Bicycles and Baguettes

Woke up early, and decided that although I had virtuously bought yogurt and granola yesterday to have a healthy breakfast, I didn't want yogurt and granola, goddamnit, I wanted a baguette. I call myself a "recovering Francophile" these days, which means I can appreciate the French (and their Canadian descendants) with my eyes open to the possibility of their human imperfection. That said, it must be admitted that a good baguette is a pretty tasty form of bread, with its crackly crust and soft, stretchy core. You take your baguette, slice it open like a trout, and fill it up with butter and orange marmalade, have it with coffee, and life is good.

And luckily with our new little gourmet place uptown, you can have a baguette whenever you want. I'm walking up a hill toward the main street (the local expression for the business district is "uptown," because it literally is up) and a tandem bicycle slowly follows. The man and woman on it are spinning their feet, because even though it's not that steep of a hill, they're way down in what's called "granny gear." If I'd walked a little faster, I could have beaten them up the hill. I smiled at them—there's something irrepressibly cheerful about a bicycle built for two, as the song goes—and they smiled back. "We don't climb hills very well," the woman said. "We're better going down them," said the man.

So of course I'm whistling "Daisy Bell" as I turn into the shop, and stroll tunefully up to the baguette bin, and the song dies on my lips—the bin is empty. They come out around 10 a.m., the young woman behind the counter says, her eyes full of sympathy. Was it so much to ask, I thought? Just a baguette? But as so often happens, the solution was right at hand—there, on the counter, was a row of croissants. In a moment I'd handed over my $2.65 and was on my way out with a waxed-paper bag and my little croissant. It's the same difference, really—just as Continental and even more delectable, since a proper croissant is like shortbread, in that it's an excuse for spending a few moments going nuts on butter. And I decided to make a photo Clotilde-style of the thing, with her trademark insanely shallow depth of focus, before I snarfed the thing up in three bites like a dog. I may have the yogurt and granola tomorrow, if I'm feeling virtuous, but that doesn't come naturally to me. I'd rather have something good to eat.