La Baguette

Before I came to France, bread was just the means to an end, a vehicle to transport other, more delicious foodstuffs into my mouth. But in the past six months I have learned to appreciate the joys of a plain piece of bread.

And there's no shortage of it in Paris. The city has pain of every variety, but the ultimate symbol of French culture is undoubtedly la baguette. These delicious carbohydrate sticks can be seen in the window of every boulangerie and, yes, French people really do buy one or two every day for dinner.

My love affair with baguettes began when I checked my bank balance and realized that my pastry habit was hurting more than just my BMI. Since then I've been substituting 0.85€ baguettes for 3€ sandwiches. Most people in the U.S. associate French bread with the traditional plain baguette, but they come in different varieties. My favorite is the baguette aux graines from the boulangerie near my program center. It's crusty on the outside, but soft on the inside, and studded with grains and seeds that give it just the right crunch. I order one almost every day (warm, if I time it right) and tote it off to eat it on my program's rooftop terrace.

Consuming a baguette is a blood sport (you think I'm kidding, but I needed a Band-Aid after an encounter with a particularly crusty speciman next week). The first option is to gnaw off giant hunks like some sort of ravenous animal, leaving nothing but a cloud of crumbs and dust. This method is best employed when you are alone, although it will get you lots of entertaining looks on the Metro. The second method is a more civilized dissection process, which involves finding and pulling apart the softer veins of bread amidst the crusty ridges. And if you want to be really French, adopt method #3 and eat your baguette with a knife and fork (no, I've never seen anyone do this. But considering they eat their hamburgers with silverware, it's not that far-fetched.)

Whatever your method of choice, popping into a Parisian boulangerie is a must for anyone who wants to understand a little more about French daily life. After all, happiness is a warm baguette.

In Which I Reference Willy Wonka Twice...

I'm pretty sure everyone has their own conception of what heaven is. There's the traditional version: angels with wings, strumming harps on clouds, Saint Peter at the gates...Then there's my personal version, where just beyond Saint Peter there's an enormous library (Beauty and the Beast style...'cause that's how I roll), only instead of the Beast showing me around it's Johnny Depp and he's speaking in an Irish accent, just like in Chocolat (although, let's be honest, I'd take pretty much any incarnation of Johnny Depp except Willy Wonka. And maybe the creepy corn guy from Secret Window).

At least, that was heaven before I got to France. But the City of Lights has made me greedy. Now if I were sitting in my library and Mr. Depp tried to feed me a truffle I would shout, "No Johnny! Do you think simple chocolates hold any attraction for me, who has tasted one of the most divine concoctions known to humankind? Get it together man!" And then Johnny would shuffle off to the ice cream shop around the corner and bring me back a cone brimming with Berthillon ice cream.

Yes, the object of my obsession is none other than Berthillon, aka ambrosia of the ice cream gods. Tucked away in an unassuming shop on the Ile Saint-Louis are some of the most delicious, delicate and accurate flavors I have ever tasted. And by accurate, I mean these people have the ability to translate any taste perfectly into expensive, conveniently-sized scoops.

I know what you're thinking. It's just ice cream. This is theoretically true, and before every trip I try to tell myself that. But then I take one bite and I'm all: "The raspberries taste like raspberries. The snozzberries taste like snozzberries!" As one of my friends put it: "This is what ice cream aspires to be."

My top five flavors (in no particular order) are:

1) Caramel au beurre sale (salted butter carmel...with crunchy bits of salt and sugar inside)
2) Raspberry (tastes like a real raspberry, and is also the most gorgeous deep red color)
3) Speculoos (this mysterious flavor that one of my friends ordered the other day; it turned out to be a wonderful gingerbread/snickerdoodle combination)
4) Pear (odd flavor for an ice cream, but wonderful nonetheless)
5) Chocolate (classic)

So there you have it. The reason that I will be leaving Paris both impoverished and obese. And lest you think I have had my fill, here is the complete list of flavors. I know it's in French, but I think you can get the gist. Delicious is a universal language.