La Cochonne Stupide et les Gâteux Parisiens

It has been so funny reading the comments from my previous post. Now I understand why the French are so touchy about their language. Everyone butchers it!

Teehee!

Tomorrow, I will be leaving my box of a hotel room for (fingers crossed) a much nicer room at an undisclosable (?) location. Et alors, il faudra que je dise "au revoir" à St Germain. Ce quartier de Paris est très beau, mais il y a trop de patisseries. Trop trop de patisseries. Les patisseries sont partout, et elles sont toutes petites, et toutes remplies!

(After poking at other people's french, I hope I haven't just embarassed myself there. Teehee! - Basically, I said I am having trouble with the number of patisseries in this part of Paris - St Germain dés Pres.)

Picture a very cold Bitchy (it's been absolutely freezing everyday thus far) walking briskly on the dewy streets of gaie "Pareee". Wispy white fumes are flying out of her trembling mouth and enlarged nostrils. She moves quickly, desperate to reduce the 15-minute walk to school to a 5-minute one (because it is 8:55am, and she was supposed to have left the hotel at 8:30, but was for some reason unable to do so - perhaps because she has never in her life been able to walk out the door at the correct time?)

Anyway, where was I? ... Bitchy! Trying as hard as possible to walk at her absolute quickest, wanting to pee (because the weather is far too cold, and icy weather for some reason makes her want to pee), but being accosted at the same time. Accosted, I say, by millions of trays on either side of her, trays lining the street, lurching (almost) out of their display cases at her, trays laden with goodies, mountains of goodies, volcanos of goodies, oodles of the good stuff! (In this case, the good stuff is so good that Bitchy thinks the only appropriate way to describe it Naijanized speak would be - "the bonz stuuuuurvs"? Ou peut-être, le bon "sturvins"?)

Palmiers, meringues, macaroons, eclairs, tartes, pies, baguettes, brownies, quiches, biscuits, cookies, the colours, the crusts, the crumbs, they hit our favourite bitch, bang, bang, bang, one after the other. They slap her upside the head, slap, slap, slap, window after window.


And thus the scene continues... Until 15 minutes later, when at 9:10am, Bitchy arrives in the classroom. Late, apologetic, breathless, hungry and desperate for the loo.

The first time this happened, on Monday, I was just gobsmacked. At first I stopped to stare, but then decided that the only way to make it to my destination would be to fend off the vicious images by putting both hands up on either side of my face, and picking up the pace. All I could do was swear at myself for having chosen to arrive at this very phase of my life, in the city of supreme bakers and chefs.

What was I thinking?

You see, not only have I been somewhat lax on the exercise front since I left Lagos, I have also been nursing a bit of a holiday paunch since my New York trip. Why? Uh... Possibly because I spent a large part of my time in New York eating?

In New York, I bought confectionery everywhere I went. I tore at my map until I found the infamous Magnolia Bakery on Bleecker Street. Dissatisfied, I made Misan abandon a taxi that had been hard come by (we must have waited in the cold for about 20 minutes?), just so that I could go to Butter Cup Bakeshop (Magnolia's sister bakery, on 52nd & 2nd). And dissatisfied still, I went on to Dean & Deluca on Prince Street, thinking that if there was a group of people whose taste I could rely on, it was my sisters from Sex & The City. I went to zillions of other bakeries as well, including The Little Pie Company on 14th & 9th in Meatpacking!

In short, each time I walked past a bakery, I went in.


At the end of my stay in NY (several thousands of calories later, and after a humongus (sp?) wastage of time), I concluded that New York's reputation as the home of brilliant cupcakes, desserts and cheesecakes, was not at all deserved. Ask me how the hell it took so long to arrive at that conclusion, when right from my first encounter with a flaky, floury, flavourless Red Velvet cupcake at Magnolia Bakery, it should have been crystal clear? (The folks at Magnolia could do to learn a thing or two from the Hummingbird in Portobello, or Peyton & Byrne in Soho - two of London's finest!)

What I wish now though, is that I could go back in time, wipe all that American fat off my... uh... slate, and begin afresh. Malheuresement, cela ne serait que possible si j'étais un génie ou un scientiste fou! Paris? C'est ridiculeux! I am literally stuffing myself at every opportunity - you would think I had never seen food before, or (if not for the beautiful white coat that protects me from the terrible weather) that I was some poor, starving African child who had only just left her motherland for the first time ever in her life! Que, je suis un cochon! During my coffee and lunch breaks, I have gorged like a freak (or a ravenous lioness if you prefer) on mountains of goodies. Today for example, I tried a cake (the name of which I have now forgotten, urrrgh!) which was so soft and just sweet enough, but with a lovely brown crust and crisp corners. Hmmm... C'était delicieux! Chei! I am ruined. And from tomorrow, I will have my own fridge ("un frigo"). And what does one do with a fridge in Paris except fill it to bursting with cheese and foie gras?


E wo!

What's this little piggy to dooooooo?

*NB - One of the pictures in this post is rather deceiving. I have not yet encountered a single cupcake in Paris. Perhaps it's too simple a confection for the French? Hmmm.... Je vais commencer le cherche pour un 'cupcake' Parisien à demain.