In which we go to Paris, I scold my readers, and Ziggy is not froid

A couple years ago, Sam got invited to do a workshop in Paris, and he said, "I can't do that unless my wife can come too." (Wasn't that good of him?) I couldn't come that year, but much to our delight, the people remembered him and asked him again, and this year we thought we could manage it!

It was a close thing for awhile—as my mom was in a bike accident and fractured her skull the week before we were to leave! (What kind of person leaves someone with a fractured skull to take care of four children??! I felt like a monster. But if you know my mom, you know she is almost superhuman. And she insisted she would be okay! Also, she has the most wonderful Relief Society, and they helped with meals and driving.) My big boys stayed home alone (under the watchful eye of more Relief Society sisters, bless them) and Sebastian and Ziggy came with us to Paris! So that's everyone accounted for. I think.

Ziggy was angelic on the plane ride to Paris. We had a direct flight, which was awesome, and it was at night, so he slept sweetly in his bassinet and cooed at people when he wasn't sleeping. We will keep our minds firmly fixed upon the wonder of that first flight whenever we are tempted to recall the flight home, about which the less said the better. (The nightmares may end. In time.)

I had been to Paris before, when I was 16 or 17. We picked my brother up from his mission in Brussels and then spent a couple days in Paris too. From that trip I mostly remember carrying a baguette along the street, and coming up the Champs de Mars to see the Eiffel Tower. I can also summon up a vague memory of climbing lots of steps to get to a cathedral (Sacré-Cœur, maybe?) and the sun streaming in through the rose window of Notre Dame.

I always worry before we go on a trip about how we will figure everything out and get everywhere we want to go, and this time I was worried about if we'd be cold all the time. (And yes, we were.) But in some ways I was actually slightly less worried, because I speak enough French to read the signs! And to buy a train ticket and order a pastry. (The essentials.) I wasn't sure I'd actually be brave enough to DO that, but theoretically I could, which helped my peace of mind. Sebastian and Sam had been studying a little French before we left too.

After we arrived (and got picked up from the airport! SO great, and the guy even had a car seat for Zig! The people in charge of the workshop were just the best), and checked into our hotel, we went down into the metro first thing, so we could get familiar with it. Sebastian was slightly apprehensive, but extremely interested in how it all worked, and I said, "In a couple days you'll have this totally figured out and I'll be asking you which way we need to go." I was right about that, too. Seb also paid particular interest to how the lines and cars differed from one another—he wanted to notice (and discuss) which ones had sliding doors, which had rubber wheels, which used a third rail and which did not, and so forth.

That first day was actually not too cold. The sun was out and it was quite pleasant! We walked by the Eiffel Tower and then decided to take a river boat down the Seine.

Note Ziggy with us (he's that grey lump on my chest)

It was really pretty with the sun coming out of the clouds every now and then. We liked all the bridges and I kept saying, "This must be Pont Neuf!" about every bridge but the actual Pont Neuf. (Somehow that name had stuck in my head from my previous visit.) I still don't remember which one it actually was.

We could see Notre Dame rising up from the Île de la Cité.

We were SO tired that first day, as we have learned one always is when flying to Europe. You just have to push through and make it till bedtime. [Of course, for Ziggy there really IS no bedtime. I probably suffered the least from the time change, since I'm up with him day and night anyway.] At last we had had dinner and it was 9:30 p.m., and it felt so GOOD to finally lie down on our beds! Seb and Zig played a little "airplane" before falling asleep.

I will switch from the specific to the general here, as I don't want to record every minute of every day…but perhaps a general word about the food would be in order.

Oh, the food! Someone asked us if we liked the food in France or Italy better, and it is just so hard to decide! We loved both. And we had wonderful meals in both places. (And in Germany, too!) But as far as baked goods…France is the clear winner. There were boulangeries and patisseries everywhere! On every corner! And people were lined up for them! Buying pastries! Eating pastries! It did my heart good to see it. And it also made me feel a renewed sense of anger and disappointment at YOU—yes, YOU, gluten-free eaters, Keto dieters, breakfast-skippers—you who have driven bakeries in the United States out of business in droves, you who will be satisfied with a dry grocery-store croissant and never demand with your dollars the delight of a warm pain au chocolat. Oh Salt Lake City, Salt Lake City, how oft would I have fed you with my butterscotch croissants and my cinnamon rolls, as a hen feedeth her chickens from her own oven—but you would not, saying "Oh, I really shouldn't, I'm off sugar."

Ahem.

Well, there it is.

