A Passport to Pastries! Page 2

  “S’il vous plaît, merci, bonjour, au revoir, je m’appelle Phoebe,” I blurted out.

  Mémé smiled blankly. “Excuse me?” she said, turning to Camille.

  I didn’t realize that Camille’s grandmother would speak English. “I just wanted to say all the French words I know in case I don’t get to say them later,” I said to both of them.

  Camille laughed, “Come on, Phoebe, I’ll show you around,” she said, and pulled me in the door. Inside the little stone house there was a living room, a kitchen, and two bedrooms on the first floor. Lace curtains covered all the windows. There was a small wooden table and four blue chairs in the middle of the bright yellow kitchen. The whole house smelled like butter, and I saw a yummy-looking pie thing cooling on the counter.

  “This is the prettiest house I’ve ever seen, even if it’s not that big and fancy!” I almost shouted.

  Camille smiled. “Want to see where we’re going to sleep?” she said. I nodded and followed her upstairs.

  We walked into a room to the right of the stairs. There was another room across the hall where my parents were going to sleep. I looked around the teeny, tiny room. There were two small white beds, a dresser in between, and a mattress on the floor. On each bed there was a doll.

  “Is this a room for the dolls or for us?” I asked.

  “It’s for us, silly,” Camille said.

  “These quilts are extra flowery,” I said, smoothing my hand over the quilt on one bed. “And the ceilings are so low and slanty. It’s kind of like being inside a dollhouse for real.”

  “I know. The quilts are antiques,” Camille said in a serious voice, so I nodded in a serious way because it seemed like antique was a very serious word.

  Camille suddenly dove for her dolls. She hugged them tightly.

  “I thought you just liked fairies,” I said. Camille had a fairy collection at home.

  “Well, they’re my favorite, but I love all kinds of dolls. Mémé keeps these for me for when I visit,” she explained. “This is Juliette and this is Josephine. You can hold Josephine when you sleep,” she told me, putting a doll wearing a purple sparkly dress in my arms.

  “Okay,” I said, taking Josephine. Her dress was a little scratchy. I was more of a stuffed-animal person, but I didn’t want Camille to think I didn’t like dolls.

  “This room is so cute!” Molly said when she came upstairs. “Your dolls are beautiful, Camille.” Camille’s face turned red.

  “Thank you!” Camille said. “They were my mom’s when she was little. They’re really old and delicate.”

  “Oh wow! Can I see one? I promise I’ll be careful,” Molly said.

  “You can have mine,” I said, and gave her Josephine.

  “You don’t like her?” Camille asked, looking a little sad.

  “No, I love her,” I said quickly. “I just wanted Molly to see.” Molly was the one who really liked dolls and still kept a bunch of Barbies and an American Girl doll stuffed in the back of her closet that she thought nobody knew about.

  Molly sat next to Camille, and Camille told her all about the dolls, pointing out different parts of their clothes. I felt like I could stand on my head and they wouldn’t even notice. I made a couple of loud sighing sounds, but they didn’t look up, so I decided to go downstairs.

  The grown-ups were sitting in the living room around a table with little bowls of nuts, olives, and crackers.

  I grabbed a salty olive and poked my head in the kitchen. I looked at the pie on the counter. It was sort of brown and caramel colored. I couldn’t tell what it was, and it didn’t seem too hot, so I stuck my pinky in the corner and licked it. Yum. It tasted like apples. Maybe it was a tarte tatin!

  “You like cooking?” a French voice said over my shoulder. I whipped around. It was Mémé.

  “Oh yes,” I said, my pinkie still in my mouth. “I was just . . .”

  She smiled. “It’s okay. Food is meant to be tasted. Your parents tell me you are, how do you say, a foodie?” Mémé said, putting on a yellow apron.

  “I am! But don’t worry, it just means I really like food,” I said.

  “Oh, I’m not worried. I know all about foodies,” she said, smiling at me. “That is a tarte tatin.” She pointed to the apple thingy I just stuck my finger in.

