Three French Hens, Two Macarons, and Lovers in a Bakery: A Love Story Served With Indulgent French Desserts

by Noelle Love

  Out front Margot readied the storefront for the onslaught of customers, placing the chairs back on the wood floor after sweeping the night before, arranging the marigolds in the vases at the center of each small table, and taking one last glance at the display cases to see if any reorganization could bring any more perfection to the rows of sugar masquerading as cakes, cupcakes, macarons, napoleons, and, her personal favorite, cream puffs. Margot almost always worked the front by herself, especially in the morning, when Zenna was running late from dropping her son Coty off at school or helping Tali in the back keep up with orders and the morning’s supply and demand.

  This morning was unusually slow and by the time Zenna arrived not one customer had come in. Tali came out to check which items she would need to restock, shocked to see the cases filled, not one dessert out of place, all of the rows perfectly balanced and organized. Having just set her batch of pumpkin pies in the oven, Tali found herself, for the first time in a long time, with nothing to do in the kitchen. Margot and Zenna stood at their posts behind the cash registers while Tali uncomfortably paced from the front of the bakery through the door to the kitchen and back out. At ten minutes to ten, the women were dumbfounded. Not one sale, not one customer. “What the hell is happening in Paris today?” Margot asked. Zenna shrugged her shoulders and shook her head; Tali continued pacing like a person in an asylum who just got out of her straight jacket.

  At five minutes to ten Basile shuffled in, ordered his espresso, and took a seat at his corner table. Seeing Basile didn’t reassure the girls that anything strange wasn’t going on in the city today. Basile had come every day, literally every day, since The Two Macarons had opened. Holidays were celebrated at his corner table. Rainstorms were braved by their little old man just so that he could look out the window from his table and smile at the girls, looking up from whatever had captured his attention that day for a very brief, but very sweet, moment.

  Last winter Paris had one of the worst blizzards in the history of the city. The visibility was so bad that everything closed and citizens were instructed to stay indoors for the safety of themselves and others. Tali was already at the bakery when the storm rolled through and upon hearing the news figured that she would be the only soul at The Two Macarons that day. To her surprise, from the back she heard the tiny chime of the door. The front windows looked as if they had been wrapped in white paper – she couldn’t even see an inch beyond them. But there, standing with his cane and a small string around his waist, was Basile bundled up in earmuffs and a scarf around his face, ready to order his coffee.

  Apparently, Tali learned, several months before the storm Basile decided to tie a small string around the handle of the bakery’s door. He carried the other end of his string nearly half a mile through his front door, securing it with a small figurine of a Basset Hound he kept on his dining room table. “I knew it would come in handy one day!” Basile laughed, thrilled that he was able to find his way through the blinding storm to his favorite home away from home. Tali shook her head in disbelief, wondering if Armageddon itself would stop Basile from coming in for his daily fix.

  But today there was no snow in sight, no rain falling, and, to Margot’s knowledge, no fiery battles between heaven and earth raging in her city. “Something must be happening,” Margot said again, this time with the intent of taking action. Enlisting Zenna to help her, Margot left her empty bakery, leaving Tali in charge of the front, to the delight of Basile, who rarely got to admire the raven-haired beauty, and to the distress of Tali, who was clearly hoping to get back to her mindless pacing.

  Margot and Zenna stepped onto the cold sidewalk out front, both wishing they had worn more practical shoes instead of their fabulous, but only meant for standing or walking very short distances (like from the valet service to the restaurant’s bar), over-the-knee five-inch heel boots. The streets were eerily empty, trash blowing through the air finally able to get where it was going without traffic. The girls looked at each other hoping the other had an explanation, but both remained silent. An aluminum can rolled under their heels and directed their attention to the feet of the Eiffel Tower.

  “What. The. Fuck?” Zenna gasped, removing her hand from her coat pocket and intertwining fingers with Margot. “What. The. Fuck?” Margot repeated as they walked towards the beckoning tower.

