The Sweet Life in Paris

by David Lebovitz

  I like people. I really do. But I would just stand there, mouth slightly agape, hoping they’d answer their own questions, because I just couldn’t. It drives waiters bonkers when customers ask them what they should order. How the heck do they know what we’d like to eat? Working in a shop all day was going to test my mettle.

  The French usually know what they want and order it without second thoughts. More than once some harried Parisian would come rushing in and say, “I want twenty pieces. I don’t care which ones; just fill a bag, s’il vous plaît,” before racing back out the door with our signature turquoise bag in hand.

  Working in a shop and dealing with Parisian customers was also an unparalleled opportunity for me to finally nail down my comprehension of French numbers. For some peculiar reason the French don’t have a specific word for seventy, eighty, or ninety. I’ve heard it’s because some war was lost in a year ending with the number eighty, and the French were forbidden from uttering those numbers afterward; hence they came up with an alternative way of saying it—quatre-vingts, or four times twenty. (Which in turn elongates other numbers; ninety-eight becomes quatre-vingt-dix-huit, or four times twenty plus ten plus eight.) Although I haven’t found any evidence to support that theory, my war with French numbers was definitely real, and one I needed to conquer.

  As luck would have it, France adopted the euro in 2002, conveniently around the same time I arrived, and there’s still a bit of sentimental feeling about le franc, which seems to be missed by everyone around here but me. Many people still can’t figure out prices in euros and some things they still have to convert to francs. Especially older folks, who, oddly, have less of a problem with a car that costs 163,989.63 francs than one that costs 25,000 euros. The big bonus for me is that all the numbers became much smaller, and simpler than they were before.

  No matter how much easier the numbers are now, imagine people firing away at you, rat-a-tat-tat in French numbers, while you do all you can to avoid that biche-in-the-headlights look, mentally sorting out how many pieces of which chocolates they want while simultaneously sifting through your brain how you’re going to say what they cost when you’re done.

  Fortunately the French are used to being obsequious to salespeople, so I learned to put on my Parisian face when I was asked a question. Hiding my confusion, I’d look them squarely in the eye, grimace, and look slightly taken aback, pause a moment, then imperiously ask, “Comment?” (“I beg your pardon?”) so they’d have to ask again, buying me a little bit more time to think about it.

  Clerks in Parisian chocolate shops use dainty pairs of tongs to handle the wares. And since the h is silent in French, it’s important not to confuse them with les thongs, which are flip-flops, or a thong, which is le string.

  At Patrick Roger, of the forty or fifty chocolates that are handled with tongs (without the h), none is labeled. That would be too easy. Fortunately I’d memorized all of them from being a steady customer over the years, so I had a head start. I knew rum-raisin, which was a no-brainer, since it had a plump raisin poked into the top; avoine (oatmeal), which was also easy, since it had an oat on top; and sichuan pepper, whose tiny flurry of ground pepper in the corner was a giveaway. (I’m lying—those three were the only ones I had memorized. And since those were the only ones clearly “marked,” one might accuse me of cheating as well.) Actually, I had no idea what any of the others were, and each had such subtle differences on the surface that I didn’t see how it was possible to differentiate among them. Maybe it was time for me to start wearing glasses too?

  Vanille had a few teensy dots in the corner, which differentiated it from feuillantine (crunchy nougat), which looked exactly the same, except for the microscopic markings that were so subtle, even Monsieur Braille would have had trouble reading them. Citron vert (lime) I kept confusing with citronnelle (lemongrass), since they both had some greenish powder on them. And I kept calling the chocolate square filled with chestnut paste marron, which confused the patrons until I was corrected by the other salespeople, since marrons are nonedible chestnuts and châtaignes are the edible ones. Yet I was the one who was truly confused since the shop also sold candied chestnuts, called marrons glacés.

