A morning pastry
There’s no better way to start a day in Paris than by wandering up the street for a good pastry. My favorite morning in Paris involved consulting a map and a local guidebook to scout out the nearest bakery. I took a 20 minute walk along narrow streets, past Parisians walking dogs, smoking morning cigarettes, and settling around tiny round tables at sidewalk cafes for the morning’s coffee over a copy of Le Monde. At the bakery, I chose a few miniature chocolate croissants and then picked up a napoleon, or what the French call a mille-feuille, literally “a thousand sheets” for the scores of paper-thin pastry dough that make up the fluffy treat. The cashier packed the pastry neatly into a tissue-paper lined box and handed it over delicately, as though afraid too she might shatter the treasure. I began to walk back to the apartment where I was staying, but saw an inviting park bench and decided to eat there. The layers of the mille-feuille were covered in powdered sugar and soon, so were my pants, shirt, shoes, and even my hair was speckled from the cloud of sugar dust. Passing Parisians watched in horror, but I didn’t care. It was the sweetest, freshest napoleon I’d ever had.
