Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Birthday Celebration on Avenue Foch

Yesterday the Mr. turned 27.  We celebrated by cooking an American dinner - pulled pork po-boys, baked beans (sort of) and french fries.  Since Gambinos (New Orleans bakery) does not ship chocolate Doberge cakes overseas, I had to come up with an alternative for the birthday cake (the Mr. LOVES Doberge cake - see wedding photo of us cutting the Doberge groomsmen cake).  At first, I thought surely I could find a Doberge cake in Paris.  However, after a little googling, I realized that is strictly a New Orleans cake.  It's not made anywhere else.  The recipe was based on the Hungarian/Austrian Dobos cake, but I couldn't seem to find any of those in Paris either. 

There are some things that you can't get in Paris
SO, sticking with the American birthday theme, I searched the city for the Mr.'s next dessert of choice- cupcakes.   However, I came out empty handed in this endeavor as well (everything is closed on Mondays here).  Then I made an attempt at finding an ice-cream cake.... yeah right.  After roaming around the city in the pouring rain, I decided an American birthday cake was just not in the cards.  On  to patisseries (not too tough of a defeat, I must admit).

The patisserie did have one or two options ..... 

Or nine or ten.....  



Great patisserie in Victor Hugo circle in the 16th
As delicious as every single one of those cakes looked, I had to keep in mind that the Mr. generally does not like French pastries (I pray that I will develop this gene one day too.... I, unfortunately, LOVE pastries, French, American, Portugese, I don't really discriminate). But, please don't panic, I was able to find something I thought he could choke down.

Parfait! Tirimisu. Happy birthday!
You may be thinking, why an American birthday when you live in France once in your life? But don't worry, we are just saving the French fare for a real chef and plan to celebrate again at a date TBD...


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