Paris, My Sweet (10 page)

“Oh yeah, I heard that place is cool. The bar has ping-pong tables, right?” Melanie asked. Six months ago, ping-pong tables would have seemed novel. But ping-pong tables? Big whoop! They were de rigueur across Paris. I wasn't taking the bait, even when Carrie chimed in that she had gone to the hot spot last weekend and been within spitting distance of Bruce Willis, who was followed two minutes later by Demi and Ashton, plus a pair of lumbering six-foot, three-hundred-pound bodyguards.

This was the way things were now, I realized. For the past six months, my friends had been the ones scoping out and sizing up the newest, latest, coolest openings in Manhattan. They had been cruising right along without my tips and assessments, living in “my” city while I had been thirty-six hundred miles away. Things change every weekend in New York. Restaurants open and close. Bars go from “It” to “Over It.” Did I really expect that I could be gone for months and have everything remain the same? I was now a stranger in my hometown.

“Guys, I have to go,” I said, putting my barely touched Stella on the table, debate over the most impossible dinner reservations hanging in the air. Everyone looked at me incredulously.

“What? You're leaving? Why? Let's go to Café Select for dinner!” Mary said. Meanwhile, Carrie's face was lit up from her BlackBerry. She was already shifting to Plan B.

“You know, I'd love to, but a massive wave of jet lag just washed over me,” I begged. “I think I'd fall asleep in my spaetzle if I stayed out.” It was true that I was still a bit woozy from jet lag. But I knew I'd return to my apartment for another sleepless night, no matter how tired I was. More than anything, I just didn't want to feel alienated any more. Everything I had once known and loved suddenly felt so foreign and I no longer knew where I belonged. This night that I had been deliciously anticipating had taken it out of me. I needed it to end.

Walking around the neon-filled avenues and crowded streets in the ensuing days, I found myself having a mini identity crisis. So many of my friends, including AJ—who was back from her business trip and on for dinner that night—were moving in with boyfriends, and moving out to Brooklyn. Out of my entire community of New York friends, only a handful were still in the same place as me: single and living the life of a twentysomething. Cohabitation in Park Slope or Carroll Gardens was apparently the modern fairy tale of my peers, not whooping it up in a foreign country. I kept pondering where all these observations left me: with two homes, or none? Was I a New Yorker or a Parisian? Expat or local? Where exactly did I belong? As I searched for the connection to and love for a city that had always sustained me, I felt sad and alienated.

I also felt guilty on a more existential level. It was like realizing that you've fallen out of love with someone. Each morning, I'd wake up, hoping to feel differently, thinking but, but, but…I used to love this place. I used to look forward to this. This used to be my
life
. Now I felt bad because I couldn't get excited about something that I once loved so much. I couldn't help but see New York as loud and filthy instead of elegant and transporting. The tarted-up
Sex
and
the
City
wannabes tottering in high heels and shockingly short skirts had none of the grace of French women who walked with a confident, sophisticated gait. The urban grit and tension felt claustrophobic, not inspiring the way Paris's cobblestone streets and plazas did.

It didn't help that as soon as I'd start feeling a New York connection again, I'd be ushered back to Paris. For just as the French were having a love affair with cupcakes, I discovered New Yorkers were falling for the macaron.

Ah yes, macarons. Those crisp but chewy, light-as-air meringue cookies. Not the big, hulking lumpish Italian confections that are often made with coconut. French macarons are different. They're delicate yet persnickety. A feat of mixing, folding, stirring, and timing. A delightful combination of powdered sugar, finely ground almonds, and egg whites and not much else, save for the luxuriously creamy ganache or buttercream filling that holds the two cookies together. Firm but tender, shiny yet ridged, with ethereally light shells and heavy middles, they're miniature studies of contrasts—and deliciousness.

Making macarons is famously difficult. Everything must be done just so: the ingredients measured to the very gram, egg whites aged and beaten on a rigid timetable, ovens heated to the precise degree—even the outside weather conditions can result in flat or cracked shells, instead of the shiny, perfectly domed specimens that beckon from pâtisserie
vitrines
and tea house cake stands. “Humidity is the enemy of macarons,” is how the instructor explained it in a macaron-making class I took. (You better believe I took a macaron-making class. I figured with those things being as iconic to the Frenchies as cupcakes were to Americans, the least I could do was see what all the fuss was about. I spent a few hours on a Saturday, learning at La Cuisine Paris.)

