Domesticity

When I moved to France in my mid-20s I left a life of domesticity behind. I had been playing housewife since I was 19 and it was time to go off on my own, unburdened by the battery of kitchen equipment and glossy food magazines I had accumulated over seven years.
In Paris, it became a game to prove that no dish was unachievable with my minimalist equipment: two temperamental burners, a mini fridge and an oven just big enough to hold one small tin of brownies. I whipped egg whites by hand to make (mini) cheese soufflés and rustled up vegetarian lasagne with fresh artichokes, eggplants and mushrooms from the market when my friends came over. I no longer had a breadmaker or a pizza peel, but in my new location around the corner from some of the world's greatest bakeries, Poilâne among them, this wasn't an issue.
As my life has grown more domestic once again, the appliances have started creeping back into my kitchen: first a lime-green Magimix food processor, then (oh, joy!) a scarlet KitchenAid mixer, my sister's wedding gift to us. But I would still say I've been pretty restrained - until a few weeks ago, when I definitively crossed back into the camp of the appliance-crazed.
It all started with a search for the perfect blender. I was frustrated with the way my green food processor, pretty as it looks, couldn't make a satisfying smoothie or whiz a soup to a creamy purée. I started shopping around and saw that a powerful blender costs €150 and up. Around this time, Ximena wrote alluringly about making homemade Nutella in the Thermomix. The thought of a machine that could grind hazelnuts to a fine powder, melt chocolate without burning it and whip a few ingredients into a smooth paste piqued my interest. The machine's cultish side added a certain mystery: you either have to buy one from a representative, Tupperware-style, or take the risk of ordering an older, perhaps pieced-together model on eBay.
The price difference between the powerful blender and the Thermomix didn't seem that great, until I decided to go for the most recent model available on eBay, the TM21, rather than an orange model from the 1970s (Thermomixes are said to be indestructible, something that I sincerely hope is true). This machine is neither new nor fashionable, though it is catching on with chefs - Philippe grew up with one in his kitchen, and in Spain it's considered a kind of Valium substitute for housewives. My second-hand, 1998-vintage machine cost €415, about the same as a new KitchenAid. Do I regret it? Not for a moment.
It's not the prettiest appliance in my kitchen with its functional black, white and stainless steel design, but the Thermomix is probably the closest thing you could have to a friendly little robot that does the cooking for you. I had to get the Nutella recipe out of my system (total success) before I could start experimenting with the 1,000 or so recipes that came on a computer disk, which incidentally I couldn't open on my Macintosh.
The only disappointment has been smoothies, which were one of the reasons I wanted to buy a blender in the first place. Thrilling as it is to use, the turbo setting really works best with larger quantities of liquid - at least 1 litre (4 cups) is ideal. When I've tried to make smoothies for one or two people, I've ended up with frustrating lumps of fruit.
But the Thermomix's many qualities compensate for this. I know that its possibilities are almost endless - crumbles, stews, cookies, bread, granite - but so far I haven't got much beyond playing with different soups. I love it that I can let the machine do the chopping, heating and stirring, only intervening to press the Turbo button at the end (or not if I want a chunkier texture).
I want to reassure you that I don't plan to dedicate this blog to the Thermomix - devoted as I am to it, I still consider it just one of many tools in my kitchen, the most important of which are my hands. Once in a while, I will include Thermomix instructions alongside the conventional recipe if I think they might be helpful, though most recipes are easy to adapt once you know how to use the machine.
If you don't have a Thermomix - and chances are you don't, as they are really a European phenomenon - don't let that stop you from making this cream-free soup with a vegetable that people, for some reason, don't often think of pureeing. To make it, I used some wonderful young broad beans that one producer at the market had planted late, resulting in spring-like vegetables in early October. You could also use green beans, being sure to remove any strings.

Broad bean soup with bacon and sage
Serves 2-3

2 tbsp olive oil
1 small onion
Sea salt and freshly ground pepper
13 oz broad beans or green beans (350 g)
1 medium potato
2 cups vegetable stock (I used Marigold bouillon powder)
4 oz bacon (100 g)
A few fresh sage leaves

In a medium saucepan, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the finely diced onion and a pinch of salt, and stir over medium-low heat for a few minutes until the onions become translucent.

