Paris in 100 Macaroons
Image: UggBoy
MACAROONS have been not cookies or cakes, yet something in between. They have been crispy (but only only barely) as well as smooth. They have been not toothache-sweet or dense or rich. They have been small, two-and-a-half bites, exactly.
Pistache
We visit a rainy Champs-Elysees upon a Tuesday during dusk when everybody is hurrying, wearing pumps, as well as trouncing their own sharp reflections upon a sidewalk. We cruise by a Louis Vuitton store personification a game: Guess how most which skirt costs. we want to touch everything, to try upon everything, to feel a cool fabric slip over my heada white nap sundress with crisscross stitching, a dusky silk gown with dark pinkish feathers which look out a bottom, jewels set in platinum yet cost tags solely for a words, Demander flow le prix.
Afterward we visit a tea room. It is a important one, gilded as well as palm-fronded. we sequence a macaroon, a specialty of a house. Im somewhat disappointed when it arrives. Everyone else has selected huge salads as well as napoleons of goat cheese as well as sprouts as well as potatoes. Mine seems unequivocally flat, a plate unequivocally empty.
I abandon a fork as well as collect it up in both hands as well as take a punch as well as my hold up shifts: prior to macaroon as well as after.
Image: fortes
Rose
Between classes we run over to a Luxembourg. Enormous raindrops hit a pool which reflects only gray sky as well as churning clouds. we fly by a pale, purblind statues of French queens, a square-cut trees which have been pruned at a behind of for winter. we splash by p! uddles w hich have picked up in a gravel paths. we have 10 mins to get at a behind of to a meeting house where we will lay for dual hours with 100 other not-French people as well as sense about French things.
The emporium is small as well as a automatic doorway glides open. The initial thing we see have been a rose petals, blood red as well as sugared as well as perched upon a tops of small cakes as well as fondants. we want a single of everything, yet we have a mission.
The macaroons glitter underneath a lamps. Some have been dusted with powdered sugar or cocoa. we select two, pistachio as well as rose. we have no idea what rose is.
Before we came to Paris, we read so most about a French as well as their leisurely, seated, fully-savored, obesity-fighting meals. But lunch on-the-go is a approach of hold up here. There have been take-away sandwich shops everywhere. Even a bakeries offer rebuilt lunches. You see everybody walking, clutching a baguette as well as chewing.
I eat my macaroons upon a approach at a behind of to class. They fit in a small glad wrap bag. we dont have hands for anything else. we have my books, purse, umbrella. we balance a powerful against a single shoulder as well as fish out a rose macaroon.
I have a noise. Thats how delicious it is. It is roses as well as roses. The ganache in a core holds hints of lychee as well as spring. we grin for a subsequent 10 minutes, all a approach to class.
Framboise
Somewhere in in in between my apartment as well as a Arc de Triomphe, prior to a gilded iron gate of a Parc Monceau or may be after, we travel in to a patisserie as well as we am a only not-Japanese person there.
I have listened about this, about Japans obsession with French pastry. The emporium is poetic as well as finished up in pinks as well as violets. The salesgirls verbalise Japanese to everybody solely me. When a my turn during a counter, they change in to French.
I point during a towering of pinkish macaroons as well as ask for a ra! spberry.
Without a word, a girl takes a macaroon from an wholly different, somewhat pinker pile upon a other side of a counter. we feel similar to an idiot until we realize which this miscommunication has zero to do with denunciation as well as which we should stop raised my bad-French baggage onto every fritter in Paris.
She hands me a small bag. She does not smile.
The macaroon is light, a small gummy in a middle. But there is something somewhat weird about it. Is which a sniff of artificial flavoring? Framboise en bouteille?
Orange-Chocolat
In France there is lovely-opulent as well as scary-opulent. The shop, with a gold-leaf logo, a cakes finished in heaps of molded cream, feels similar to a latter. It feels similar to an American idea of how France should bevelvety as well as decadent as well as purple. The guidebooks discuss it me this place is unequivocally famous.
It feels similar to an American idea of how France should bevelvety as well as decadent as well as purple. The guidebooks discuss it me this place is unequivocally famous.The lady at a behind of a opposite speaks such heavily accented French which we cant understand a word of what she says. When we point to a neon orange macaroon as well as scrutinise about a flavor, she says, Orange! similar to Im a stupidest person shes ever seen in her total life. Et chocolat.
Caramel Beurre Sal
Im told a fritter emporium near a Pantheon is where people in Paris get their macaroons. The child at a behind of a opposite is shy-eyed as well as lovable as well as we cannot decide in in in between a flavors, a plateau of dark colors at a behind of a glass. Finally, we chose a caramel beurre sal.
Its certainly salty, yet is this unequivocally a season we want upon a macaroon? we lapse a subsequent day as well as select something sweeter, as well as some-more my speed. Blackcurrant.
Fruit de la Passion
I travel until a modern buildings start to crop up around me as well as Paris starts to feel! similar to not-Paris as well as similar to a high-rise formidable full of boxy, unadorned apartments. This is a Paris which makes me uncomfortable, a retraction of a fairytale.
The pointer says, LUNDI FERME.
There have been macaroons in a windows as well as a potion cases in a darkened shop. we keep staring by a doorway meditative someone will appear, yet no a single does.
I get my fix at a behind of during a Luxembourg emporium later, after we have given up upon upon foot as well as patience as well as restraint. This time, we am positively not screwing around. we select two. White truffle with hazelnuts as well as passion fruit with milk chocolate.
I eat them upon a dais in front of St. Sulpice with a fountains purgation fate of H2O as well as a church trembling, almost, against a unequivocally blue sky, a spires dire against a curve.
Noix de Coco
I go back. Of march we go back. This time, a emporium is open as well as a rows of tarts as well as cakes as well as custards mount in happy contrariety to a rest of a neighborhood, a concrete.
When we ask for a cassis violet as well as a noix de coco, sil vous plait, a man nods as well as says, You can verbalise English here. No problem. we instruct some-more people in Paris spoke English.
He afterwards goes upon to discuss it me about his friend in Philadelphia, his love of Bruce Springsteen, his warn during learning which people from Texas have been not unequivocally similar to people from New York, his ideas about American perceptions of pleasure as well as ambition. He tells me all this whilst hes jacket up my macaroons, putting them in bag after box after bag as yet Ive bought 40 instead of two. Later, it will take longer to uncover them than it takes to eat them.
As Im streamer out a doorway he nods as well as says, we see we tomorrow. And we wonder, for an instant, if may be he will. 
Community Connection!
For some-more narratives upon Paris, check out Joel Runyan sleeping in a play ground by a Eiffel Tower.
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