Gastronomic notes of a foodie

When my best friend made an executive decision to leave DC area where he grew up and spent most of his adequate life and move to Paris for good, all his friends, including myself, were making bets on the number of months or years (best case scenarios) that would take him to return to the US. Well, he never did...more so, my life has been enriched with several trips a year to explore France, its culture, and eat my way through various regions of the gastronomic cradle of the world.

Part 1. Breakfast à la française

Breakfast in France is something very uncommon and hard to get used to for the avocado toast & coffee lovers. French people don't do breakfast. Their breakfast consists of an espresso and a cigarette (or two cigarettes, if time allows) and sometimes a plain baguette delivered daily from a local boulangerie to nearby brasseries. Having a chocolate croissant with a cappuccino in Paris for the first time ever definitely made the waiter frown upon my touristy demands, but oh my God, nothing I have ever tried in my life before could compare to that buttery with a hint of slightly sweet caramel burn croissant paired with my morning cappuccino. Literally, nothing! I was smiling like a Cheshire cat to a couple of young women sitting two tables away and having their morning coffee & cigarette while complaining about their sex life and cursing their useless partners so loud that it was impossible not to listen to. I was smiling at a man dragging his curly redhead kid across the square while the boy was proudly carrying a couple of very long baguettes under his arm looking all adorable and serious. I was smiling at myself amazed by the realization how much happiness can littlest things in the right atmosphere bring into our life.

In fact, the French do know how to enjoy their food, just like they know how to enjoy their life. It's quite fascinating to observe those cultural rituals of dedication to making the best croissant, to making a cult out of baking the crispiest baguette (that sound and sensational by the way) and to making love, of course. Even my French tutor with a peculiar last name Jambon (that literally translates as Ham) confirmed that you can't be French and not have an affair. It's a must. The most complicated it is, the better! It makes life more interesting and tasteful!

Mr. Ham, who is a born Parisian living in Virginia, also got me hooked on his morning French lessons each Saturday that would always begin with a special sort of coffee delivered by car from Italy to his summer house near Nice and then carefully imported to the US to enjoy by friends and family. The beans were always freshly grinded in front of me prior to emitting an incredible espresso aroma mixed with some kind of a very special foamed milk that would be accompanied by freshly baked chestnut madeleines (the chestnut flour was imported from France, of course, and purchased directly from a Parisian bread baker in bulk), and quite long but fascinating conversations about life, love, travel, and food of course. It was Mr. Ham who enchanted me with love and passion to finding and enjoying the best things in life amidst our American on-the-go breakfasts, boxed lunches and frozen dinners with counted calories on the box.

So there I was sitting outside a charming brasserie inhaling my chocolate croissant and simply being happy and grateful to life for giving me an opportunity to able to stop the time and enjoy the moment without a care in the world...