Top and tail the broad beans and chop them quite small. Peel the potato and cut it into small dice. Add the beans and potatoes to the onions, stir well, then add the vegetable stock. Bring to a boil, lower the heat and simmer for about 10 mins, or until the beans and potato are tender. Purée the soup in a powerful blender and season to taste with salt and pepper.

Meanwhile, cut the bacon into small pieces and fry until golden (if using French lardons, I think it's worth blanching them for 1 minute first to remove some of the salt). Remove the cooked bacon from the fat with a slotted spoon and fry the sage leaves in the bacon fat until crisp. Top the soup with the bacon and a couple of sage leaves before serving.



Thermomix instructions: Heat the oil for 3 mins at 100 C, speed 2. On speed 6, add the quartered and peeled onion through the hole in the lid and chop for 10 seconds, or until there are no big lumps. Heat for 3 mins at 90C, speed 2. Add the whole, trimmed beans and chop on speed 6 for 10-15 secs. Add the vegetable stock and peeled and diced potato and cook for 10 mins at 100 C, speed 2. Purée on Turbo for 1 min and season to taste with salt and pepper.

For the garnishes, proceed as in the recipe above.

A rustic fruit tart

In France you are either a pastry chef or a baker, rarely both.
Pastry chefs are precise perfectionists who know just how many grams of gelatin it takes to bring structure to an airy raspberry mousse. They are chemists but also artists, who finish off their creations with a single red rose petal or a paper-thin square of white chocolate streaked with gold.
Bakers are more instinctive types who sense the need to adjust the amount of flour in their pain au levain to the humidity outside. They like to make cakes, but chances are you'll never find them fussing with agar-agar.
Much as I love making and eating any kind of pastry, if I had to choose a camp I'd definitely fall into the second. Dough of all kinds comes naturally to me, while I have to kick my lazy side into submission to make the more complex French pâtisseries with their layers of mousse, ganache and sponge cake.
Eric Kayser is my kind of baker. His famed baguette Monge is probably one of the top five baguettes in Paris—it's always hard to judge, since the quality of baguettes can vary from day to day—but what I really love are his rustic fruit tarts. Just as I prefer to make the more rustic cakes, they are also (rather conveniently) what I prefer to eat. They give you something to sink your teeth into, and they don't collapse into a messy heap when you try to share them.
After reading about Les tartes d'Eric Kayser on a few blogs, I found myself ordering it impulsively on Amazon one day. A few days later it arrived, like an early Christmas present with its red and green tart on the cover (redcurrants with matcha tea filling, very intriguing).
Of course, I couldn't wait to try it out and for my first project I settled on the pear and grapefruit tart, which I seem to remember finding irresistible at his bakery in rue Monge. It's the combination of the cream-colored pear and pink grapefruit that does it for me - without the grapefruit, it could easily look boring.
Pâte sablée is not new to me, but it's always interesting to read a baker's tips and probably the wisest words in this book are (my translation): "The only real secret to good tarts is time. You need to let the doughs breathe, allow them to relax, protect them. The ideal is to prepare them the night before."
Indeed, I've noticed that whenever I make a tart at a slow, relaxed pace, allowing the dough to rest in the fridge before and after I roll it out, it doesn't do anything nasty like shrink or tear.
Even though this is a rustic tart and therefore, in principle, easy, it was a two-day project because of the overnight resting time for the dough. I also decided to poach the pears myself rather than use canned pears as Kayser suggests. It's pear season, after all. Honestly, though, I think canned pears would be just fine.

I also spent a little time wondering what to do about pistachio paste, an ingredient I can't easily find in Nice. I was almost ready to use green-tinted almond paste from Auer, which the saleswoman had assured me was made of pistachios (hah!), when I remembered that I still had a few Bronte pistachios from last year's Salone del Gusto in Turin. It wasn't enough to make Pierre Hermé's recipe for pistachio paste, which calls for 500 g (a little more than 1 lb) of pistachios, but I found my own solution to make just enough for my tart.

My dear friend and guru Sylvie thought the bitterness of the grapefruit added nothing to this tart (which she gobbled up anyway), but I love their bright pink color and think that a poor-quality imported grapefruit was to blame. This tart might be best made with canned pears during grapefruit season (around February in France). See what you think.


