I had a true Proustian madeleine moment this morning. Like Proust�s remembrance of things past, mine was set off by French pastry. Only in my case, it was a croissant.

Today dawned chilly and damp and AJ had spent a good couple of hours moping around the house, looking wistfully at the enormous pile of leaves that did not quite make it into the bonfire before the storms came yesterday afternoon. I finally got tired of his sighs and mournful looks and so we went for a drive, ending up at the new mall, which is not too far from here, but in a direction I hardly ever go (read: �avoid like the plague�) because of the penchant of all roads to turn into soulless strip malls. The mall itself is barely a step up from the strip malls around it in terms of soul, but they have some shops that are not easily available elsewhere, so I�ve been meaning to investigate. AJ and I wandered around in search of a new winter coat for him. Instead, we came home with a fireman shirt, a fire truck sweater and a pair of pajamas covered in firemen and fire trucks. Needless to say, AJ was fashion coordinator for the day. After our purchases, AJ was getting hungry. I spied a bakery that was labeled �patisserie,� which seemed a shade precious, but I figured assured me of the presence of hot chocolate. But precious was not what I got.

The bakery was run by nuns in floor-length habits with large rosaries tied to their waists. French nuns. Speaking French. The variety of patisseries was very similar to the local bakery in the small town where I spent part of high school in the massif central. AJ picked out a meringue sprinkled with tiny candy leaves and a cup of hot chocolate. I picked out a croissant. AJ picked a table in the corner by the window beneath the mural of monks working in a wheat field outside two stucco buildings with red tiled roofs, and we bit into our pastries.

I�m honestly not certain if it was the flaky, buttery croissant, perfectly browned and crispy on the outside and soft in the middle that did it, or my sip of AJ�s chocolat chaud, which was barely sweetened in the French style. But I was so immediately transported to my childhood that I began to speak French with the nun who was waiting on me, asking about the food. �Avez-vous du pain au raisin?� Pain au raisin was my childhood favorite, but it is a pastry I have never successfully found outside France, although I�m sure it must exist somewhere. Pains aux raisins are pinwheels made of croissant dough, held together with pastry cream and studded with plump raisins. I think it is also glazed with something � egg white or apricot jam or something like that. There is no sugar, only sweet raisins, creamy pastry filling and crumbly pastry. As a child, when my metabolism could tolerate such behavior, a bowl of chocolat chaud and a pain au raisin was my idea of the perfect breakfast. As an adult, I used to pick up pain au raisin for a special treat when I would do an early morning stint in the conservatory practice rooms. My copy book still has an oily stain from where I used to balance the pastry so that I wouldn�t get crumbs in the piano.

The nun looked sorrowfully at me and answered, in beautiful Parisian French that the sisters had no pain au raisin today, but that they usually did and if I would like to order some, I could phone ahead. Amazing. Sometimes home is not as far away as you think it is.

AJ was equally enchanted with the patisseries and ate all of his meringue as well as most of my croissant. We purchased two more croissants to take home, one of the nuns pressed a small chocolate into AJ�s hand, and we said our goodbyes.

In the car on the way home AJ asked, �How do you say �Good-bye� in French?�
�Au revoir.�
AJ struggled to pronounce it and then said, �I�d like to go back there some time.� �That�s sort of what �Au revoir� means � it means �until I see you again.��
He thought for a minute. �Kind of like �See you later, alligator?��

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And on an unrelated note, I just received notification that rs536 has hit the 20 mile mark in the NYC marathon. Go, rs, go!

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