the elephant, the pastry, and me

eat: tarte tropezien
listen to: tracker, we are the trees

A rabid craving smacked me in the sternum at precisely 8:15pm – the middle of the Witching Hour in Paris. This is the time in the evening where the streets are virtually deserted as everyone has returned home from their respective daytime occupations: they are either tucked up into their homes finishing dinner, preparing the children for bed, or getting ready to go to a café for the evening. The boulangeries, patisseries, and épiceries are pulling in their leftovers and emptying the glass display cases. The cafés are turning on ovens and polishing glasses, sharpening the knives in anticipation of the coming crowd. The Witching Hour is no time to dawdle. I myself had been pleasantly occupied writing short stories in my pajamas when the vision of airy cream pastries danced its way into my left ear, niggled through my synapses, and planted itself firmly below my heart, behind my eyes, irrevocably imprinting its image: there was no hope of ignoring it. I slipped on ballet flats and flew down the eight flights of spiraling stairs with some change in my back-pocket. I crossed the street, rounded the corner, and walked into the patisserie 10 minutes to close. There was a limited choice, luckily, for at least my decision would not need to be as laborious, as difficult, as tedious: it is impossible to pick between the rows and rows of the pastries at lunchtime, all gleaming and blushing and showing off like peacocks in the mating season – colourful, irresistible. To help me with the process, I asked pertinent questions of the boulange as I mulled over my choices: ‘de quelle saveur est le flan’; ‘est-ce que ca c’est un macaron pistache’; ‘qu’est-que c’est le crème de patissier’. In the end, I got two – I could not make up my mind: one delicate, airy crème de patissier sandwiched in between two triangles of brioche sprinkled with slivered almonds and dusted with icing sugar; and one small tarte de noix, with buttery shortcrust lined with a fine layer of sticky toffee, filled with caramelized walnuts and pecans, and topped off with pistachio shavings. My fingers played hungrily with the pastries’ wrapping as I was shooed from the closing shop; I was more eager than a child opening their Christmas stocking even though I knew what was inside. I persuaded myself to wait until I had returned to my room, but it was not easy. After running up the eight flights, I ripped open the packaging and blissfully began the messy seduction: licking my fingers, sucking the paper, squeezing the brioche and running my tongue along the edges to catch the spurting crème, generally getting them into me as fast as possible – I had lost, surrendered, my inhibitions, and succumbed to the delicate delight.