Pear and grapefruit tart
Serves 6-8

For the pears in syrup:
2 pears, not too ripe
500 ml water (2 cups)
125 g sugar (4 1/2 oz)
1/2 vanilla bean

For the pistachio paste:
15 g pistachios (1/2 oz)
15 g powdered sugar (1/2 oz)
1 egg white (you won't need all of it)

For the pâte sablée (enough for three tarts):
300 g butter at room temperature (11 oz)
60 g white sugar (2 oz)
125 g powdered sugar (4 1/2 oz)
60 g powdered almonds (2 oz)
5 g salt (1 tsp)
2 whole eggs
500 g flour (1 lb 2 oz)

For the filling:
Poached pears (see above)
2-3 pink grapefruits
125 g butter at room temperature (4 1/2 oz)
125 g white sugar (4 1/2 oz)
125 g powdered almonds (4 1/2 oz)
10 g flour (1/3 oz)
3 whole eggs
30 g pistachio paste (1 oz)
2 tbsp apricot jam

For the pears:
Peel the pears, cut them in half and scoop out the cores with a spoon or melon baller. Combine the water, sugar and vanilla bean, scraping out the seeds from the vanilla bean and adding them to the water along with the bean. Bring to a simmer, lower the heat and cook at a simmer for 25-30 mins, until soft when pierced with a knife. Set aside to cool in the syrup, then remove from the syrup and drain on paper towels overnight in a covered container in the refrigerator.

For the pistachio paste:
In a pestle and mortar or small electric grinder, pound or grind the pistachios to a fine powder. Add the icing sugar, then just enough egg white to make a thick paste.

For the pastry:
In a food processor or mixer (I used my Kitchenaid with the paddle), beat the butter until soft. Add the sugars, almond power and salt, mixing well. Add the eggs one by one and combine, scraping the sides of the bowl. Add the flour and mix on low speed just until the dough comes together.
Form the dough into three flat rounds and wrap each one in plastic wrap. Place two in the freezer for future use (they can be defrosted overnight) and one in the fridge.

Finishing the tart:
The next day, remove the pastry from the fridge and let it warm up for at least 20 mins before rolling it out. Use just enough flour so that it doesn't stick to your board, and roll it as thinly as seems feasible, turning it often.
Roll about half the dough around your rolling pin and quickly lift it up and place it in the tin (Kayser likes square tins and so do I). If it tears, you can always squeeze the cracks together. Press the pastry into the corners of the tin, then cut off the overlapping pastry with a sweep of the rolling pin. Press the edges a little higher than the edge of the tin to compensate for any shrinkage.
Let the dough rest in the fridge for another 30 mins at least while you prepare the filling.
Using a sharp knife, peel the grapefruit from top to bottom, removing all the pith. Holding the grapefruit in one hand, cut between the membranes to release the segments.
Cut each piece of pear in half, then cut each quarter into three even pieces.
For the filling, beat the butter in a mixer until soft. Add the sugar, almond powder and flour. Add the eggs one by one, mixing well, then the pistachio paste.
Pour this mixture into the pastry (without blind baking the crust - if Kayser says you can do this, it must be OK!). Top with alternating pieces of pear and grapefruit. Bake at 180 C (375 F) for 35-45 mins, until done. (Kayser's recipe says to bake the tart at 160 C for 35 mins, but I found that it wasn't hot enough or long enough.)
Once the tart has cooled, melt the apricot jam in a small saucepan and brush it over the tart for a glossy finish.

What chefs are really thinking

Ever wondered whether the chef at that quaint little French bistro has selected his "fresh" ingredients at the frozen food chain Picard? If yesterday's roast chicken has become today's chicken curry? If the price of the day's special is indecipherable on purpose? This video will confirm your worst fears about dining in France.
I like to think there are not too many chefs as cynical as this one, but there is no denying the grain of truth.

Five things I love about Helsinki

You might have guessed from the title that this is not going to be the most objective post. This month's trip to Helsinki was my third in as many years. Each time I find more to love about this city, which celebrates extremes of light and darkness, heat and cold.
I grew up with temperatures that often dipped to eyelash-freezing -35 C or so (not counting the dreaded wind chill), but at least we had clear, sunny skies even in mid-winter. The Finns have to deal with a period of nearly complete darkness at the coldest time of year, while in June the sun refuses to set. No wonder they think nothing of baking in a sauna at 100 C, then jumping through a crust of ice into a lake (when no lake is handy, they simply roll in the snow).