  When I mentioned that the chocolates weren’t labeled, I wasn’t being entirely truthful there, either: the boxes did have labels, but they weren’t visible to the customers. Even if they were, I don’t think it would have mattered, since their names weren’t comprehensible to either of us. Using that special brand of French logic, instead of labeling the chocolates—say, “orange,” “coffee,” or “vanilla”—they used more helpful names like harmonie, plénitude, and fascination. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for désir and amour. But neither told me anything about the chocolates I was supposed to be selling. Désir was praline and amour was hazelnut, I later learned.

  As I presided over the chocolates, squeezing my man-sized fingers through holes in the ladylike tongs, customers would scrutinize the offerings and invariably ask me to explain what all of the flavors were. Over and over again. Perhaps twenty or thirty times in one morning. Multiply that times forty or fifty chocolates and you’d think I’d have gotten them all under my belt pretty quickly.

  I was also having trouble wrapping my mouth around some of the words, since my French accent is less than exemplary. Amande often comes out of my mouth as Allemand, so people must have thought we were selling chocolates filled with ground-up Germans. After I learned that, I no longer wondered why those chocolates weren’t very popular.

  Trying to describe the nuances between orange and mandarine is a challenge in any language. But to the subtle palates of the French, there’s a huge difference. “Mais oui, Daveed!” they all told me, emphatically.

  The biggest stress for me wasn’t the language or the descriptions. And it wasn’t learning the names of all the chocolates either. It was la balance—the electronic scale.

  It seemed simple enough: you put the chocolates on it, weigh them, then press a button, and out comes a small receipt with the price. Simple, no? Non. If there’s a more complicated way to do something, the French will find it.

  When I’m finishing up with a customer, and I’ve packed the chocolates in a nice blue box, I place the chocolates on the scale. Then the real fun begins: I need to find the right button out of the fifty-seven options to press. So I’ve got these truffles to weigh and I have to dig deep in the recesses of my shallow brain to remember what those little devils are called (“urn … are they mélodie? … katmandu?”), then find the corresponding button, hoping I guess right.

  To complicate things even further, each button has two names on it: tap once for the name on the top, tap twice for the name on the bottom. But if you don’t tap twice very quickly, it registers the top price. I’m sure some people got some exceptional bargains when I was working, which was likely balanced at the end of the day by other people who probably paid more than they should have.

  On the plus side, I did enjoy talking people into trying something new and seeing the look of pure pleasure wash across their faces as they bit into something divine, closed their eyes, then nodding in appreciation. I’m a big fan of Patrick Roger’s chocolates, which manage to combine unconventional, sometimes quirky, flavors with just enough subtlety to meld exquisitely on one’s palate. When the thin enrobage of chocolate surrounding the luscious filling melts away, your whole body just collapses with pleasure, and I loved watching our customers experience such bliss.

  And they weren’t the only ones enjoying them. I took the liberty of sampling as many of them as I could when I was alone in the boutique. More than once a customer walked in the door when I was midbite, and I’m sure they thought the big smile across my face was because I was so happy to see them. After jamming the other half of the chocolate in my cheek, saving it for later, I’d put on my best demeanor, grab the tongs, and mumble, “Bonjour, monsieur dame.”

  After all was said and done, though, I’m not sure I was meant to work in the front of a cho
colate shop. For one thing, I’m really much more interested in the creative part of making chocolate, preferring to do the melting and mixing than all the memorizing and minding of customers. By the end of my stage, the fascination (honey) wore off, and I realized the désir (praline) to see life from the other side of the chocolate counter was a bit of a fantasmagorie (oatmeal ganache) for me.

  Although I might be back at some point. If you’re ever in a chocolate shop in Paris and you’re being waited on by a fellow with a strong American accent, an odd bulge in one of his cheeks, struggling with the buttons on the balance and wrestling with the grip on a too-tight pair of tongs (the kind without the h), cut him a bit of slack. But for now, I’ll stay on the other side of the counter, where the scales are decidedly tipped much more in my favor.

