Pits and Pastries Goes to Paris!

Over winter break I got to go to Paris, one of the most amazing experiences of my life.  I went with a two of my aunts, a cousin and my grandmother and we had an absolute blast.  Granted, when we arrived, I was a bit thrown off by the guards in the airport with Uzi machine guns but once we left the airport I was too busy looking at everything around me to keep worrying about the guards.  We went to the apartment that we were staying at and had to suffer through an unnecessarily long tour by the woman who was renting it out for the owner.  She was an absolute treat, she drove us all mad.  We wanted to smack her by the end of it.

While half of us passed out from the jet lag (a 6 hour time difference), my aunt, cousin, and I went across the street to the bakery to see what we could find.  The bakery was amazing.  It was just a little corner shop but it had chocolates, and pastries and best of all; baguettes.  Everything had a gorgeous glow about it that showed just how fresh it was.

One of the first things I noticed was something labeled galette des rois, or "king cake."  The only kind of galette I've ever made was a strawberry galette which looked completely different (and was a complete failure). Here's a picture of the galette des rois display:

We had no idea what was so special about them about them but we saw them everywhere.  On our last day there my cousin found out the hard way that a galette des rois is a special treat made for the Epiphany and it has a special "trinket" (choking hazard) in it.  The person who gets the trinket in their piece has "various privileges and obligations."

Here's a recipe if you'd like to try it yourself.

We also saw a bunch of pastry and candy shops.  The macaroon displays were particularly stunning.  Here's one of the most stunning that we saw:

Unfortunately we didn't get to go into this shop, but I did get macaroons elsewhere, and they were delicious! 

One of the days we went up to the top of a huge hill to visit an enormous church.  You could see the whole of Paris from the top.  We watched a bunch of guys practicing capoeira for tourists.  After walking around for while, dodging sketch artists and other peddlers, we had a light snack in a restaurant overlooking a square where artists were painting.  I had my first crepe!

It was fantastic.  The crepe was wonderfully light and the chocolate sauce was to die for.  I don't think that there was a single smear left on my plate by the time I was done with it.  I also had a cute tea in an adorable wrapper:

And not surprisingly, there were pitties in France! I was delighted by how many we saw.  Here's a handsome boy patiently waiting for his owner to come out of a grocery store:

It was amazing to see how well behaved the dogs in France were.  We saw them leashless almost everywhere, obediently following their owners around the city, even in the market place:

More soon!