My reasons for loving Helsinki have less to do with the climate - I'm a wimpy southerner now - than the food. Yes, you heard right. Aki, Jari and Eeropekka, the witty and erudite editors of the innovative restaurant trade magazine Viisi Tähteä, organized the first Eat & Joy event two years ago to draw attention to the city's fast-developing restaurant scene. That year, then-French-president Jacques Chirac had made some very insulting remarks about Finnish food that I won't dignify by repeating here (let's say that only Britain came out worse in what was not his most diplomatic moment ever). As a representative of France, I spent much of my time on that first trip reassuring the Finns that Chirac had not spoken for everyone. I was even interviewed on Finnish TV, which shows how wounded the country was.
Admittedly, Finland is not widely renowned for its cuisine, but anyone with a taste for grains, berries, wild mushrooms, cold-water fish and unusual meats (I am mentally drawing a happy face next to each of these) will find its food irresistible. In the past few years Finnish chefs have been rediscovering the local bounty, and some of them are willing to go to great lengths - often as far as Lapland - to obtain the best ingredients. I met a chef who hunts his own bears (legally) to make juicy burgers which he serves on Moroccan flatbread with Korean mayonnaise at Hotel Sello. I also visited a primary school, where I discovered that the free school lunches were far superior to what Sam eats in France (Finnish schools have their own kitchens, while Sam's food is supplied by Sodexho from a central kitchen). Finland is full of surprises like this.

If you are thinking of visiting Helsinki anytime soon, here are five things I think you shouldn't miss:
1. Breakfast at Klaus K
Breakfast has never been the same for me since I first grazed my way through the fabulous buffet at the Klaus K. You won't find your run-of-the-mill omelettes and Corn Flakes here - every food displayed on the buffet, from the dill-marinated salmon to the sea buckthorn muesli, comes directly from a small producer. What I love most is the cauldron of hot cereal, which most often is barley that has been slow-cooked for several hours in milk (see recipe below). On my last morning at the hotel I drank fresh carrot juice, something I had never before seen at a hotel.
The man behind this admirable initiative is Markus Maulavirta, probably the city's most influential chef thanks to his attachment to small farmers. The first time I saw him he was dancing through the dining room while beating on his witch drum, which for him is totally in character. He is unfortunately leaving the Klaus K to lend a hand to the poro (ie reindeer) herders in Lapland, but the breakfast will not change. The Klaus K is also one of the best places to stay in Helsinki, with the most comfortable beds I've ever encountered and beautiful modern Finnish design.
2. The butter at Nokka
There are many wonderful things to eat at this contemporary Finnish restaurant, where Markus originally worked, but what really sticks in my mind is fresh, pure taste of the artisanal butter sourced from a small producer. Even in France, home of great dairy products, I've rarely encountered butter that I simply couldn't stop eating. Slathered generously onto the restaurant's wholemeal bread, which is made on the premises, it could practically be a meal in itself. This year, I tore my attention away from the butter long enough to taste an exceptional, sherry-like wine made of blackcurrants and fortified with cherries and cranberries. This ceviche-style fish was pretty wonderful too.

3. Lihapiirakka
Finnish cuisine isn't only about doing surprisingly sophisticated things with poro. Like any country that can feel proud of its cuisine, it has a great street food tradition. Meat pies - like big doughnuts, only filled with minced meat and occasionally sausages - are the perfect antidote to the hangover that is likely to hit at least once if you spend any time in Helsinki. Eat one first thing in the morning, preferably without having slept at all, and you will feel like a real Finn. Meat pies also provide a great excuse to visit the covered market on the harbor, which is a feast in itself.
4. The herring buffet at Sundmans Krog
My passion for herring has been fed by many an harengs pommes à l'huile (marinated herrings with warm potato salad) in Paris bistros, so imagine my delight to find herring in at least a dozen different guises in the casual main floor dining room of this elegant restaurant on the harbor. If you can't be in Helsinki for the Baltic herring festival in October, this is the next best thing.
5. Seahorse
Fried herring with mashed potatoes and pickled beet is another classic Finnish dish and this noisy, down-to-earth restaurant founded in 1934 is one of the most atmospheric places to enjoy it. Of course, culinary tastes have moved on and there are now some great modern bistros in Helsinki: Demo and Postres are two of my favorites. But to eat only modern bistro food in this city would be to miss something essential.
For more on Helsinki restaurants, here is a link to the piece I wrote earlier this year for the Times Online.

