More penis bread

Gentle readers, isn't January a depressing month?  The festive season is over and a long gloomy winter lies ahead.  Today it was particularly grey and grim and windy and rainy in Paris and I'm attempting a (much-needed) month-long detox.  Sigh.  So you can see how I need to be cheered up, but never fear, because......penis bread to the rescue!!!  You may recall that I used to live in the Marais and my old neighbourhood bakery there sells this rather delightful item, which I have posted about in the past (Penis bread).  But it seems that they have expanded their repertoire, and I feel I must share this awesomeness with you.

Firstly, the penis baguette - please note that it comes in both poppy and sesame seed to delight your gourmet tastebuds, which is very important, I'm sure you'll agree:

Then we have the chocolate-chip penis brioche.  I'll admit that it looks slightly dodgy, but I assure you that it's delicious:

And finally, quite possibly the greatest thing in the world: the penis tarte aux framboises:

Gentle readers, the tarte aux framboises is already my favourite thing in any bakery, but shaped like this?  How much temptation can one little blogger resist??  I haven't actually bought one of these yet, but that's only because it's about twelve inches long (make your own jokes here, you cheeky little monkeys) and should probably be shared (okay, that's enough smut from you - honestly, what kind of a blog do you think this is?  Get your minds out of the gutter...because I'd like to be alone down there.  Hee!  Tip your waitresses, I'm here all week!).  Anyway, the point is that I was going to wait for the proper occasion to buy one of these, but with this being January, I'm sort of thinking the proper occasion might be any damn time I feel like it?  I'll let you know when I succumb...

NB - should you find yourself in Paris and then find yourself in the Marais, Legay Choc bakery can be found on the rue St Croix de la Bretonnerie, at the corner of rue du Temple.  Enjoy!

Why the Belgians are better than the French (Pt 4 and final)

16.  Okay, you need to look very carefully at the photo below: the two people on this bike are facing away from each other.  Yes, that's right.  On the same bike, facing in different directions.  I...just...don't even know what to say about it, except that you would certainly never see the French doing anything that awesomely insane. 

17.  This is how the Belgians do hot chocolate.  Totally. Civilized. Country.

18.  The Belgian waffle (and yes, there actually is a waffle lurking underneath all that, you just can't see it - and that's how I like it!):  suuuure, the French do amazingly delicious and perfect pastries, but would you ever find anything resembling this hot mess in France?  Mais non! But quite honestly, if they loosened up on the perfection once in a while, it might do them some good...

19.  The French can sometimes be a bit too subtle.  The Belgians?  Yeah, not so much.

20.  A giant replica cone of frites by the front door - you would never see anything this tacky (and awesome) in France.  But I swear, every time I see this photo I get hungry, so it's effective advertising.  And also?  Hee!  Truly, my love knows no bounds.

 

So here we are at the end of my twenty reasons why the Belgians are better than the French (which, I repeat, was all tongue-in-cheek affectionate teasing, of course) - I've had fun choosing the photos and writing about it, I hope you've enjoyed reading it.  I now return you to our regularly scheduled programme...

Why the Belgians are better than the French (Pt 1)

Okay, even the title of this post is going to get me into huge trouble, but too bad.  In September, Tiny Dancer and I went to Brussels and Bruges for a long weekend, and being in a half-Flemish, half-French country really highlighted some of the differences between French speakers in France and in other countries (have I mentioned before that I know of Parisians who will only speak English to native French speakers from other countries because they simply can't bear to hear French spoken by anyone other than the French? Because a foreign accent is so "offensive" to their delicate ears. Seriously.) and of course this is meant only in a tongue-in-cheek, poking-affectionate-fun-at way...

1.  Belgians bring the crazy right away.  This is one of the first things we saw from the bus window upon entering Brussels.  Tasteful?  No.  Hilarious? Yes.  Hee!

2.  Belgians like fun art - not just the occasional temporary fun thing installed in the Tuileries masquerading as some kind of festival, or some wacky thing hidden away where no one will see it.  Nope, they stick a great big robot-thingie guy right on the path from the train station to the centre of town and they leave it there.  Excellent.  And fun.

