Jour du Macaron

Readers, I'm going to shock you. Until just weeks ago, I had NEVER had a Parisian macaron.

Well, okay, I guess that's not strictly true since I had some frozen ones from Picard once at someone's house, but I'm not going to count that. I had never hit the big spots for this most famous of French cookies - Laduree and Pierre Herme. So when the Jour du Macaron rolled around this year, I knew it was time.

Actually, this Jour du Macaron thing was all new to me. Organized by Pierre Herme, the "bad boy of French pastry" (what does that mean? I'll get to it), this is a relatively new charity event that each year donates to a different cause by giving away macarons for a voluntary donation. Yes, give a penny, get a macaron. Stores all over town do it, and of course it works out great for them as well, since once you have one macaron you are basically hooked.

Yes, these are the crack cocaine of cookies, as may have been reported to you already. I kind of couldn't believe how good they were. I had spent a lot of time dismissing them in my mind as a kind of dainty, girly because of the way they look - but they are freaking delicious and don't need to be girly at all.

The king of making the macaron a thing of robust, masculine deliciousness is Pierre Herme, who on occasion puts foie gras in his macarons - which is actually AMAZING.The chocolate foie gras macaron was so good I got an extra six of them, then went back the next week for MORE, only to find it was a special flavor he did only for Jour du Macaron. Rats.

But as Pierre Herme is the pioneer of the "creative" macaron, there are lots of other interesting flavors, including Jasmine, Mandarin Orange/Olive Oil, Earl Grey Tea, Rosewater, and Lychee. And they are all AMAZING. I am jumping on the Pierre Herme bandwagon. Thank god he's got several Paris locations.