In case you're wondering about the picture above, it was Aki, confidently steering us in his Russian torpedo boat to the Ivana Helsinki show on the world heritage site Suomenlinna.

Barley porridge
Serves 4

Ever since my first trip to Finland I've eaten a lot more porridge for breakfast, usually topped with blueberries that I've stewed with a little sugar (this is one thing I buy frozen), plus all sorts of nuts, seeds and dried fruits. Barley porridge takes a long time to cook, so the best way to do it is overnight. Marcus Maulavirta gave me this recipe, along with a bag of barley. If you use milk it might curdle and caramelize a bit, but that's part of the charm.

4 cups milk or water, or half milk and half water
2/3 cup barley
A pinch of salt

Combine the milk and/or water, barley and salt in a heavy ovenproof dish with a tight-fitting lid. Place in the oven at about 225 F (100 - 120 C) for at least six hours or overnight.

St. Petersburg

To those who say that writing about restaurants is not hard work, I reply: "Have you ever tried eating six meals in a day?"
When I said I would try to post from Helsinki and St. Petersburg, I wasn't counting on the enthusiasm of the Eat & Joy organisers, who put our stamina (and stomachs) to the test with a packed schedule that started at 9am every day and never finished before 1am. In Helsinki we visited a record 22 restaurants in a single day, with tastings at each one, and in Russia our generous hosts put on a full spread at an average of six restaurants per day. Since our schedule was subject to last-minute changes, I was never really able to pace myself - just when I thought we had finally finished, we would be taken to a surprise addition to the list and served a five-course meal.
Do I regret a bite of it? Not at all: Helsinki's restaurant scene gets more exciting every year thanks to chefs who seek out local produce and it was fascinating to see how St. Petersburg is developing as a restaurant city, even if there was a little too much sushi for my taste (I love sushi, but when in Russia I'd rather eat blinis). International cuisine is all the rage in this strikingly beautiful city and I didn't eat a bowl of borscht in four days, though I did slip away once to have a blini experience.
I had noticed a chain of fast-food restaurants called Tepemok but known to the locals as "Blindonalds," which serve freshly made blinis filled with salmon, minced meat, chicken, berries or chocolate. The pancakes known as blinis in France are small and puffy, closer to a Canadian pancake than a French crêpe. In St. Petersburg they were far more crêpe-like, as big as the French version and only slightly thicker. This didn't surprise me as one of Sam's babysitters, a Ukrainian girl named Eugenia, had once shown me how to make blinis like her grandmother's. Hers were identical to the St. Petersburg blinis, which puff up a little when spread on a hot griddle, and have become my standard recipe for pancakes at home.

St. Petersburg is an expensive city but at Tepemok you can have a hearty and delicious meal for 150 rubles (the equivalent of about 5 euros), which explains the popularity of this chain. I ordered a blini with salmon, dill and sour cream and another with berries and cream, which came to 140 rubles. You can even order a blini filled with salmon roe, which the locals prefer to black caviar because it's far cheaper and reliably good.
Another highlight of my visit to St. Petersburg was the covered market Kuznechny, where I was delighted to see farmers selling local produce (many of the chefs mentioned how difficult it is to find local ingredients). Outside the market stood a row of women displaying tiny amounts of beautiful goods: a basket of fresh porcini mushrooms, plastic cups heaped with blueberries, a small bunch of carrots.


The dairy stand made me want to dive right into the vats of curd cheese and sour cream, whose color brought to mind cows munching on pale golden hay.


Every vegetable at this stand was pickled. I bought two ordinary (cucumber) pickles to eat right away and a head of purple pickled garlic, which I stirred into a potato salad the day I returned to Nice.

Thick honey was sold in vats and jugs. I bought some Siberian acacia honey, a pale, runny honey that looked like lemonade in its big glass jug.

Fresh horseradish is not something I can find at the markets in France. The roots look like pieces of dry bark.

Caviar tempted me, but had been warned by Russians that there is no guarantee of quality. A small jar of beluga caviar costs more than 100 euros.

The quality and freshness of the produce was impressive: I loved this pile of pumpkins.
I left St. Petersburg feeling I had only scratched the surface of what there is to see and taste there. With luck, there will be other trips.

