Les macarons! And other food adventures.

Surprises abound in this country.  For example, a macaron (macaroon) wasn't what I expected, which was a coconut maracoon.

"Macaroon", in America.

Instead, this is what they are:

Macaron, in France!

I had been seeing les macarons in pasty shops on all of my walks, and decided that today was the day to try them.  They are so pretty and so good!  I tried the following flavors: Rose, Menthe (mint), Caramel Fleur du Sel, and Coquelicot.  I got Coquelicot because I didn't know what it was, and so I decided to take the plunge.  It was pink, how could I resist?  The shop lady said Coquelicot was une fleur, but I didn't know the name of it in English until I got home and could plug it into the Google machine.  It's a poppy.  My favorite was the Fleur du Sel, which any good Starbucks fan knows is salted caramel.  Now I know where I can get my salted caramel fix!  If only they made a pumpkin macaron...

Mine got a little squished.  Fragile, but yummy.

I met another assistant today, Danielle, and we wandered around Angouleme successfully discovering every street except the one with all the restaurants on it, which we did find immediately after eating lunch.  It was literally the one street we hadn't been down yet.  But the Bauer Wander Method did not fail, as we stumbled upon a little crêpèrie that was literally down an alley, but was actually a really charming, classy little place with tasty food.  I had a galette that was called a forestiere, (a forest galette?).  It had cheese, mushrooms, and grilled onions in it.  Then I had a crêpe "Super Gourmandaise", which had chocolate sauce, vanilla ice cream, and whipped cream on it (their ice cream is fantastic too.  Anyone drooling yet?)  I'm very thankful to whatever gastronomic instinct prompted me to follow their sign pointing down a back alley because it had the magic word (crêpes) written on it.

Crêpes!  This way!

Anyway, I've officially been in this country one week.  I was toying with the idea of writing "ten things I learned this week", but since this entry is about food anyway, I'm going to list ten French things I ate for the first time or revisited this week.  I think that would be more fun.
1.  GOAT CHEESE!  You know how in Eat, Pray, Love she says something along the lines of, "I'm having a relationship with my pizza"?  Well, that's how I feel about goat cheese.
2.  Croissants!  My all-time favorite member of the bread family.  I'm not sure I can go back to the thawed out Starbucks version after living here.
3.  Crêpes
4.  Galettes - like the love child of a crêpe and a pancake, made with blé noir (black flour),which Google informs me is "buckwheat flour" in English.  That would have been great to know when Gwenaëlle and I went looking for "black flour" at the grocery store in Spokane and were met with blank stares.
5.  Kebabs
6.  Macarons (see above)
7.  Coke Light.  I don't like Diet Coke normally but France's version is pretty awesome.  Their limonade (which is clear!  not like our lemonade at all) and Orangina are also amazing.
8.  Bueno Bars.  This is the best candy ever.  With a bit of effort, it can be found at import stores in America and I highly suggest everyone do so.

It is perfectly named.

9.  The baguettes.  Although there is a downside to fresh bread with no preservatives - it goes stale REALLY fast, and gets so hard even Daphne won't eat it.  I haven't gotten through an entire baguette yet.  Although at 0.80€ a loaf, it's still the cheapest and tastiest option.
10.  This is a really odd thing to rave about, but the Special K here is out of this world.  It's a "diet" cereal, supposedly, but I've already seen three versions that have chocolate in them (light, dark, and stracciatella).  There's a chocolate version in America, but I like the shape of the chocolate pieces more here.  I also like that it's still considered a "diet" cereal, because "chocolate is healthy".
Honorable mention: Nutella.  I didn't put it on the list because you can get it at any grocery store in America.  But I had to give it a shout-out because on a crêpe, it's really amazing.