  FINANCIERS AU CHOCOLAT

  INDIVIDUAL CHOCOLATE ALMOND CAKES

  MAKES 15 FINANCIERS

  One story goes that financiers got their name because the tidy, dense little cakes are perfect for les financiers, the folks who work in the field of commerce and needed un petit snack that wouldn’t mess up their fancy suits or dresses. Traditionally, financiers are baked in little rectangular molds to resemble bars of gold. But if you’re like most people and don’t have the molds, you can use mini-muffin tins or silicone molds for these moist little buttons of chocolate. If you want to increase the recipe and bake them in larger or rectangular molds, they’re pretty adaptable. Simply fill your molds three-quarters full and bake them until they spring back lightly when pressed in the center.

  6 tablespoons (90 g) unsalted butter, plus more for greasing the pan

  1 cup (90 g) sliced almonds

  3 tablespoons (25 g) unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder (preferably Valrhona)

  1 tablespoon (10 g) flour

  ⅛ teaspoon salt

  ¾ cup (90 g) confectioners’ sugar

  ⅓ cup egg whites, at room temperature

  ¼ teaspoon almond extract

  Preheat the oven to 425°F (220°C). Lightly butter mini-muffin tins or a silicone baking mold with 1-inch (3-cm) round indentations and place on a sturdy baking sheet.

  Melt the butter in a small saucepan and set aside until room temperature.

  In a food processor or blender, grind the almonds with the cocoa, flour, salt, and sugar. Transfer the mixture to a medium bowl.

  Stir the egg whites and almond extract into the ground almond mixture, then gradually stir in the melted butter until smooth and fully incorporated.

  Spoon the batter into the molds, filling them three-quarters full.

  Bake for 10 to 15 minutes, until slightly puffed and springy to the touch. Remove from the oven and cool completely before removing from the molds.

  STORAGE: Once cooled, financiers can be kept in an airtight container at room temperature for up to one week. The batter can also be made, then chilled, and baked up to five days later.

  I SEE BREASTS

  It’s considered terribly rude in France to ask someone you meet what they do for a living. I didn’t know that at first, and while at a party, I struck up a conversation with a man standing near me.

  “So, what do you do?” I asked him.

  “What do I do?” he cried. “You Americans! It’s all about money! Why do you always ask what we do?” he huffed at me.

  What I really wanted to say was, “You know, you’re not very good-looking—actually, you’re kind of unattractive—and you’re pretty rude, too. You should be glad someone’s even talking to you.”

  But instead, I apologized and excused myself, because I didn’t want to be rude twice.

  If you tune in to quiz shows in France, you’ll notice that the hosts would never be so impolite as to ask the contestants something so personal as their occupation. The questions are always about one’s region; they might discuss an Auvergnat blue cheese or light vin de Mâcon specific to that area, a local dish like choucroute if they’re from Alsace, or confit de canard if they’re Gascon.

  I’ve learned my lesson and now I wouldn’t dream of asking people what they do for a living. When I led tours, and my guests were mostly Americans, I’m sure they said to each other afterward, “What a jerk! He never asked us what we do!” Little did they know how extremely polite I actually was.

  We call questions like that “icebreakers.” In France, the brise-glace is, “Where are you from?” Except I never know how to respond. I was born in Connecticut, went to school in New York, then lived in San Francisco for twenty years. So when someone asks, “Where are you from?”—I’m not quite sure what to say. And certainly being a pastry chef is more interesting to Parisians than the suburban town in New England where I grew up.

  I usually assume they want to know my birthplace. But if I said, “Connecticut,” they’d just look at me blankly, as it’s a tough word to get your tongue around. Imagine if you asked a French person where they were from, and they told you they were from Ploudalmézeau, Xouaxange, or Quoeux.

