M et Mme Massot

There is a heavenly place 4 blocks from my house. It is the bakery of the Massots. They make the best bread. EVER. Flutes (like a baguette but much thinner and smaller and softer crust) with chorizo. Flutes with bacon. Flutes with sharp emmenthal cheese. Hearty loaves with apples, hazelnuts, and raisins. Loaves with goat cheese and herbs. Loaves with pears and roquefort. Leavened baguettes, country baguettes, regular (although nothing about them is regular) baguettes. And my personal favorite, spelt loaf (épautre), more flavorful than wheat flour but not too whole grainy that makes you feel like you're eating rope.

At lunch they set out fougasse, which is kind of like a French foccacia. Topped with feta and grilled tomatoes or bacon and goat cheese. They never sell sandwiches.

And then there's the sweet stuff. Baguette viennoise (which is only like a baguette in its shape - which makes sense because baguette really means wand, as in magic, which this bread is, by the way) with chocolate. Baguette viennoise with nouagtine. (Viennoise bread is kind of like brioche but less butter and more milk.) And of course the standards, pain au chocolat (chocolate croissant), brioche, brioche with chocolate, croissant, and pain au raisin. During the winter they make their own ginger bread loaves. And in the spring, lemon pound cake. On wednesdays, which children have off every week, they make chouquettes. I've talked about these before. Cream puffs without the cream and topped with little bits of rock sugar.

For the past month, M et Mme Massot have been on vacation.

But now they're back.

Made my day.