There are certain memories that feel like they belong to someone else. Memories so distant you can’t be sure if they really happened or if they’re merely a construction of your imagination, created to fill a void.
When I was a kid, my family and I would spend summers in Avalon, NJ (far from being Biarritz, I admit). I can barely remember what it looked like, where we stayed or how much trouble I might have gotten myself into but I do remember the danishes.
Before I ever introduced my taste buds to croissants they knew cheese danishes. If memory serves me correctly, my father and I would head to the local (and perhaps sole) bakery to pick up a bagful of varied danishes for breakfast- cheese, fruit, or the cinnamon snegle, Danish for snails. We even braved the early morning torrential rain showers to retrieve them.
By the time we sprinted to and from the bakery, we deserved those pastries. The second we walked in the door of our seaside home, I would snatch the cheese danish out of the bag followed by a second round with a snegle. No surprise, then, that one of the French pastries I most enjoy today…
