In Search of French Pastries

I love that my husband loves me enough to give into my cravings.

For the last two weeks, I've had French pastries on the brain and I searched and searched all over the internet to find out where to get the yummy sandwich cookies called French Macaroons. (I think the last time I'd had these wonderfully delicate cookies were in Manila, from my friend Audrey's French pattiserie in Manila, Bizu.)

One place kept popping up: The Bouchon Bakery in Yountville, up in Napa. (Lucky for us, Napa is only 40 minutes or so away.) So one Sunday, without anything planned, I managed to convince him to spend an afternoon checking out Yountville. And while in the car, I read him reviews of this bakery. (Note: my husband is a chef/food scientist so good food is always an awesome topic of conversation.)

So after 40 minutes or so, we found ourselves in the quaint town of Yountville, a starting/ending point for many people who come to Napa for wine tasting and the like. 

I had already read about the bakery being small and the lines being long so that was no surprise. But the line moved quickly enough and my husband was pleased to discover that the bakery was beside the Bouchon, a Thomas Keller restaurant, that he would like for us to try one of these days. (My husband loves checking out restaurants to add to our list.)

But today, after five minutes of waiting in line, we came out with a croissant and three French macaroons. Husband had the croissant. I was more interested in the macaroons.

And they were exactly like how I'd expected them to be. The cookies were delicately crunchy on the outside, wonderfully sweet and chewy on the inside, and the creamy feeling in the middle was pure heaven. The whole thing just left an aroma of flavor in your month. 

In the case of my first cookie, it was blissful hazelnut. The other two I chose were chocolate and pistachio. And since the cookies were huge, (most French macaroons are near bite size, these were the size of whoopie pies!) I tucked the box into my purse and decided to save the rest for later.

The bakery had other yummy looking stuff on display too.

And these are the chocolate Bouchons, brownie bites baked with chocolate chips and dusted with confectioner's sugar but at $2 a pop, we decided maybe next time.

After the bakery, we decided to explore Yountville a bit and it was a pretty cute place. They had some gorgeous shops with glass art, jewelry, and fine art. And at the Bottega store (by the Bottega restaurant of Chef Chiarello Bottego), I had a taste of truffle salt that left me craving for more. I had visions of french fries and popcorn sprinkled with truffle salt... Yum. But truffles are another topic altogether.

We're definitely passing by the Bouchon Bakery again the next time we're in Napa. But at $3 a French Macaroon, that could become an expensive habit if done too often. Maybe just one cookie at a time?

But then again... didn't my husband study French cooking at Le Cordon Bleu? Doesn't that mean he could probably make me some of these at home? Hmmm.... let's go find a French macaroon recipe...