Before we moved to France, our relationship with food was…let’s call it practical.
We were deep in the L.A. hustle - working full-time, raising toddlers/babies, trying to beat the 405 traffic. Grocery shopping? That was usually a series of frantic pickups. We rotated between Ralphs, Trader Joe’s, and Whole Foods. If you’d mentioned Erewhon, I would’ve nodded wistfully and said, “Ah yes, one day - when we’re billionaires.”
We were feeding ourselves, but we weren’t exactly connected to anything we were eating.
Now, two years into rural French life, that’s completely changed.
Nearly every Wednesday and Sunday, we go to the local markets. Not the kind with branded canvas totes and smoothie stands, but the kind where the eggs are still warm and the mushrooms were foraged by someone’s uncle. We know the vendors. We chat. We take their recommendations. We sample cheese with our children and discuss the texture like semi-professional weirdos. We don’t just buy food - we participate in it.
And then there’s my husband.
He has what can only be described as a serious, committed relationship with French cheese. It started innocently enough. A little comté here, a soft chèvre there. But now? Now he has preferences, opinions, and emotional reactions. We spend an absurd amount on cheese every week. When I mentioned this to a local friend, slightly embarrassed, he just shrugged and said, “Yes. This is normal.”
Apparently it is.
Also - shocking plot twist - it doesn’t make us feel terrible. In the U.S., a cheese binge usually came with a side of regret and digestive vengeance. Here, the cheese is different. Raw milk, real fermentation, actual bacteria that do what bacteria are supposed to do. It’s not an assault - it’s a delight.
Living here has re-taught us how to eat. We slow down. We look forward to meals. We know who made our sausage and where the tomatoes were grown. We don’t grab dinner on autopilot anymore. And for the first time in a long time, our food actually feels like a part of our lives, not just something we manage in the background.
I’m not saying we’ve become full homesteaders who churn butter at dawn. We do still have the occasional rushed dinner or a last-minute grocery pickup (I mean, ahem, kids). But overall? It’s changed us. We’re more present, more curious, and just a little more French about it all.
À bientôt,
Kamille
P.S. If you know a guy who can install a separate cheese fridge, I’m listening 👀
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Forward this to someone whose “cheese drawer” is actually a cheese shelf.
We recently visited friends who live in France. We stayed a week - long enough to realize that French cheese is amazing (we were already cheese snobs, but this trip took us to a new level). One tip we picked up on our visit was the use of a cheese garage. A large covered dish to hold all the fabulous cheeses vs what we were accustomed to - wrapping each individual cheese in plastic. Upon returning home, I immediately ordered my own and it has changed our cheese habit for the better.