But at any rate, eating in Paris was an utter delight.When we walked down to the hotel breakfast that first morning, Sam and I felt like we had finally found our people (you know how we feel about breakfast!) The individual egg-cooking stations! The plain, tart yogurt with jam! The baguettes, warm and stacked up ready to be sliced or broken! Cheeses! Meats! And the pastries! It was what every breakfast should aspire to be.

Sebastian and I went on a "Food Tour" in the Montmartre neighborhood while Sam was giving his workshop one day, and it was so wonderful. We tried all kinds of things at different little shops as we walked: chocolate, cheeses, meats, macarons, crêpes, breads. At the encouragement of the other people on the tour, we decided it would be fitting if Ziggy tried his first solid food at this opportune time. So our tour guide gave him the end of a baguette to chew on, assuring us that French babies through the ages have started food this way.

Ziggy liked it!

He liked it so much, in fact, that he was kind of scary. (And don't worry, we gave him some bits of the soft inner part to try, too!)

It was kind of alarming how fast Ziggy got used to the idea of eating. He began to demand baguettes everywhere we went! When we went to church and let the sacrament tray pass by him without giving him some of the bread, he yowled like he'd been stuck with a pin! Poor hungry baby.

Speaking of poor babies, Ziggy also garnered a lot of sympathy from the passers-by because it was so cold outside, and if it's cold outside—naturally—all babies must be cold! It was kind of funny at first. Just people murmuring as we walked by about the bébé and making sympathetic sounds about his (presumably) cold little nose and toes. But the encounters kept getting more uncomfortable. A man calling out to me in a stern voice as I walked out of the metro: Madame! Madame! Il a froid! and pointing censoriously to poor, bundled-up Ziggy—who, I should add, was wearing his winter hat and fleece suit, wrapped tight against my chest, under my coat. (There is something about being called "Madame" that just sounds disapproving, even without the rest of it!) 

Worst of all was the lady in front of me on the escalator who gestured repeatedly and expansively toward me and Ziggy (I had unwrapped him to nurse, so he wasn't bundled back up again yet) and scolded us in French as we rode all the way up from a deep, deep metro station. I caught lots of words like "cold" and "sick" and "it's freezing" but it's probably good I wasn't not fluent enough to get the rest, since from her tone I imagine there was a fair bit of "what sort of mother are you" and "are you trying to kill this innocent child"-ing going on as well. I kept protesting feebly, "Non, non, il a assez chaud!" but she would have none of it. If that escalator hadn't mercifully ended, she'd probably be scolding me still! 

Anyway. Ziggy was perfectly happy. Pink and warm every time we unbundled him. Would that I could have said the same for myself!

One of the best things we did was get some chocolat chaud—true Parisian hot chocolate—at a place we had heard of, called Un Dimanche à Paris. It was snowing outside, so when we went in where it was warm and sat down by the window, with the smell of butter and caramelizing sugar filling the air, it seemed like maybe we had ascended into heaven by mistake.

(This doesn't really show how cozy it felt.)

There were pastries…lemon tarts and mille-feuille and éclairs and deep chocolate gateaux. And then the hot chocolate came in a china chocolate pot with a whisk inside, and poured out into our cups like thick cream. It was warm and not-very-sweet…and so, so good! We loved it!

We felt very pleased with ourselves for managing to find such good hot chocolate, and would have been perfectly satisfied with the one time, but then when we went to Versailles we saw there was a café we'd heard of there, called Angelina, which is also famous for hot chocolate. So naturally we had to get some and compare.

Seb's breakfast, which he got along with his hot chocolate, was so beautiful it almost made me cry to look at it. Little pots of honey and jam and chestnut spread on a two-tiered silver tray, and a croissant, and the hot chocolate in a delicate cup with a tiny pot of whipped cream on the side. So lovely. We loved the hot chocolate here, too, although I think we liked the other place a tiiiiny bit better…but do you want to know something? 

When we make Parisian Hot Chocolate at home, it is just as good!!

True, we can't offer the ambiance of a cafe in Paris with the snow swirling outside. (Nor can we match the pastries.) But…if it's just the thick Parisian chocolat chaud you are wishing for, use this recipe and make some of your own! It is delicious. (And I like it sweetened with a bit of brown sugar.)

I didn't take pictures of everything we ate (I was too busy eating it) but every once in awhile we'd manage to snap a picture before everything was devoured. This was from probably our favorite bakery, with all kinds of pastries we didn't even know the names of. Even the hot chocolate here was good, though simpler and thinner than the others.

And this dessert, about which I feel a paralyzing sense of loss and desolation every time I see this picture. Brioche with caramel ice cream, and whipped cream, and caramel sauce, and a pot of crème anglaise just for good measure. It was so good it brought tears to the eyes of a grown man.