At home, breakfast is usually during the week a fairly plain affair. Sometimes its one of the Hungry One’s Chunky Monkey smoothies ( chocolate protein powder, a banana, milk and a shot of coffee). Othertimes its cereal and some fruit.
But here, it’s cold and we’re on holidays. I don’t think the Hungry One has quite recovered from discovering at the local supermarket that all cereals come with a holiday version here- that is- a chocolate studded version.
And it’s not just the cereals. Since we’ve been here, breakfast has been croissants stuffed with chocolate, brioche stuffed with chocolate and long breadsticks, broken off in chunks and devoured on the Metro which have chocolate nuggets speckled throughout.
There’s been pastry escargots with almonds, a lurid green one flavoured with pistachio and others with classic raisins.
There’s been croque monsieurs, where the bread is closer to brioche, the cheese comes in the middle and on top and under the thick sliced ham is a béchamel so thick you could plaster walls with it.
There’s been punnets of raspberries for 2 euro. There’s been crepes with lemon and sugar from street stalls.
There’s been omlettes, made in the apartment with 4 eggs, and stuffed with thyme encrusted goats cheese and smoked ham, served with truss tomatoes and baguette.
But for my personal favourite, it’s day old baguette from the Boulangerie down at the base of the Moufftard. It’s then heated in the oven and you have it smothered in Confiture Bonne Maman’s Chataignes in la vanilla.
That would be a jam/nutella like concoction of chestnuts and vanilla.
With the sun streaming in through the windows, the opera singer who lives upstairs starting her practice for the day and cup of coffee- it’s a a comically good way to start the day.
If we just added some chocolate chips to the top of it for the Hungry One, then we’d all be in holiday heaven.
