My roommate David and I were doing some heavy duty housecleaning on Friday night and figured we’d have a yard sale on Saturday before dropping stuff off to Goodwill or The Salvation Army.  Saturday morning was bright and sunny here in L.A. (big surprise) and we spent most of the morning and a good chunk of our afternoon wheeling and dealing.  When it was over to our surprise we’d made over 100 dollars.  David and I are both huge fans of The CheeseStore of Silverlake and that money looked like cheese money to us.  We both said, “CheeeeeeeStore” and hopped into the truck to see how fast we could spend our yard sale money on cheese and wine.  Hey is there any better reason to have a yard sale than making cheese and wine money?

We landed in Silverlake within fifteen minutes and spent a marvelous time tasting, smelling and chatting with Chris, the proprieter and his lovely staff.  The CheeseStore has its own wine guy by the way who recommended an Australian sparkling white wine which we immediately grabbed two bottles of after taking a taste.  Here’s what we got with our yard sale money:

2 bottles of Puppeteer Austrailian sparkling white wine
Roasted Figs from Greece
Salted Marcona Almonds
Olives – House Mix
Mimolette Cow France – dark orange
Chimay  – Cow, Belgium $5.60 for 1/4 pound
Frommme De Sanoie Raw Cow France $4.50 for a 1/4 pound
Lavendar Cheddar, Cow – Oregon
Mature English Cheddar, Cow England
White Truffle Cheese, Soft
Drunken Goat Cheese from Spain

We added to the cheese tasting trays when we got home:
Strawberries
Blueberries
Pears
Fried Garlic Slivers
Olive Oil
Sesame Seed French Bread
Multi-grain Savory Crackers from Trader Joe’s

By the time we were finished, the glass coffee table in the living room was covered from end to end with plates of cheese, olives, almonds, baskets of bread and crackers, and fruit.  The the fun began.  We started playing with food, combining various cheeses with the other accroutements on the table and oohing and ahing over the really great combos.  I always find it amazing how one thing can completely change the chemical makeup of another and either bring out, hide or pollute the taste.  The science geek in me just goes into a weird kind of geek zone and waxes rhapsodic about chemical changes in food till people’s eyes glaze over and I take the hint and stop.

We fell in love with the Aussie wine.  Oh my god it was good!  Cold, crisp, dry, bubbly and packed a subtle punch.  We loved it so much we started Googling it to find out more about it.  Warning:  Googling Puppeteer wine will get you all manner of odd search results like The Wondrous Vulva Puppet and Puppet Monkey Bangs a Wine Bottle.  Oh and the vulva puppet was studded with precious gems and sold for $600.00 in case you’re wondering.  Between howls of laughter, we poured more wine and reluctantly left Google to focus on the cheese.

Not surprisingly, while tasting and drinking, I took notes of what different things did to the flavors.  Hey told ya I was a geek.  Here’s some of my notes from the evening.

Chimay – blueberries made it insanely good, strawberries kinda meh, garlic raised to heaven, figs made it bitter

Lavender cheese, cracker and garlic – insane amazing the cracker gives texture and even though its a savory cracker the taste hides, the burst of flavor is a pop of cheddar, and then intensely lavender, the garic an echo

Fromme de Sanoie – went well with olives, olive oil, pear, finished well with marcona almond

Borschetto al Tartuffo – Truffle cheese – amazing on its own, blueberry, brightened the flavor of the truffle, strawberry doesn’t help, garlic doesn’t do anything

Wine is perfect when just about to go to slush

Other things we talked about when replete with wine and cheese were maybe having a Twitter Strangers with Cheese/Cheese Ups in the spirit of Meet-ups and how I wanted to try making a Lavender grilled cheese sandwich with blueberries, fried garlic, crackers inside the sandwich for extra crunch on grainy whole wheat bread.  I’m so trying that!

By the way, we now host a yard sale every weekend to support our cheese habit.  The last one netted us a half pound of Stinky Bishop, more of the Chimay, some $50.00 a pound 10 year old aged English cheddar that melted in our mouths, a lovely Maytag blue and more Puppeteer.  We did NOT Google again.

One of my Friday evening rituals is to head down to the local Farmer’s Market to see what goodies they have that I can play with.  I often, as in this case take the grandkids and have a blast with them.  This afternoon we packed up the stroller and headed out for adventure, fun and produce.  The Eagle Rock Farmer’s Market is small but fun.  We have an Elvis impersonator! Sorry, no pictures of him today – the kids were tired out before he came on.

We found dragonfruit at the booth of Teo and Otillio, which though I love the color – I was slightly under whelmed at the taste.  They tasted like tunas to me, or prickly pear in English.  Still, the color was brilliant and I wanted to dye yarn with it as soon as I saw it.  I also thought mmmm it would make a brilliant cheesecake and I could sugar the petals to decorate the sides….

There were my summer favorite, squash flowers for a dollar a bag.  The ones I found had tiny little squashes attached and they will make excellent quesadillas or a budin.  We also found huge nectarines, peaches and avocados.  I mean like Godzilla-sized.  Seriously.  Check out the gallery.  Huge.

Bacon-wrapped, Mexican-style hot dogs, aguas frescas, black grapes, peaches, apricots and gorgeous nectarines the choices were as endless as summer seems to be.  The sun was shining, the smell of fruit and flowers filled the air and mixed with the smoky smell of chicken roasting over wood.  Kids were playing and everyone was eating.

I found strawberries so big and sweet in rows and rows that had me singing that Beatle’s song to the kids.  Jasmine now knows the words to Strawberry Fields Forever.

Jasmine wanted me to buy balot because they are dyed pink, but I draw the line at eggs with baby chicken embryos in them.  Ick.  Sorry folks, I will get my protein elsewhere.

We stopped and bought jamaica (hibiscus flower drink), sat down at a table in the shade and met the cutest little baby named Maria Elena and her family.  Two-year Aiden did tricks on his skateboard he takes with him everywhere (he calls it his game and even sleeps with it) and Jasmine twirled her sun hat.

Refreshed and cooler, we set off to take pictures of the men making pollos al brassa and I knocked over the wrought iron divider they had set up.  Always graceful, me.  After that, I had had enough and the kids were getting cranky so we rolled over to That Yarn Store and visited with David and other Yarn Store regulars.  I fell in love with this gorgeous Rio de Plata hand-dyed turquoise yarn but didn’t buy it.  Being unemployed prohibits buying yarn these days but that one has my name on it and it will be a shawl for me soon.  We shared dragonfruit and stories and had a great time before walking out into the cool night air and heading home.