  Tarte a la Citrouille

  Serves 12

  Ingredients

  1 nine-inch pie crust blind-baked and cooled (or purchase a prepared crust)

  3 ¼ pounds pumpkin, peeled, seeds removed, and diced

  ½ cup water

  3 lightly beaten eggs

  ½ cup brown sugar

  4 ½ tablespoons semolina flour

  ¼ teaspoon salt

  1 ½ teaspoons freshly grated nutmeg

  ½ teaspoon freshly ground ginger

  2/3 cup heavy cream

  Directions

  Preheat your oven to 425 degrees F.

  Place the pumpkin in a large, heavy saucepan and cook with the water for 20 minutes to create a puree. Remove the pumpkin from the heat and allow it to cool before adding the remaining ingredients; mix well. Pour the pie filling into the prepared crust and bake for 15 minutes in the preheated oven. Lower the heat to 350 degrees F and continue baking the pie for another 30 minutes.

  Allow the pie to cool for at least 20 minutes before serving. The pie can be served warm or cold and topped with whipped cream if desired.

  9

  Tali brought Basile a refill of his coffee, commented on the book that he brought in today, A Man Called Intrepid (she had never heard of it – “What a pity!” he lamented), and headed back to her kitchen, leaving Basile alone at his table. Very much alone, Basile thought.

  Ten years and 72 days ago Basile’s beautiful wife of 51 years, Delphine, passed away. The doctors told him the cancer was terminal, but how could he believe that? How could he believe that any week the woman he shared the majority of his life with, the love of his life, the mother of his children, his best friend, was going to leave him? He made it his goal to make Delphine laugh every day after hearing the news having once heard that laughter could cure everything, even cancer. The day she died she didn’t have the strength to laugh, but she smiled and held his hand, which, in Basile’s mind, was even sweeter than the sound he had treasured for the past five decades.

  Basile thought of Delphine every day, but lately the thought of her was more tormenting than it was comforting. His home, the one him and Delphine bought a year before she passed, was filled with so many memories of her that he couldn’t stand being there alone for long. The Two Macarons had become a place for him to escape Delphine’s ghost, a place for him to get lost in a book, and lost in the smiles of the three women who he, upon meeting them, nicknamed the Three French Hens. He was beyond grateful for their kindness and their store. He couldn’t imagine where he would go or what he would do with himself if not for them.

  “Ten years is a long time,” Basile’s daughter said to him one day over the phone. “Maybe you should find a friend, someone you can go to lunch with, share the rest of your life with.”

  “I’m 85 years old,” he said, “who needs friends at my age when death is making itself comfortable in my kitchen?”

  “Oh Daddy,” she said. “I think it might be good for you. There are lots of women in Paris. You just need to look.”

  Basile hung up, intrigued and then horrified at the idea of finding a girlfriend at his age.

  Despite his disliking of the idea, for the next several days Basile had thought about his daughter’s suggestion. After a long inner-monologue one afternoon he came to the conclusion that the idea of a friend, one that was a woman preferably, wasn’t bad in and of itself. What scared him the most was letting go of Delphine, even though he admittedly would never be over her, was replacing her smile, her laugh, her warmth with someone else’s. I couldn’t do that to her, Basile thought. I just couldn’t. But then, he thought, what if that’s what Delphine wa
nted? Basile imagined her looking down on him from heaven, saddened at seeing her husband alone and depressed. He knew if that he was in her position, he wouldn’t want to see her suffer and wouldn’t mind seeing her with another man, so long as he was a gentleman who dressed well and knew how to make her happy.

  Tali emerged from the back to check on her sole customer who, she discovered, hadn’t touched his coffee since she last refilled his cup nearly thirty minutes ago. “Is everything okay Basile?” she asked, sitting down on the chair across from him, resting her chin on her hand, fatigued from the boredom of the day so far. Basile looked at Tali and was reminded how pleasant having a lady’s company could be. “I miss this,” Basile said, surprised that he said it aloud. Taken aback by his transparency Tali joked, “What? You don’t have a lady friend to bring to us?”

  “My lady friend is here,” he replied, pointing up towards the ceiling with his cane.

