Good Afternoon on an unusually hot day for England,

Today in Hythe, Hampshire is the French Market which has returned for a 2nd year. I didn’t want to miss out so I went for a leisurely hunt for some French fromage around the market. There was only one cheese stall this time, but still there was more than enough to satisfy my cheesy side! I asked the Gentleman behind the counter what his favourite cheese on here was and after a quick conversation we ended up with a Petit Pont L’eveque (Which I will review in a separate post) and because its one of my favourite I also got some Comte as well.

Having bought some lovely cheese to have and write about I looked around further and although there was a tasty tartiflette I headed into Waitrose to buy a Pain Au Levain to eat with my French cheeses for Lunch in the sunshine. When I arrived home I fashioned a cheeseboard for photo purposes for this blog, with some help from Amanda Broomfield (Mum 🙂 ) The result of our board I think looks very appetising, particularly if we had some wine to hand!

This certainly got my tastebuds ready for cheese and on a side note a Simple & effective cheeseboard with only a few cheeses can be more interesting than a selection over 5. If you research your cheeses first either on this blog or on other websites you will get talking points to provide to your guests, which can help people understand your reasoning behind fewer cheeses.

I love it when markets like this come into the New Forest because it brings good produce into area where we all ready have accessible good local produce, but it gets people out and trying new food experiences. I’m extremely lucky to live in an area where within a 1 hour radius I have some of my favourite food/producers on my doorstep. The whole idea of these markets are to add variety they are not here to replace but just to enhance what we already have and I for one love being able to get more cheese closer to home.

If you have an opportunity to get down to Hythe today then have a look but if not, the French Market will be returning to Lymington High Street on 15th June 10am – 5pm and I won’t be going this year but the cheese celebrity of Lymington will be there in cheesy spirit!

Before I go today I would like to leave you with a few more photos of the market today in Hythe.

Jon