Some of the best time on a Friday evening I spend picking up some cookbooks, magazines or looking through my list of things I want to cook this year, playing with the ideas and possibilities and deciding what I want to cook on the weekend. Then in preparation for the next morning making the list of the ingredients for Saturday and Sunday cooking that I want to get from the market .
Most Saturday mornings I go to the farmers´ market in the middle of the normally laid back slow Swiss capital. But on a Saturday morning it is a different world, a magnet for a food afficionado. The arcades and the Bundesplatz (Parliament Square) are filled with stands of fresh vegetables, fruits, herbs, mushrooms, cheeses, meat, fish, breads, flowers and more. The smell of the market is tickling my senses and tempting to buy things I did not plan. Sure, if you dont like the smell of the cheese, you may need to hold your breath in some areas, but for me it is addictive. Breathing in the busy market morning…long deep inhalations, long deep exhalations.
Over the years I´ve become to know most of the people at the stands by face. Some of them have different ways of keeping their customers, be it a little gift of a carrot, an onion, the small-talk or more dramatic presentation.
There is a cheese counter with lots and lots of fantastic cheeses. The producer/seller is Mille et Un Fromage – 1001 Cheeses. Their Gorgonzola is so rich, their brie cheeses are softly melting, the harder ones have very attractive holes in them. I have discovered the fresh Tomme cheese that is similar to the Minas cheese in Brasil or the Burgos white cheese and so I have found a cheese to eat my Brazilian goiabada with (For more context see „Just Like Any Other Normal Fruit“ in this blog). My favourite cheese from this producer so far was Pavé d´Affinois, an amazing square piece of soft white mold cheese. The first time I ate this, it felt like heaven. …Today there was a white brie type of soft cheese that was about 10cm thick and looked so creamy, so full of promise….Following it´s call it tasted like Paradise, or at least I think this is what paradise of cheese must taste. It was like a thick pile of whipped cream that just melted in the mouth in a few seconds, the rind of the white mold so soft and the inner slightly harder part of the brie so perfectly unresistent. Whilst the cheeses at Mille Et Un Fromage are delicious, the salesmen seem to be really serious. Probably making these brilliant cheeses is hard work or because they speak French and I normally don´t they don`t want to smile to the non-French. Anyway, I know what I will buy next Saturday. :-)