Russian blinis
Serves 2-3

2 eggs
8 heaped tbsp flour
1 cup milk
A pinch of baking power
A pinch of salt
2 tbsp butter

In a large bowl, whisk the eggs. Add 4 generous tbsp flour and whisk until smooth. Pour in 1/2 cup milk and combine. Add 4 more heaped tbsp flour, along with the baking powder and salt. Stir well, then whisk in the remaining milk until smooth. Melt the butter in the frying pan you will use to cook the blinis. Pour the butter into the batter and combine. The batter should be slightly thicker than crêpe batter - add a little flour or milk to adjust the consistency if necessary. Wipe the frying pan with a paper towel.

Heat the frying pan over high heat and cook the blinis one by one on both sides. You may need to turn the heat down after the second or third blini and grease the pan with a little oil using the paper towel. Serve with savory fillings such as smoked salmon, sour cream and dill or sweet fillings such as berries and cream.

Bear burger and caviar

I'm off to Helsinki and St. Petersburg today on a press trip, having miraculously obtained a Russian visa in Paris. This is my third trip to Helsinki thanks to the wonderful Eat & Joy event, which is held every year. Highlights last year were a bear burger (surprisingly juicy), a real Finnish sauna and the herring festival, in which the harbour fills with small fishing boats. How I love herring!
I hope to be able to report on my adventures while I'm there, as long as I don't run into any Internet connection problems.
A bientôt!

A big coffee éclair

Coffee éclairs and I go back a long way, to my first year in Paris when I was four. My memories of that year are vivid, probably because I was learning a new language (I entered the maternelle knowing only how to say "oui" and "non" and came out fluent, at least temporarily) and adjusting to a new culture (in Canada park wardens don't blow the whistle and aim a threatening finger at children who step on the grass).
I particularly remember going for walks with my dad and marvelling at the chaotic traffic along boulevard Garibaldi. At the time no self-respecting Parisian would drive anything but a Citroën 2CV and these seemed to crash into each other a lot more often than cars do nowadays in Paris. I entertained myself by watching cars back down our one-way street - reversing at high speed was still an acceptable way of getting around the one-way street problem - and waiting for the inevitable crunch of metal on metal. The drivers would get out of their cars, yell and shake their fists, then get back in and casually drive away.
My dad, being a fellow gourmand, always found time for a pastry or ice cream on these walks. In the early 1970s (!! am I that old?) most pâtissiers still made their own ice creams and sorbets, which were displayed outside the shop. Eating coffee ice cream made me feel very sophisticated and it wasn't long before I discovered the coffee éclair, with its crisp choux pastry, coffee pastry cream filling and shiny coffee glaze.
I think my love of cooking may have sprung from the coffee éclair - or, rather, the lack of it in Canada. My mother had a book called La pâtisserie pour tous by Ginette Mathiot (Le livre de poche) and, as soon as I was old enough (around 8 or 9 years old), I began teaching myself to make French pastries. The results were often pretty disastrous and I shed my share of tears but after a while I did master the éclair, more or less.
Our family's original copy of this classic book has gone missing and only recently did I think to buy one of my own. Looking at Mathiot's brief instructions for the most complex French pastries, I could understand why my pastry apprenticeship was strewn with obstacles (the instructions for making bûche de Noël, a complicated rolled and decorated cake, are six lines long). The book also made me realize how flawed memory can be: I eagerly started looking for the croissant recipe I remembered, only to realize there isn't one.
I haven't yet revisited Mathiot's coffee éclair recipe, but when I do I promise to give you a full report. In the meantime, I had one of my most spectacular éclairs ever in Paris at the restaurant Rech, which has recently been taken over by star chef Alain Ducasse. The XL éclair has always been a specialty at this art deco seafood restaurant in the 17th arrondissement, and Ducasse has wisely kept it on the menu. The glaze was so good that I wanted to pick up the éclair and lick it, but I've grown a little more dignified in the past 30 years or so, at least in public.
After all these years I still have a special fondness for the éclair, an untrendy pastry that has lately taken a back seat to the show-off macaron. I feel gratified that Sam, with no encouragement from me (really!), has developed his own passion for the coffee version. Though he is tolerant of my solo trips to Paris, he is having a hard time forgiving me for eating this entire éclair without him.