Jewelry and Cheese

While other assistants have been coming home every week with stacks of drawings and other physical evidence of their students' adoration, 'til this point, my takings have been pretty scant. Now, this is not something I'm complaining about. I know my students are excited to see me as they eagerly call out "HELLO!" every morning as they race down the hall, or when my 2nd-graders pout when I come to take the 3rd-graders from their multi-age classroom. I know I'm doing a good job, because my students continually impress me with how quickly they learn, and by consistantly showing me they enjoy learning English. And it makes the occasional drawing or colored picture all the more special when they come sparingly.

But this week seemed to be the "honor your English teacher" week because I got two really cool gifts from my students - two girls in the same 4th-grade class.

Délia made the blue necklace, bracelet and earring set, and Clara made the pink and white bracelet. It pretty much made my teaching week!

My cheese of the week was a tomme de Lorraine affiné à la Mirabelle. I've had several kinds of tomme before, and really like the cheese. I've sampled, I think, two different Lorraine tommes, and have always been quite happy with my choices. So this week I thought I'd splurge a little and try the tomme that's been aged with the Mirabelle plums for which Lorraine is so well-known. I expected the semi-hard cheese would be mildly sweet, with a faint taste of plummy Mirabelle. Not so much.

First, it was smelly. Not a problem usually, but this time the cheese actually tasted like the slightly funky and rank odor it was emitting. And it was such a strong, pungently overwhelming taste, it pretty much negated any other flavors I tried to pair it with. Apples were lost and even good bread couldn't stand up to the strength of the cheese. Bummer. So while not a cheese success story for the week (though I did get some excellent comté at the same time), I'm glad I was able to taste this cheese that I was quite curious about for some time...