Chocolates, Bread, Cheese, and Wine of course!

Bonjour from Paris! 

The Eiffel Tower (or Tour Eiffel)

I hope everyone has had a wonderful week! I am sorry for the lack of activity here, but there has been so much going on lately.  It has been busy with good things though; so far March has been a wonderful month! To be honest, 2011 has been an absolutely amazing year. To say I have been blessed with amazing luck is a severe understatement!


Everyone here has made such an effort to make my stay in Paris one to remember. I cannot thank the people from our Paris office enough!

Yes, this is The Ritz!

I left chilly Edmonton last Friday for warm and sunny Paris! I know that normally this time of year Parisians are used to experiencing a lot of rain, but I have been lucky enough to have seen almost nothing but warm sunny days! OK, I will admit that it did sprinkle on me as I walked back to my hotel from the office this Friday evening, but it was still well above zero degrees so I was quite content in the little bit of rain.

The Arc de Triomphe

One thing that is for sure, the food in Paris is amazing.  Whenever I have taken supper alone at my hotel, I have picked up a variety of breads, cheese and wine from the neighborhood.  These have been some of the best meals I have ever had! The quality of these items are simply unmatched at home.

The Pyramid at The Louvre

Since I leave on Sunday, I decided it was time to get myself some delicious French macarons as well as some French chocolates!

Flowers! I missed flowers!

There is a place quite close to my hotel that is famous not only for it's delicious catering, but for it's delicious sweets.  As soon as I finished up my dinner, I checked online to see what time it would open on Saturday.  I then noticed that it was closed Saturdays, and actually closed in less than an hour! So I raced on over there!

Venus de Milo at The Louvre

Lenotre is absolutely amazing! The sweets and treats that they have are breathtaking. (And another bonus? The girl behind the counter spoke English, so she was able to give me a great review of the desserts!).  Both the chocolates and macarons looked so good, I had trouble picking!

Here is the bag holding some of the most amazing desserts...

And here is what was inside! Clearly I couldn't choose, so I got a little bit of everything to take home. :)

I also got myself a dessert for the evening! Yum, the quality of chocolate here is outstanding!

This box of macarons seems too good to be true doesn't it?

And the box of milk chocolate desserts...

Oh, and the box of chocolate ganache-based desserts too!

I still can't get over how perfect these macarons are! That's it, I am officially going to attempt to make French macarons when I get home. (OK, let's be realistic, multiple attempts will be needed. But they will be totally worth it.)

I decided to try each of the macarons, along with my dessert. You know, just a light snack for the evening :)

The macaron flavours from left-to-right (below) are: Coffee, Pistachio, Chocolate, Strawberry, and Vanilla Bean.

The chocolate dessert is a wonderful mix of dark chocolate and ganache. Amazing!! And yes, that is 24-carat gold leaf glinting on the chocolate dessert. On the dessert!

You can kind of see the amazing fillings in each of the macarons in this picture (below). I do apologize for the lighting, but there was no way I was going to be able to wait until the morning for these pictures!

These were even better than expected! Paired with some amazing French wine, and it was the perfect end to a wonderful week!

If you are ever in Paris, I definitely recommend stopping by Lenotre! It is delicious!

I hope everyone has an absolutely wonderful weekend!