The standard French thing would be to get a basic 'pain' (the long stick bread) and try some cheeses (this is a taste thing, so hard to recommend, and you're likely to know most French cheeses anyway - one of my favorites was always a Camembert Douce, a soft, sweet Camembert)
there may be some regionalisms, as 'pain' means just 'bread', so if it doesn't have a more specific meaning, I can imagine you may be given what the baker/bakeress thinks you need better.
"flûte" is a term for a long and somewhat wide stick.
there's a lot of variation in quality and durability. "pain de campagne" or "$term de campagne" means harder crust, cooked more and lasts longer (up to a few days).
a bad baguette is worthless a few hours after buying it (or if bought too late, is bad to begin with)
among the ubiquitous basics is Cantal, you can't go wrong with it. yellow and firm
easily mixed with other cheese in a bite.
blue cheese is nice. but Roquefort is too harsh, sticky, comes with juice and is very expensive. there's bleu de bresse, bleu d'auvergne, fourme d'ambert.
wine, I like the "sud-ouest" category (but I'm a cheapstake), you don't have to care about keeping it for years before drinking it. many niceties (bergerac, minervois, saint-sardos, gaillac). for a given provenance there are many grades ("crap","drinkable","average","awesome"..). corbières is nice but fraught to you buying crap if you're cheap or unlucky, for instance.
cahors is now for being rude and cheap but some of the wine from there is good.
oh, this is a mix of mascarpone and gorgon zola, bizarrely presented on a plate. creamy!
http://myyellowkitchen.files.wordpr...orgonzola-dolce-and-mascarpone-casa.jpg?w=640
this is killing me. I want some.