 

3. Belgians know how to have a good time.  The sign for this beer festival?  Still up two weeks later.  Clearly they enjoyed themselves at the beer festival so much that they just couldn't be bothered to take the sign down afterward.  (In France, I am sure there is some humourless bureaucrat whose entire job is to make sure signs are promptly taken down after events.)

4.  Belgians apparently sell "High Quality Pleasure" in shops, and Miss K entirely approves of anyone selling such a thing.

5. In Brussels, they quite literally roll the red carpet out for pedestrians.  Seriously!  The sign says so, and I'm not kidding, the carpet goes on forever.  Fantastique!  And as pedestrians who are almost killed every damn day on the Parisian streets, this is the exact moment when Tiny Dancer (pictured below) and I both fell in love with the Belgians.

To be continued...

Paris on 5 euros per day challenge - Days 1 & 2

Yesterday's post was so long that I didn't actually say how it went on the first day - answer: pretty good.  But that was mostly because I felt slightly guilty about the €16.20 that was still in my wallet and instead of trying to spread that out over a few days I combined it with with my €5 for the day and this is what I did with it: 1) bought a Berthillon ice cream and ate it sitting beside Notre Dame while basking in the sunshine, 2) had three glasses of wine over the course of the afternoon with a friend as we wandered from café to café along the blvd St Germain enjoying the sunshine (it's been a rainy week, we had to enjoy the sun) 3) bought a Big Mac meal on my way home (yes, I KNOW but I was starving and that was all I had enough cash for). 

Today I thought I would be sensible with my €5 and buy some food.  Which I did, but when I say "food", I should probably admit that I blew most of the day's budget on a Lindt chocolate bunny.  But come on, it's Easter, I had to have a chocolate bunny, it's tradition!  (However, I am absolutely kicking myself because I met a very nice chap a while ago who works at Lindt - had I known I was going to be doing this challenge over Easter, I would have shamelessly begged for freebies. D'ohh!)  Anyway, I had enough change left to also buy a bag of salad.  What?  Salad and chocolate, how is that not a balanced diet?  I was going to post a photo of the salad and the bunny together, just for the delightful contrast, but unfortunately the bunny didn't survive long after we got home.  Because...erm...it was eaten...by wolves. Yes, that's it - not because I shoved it into my greedy face and demolished it in about three nanoseconds.   Nope, eaten by wolves.  That's my story and I will be sticking to it...

Strange day...

I had a bit of an odd day.  First of all, there was the weather - it alternated between pouring rain and blazing sunshine all day long.  Seriously.  Rain, sun, rain, sun, rain, sun.  Ridiculous!

Secondly, I was horrified to realize that I had forgotten to mail my form to reclaim the excess UK tax I paid last year before I moved, and that the tax year ends on 5th April - eek!!!  So I immediately ran to the post office to send it on their quickest service to the UK - and guess how much it cost?  44 frickin' euros!!!  I could have bought a one-way Eurostar ticket and taken it there my damn self for that much.  But since I am desperately hoping to get a couple of grand back and since I really had no choice, I reluctantly paid it.  (Well, technically, the nice people at Mastercard paid it, but I suppose I will have to pay them back at some point.)  And it may all be for nothing - did I fill out the form correctly?   Will it get there in time?  Will they actually give me the money?  Who the hell knows??

Then I stopped at the grocery store to pick up a couple of things, and since I was still  freaking  out over the tax thing, I thought I might cheer myself up with a chocolate bar.  So I was at the checkout, the man was scanning my items, he set the chocolate bar aside and said it was no good.  I thought he meant the code on that particular bar was no good, but nooooo, he was making a little joke that I perhaps shouldn't have all that chocolate.  Ohhh ha ha, sir, how verrrry amusing.  And perhaps you're right, monsieur.  Maybe my jeans are getting to be a bit on the snug side because I have made one or two too many trips to the pâtisserie of late, but really?  Do you think it's wise to joke about these things with the very stressed woman with the scary eyes?  Really???

And then I went to the bank, where my one simple request made them look at me like an escaped mental patient, but I am not even going to tell you that story today.  Because right now I am far too busy eating chocolate - and the snarky man at the grocery store and my too-snug jeans can both just go to hell because today I. Don't. Care.