clasped across his stomach happily staying out of it. In conclusion, they came up with nothing useful so instead, Deb just took a picture. This picture is my daydream. No matter where I am, if I have a little wheel of Chabichou and a glass of wine, I can transport myself into this scene. Wanna join me?

For the love of cheese and my dear Chabichou,

Kiri