The baguette...
We have all seen the vintage photos of the French boy,
cycling down the cobbled street,
baguette nestled in the basket,
along with other delectable fruits, veggies and wine...
People say that the French baguette
cannot be replicated outside its Gallic borders,
although many have tried. Julia seems to have figured out
the steaming process to produce the crispy exterior,
yielding a soft chewy interior...
Regardless, the French baguette is nothing like
the tasteless baseball bats we call baguettes at home...
This I learned pretty quickly...
Man, are they tasty, just straight up,
with some butter slathered on, alongside coffee...
Heaven...
We saw many Parisians, walking along,
with a big ole wrapped baguette sandwich in hand...
Tom had an incredible tuna salad sandwich
that oozed dijon vinagrette, while I enjoyed an omelette...
Let's just say I had a little teensy hangover
and needed some serious protein
to shake that queasy feeling.....
Dang that fourth bottle of white!
Eating is serious business over there
and we were up to the challenge...
The first night we ate, on a friend's suggestion,
at Le Restaurant Au Sergent Raconteur, a rustic, out of the way place
on the Left Bank...
Run by the owner and one other guy,
the fixed price menu started out
with the most delicious pureed vegetable soup
I have ever had...
Next came pate' with, you guessed it, sliced baguettes...
Soon, the owner plopped a huge basket
of fresh vegetables on the table...
Our "salad" was a help-yourself basket of tomatoes on the vine,
whole endive, cucumbers, whole carrots and wedge lettuce...
No dressing...
We cut off hunks of veggies and enjoyed them "au naturel"...
The next basket was brimming
with all sorts of sausages,
followed by our entrees,
which were roasted chicken and beef bourguinon...
So marvelous...
Five kinds of cheese arrived,
followed by a tarte tatin and chocolate mousse...
Everything was casual, family style and wonderful...
Another night we found a charming, small restaurant
near our hotel named Moustache...
The butternut squash soup was piping hot, smooth and hinted of citrus...
I enjoyed cod and Tom loved the sliced steak with wine sauce...
We shared a dessert of a chocolate soup
that was flavorful and complex...
The service was attentive, but not pushy,
and the restaurant was lively...
It seemed like every time we were seated next to Americans....
Maybe it's like the kid's table...
They want to keep us out of the way...
We also noticed that chocolate is everywhere in Paris...
There is a chocolate shop at every corner,
so it came as no surprise that there was
quite a lot of promotion for the
It was a four day convention of all things chocolate...
We almost didn't get to see it,
since we forgot to print out the tickets ahead of time...
Usually, when you have a receipt and a confirmation,
the Will Call booth lets you enter...
Oh non!
When we presented the receipt to the ticket agent
at the convention center, she pursed her lips
and said that we had to take a train across Paris
and have our tickets printed at their main office...
What?!
So we went to the Paris Travel Bureau, across the plaza, for help...
"I am sorry, Madame, but our printer is broken:"...
What?!
So we had to dash to an internet cafe,
the size of a broom closet, to print our tickets...
Very French....
Inside the Salon du Chocolate
we witnessed fashion in the form of chocolate...
These were some wildly creative outfits and it was amazing the girls kept them on...
You'd think body heat, alone, would be an issue...
There were live white doves living inside one of the chocolate bustles!
See 'em in there??
After the show, we perused the booths in search of samples...
The presentations were beautiful...
Little mountains of cream filled joy...
Marshmallow sticks enrobed in different kinds of chocolates....
The Eiffel Tower in chocolate,
The Arc de Triomphe in chocolate....
Floral presentations in candy....
And chocolate soldiers ready to stir in hot milk...
It was really cool...
You gotta work pretty hard to get a bad meal in Paris
and the wine flows like the Seine...
Next: What stuck in my brain...
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