"IThis cheese had the flavor of a prison riot.."

Over on the Salon Food page, Francis Lam has recently posted a witty take on the "joy" of fromage fort. Or maybe not.

I hate to admit this (as someone with a food-related blog) but I'm not really all that adventurous an eater. Although I've tried a lot of things that many other people wouldn't consider eating, I think Tony Bourdain and Andrew Zimmern and Michael Ruhlman would be terribly disappointed to take me to dinner.

That being said, however, I don't care how damn much garlic you put on a snail, I'm not eating one. As a NW girl I've stepped barefoot on far too many slugs, and far too vividly remember that odd and disgusting combination of slime and crunch to want anything to do with gastropods on any level.

There are a good many cheeses I would not approach. Shortly after meeting Daniele and attempting to make the sort of food he hadn't had access to in years, I bought some proscuitto and gongonzola to make panini out of.

Let's just say I'd had a little too much chardonnay that evening. When I got up the next morning I checked in the fridge and saw a leftover sandwich. Thinking it was something my kid had made and then changed his mind on, I took a bite. The gagging stopped when I spit it out.

Daniele was puzzled. "But you ate it last night and said you liked it." Ahh, the amazing power of love. Or cheap wine from Ernest & Julioville.

"Jesus," I muttered rhetorically. "How drunk did I have to have to be to eat that?"

Something tells me that neither fromage fort nor gorgonzola and I have any possibility of a future together.