  Tali understood firsthand the pain of losing a loved one and immediately empathized with him, but afraid to make them both cry with overly sentimental condolences, she decided to try to lighten the mood.

  “Long distance relationships are hard,” she said squeezing his hand across the table. “You might try finding a woman, strictly for the time being, a little closer. Say, Paris?” Basile was touched by her kindness and wished he were sixty years younger so that he could hold hands with Tali forever.

  “Oh, I don’t think so,” he said, avoiding eye contact.

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t even know what to look for anymore. The last time I asked a girl out that,” he said pointing to the Eiffel Tower outside “was your age.” Tali laughed.

  “Well,” she said standing up, “I’m sure you’ll find her if it’s meant to be.”

  A girl who believes in fate, Basile thought. That’s my kind of girl.

  Giving it more thought, Basile decided that he would ask a woman out, but only if Delphine gave him a sign that she approved. But what would the sign be? It would have to be something grand, he thought, something that couldn’t be confused with any other of the universe’s many signs. A butterfly, a rainbow, a power outage – none of those things would cut it for him.

  Tali returned with a small treat, a Petits Pains au Chocolat according to the laminated sign in front of the tray in the display case, and set it down in front of him. “You need some sweet in your day,” she said as she looked out the window, hoping to see her friends returning with news about the oddly slow morning they were having. With no sign of Margot, Zenna, or anyone else for that matter, Tali left Basile alone at his table for the third time that day.

  Looking outside at the shimmering autumn-colored leaves outside Basile knew what his sign would be. If a woman could glow gold like that tree, he would know it was a sign from Delphine that this was a woman he could spend the rest of his time on earth with. Content with his revelation, Basile dug into his gift from Tali, enjoying every bite, his eyes focused on the door waiting for his golden woman.

  Petits Pains au Chocolat

  Serves 12

  Ingredients

  2 sheets prepared puff pastry (thawed if frozen), each cut into 12 pieces (24 total)

  1 egg, whisked

  1 tablespoon water

  14 ounces bittersweet chocolate, cut into 24 pieces

  Granulated sugar, for dusting

  Directions

  Preheat your oven’s temperature to 400 degrees F. Prepare two baking sheets by lining with parchment paper.

  In a small bowl combine the egg and water to create a glaze. Use a pastry brush to coat the top of each piece of puff pastry with the glaze. Set a piece of chocolate on the edge of each puff pastry piece and then roll tightly to seal in the chocolate. Make sure all of the rolled puff pastry is place on the baking sheets seam side down.

  Use the pastry brush to brush the tops of each rolled puff pastry with the remaining glaze and then sprinkle with sugar. Place the baking sheets in the preheated oven and bake for 15 minutes or until they are golden in color.

  Allow the pastries to cool slightly before serving warm.

  10

  Margot and Zenna had seen a lot of crazy things in Paris – men tanning on the corner ass naked, Victor Victoria scenes enacted by cross-dressing prostitutes, protests, strikes, colonies of nudists on vacation, and women throwing their bras and panties at passing dark-tinted limousines just in case whoever inside was handsome, famous, or rich. Or, better yet, all three. But never in their lives had they seen anything like what their eyes set upon that fateful fall morning in front of the Eiffel Tower.

  Thousands of people, businessmen, students, children, the elderly, fashion models, gay men, Japanese tourists with their cameras, and helmet-donning bicyclists, were gathered around the base of the tower. Protest was the first thing that came to mind, but considering the calm that emitted from the crowd, Margot and Zenna were forced to think otherwise. The mass of people was organized and silent, their gaze not at the steel structure looming overhead, but rather something just on the other side, just out of Margot and Zenna’s view.

  “What the fuck has gotten into everyone?” Zenna whispered to Margot afraid to shatter the silence and disturb the creepy crowd who at any minute, she thought, could turn whatever this was into a bloody riot. Margot didn’t have the same feelings of fear as her friend. She was pissed that her bakery, the one thing that made her get out of her latest screw’s bed, was empty. A woman on a mission, very Joan-Of-Arc in Margot’s mind, she continued walking closer to the crowd, determined to discover the culprit behind whatever was diverting these normally very important people’s attention away from their busy morning and away from her front counter.

