How did it happen that the Androuet Restaurant in Paris could quietly disappear without fanfare or protest? How could it become a dilapidated sign over a store front; soulless, diluted and gone? Why have I waited so long to write about it? Secretly, I hoped that somehow it would come back to life.
The original cheese shop, ripening caves and restaurant was located on Rue Amsterdam. Rue Amsterdam was quirky and not so nice an area. The street was long and one-way. We would circle around for half an hour to be able to park close enough to be safe after dark. It was Mecca for a cheese lover - I am a zealot.
The tiny, refrigerated shop on the first floor was filled with every cheese made in every corner of France. Each one was ‘a’ point’-- perfectly aged and ready to eat. The three tiny, older women tended the inventory of cheeses constantly. When you walked in there was no grand greeting, only a quick look up and aloof ‘Bon jour’. I always wondered if they knew how difficult a place it was to find. If they did know how much effort it took maybe they would have been kinder. It doesn’t matter now because the best cheese shop in the world is gone. Maybe their intense concentration is what it took to maintain such high quality.
Cheese is like wine; it opens in your glass-the first long sniff of its’ aroma to the last sip of perfectness. Cheese is like that as well - birth, aging and perfection and it then it gone, too. These three women struggled to keep so many cheeses perfect. Most, barely lasting a day or two. I understood why they never looked up from their arduous work.
I have a 1932 copy of The Joy of Cooking that’s being held together at the spine with duct tape. The book, like so many things my mother gave me or tried to impart to me, has become a cherished item only years after her death. 
I got sick last week. Sick like “Oh my god, I’m never going to walk again.” Sick like, “Should I go to hospital now?” Sick like stomach virus. out sick Liquid Alison. It was the worst, though luckily it moved through me quickly, so to speak. After hours of sleeping cocoon-style on the couch, I realized I would have to put something into my body. I stood in my kitchen, staring at my shelves, wrapped in a blanket, moaning slightly as my dogs rolled their eyes. It had to be simple to make and easy to eat. My eyes scanned the shelves: quinoa, polenta, whole wheat penne, vermicelli, and then focused on a box of small shells, half of which I had cooked for a child’s mac and cheese a long time ago. That I could do. Pasta is easy.
Pilgrimages to the mountains this fall by my grandparents have yielded this Farmer with apples aplenty. Pies, cakes, and tarts have abounded this season and finally, after much persistence i.e. nagging and
begging on my part, Mimi has made her Apple Butter.
The guy to the right of me, wearing a stained #13 Alex Rodriguez jersey, grabbed his glove and screamed “Here it comes! Here it comes!”