Bread line

Give us this day our daily tarte aux fraises

Sometimes life in France is very trying.

Like, I’m TRYING not to pig out on amazing patisseries. Yet, just to get a baguette, I have to go past this.

My sweetie’s favorite, St. Honoré is a bunch of cream puffs with whipped cream on top

And this.

Moelleux aux abricots, which translates loosely to a moist bread-like cake with apricots

Not to mention these.

Photo taken just before Easter. How cute are those little nests? Not that cuteness would stop me from jabbing a fork into them.

OK, the line at Noez bakery is long (proof that the goods are great. With bakeries on every other block, there are other choices!) but it moves very quickly. The line usually snakes outside on market days, and once inside we must pass a veritable gantlet of goodies.

How much self-control can one person muster before cracking under pressure from this?

I love seeing the impeccably dressed elderly ladies choosing individual desserts for coffee with their friends. Un mille-feuille, un baba au rum, une tarte aux fraises…. (and they know which are masculine and which are feminine!!! Feuille is feminine, but mille-feuille is masculine. I give up!)

All the patisseries shown are from Boulangerie Noez,  57 rue du Verdun (corner of rue Chartran), Carcassonne. More on the bread later!

While American schoolchildren are belting out “Row, Row, Row Your Boat,” in France the favorite round to sing is:

Battez la crème, battez la crème, battez la crème, battez la crème
De la crème fraîche que l’on fouette si gaiement
Parfum vanille, un peu de sucre blanc
On l’aime à la folie, la crème chantilly 

Beat the cream, beat the cream, beat the cream, beat the cream
Some whipped cream, which we whip so gaily
Vanilla flavor, a little white sugar,
We love it madly, whipped cream

Says a lot about priorities, eh?