  “I knew it!” I said.

  “Hi, Mémé,” Camille said behind me. “I smell poulet fricassée!”

  My heart did a happy flip when I saw Camille. I was worried she would want to spend the rest of the afternoon showing Molly her dolls.

  “Oui, ma chérie,” Mémé said, and gently patted Camille’s cheek. She stirred some buttery, lemony-smelling chicken in a pan.

  “Wait, does ‘poulay’ mean chicken?” I asked.

  “Oui!” Mémé said.

  “So is the rest of the stuff in there ‘freecasay’?” I wondered, pointing to the pan.

  Mémé chuckled. “That’s the sauce I made with vegetables, herbs, lemon juice, butter, broth, and just a touch of cream.”

  “Can Phoebe and I help you with the rest of dinner?” Camille asked.

  “Please,” Mémé said as she put the lid on the pan of chicken. In a minute she had us chopping up a shallot into teeny, tiny pieces for a salad dressing. I had never even seen a shallot before. It’s kind of like an onion and kind of like garlic. Then we stirred in the olive oil, vinegar, mustard, salt, and pepper. We also chopped up some parsley and put that in. We mixed and mixed, and it looked greenish and oily and a little goopy. Then Mémé dipped in some lettuce for us each to taste.

  “It’s good enough to drink!” I exclaimed.

  “Yes, but please don’t drink it!” Mémé said, looking worried.

  “Don’t worry, Mémé,” said Camille.

  “I would never drink salad dressing, unless I was really thirsty,” I said, and Camille and I giggled. Maybe I didn’t love dolls as much as Camille did, but we both really liked food.

  “What’s in the oven?” I asked.

  “It’s a cheese soufflé,” Mémé said.

  “A sooflay,” I said. “That’s fun to say. Sooflay, sooflay, sooflay.”

  “Soufflé, soufflé, soufflé!” Camille said, and then this happened:

  We held hands and danced around the kitchen singing “soufflé, soufflé, soufflé!” and Mémé started laughing.

  We let go, and I danced over to the oven to look through the glass window.

  The soufflé looked so puffy I thought it might explode.

  I opened the oven quickly and luckily the soufflé didn’t look so puffy anymore.

  Then Camille came over, and Mémé said, “Non, non! My soufflé!”

  I swallowed hard.

  “You shouldn’t open the oven. You could get burned,” Mémé said to me, her hands on her hips.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, and looked down at my feet. I don’t know why I did it. At home I’m not allowed to open the oven, either.

  “Mémé, don’t be mad at Phoebe. She just gets excited.”

  “It’s true,” I explained. “My parents tell me I get overstimulated, which means extra excited.”

  Mémé’s face softened. She took in a deep breath and let it out. People are always taking deep breaths at me, especially grown-ups.

  “It’s okay, it will still taste good,” she said, and patted my arm. “Why don’t you both go play for a little while?” She waved her hand toward the living room.

  Camille nodded. Then we went back upstairs and sat on our beds quietly.

  “Don’t worry about Mémé,” she said after a minute. “She’s just very serious about her food.”

  “So am I,” I said. “I only wanted to help.”

  “You did. The salad dressing is good enough to drink!” Camille said, and bounced on her bed. I smiled. Camille was a little bouncier and louder in France, and I liked that. Maybe now that we were best friends, we were becoming more the same.

  “Want to play with Juliette and Josephine?” she asked.

  “Sure,” I said.

  We made up a story where Juliette and Josephine were best friends, did everything together, and liked all the same things. We did that until dinner and it wasn’t even boring.

  Dinner was super yummy. I told Mémé that the cheese soufflé was my favorite even if it wasn’t puffy anymore. Everyone at the table laughed, especially Mémé.

  “Tomorrow, we’ll visit my old pastry shop and have a look around. You can try anything you want, Phoebe,” said Mr. Durand after dinner.

