What the crepe is up with Parisians?

As part of my recent trip to Croatia, I found myself with two 24-hour visits to Paris on my way to and from my destination country. The first visit focused mostly on seeing Paris sights and fell hopelessly short of experiencing French cuisine. I did however have a borderline life-changing experience when on the way home from the Eiffel Tower I stopped and got a street crepe. I watched the vendor heap a heart-attack sized scoop of butter (yum) onto his hot plate, and then fold it up with cinnamon and sugar. I swear my life will never be the same.

My second visit to Paris had much more of a culinary focus: I was on a mission. We found a small café serving specialties from the Burgundy region, including boeuf bourguignon and duck confit. The meal itself was a memorable study in the art of French cooking, but the highlight was actually before we even started eating. The waiter brought over a plate of small savory pastries that I recognized as gougeres, a Burgundy specialty that I have been working on perfecting for about a year and a half! I pointed at them and said to the waiter, “Gougeres?” To which he replied “Oui.” (I did learn that Parisians have this innate ability to say “oui” but really mean “stupid American with stupid questions.”)

Since he was obviously keen to engage in friendly discourse, I continued, “I make these.” Apparently this was not what he was expecting from the ignorant American woman, as all he could manage to stammer was “but… where?!?” My equally brilliant response: “um, in my house.” Thus was the end of my culinary dialogue with the locals. Anthony Bourdain would have been mortified; good thing I don’t invite him on my travels.

My mission was still a raging success as far as I'm concerned: between bites of pain chocolate and almond meringue, I managed to quickly procure enough contraband to make a customs agent blush. While I don’t have pictures to corroborate, I flew home with a backpack filled with copious amounts of Camembert and Roquefort, one baguette, two bottles of French wine, and an unabridged copy of Les Miserables. C'est une bonne vie.