Our Trip to Paris: In Search of the Ultimate Parisian Pastries

By Malcolm Watson

In our family, we love French cuisine, in particular Parisian pastries. Beth has found a few excellent French bakeries in our locale (see photo below of some of those pastries), and she has even taken a French pastry baking class to learn how to make those flaky, many layered croissants. But could we ever find the ultimate Parisian bakery, perhaps the pinnacle of French cuisine—in Paris no less? As luck would have it, when we studied a Google map, we found, to our surprise and delight, that it would be a relatively easy journey from our vacation home in Portland, Maine to Paris. Beth and I decided, yes, we would make the quest.

And so, on a Monday, the first day of Spring, 2023 (well actually Spring didn’t begin until 5:30 p.m. that day, so it was both the last day of Winter and the first day of Spring), with pleasant anticipation we got in our Toyota Rav4 and left from our Craftsman bungalow on Codman Street in Portland, Maine (see photo below), and headed northwest. (Go figure--how in the world could we drive from Portland to Paris, but we were following the GPS route, and GPS routes are never wrong). I put on a CD (yes, I’m still old school) of Parisian Chansons to listen to along the way. Au Café de la Paix seemed like a good way to start, given the express mission of our journey.

I thought I knew geography pretty well, and so I was quite surprised when we entered Poland (home of Poland Springs), and then after Poland we entered Norway (see photo below). I now had some misgivings about the circuitous route we had taken. I didn’t know they were so close to Paris. But we continued to trust our GPS. We wanted to stop to explore Norway, but we decided to plow on through to Paris.

Because the famed Notre Dame Cathedral was still under renovation after their disastrous fire, we opted to find the second most popular Parisian church, the Sacré Coeur, perched at the top of Montmartre, the highest point in Paris (after the Eiffel Tower). We saw a sign pointing us to “Paris Hill” and figured this was the way.

As an aside, do you know how the Sacré Coeur got its name? Of course everyone believes it means “sacred heart” in French, but there seems to be a deeper story. There were older religious edifices on that mount before the Sacré Coeur was built—first Pagan and then pre-Christian Roman edifices [and that part is true]. Anyway, apparently, after the Romans left, an order of monks resided there, an order that made beer in their monastery to support themselves and their charitable activities. One day, one of the monks fell into the vat of their prized beer. It was a long, tortuous demise for the poor monk—after all he had to climb out three times to pee. But eventually he succumbed, and when they pulled him out he had lost his socks in the vat of beer. Now these monks, as part of their dedication to their order, had taken a vow never to wash their clothes, so you can imagine what happened—the socks completely fouled their prized beer. They were devastated and prayed for help. A miracle occurred. Rather than water turning into wine, the fouled and smelly beer was turned into a dry, red Cabernet. They were saved. The wine became famous all over the country and was much sought after for many years. And so they named the miracle wine “Sock Liquor.” Later, when the new basilica was constructed the name “Sock Liquor” was changed to “Sacré Coeur.”

(Okay, my son, Ethan, was the one who told us that story, and he’s an English teacher who loves stories; so maybe we shouldn’t trust in its veracity.)

Now where was I? Oh yes, we were searching for the Sacré Coeur Church at the top of the hill. And there it was on the hill top, a gleaming white church surrounded by snow (remember, it was still winter until 5:30) and also many gleaming white homes (see photos below). The hill overlooked rolling pastures and distant mountains and forests all set off by a clear, deep blue sky. Wow! But the Church wasn’t the Sacré Coeur but rather a pristine New England style church.

And then nearby we found the Paris jail, or rather what had been the jail. It was now a library and museum (see photo below). Unfortunately, it was closed.

We made our way down off Paris Hill and looked for a French bakery, but the only French restaurant we found was closed. We did find the Paris Inn, but to our chagrin it did not exude the charm we had been led to expect from such a place. (You be the judge

of the photo below. One of the inn’s chambermaids can be seen outside the door. She seemed quite suspicious of me taking a picture.)

Well at least we could look at the beautiful River Seine, which reminds me of an old Kingston Trio song—not surprisingly entitled, “The Seine.” I loved the melody and the words of the chorus: “The Seine, the Seine, when will I again, meet her there, greet her there, on the moonlit banks of the Seine.” (I was never clear as to who he was hoping to meet and greet there.) Anyway, as you can see in the photo below, the river we saw did not meet my sweet expectations of seeing the moonlit banks of the Seine or greeting someone there.

Although Paris Hill was most beautiful, alas our trip to Paris did not quite meet our expectations, and so we decided to head back to Norway. But before leaving Paris, we found the Paris Post Office (see photo below). Aha, that explains it. We were not in Paris, France, but in Paris, Maine, in the middle of nowhere (well, if you don’t count being next to Norway and Poland as being anywhere). And it occurred to me that Norway was probably also in Maine, not in Norway. Oh well, on to Norway, Maine.

Norway had a charming downtown with many charming shops and galleries, all closed. (I’m beginning to think that in Maine every Monday is a state holiday. Don’t expect to find stores or restaurants that are open—just a word of advice.) We did find a cute little building that was the home of the “Weary Club of Norway, Maine.” Being a Monday holiday, it was also closed, but we peered in the windows and saw a lot of cane and wicker rocking chairs arranged in a circle. It looked like there might have been a small kitchen and a restroom in the rear. According to a sign, the Weary Club had been going strong for many years, where it’s members could congregate every Wednesday to sit around and talk--or just sit around (see photo below). I wondered what the rules were for obtaining a membership in the Club. Are they quite strict and exclusive? Do they get worked up in their weekly discussions? Do they tell jokes? It made me think of a book I read some years back entitled, Scandinavian Humor and Other Myths. One Norwegian who had read the book, exclaimed, “It was so funny I almost laughed out loud.”

We did find a natural food coop that was open. What was neat about it is that they had many large jugs of various syrups, juices, jams, and stuff like that, and many repurposed jars of various sizes nearby. Their customers were expected to take a jar and fill up with whatever they wanted. They sold stuff by weight. My favorite was a large, gallon, glass jug of maple syrup with a spigot at the bottom. One could siphon off as much syrup as one wanted (see photos below).

By now, we were getting quite hungry. Since we couldn’t find any Parisian pastries we settled for some wild Maine blueberry pancakes and maple syrup (probably from the jug I was telling you about) in a funky café called “Café Nomad.” The pancakes were delicious and the people there we oh so friendly retread hippies.

Now our story comes to an end, but it has a happy ending. When we got back to Portland, we did indeed find some delicious French pastries and had a sumptuous, candle lit dinner at home (see photos below).

We want to return to Norway on another day, but not on a Monday.