Cheese, wine, fire, book

Here’s what you do.

First, the cheese. As good as you can afford. Not to be snooty, but Babybel won’t cut it.

Don’t overdo it though. Three cheeses is probably one too many. And there’s no need to get all ‘artisanally-made-by-a-Kirghiz-goatherd’ about it – just two good contrasting and complementary cheeses will do. Particularly satisfying are whole cheeses – maybe a little round of something camembert-y, or a goat rolled in ash (not the goat itself – the cheese). Or perhaps there’s a hard cheese you particularly like – a tangy cheddar-esque something, or a manchego. Honestly, it’s up to you – you know what you like. But do take the trouble to unwrap them and place them neatly on a wooden board, sharp knife alongside. Leave them there for the time being.

It’s tempting to surround them with accoutrements – chutneys, olives, quince jelly, artichoke hearts, garlic cloves preserved in oil with herbs, sun-dried tomatoes beaten wafer-thin by Tuscan handmaids.

Don’t.

Bread. That’s all you need. Good bread. I love cheap pappy white as much as the next guzzler, but there’s a time and a place for it – namely wrapped round four rashers of crispy bacon, smeared with ketchup and scoffed in the middle of the kitchen at one o’clock in the morning after a bit of a night.

Not the cheap white. Not with the cheeses.

And ok, you can have a chutney or something quincey if you insist. But no more than one per cheese. And a genteel little bowl of olives? Very well then.

Yes. Yes, I am bossy.

The wine. It’s probably red, and somewhere between quaffing and show-offy. It’s a friendly thing to at least say hello to it before lamming it down your neck. Pour your glass and take just a moment to appreciate its deep colour, the way it scarcely clings to the side of the glass when you tilt it, its vinous smell. But there’s no need to go overboard, no need to go on about it. Hint of apricot, soupçon of peppermint, the almost brutish tang of anchovy – they can fuck off. You’re not Frasier Crane.

And then there’s the fire. Failing an open fireplace with a good draw in a really very old cottage (yeah, right), a wood-burning stove will do. There will have been discussions about how best to light the fire, but you will have yielded gracefully – the other person knows best.

And if, like most people, you don’t have a wood-burning stove, whack up the central heating and light a candle. It will make all the difference.

The book. You will need the book, because the people you are eating the cheese and drinking the wine and sharing the fire with are the people you’re comfortable enough just to sit with, without feeling the need for stilted conversation. This isn’t a dinner party. It’s not even an evening meal. Not really. It’s cheese and wine and warmth. And an olive, if you insist.

In the best of all possible worlds, you will have been for a blowy walk somewhere green. There’s nothing like brisk autumnal exercise for giving you the false impression that you’ve somehow ‘earned’ good things. But not too long nor too blowy – for that you’ll need some kind of stew, preferably one that’s been on the stove all day patiently waiting your return and filling the house with good smells. A different meal for a different occasion.

There will come a moment when you’ll dribble yourself the last of the wine and cut yourself another sliver of cheese and eat it straight from the knife, and then a few minutes later maybe the book will fall from your hand to the floor and the embers won’t quite be as warming as they were an hour ago, and then it’s time for bed, even though that means waking up a bit, so you drag yourself unwilling upstairs and think about breakfast.

But that’s another story.