I Need To Move To France

No.. its not to pursue some experimental procedure or get freedom fries from the source. My desire to move to France is a bit more decadent. It's for pate and brie. I made an interesting discovery in the war on swallowing this week. On the weekend Sue picked up some port wine cheese. Always looking for things to test out in the mushy diet category I decided to try some. Also wanting to continue my quest to live life on the edge I decided to try it with a bit of a cracker that was also out on the counter. I discovered two things. First that that particular brand of port wine cheese wasn't all that good. Second that cracker brand was made with swallowing disorders in mind. (OK, maybe they had other things on their mind but I can dream can't I?) This particular cracker brand tended to crumble into nothingness and unlike other bread type products didn't reassemble into a mushy plug in your mouth but stayed separate. That is a key feature when your esophagus is narrowed like mine. By staying in particle form I was able to actually eat the cracker with something on it.

So what does this have to do with France? Two days later I was at a local grocery store checking out the various food buffet bars. I was near the cheese counter and took a look over there and saw that they had pate but in larger portions than I was comfortable buying for an experiment. The person at the counter asked if they could help and I said sure. I explained my situation and she offered a taste of the pate to see if I could eat it. Sure enough the pate went down without a problem. I could actually eat it like I normally would have and I didn't even have my water bottle with me. Of course this makes sense seeing as pate is essentially pureed chicken or duck livers with added flavoring. (Yes I know, surprising that someone who has named their swallowing recovery "Operation Garbage Plate" would also like Pate.) The person at the store cut the portion they had in the case in half and off I went. At home the pate with the cracker was the perfect in between tube feedings snack. It has the added bonus of having lots of fat and calories as well. (Did I mention I need to eat between 2,500-3,000 calories just to maintain my weight?) It took less than 24 hours for the Pate to disappear.

Still, what does this have to do with France? Well in the interest of science, and my being able to taste something other than Ensure, I decided yesterday to give brie a chance. Now that I had a snack transportation vehicle that worked, the cracker, I decided to try a mushy cheese and what better one than brie. (Really, I do have diverse taste. Or put another way I will eat almost anything.) The brie also went down OK with the pate. Not quite as easy but still not a problem.

Once again... what does this have to do with France? The French Connection part comes back from my college days when I spent some time back packing around Europe. One of the things we would often do for an inexpensive lunch was get a loaf of bread (of the french variety of course) some pate and brie, find a park bench and that would be lunch. You could get that stuff at almost any market and they would have a wide variety of types at different prices. Here these items are treated more as high end gourmet foods and are priced appropriately. Also the selection, at least locally, for pate is very limited. While these foods are great for me to have at home they don't do much to increase my food mobility in this country. However if I lived in France....

Of course now I can find a use for the time spent watching the Food Porn, I mean Food Network, Channel. Today I am going to try to make my own Pate with a recipe from Emeril. At around $14 a pound for store bought vs. around 2$ in ingredients to make at home I figured it was worth a try. The brie on the other hand I am going to leave to the professionals, for now at least. :-)

So score another small victory for Operation Garbage Plate. (Hmmm... maybe a pate garbage plate would work.) Today brie and pate tomorrow Stilton Blue Cheese. Viva la France! :-)