  Out of the corner of her eye Margot glimpsed a single solitary movement, a pear tossed in the air followed by a peach, plum, pineapple, persimmon, and a beautiful purple peony. The assorted fruit and one flower continued dancing in the air above the crowd, their movement like a small Ferris wheel for whatever bugs had thought they had found a peaceful home in the aforementioned objects. Margot tried to push her way through the crowd to find whoever it was that was juggling, apparently unaffected like them by the morning’s events. And then the crowd began to move slowly, one step at a time, forward. They maintained their form, a very long line Margot realized, and stopped every few seconds because the person in front of them stopped. “It’s like a fucking strung out flash mob,” Zenna joked, trying to calm herself because inside she was flipping out wishing she had stayed home this morning and praying that her little Coty was fine along with the rest of Paris.

  Unable to get to the juggler but recognizing him immediately through the legs of a very tall cyclist, Margot blew a kiss in his direction. The juggler, having just seen the face of the woman he was in love with, dropped his fruit on the ground and clamored to gather them all before they were juiced by the mob’s slowly moving feet. Poor Jacques, Margot thought, watching him crawl on the dirty ground, expertly avoiding bicycle tires, wheelchairs, and stilettos. He wouldn’t get any tips from this fucked up crowd today.

  Catching a breeze, the peony avoided feet all on its own and floated over the heads of the shuffling people in the direction of Margot and Zenna. As it frolicked over Margot’s head and in the vicinity of the lingering Zenna, Margot thrust her hand into the air and grabbed the dusty purple peony out of the breeze. Her foul mood unable to appreciate its beauty this morning, Margot handed it over her shoulder to Zenna. “You hold this,” she said as she worked her way up towards the front of the line.

  Having watched this scene unfold, Jacques, who was now perched atop one of his many unicycles, smiled and rode away.

  Margot stopped mid-stride and gasped as she began to put the puzzle pieces of the mystery together. A huge sign was now visible, an obnoxiously pink flashing sign that read “Delroy Doux”. The lights were flashing at the people from the top of a massive three-story building, which had apparently appeared overnight. From the top of the store was a chimney that was
shooting large clouds of smoke into the air. Unlike typical factory pollution Margot was familiar with, these clouds were fluffy and white. Margot craned her neck as she watched them float up hundreds of meters over head, get caught by the breeze, and then blow into the top of the Eiffel Tower at which point the clouds burst emitting a very fine, nearly invisible powder on the people below. Margot understood -- “It’s that god damn bakery!” she shouted over her shoulder to her friend.

  Not hearing a response, she turned around to drag her friend up to the front of the line and demand an explanation from the first employee in her line of fire. But Zenna was no longer standing behind her. Margot twirled around to locate her friend and spotted her boots’ identical twins filing themselves in line. “What are you doing?” Margot shouted as she approached Zenna, who now, like the rest of the crowd, was staring at the flashing lights waiting her turn to walk through the bakery’s doors. Margot paused and, sniffing the air, picked up the unmistakable scent of Crème Fraîche. “Those bastards,” Margot said aloud. “They know no one in France can resist Crème Fraîche.” And apparently Zenna was one of them.

  Margot tugged on her friend’s sleeve, rolling her eyes thinking that Tali could make a Crème Fraîche a million times better than whatever crap Delroy Doux was mixing up in his new store. But Zenna didn’t budge. Margot took a closer look at her best friend’s face and froze. Zenna’s eyes were no longer the vibrant green they had always been, but instead glazed over with some sort of sugary substance, turning them a horrible brown color, like the color of manila envelopes. Zenna’s mouth began to open, overflowing with cream and making her look like a rabid animal. Knowing she needed to get her friend out of that line and out of the powder that was falling from the sky, Margot held her breath and grabbed Zenna’s hand, jerking her out of line with the force of a car being towed out of a ravine.