  “Really? Anything?” My eyes almost popped out of my head.

  “Yes,” he said, “but our specialty is chocolate croissants, so you must try those!”

  That sounded delicious, but suddenly my eyes felt very heavy.

  “I think you both have a serious case of jet lag,” Mom said. “Let’s get you to sleep.”

  “Jet lag?” I said sleepily.

  “Don’t worry. Happens to everybody when they change time zones,” Mrs. Durand said.

  I was too sleepy to ask any more questions. Our moms walked us up the stairs and helped us find our pj’s. We brushed our teeth and fell into bed.

  “France is the best,” I whispered to Camille as we lay there.

  “That’s exactly what I was thinking,” Camille said.

  As we drifted off to sleep, I thought about the piles of chocolate croissants, tarts, and mounds of whipped cream I would taste tomorrow. I couldn’t wait to tell Sage.

  Chapter Four

  The next morning, Mémé set out homemade baguettes with butter and strawberry jam.

  “If breakfast in France is this good, I can’t wait to see what the rest of the day is going to be like,” I said, biting into a big slice of warm crunchy-on-the-outside bread covered in butter and jam. “This just might be the best day of my life,” I continued with my mouth full, little crumbs of bread flying out of me. Mémé handed me a napkin. But the baguette wasn’t even the best part. The best part was the hot chocolate. Mémé served it to us in bowls. At first I thought she was tired and made a mistake, but Camille said it’s what French people do. Pretty cool, huh?

  “It’s like drinking milk from a cereal bowl, but even better,” I said between slurps of creamy warm chocolate.

  “Why?” Molly asked.

  “Because nobody tells you to stop.”

  Mémé smiled and patted me on the head. Then she went over and patted Camille and Molly on the head, too. Mémé really liked patting people.

  “So how about some sightseeing today?” Mrs. Durand said. “Maybe the Louvre, the pastry shop, then a little shopping?”

  “Did I hear shopping?” Molly said, with practically her whole face in her bowl of hot chocolate.

  “Along with some other things,” Dad said.

  “I want to go to the Eiffel Tower,” I said.

  “We’ll try to see it later in the week,” said Mom. “We have a lot of other things to see first.”

  “But I’ve been dreaming about it for so long,” I said.

  “You didn’t even know about it until a week ago, Phoebe,” Dad said.

  “A week is a long time in kid years,” I said, because I once heard my mom say that. Dad shook his head.

  When we left for Paris, Mémé stayed home because she’d already seen everything. We took a train to the Louvre, which is a museum that’s as big as a soccer field. It also has a huge glass pyramid in front that you get to walk through, some funny naked statues, and a famous picture of a lady who doesn’t really know how to smile. It was fun at first but got boring after a while.

  Afterward we went to Mr. Durand’s old patisserie, which is a fancy French word for a pastry shop. Mom and Molly decided to look at a few stores we saw on the way and meet up with us a little later.

  Mr. Durand’s friend owned the patisserie now. When I walked in, a cloud of butter, sugar, caramel, chocolate, and nuts blended and hit me smack in the nose. Inside the glass cases were the most beautiful cakes, cookies, and tarts I’d ever seen. There was also a big tray of chocolate croissants on the counter under a glass cover.

  “I want to eat everything!” I yelled. Everyone in the shop turned and looked at me. Dad smiled, and his cheeks even got a little red. I’ve never seen that happen to Dad.

  Mr. Durand said hello to the lady behind the counter. “Before we try some things, how would you like to see the kitchen?” he asked me.

  “I would, I would.” I was jumping up and down now. Then I grabbed Camille’s hand and we jumped some more. We all followed Mr. Durand behind the counter into the kitchen.

  “I’ve never been behind a counter,” I whispered to Camille.

  Camille giggled as we walked in back. “Isn’t it wonderful?” she whispered, pointing toward the kitchen. “I used to practically live here.”

