This blog note is for Melissa, who, when I told her of my impending travel, was quick to suggest a couple of confectioners I should visit in Paris.
I never got the chance to check out these shops nor Paris' famous food markets because of limited time, but I treasure a bag of orangettes--candied orange rind dipped in chocolate--I bought for 8 euros? 12 euros? from the Maiffret chocolate shop on Champs Elysee. Maffret's been around since 1885 (according to their website) offers a mouthwatering array of plain and flavored ganache, toffee, pralines, marzipan and so on, and the orangette were perfect. The chocolate was finely tempered with just a hint of orange bitterness coming through to prevent the whole thing from becoming cloyingly sweet.
The other high chocolate note of my trip was a cup of oh-so-decadent hot chocoloate I had in a little café on the island of Burano, in the northern part of the Venetian Lagoon. It had drizzled constantly all day, and we stopped for something hot to drink before taking the next ferry back. True hot chocolate is chocolate bars melted into cream; very rich. What we had was the genuine article, and we relished every drop.
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