If you don't stir the batter enough, you get spiky cookies. If you stir too much, they risk becoming flat. And anyone who's ever admired the lovely little things knows the cookie shells should be nice and smooth with a
jolie
sheen, while the inner lip,
le
croute
, should be ragged. The innards should be moist, but not wet; the outside crisp, but not tough. The more you know about them, the easier it is to understand why macarons cost a couple bucks each.

When I arrived in Paris, I was ignorant to all this. My first clue to Parisians' devotion to the wee delights was when I coasted by Pierre Hermé's rue Bonaparte boutique on a Vélib' and saw a line snaking out the door. My curiosity was piqued but I had other, more decadent, sweets to sample. Like Jacques Genin's bittersweet chocolate éclairs and
Boulangerie
Julien's dense and creamy almond croissants. Later, it's true, I became a devotee of Pierre Hermé's cakes. But two-bite, pastel-colored cookie sandwiches seemed like child's play.

Then Lionel, my partner at work and a sweet freak himself, brought
une
boîte de macarons
into the office. He visited my desk and deftly removed the lid, presenting an array of perfectly formed, vibrantly colored macarons. I was dazzled. The three perfect rows seemed almost too pretty to disturb. But then I realized that was nonsense.
Vite!
They should be sampled. It was time to lose my macaron virginity.

My fingers danced above the open box as I tried to anticipate which flavor would be the very best. Lionel, equal parts benevolent and impatient, steered me to a dusty rose-colored one; it was the famous Ispahan flavor. I bit into the shell that,
poof
, crunched ever so delicately before collapsing in a delightfully chewy and moist mouthful. And then the storm of flavors hit me. Bright raspberry, exotic lychee, and a whiff of rose. There was so much power in that pretty little thing. It was a delicacy packed with skill, imagination, poetry, and,
God, give me another one!

As I drifted away on a little cloud of rose-tinted heaven, Lionel decided to school me in a very important French lesson.

In Paris, there are two kinds of people: those who think Pierre Hermé makes the best macarons and those who believe Ladurée's are the best. What many people don't know, even ardent macaron worshippers, is that Pierre Hermé once worked for Ladurée, the traditional
salon
de
thé
with roots back to 1862.

One hundred and fifty years ago, Ladurée was just a bakery. But as Paris's dramatic tree-lined boulevards and sweeping gardens were being installed as part of Baron Haussmann's nineteenth-century modernization program and café culture was coming full swing, Jeanne Souchard, Louis Ernest Ladurée's wife, decided that ladies needed a place for social outings. He merged the café concept with the pastry shop,
et
voilà
, one of the first
salons
de
thé
was born. Though today it's a multimillion dollar empire, with locations in far-flung Japan, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia, Ladurée still retains the class and charm of the early days. The three Parisian tea salons share the same powder-green color scheme, Belle Époque interiors, and attract a mélange of Japanese tourists and ladies who lunch. It's iconic to some, stuffy to others. I think it's just lovely.

After an apprenticeship at Lenôtre and a ten-year stint at Fauchon, two other historic French pâtisseries, Pierre Hermé became consulting pastry chef at Ladurée, opening the magnificent Champs-Élysées location—the one, conveniently, right near Ogilvy. But ultimately, he was a little too rock and roll for the traditional outfit. The mix of fruity flavors that is Ispahan is the perfect example of why the pâtissier, Pierre Hermé, and the salon de thé, Ladurée, didn't mix. The flavor wasn't considered a success at Ladurée, so he took the recipe with him when he set out on his own in 1998.

Now Ispahan is his most celebrated flavor combination, but by no means the only one. Over the years he's created macarons such as chocolate and passion fruit; raspberry and wasabi; peach, apricot, and saffron; white truffle and hazelnut; and olive oil and vanilla. They may sound funky, but trust me, they are all delicious. And while Hermé also does classic, singular flavors—vanilla, pistachio, lemon, and rose, to name a delicious few—many would say that is where Ladurée rules.

If you ask me, both Pierre Hermé and Ladurée have their merits. Pierre Hermé's macarons are still made by hand; Ladurée's are assembled by machine. But Ladurée's macarons
and boxes are also less expensive and the experience is more transcending. Brand and taste, preference and prejudices, the debate rages on: whose macarons are the perfect balance of crisp to chewy to melty? Who has the most sublime flavor combinations? Who has the richest ganache? Whose are the prettiest? Ultimately, it's a question that's nearly impossible to answer. Just exactly who has the best macaron: Pierre Hermé or Ladurée?

With my initiation to the city's great macaron rivalry under way, I started appreciating the delicacies for what they were: pretty and petite, feminine and elegant, fancy enough for
une
soirée
but also indulged in as an everyday
goûter
. In other words, they were
totally
French. What were they doing all over New York?