To find great cheese and wine, we could have went to one of the cheese markets, or to one of the wine stores. But the cheese markets overwhelm me and didn't smell good, and we did go to the wine store (hello 3 euro bottles of wine!), but we found that we loved this little supermarket called the Monop. One of our favorite things to try were the wine by the glass. They were about 2.5 inches tall, sealed on top, and quite yummy. My other favorite thing was Brebis cheese. I still love it, but made the mistake of googling it and finding out that Brebis is made from sheep's milk. Now, there is no good reason why sheep's milk skeeves me out a little, but it does. I can still eat it but I have to banish all thoughts of lambs from my mind.
The other thing we loved, and which if any of you go to France you have to try, are French macaroons...especially from Laduree. I really can't think of a way to describe how amazing and delicious these are. I spent way too much time trying to find them in SF this summer, and succeeded in finding only 3 places that make them. They were good, but obviously, not as good as you'll find in France. Our last week there we spent a week traveling in the south of France. The day before we were leaving to fly home, our train stopped in Paris before we boarded another one to go stay the night at our friends Josh and Holly's. We had an hour layover, so Herman left the train station, ran to the nearest Laduree to get me one last box of chocolate and caramel macaroons (what a guy), and another box as a gift to my friends who watched Dexter while we were gone. They were so good that I wrapped one up, and took it back to Sumiko when I flew home to see her and her new baby. I'll never forget her face when she and Dean cut the tiny cookie in half and experienced the amazingness that is the French macaroon. Seriously, I'm drooling here. So, so good.
Sorry about the horrendous quality of these photos...dang you little digicam.