Does There Have To Be A Reason?

My favourite counter in Digby's hand-made chocolate emporium.
Contrary to rumour I don't ONLY go in there to be waited on by pretty girls in little black dresses and long white gloves.
Though it helps …

Cake Break

Rue Montorgueil in Paris is a wonderful place; a market street awash with cafés, artisan patisseries, fruit shops, veggie shops, fishmongers, butchers, poulterers and awesome cheese emporia.

But the jewel in the crown is Stohrer.

Established in 1730 by the former pastry chef at Versailles, it has survived the Revolution, the Republic, Napoleon (twice), yet more revolution and two World Wars and is still going strong as the most venerable and revered bakery in France.

It was there when Valjean and Cossette wandered the streets of Paris; there when Sidney Carton went to the guillotine for love; there when the Russians entered the city, and when the Nazis came and went a century and a half later; and it was there a couple of weeks ago when Katie introduced me to its wonders.
It's there still.
Go visit.

In the window sits the Eiffel Tower accurately recreated with macarons.
What's not to love?

Let's go inside, shall we?
Beautiful mosaic floor, glorious painted ceiling and flamboyant chandelier.
Not your usual local bakery then.

As you enter, the left hand side is sweet stuff and the right is savoury.
Indeed spicy, if you count the pretty, semi-naked girl armed with an olive branch and ready to spank you if you don't spend all your money in there.

The things in the foreground were labelled as "prawns in negligées".
I want them!
Now.

Ah, the infamous "Hazelnut Thingie", aka Feuillete Noisettes.
Boy howdy, those are good!

That prune tart looked tempting, but then so did everything else.

Porn.
No other word for it.
Let your greedy eyes linger, people.

Yes, we ate these.

And this lovely little snackette of wild mushroom tart, quiche, bread and a terrine that was almost as good as the terrine of pig's trotter with pickled wild mushrooms and mustard jus that I had for a starter at l'Epigramme (awesome) on Friday evening with Katie and Eric.

You have my permission to squeal.

That cherry had so much kirsch in it Katie almost fell off her chair.

The English simply cannot make proper chocolate éclairs.

After all that lot I need a coffee to wash it down.
Yum.

Now I just need to get back to Paris …

Defining Deliciary

In the comments to yesterday's post Shan reveals that she also uses the Dive neologism "deliciary" and ponders whether I use it in noun form.
Indeed I do.

To define "deliciary", kindly take my arm (don crinolines if you must) and let us meander through the serpentine mediæval streets to the quaint Edwardian portal of Digby's Of Holt.

Digby's is a hand-made confectionary emporium nestled within the Royal Arcade in Norwich. It is where I go to purchase my regular fix of their frankly astonishing under-the-counter liquorice fudge (they don't have it on display as the place would get mobbed).

It is the kind of place where people walk in and stand gazing, open-mouthed with wonder at the cornucopia of delights set before them; where beautiful girls in black with little white bibs and white cotton gloves minister to one's most sensual, chocolatey desires; their snake-like eyes and flickering smiles betraying an inner gloating at their power over us mere mortals.

It is a place where whatever fevered imaginings haunt your weirdest dreams you are bound to find them lovingly recreated in chocolate.
A place redolent of dark magic, where a tiny, child-size spiral staircase in the corner leads one's eye down into a stygian gloom, wherein one imagines enslaved children in rags working the dark seams of a chocolate mine and wyrd sisters cackling over cauldrons of bubbling, sugary opiates, more addictive than crack.
A place of sinuous, sensual allure.
Temptation in solid form.

Digby's of Holt is for me the definitive deliciary; a glittering cornucopia of delicious desires, such that the senses are overwhelmed; The Verb (see yesterday's post) is its linguistic equivalent.

Dammit!
Now I fancy chocolate.

A Cautionary Tale

Robyn's mouth-watering, chocolate-covered post reminds me of a cocoa-related cautionary tale of my own:

Where I used to work we had a guy who would cruise around peoples' desks and help himself to any chocolates that happened to be laying there. As you can probably understand, this kinda rankled after a while.

So anyway, Elaine had a chocolate making kit (one of those crappy mould things she got for Christmas) with which we spent an entertainingly disgusting evening creating a small batch of rather exclusive chocolates with … er … "exotic" fillings.
And drinking a lot.

The first one we made was a cube of cheese with a tiny pickle on top, lovingly encased in chocolate. It looked so damned good sitting there I almost ate it myself.
The next was a wad of cotton wool soaked in meths; again a rather enticing prospect when coated in the yummy brown stuff.
Another was a dead spider (quite a meaty one) enhanced with a dollop of tomato ketchup and gloopily enveloped in a dark chocolate shell (yum).
The fourth was tuna cat food.

We arranged our creations artfully in an old chocolate box and left them on the end of Elaine's desk the following morning, every one of us surreptitiously keeping a sly eye on events.
Sure enough, within minutes, Frank (hi, Frank) zoomed in and snaffled a couple, cramming them into his mouth with unconcealed glee.

Oh, joy unbounded!
He got the dead spider in ketchup and the cheese and pickle. And it took several seconds of self-satisfied grinning and chomping before his expression changed to one that is best imagined rather than described.

Ah, schadenfreude … Pointing and laughing is always such fun.
Unfortunately it didn't stop Frank's predatory ways but he was somewhat more circumspect as a consequence, only snaffling unopened chocolate bars.
We did offer him the meths and cat food chocs but he nobly declined.

Let that be a lesson to you.

P.S. Happy birthday, little brother!