Don't forget the cheese: it's an adventure!

Now I can easily create a false impression of piety about this pilgrimage: "oh, we'll pray and maintain silence, and contemplate God and the mystery of the Trinity, etc etc etc blah blah blah".  You could get the impression that I'm some sort of holy guy walking on his knees all the way to Santiago.  Well that is certainly not all that will go on, nor is it the only reason I'm walking.  

This will be a grand adventure! 

 I'm 57 years old.  I live a very Ozzie and Harriet life (well at least I'm the Ozzie part since Harriet wasn't exactly jewish eh?).  I'm leaving all of that and walking 500 miles across northern Spain!  This journey will be great and grand adventure.  I intend to have a "hoot" along the way.  

Anyone that knows me, knows I like a good feed.  I always tell my Sunday school class, "the kingdom of God is like a great feast."  So I'm going to try every bit of local cheese I can find.  I hope its stinky and rich and lush with the grasses of the Basque and the greenery of Cantabria!  I want to find and eat idiazabal (a beechwood smoked Basque sheep's cheese), cabrales (a blue cheese from Asturias), picons (goat cheese aged in caves in the Picos de Europa mountains), one of my favorites (thank you Rachel for introducing me) garrotxa (a goat cheese from Cataluna), and in Santiago de Compostela, San Simon, a cheese shaped like a woman's breast as a sign of the fecundity of life and a poke in the eye to puritans everywhere!  Friends I'm going to be in food heaven--eating, drinking, and contemplating just how good it is to live in this wonder filled world of rich with God's delights.

Like the Jews in my family ( who know, and thankfully taught me, a thing or two about poking puritans in the eye) say so easily and oh so gracefully,

L'chiam!!!!!