  I looked around. It smelled even more chocolaty and buttery than in the front. There were two people in white aprons working on the metal counters. A man rolled out dough and a woman was squeezing out chocolate icing designs on a big pink-frosted cake. On the side of one counter there was a big tray of colorful fruit tarts, and a tray of white-frosted cookies with silver dots on them.

  “Monsieur Martin is the best croissant maker in all of France,” Mr. Durand said, and shook the man’s hand.

  “He exaggerates,” Monsieur Martin said.

  “I exaggerate, too!” I said. “At least my dad is always telling me that.”

  “Phoebe, I think you might be exaggerating,” Dad said, his cheeks getting red again.

  Monsieur Martin smiled. “And who is this young exaggerator?” he asked.

  “This is Camille’s friend Phoebe,” Mr. Durand said.

  “Nice to meet you, Phoebe. Would you like to learn how to make a chocolate croissant?”

  “Oh yes, almost as much as I want to eat one,” I said. Monsieur Martin laughed. Then he had me and Camille wash our hands and put on aprons like real chefs. He showed us how to flatten out the butter on top of the dough and fold the dough over the butter. The dough already seemed pretty buttery, but I guess French people like to put butter on their butter. Then we put the dough in the refrigerator, and he took out some other dough that already had the butter in it. We rolled that out, and he cut it into triangles with a little wheel on a stick, kind of like a pizza cutter. We each had a turn. This is what happened when I tried:

  My triangles looked more like rectangles.

  The dough kept sticking to the roller no matter how much I told it not to.

  When I tried to roll them up, the dough mushed together into a big blob.

  Finally, I cut one into a good triangle and put the chocolate on. I rolled it up, and it didn’t stick at all, but then I got so excited I knocked a little dish of melted butter over and made a big mess.

  I looked over at Camille. She had already cut a bunch of triangles out of her dough and was sprinkling on the chocolate and rolling them up like it was no big deal.

  “You’re really good at that,” I said.

  “Thanks,” she said back to me.

  “I don’t think I’ll ever be as good as you,” I said. We definitely weren’t alike this way.

  “You’re good at lots of things,” she said. But she didn’t say what I was good at.

  “It’s okay, Phoebe. It takes practice. It only took me twenty years to learn,” Mr. Durand said, grinning. Dad laughed kind of extra loud. Camille gave me a little smile. I tried to smile back, but I felt an eensy-weensy bit jealous of them and their super croissant-making powers.

  When the dough triangles were baking, we tasted little pieces of some other things, like cookies, fruit tarts, and chocolate éclairs, which looked like little chocolate hot dogs with custard inside. They were all delicious, but I couldn’t wait to try the chocolate croissants. The smell of them baking in the oven was making me dizzy in a happy way. I almost didn’t care anymore about how bad I was at making them. Almost.

  Finally, they were ready. As we tasted them, it got very quiet. They were so flaky and buttery. The warm melted chocolate in the center surprised my tongue. It was so good, I almost fainted. I asked my dad if we could take one home to Sage. He said it might not last that long, but Monsieur Martin wrapped one up, anyway. We also took a box of treats for Mom and Molly.

  I was sad to leave the bakery, but we had to meet Mom and Molly for a little more shopping. I didn’t understand what was so great about shopping. How could anything be better than tasting and smelling things in the kitchen of a French bakery?

  * * *

  When we finally got back to Mémé’s house, my feet hurt, and I was feeling a bit sick from all the pastries. I sat on my bed and took out the croissant I saved for Sage. It was all crushed, which made me a little sad. I missed him. I didn’t want to tell anyone that, though. Especially not Camille, since it was her birthday the next day.

  Camille came in while I was lying on the bed staring up at the ceiling. She looked at me. “Phoebe,” she said.

  “Yeah?” I answered, my lids half closed.

  “Are you okay?” she asked.

  “Of course,” I said, still staring at the ceiling.

  “Are you sure? You seemed a little sad when we came home. Is it the chocolate croissants? I was really bad at making them when I first tried.”