Thursday, March 10, 2011

All Roads Lead to Pastries


No matter which Paris avenue these gentlemen choose, they will definitely encounter a pastry shop. Chances are the pastries will be delicious.  They may even decide they want to go to several pastry shops and compare; I know someone who did that.

I was particularly enchanted with French macarons, those crunchy, chewy meringue-based cookies with the various fillings.  They have become popular in the United States now too, but I have yet to find a good one here, or at least any that compare in any way to the ones in France. In case you've never had one, macarons look like this. If you were just buying something based on appearance, you might never try one.
Renard Gregory's chocolate macaron is the best.
Then there are pastries based on the macaron, like these:

This is called an Ispahan, a magical creation that combines the flavors of rose and raspberry with litchi. One of them was from Ladurée and one was from Pierre Hermé. Although they were both excellent, one was better than the other. Unfortunately, I don't remember which.
Maybe it was the one from Pierre Herme. I suggest you try both!

11 comments:

  1. I agree, French macaroons are fantastic.

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  2. I thought for a minute I was enticed here under false pretences but a do see something mouth-watering.

    It would be interesting to see the equivalent view today, with all the modern buildings of La Défense in the distance.

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  3. Great postcard and the macaroons looks delicious!

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  4. I think I gained a couple of pounds just looking at the goodies. Love the old French post card

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  5. I've never found macarons to look appetizing until I read your post. I never knew anything about them & now I cannot wait to find the perfect, (for now, or at least until I get to Paris) American Macaroon!
    Thanks for enlightening me.

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  6. Yeah, the real beauty of the macarons seems to be the surprise inside, sort of like this amazing view from the top of the L'Arc de Triomphe- all the previous shots I have seen are of the Arc from the ground, this perspective is much more interesting!

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  7. What a great leap from that postcard to pastries!

    I'm sorry to say that the Yankee macaroons I'm familiar with are NOTHING like those ones. Not to say I don't like them but they're just sticky globs of toasty coconut. These ones look lethally delicious.

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  8. Holy cow! Those patries are good enough for a screensaver, but I'd probably gain about 5 lbs. a week with that kind of bad influence.

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  9. I've got some good shots from the Arc like this one. But no macarons:(

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