A Case of American Gluttony

Julie's arrival was celebrated with le plateau de fromage. As the server prepared our table for the cheese plate, he remarked that the plate was big. "Big" was a complete understatement! When the cheese plate arrived, Julie and I burst into laughter because we had enough cheese to feed a tiny army. Seriously, I have never seen such a humongous cheese plate in my life. They say French portions are small; I guess not when it comes to cheese.

My first thought was shit, what did we order ... I may not be able to afford this MASSIVE cheese plate, but, then the gourmandise set in and we started to enjoy. Once we realized that we weren't even going to make a dent in this cheese plate, we started wondering how we could bring all this cheese home with us, as we had enough cheese to last the week. A little embarrassed that the French may snub their nose at our request for a doggy bag, we debated different ways we could take all of this cheese home... umm, napkin & Julie's handbag?

As we were debating requesting more bread, the owner came and asked us if we were done with the cheese plate as others are waiting for it. WHAT!?! Oops!!!! :) Completely embarrassed, we burst out into laughter for a good ten minutes. I think we almost peed in our pants. The best part is that since we believed that this cheese was all ours, we didn't necessarily treat the cheese appropriately - oops. Part of us questioned whether the cheese was taken away from us because the owner thought we were eating too much ... he he he. I'm sure a not so friendly American comment was made behind our backs. Oh well, I will obviously not be returning to Les Deux Stations bistro populaire anytime soon.

Moral of the story, when you order le plateau de fromage in France, you serve yourself a portion of the cheese and then return the platter to the server. Only if we had remembered that gluttony is a sinful American trait maybe we would have saved ourselves from embarrassment.

For your viewing pleasure and a good laugh at Julie's and my expense, here is a photo of le plateau de fromage.