  People ask me if I miss San Francisco, which is where I consider myself “from.” I don’t go back much, since I don’t miss the twelve-hour flight. But I do miss quite a bit about the city, and I love seeing my friends and doing things like having a burrito, enjoying a cup of good coffee at Peet’s, sharing a plate of S’More cookies at Citizen Cake, or strolling through the Ferry Plaza Market, checking out all the plump peaches, the tangles of organic salad greens, freshly made tamales filled with butternut squash, and Rancho Gordo dried beans, which get valuable real estate in my suitcase for the return trip to Paris. Mexican food in the Mission is another draw, as well as the obligatory trips to Target and Trader Joe’s.

  Another thing I like to do is go to a yoga class when I’m back. Yoga is wildly popular in San Francisco and my instructors were exactly what you’d want in a yoga teacher: kind, caring, and always ready with a warm embrace. I’m not one to get all touchy-feely (I abstained from the group hugs), but one of the nice things about practicing yoga, aside from the physical benefits, is that it’s calming, and going to a class fosters a sense of community.

  A few months after I moved to Paris, because I wanted to keep up my practice, I started looking for a yoga studio. Scanning some of the newspapers, I saw that one place offered a complimentary class conducted in English on Thursdays, so I went to check it out. Midway through the class, the turban-topped teacher decided I was doing everything the wrong way and kept asking me over and over, “Where did you learn to do that?” And instead of speaking to me in a hushed tone, she broadcast her disapproval to the entire class. Maybe her turban was on too tight or something, but I think it would have been less rude had she simply asked, “What do you do?” instead.

  Eventually I did find a school I liked where the teachers were good, although a wee bit short on compassion: in France no teachers tell you what a beautiful person you are, and no one gives you “permission” to go through any negativity or discover your inner tranquility.

  Since I didn’t find compassion in the doctor’s office, I wasn’t expecting to find it in a yoga class either. The upside was that I wasn’t in any danger of being a part of a group hug. Yoga has been educational for me to practice, though, and I’ve learned all the obscure muscles, bones, and body parts in French, which surprises locals; they’re shocked that I can toss out the word for the uppermost ridge of the shoulder blade, but curious that I can’t figure out how much a box of chocolates costs.

  The hardest part of practicing yoga in Paris isn’t dealing with less-than-compassionate teachers. It’s the changing room, which isn’t much larger than a two-seater Smart car.

  When we’re all crammed in there, packed in elbow-to-whatever, it’s difficult not to touch someone where they might not want to be touched or see things one might be unnerved to see bared in public. It’s hard to act natural when you’re carrying on a face-to-face conversation and Fabienne, Claudine, or Anaïs slips off her top with the same casualness that I pulled off my socks, leaving us both bare-chested. I’m not sure
where the heck I’m supposed to look, and I feel hopelessly outnumbered.

  When I explained this problem to my friend Gideon, he started pestering me to find out where I went to yoga. I’m not sure why, since there’s no shortage of breasts around here. No matter where you are, you’re never more than a few steps from a pair; they’re on television selling deodorant, in bus-shelters, on the Métro, in store windows, and bursting forth from the covers of magazines at the newsstands.

  When summer comes around and the temperature starts heating up, I can be sure even more skin will be on display. With the incendiary summer heat, the lack of air conditioning or even fans, and a refusal to open windows because people here are terrified of any fresh air that might come in, I see that most of my Parisian neighbors aren’t fond of wearing much clothing at home. When the entire city of Paris is roasting away at debilitating August temperatures, nudisme becomes a necessity, rather than a cause for any lascivious thrills.

  Luckily, le voyeur in the building directly opposite mine finally moved away. I’m hoping there are no shots of me walking around au naturel on the Internet. After getting tired of seeing him, shirtless, peering out from behind his curtains with a camera or binoculars at all hours, I finally took a flash picture of him at four a.m., brightly illuminating the entire city block between our buildings. Could it be that he was a government spy, scoping out the apartment below, and I blew his cover? Is that why he finally disappeared for good?