l'heure du goûter.

coucou, bonbons! this is erin from reading my tea leaves, here for a little visit into deb's sweet, sweet world while she digs deep into life in paris.

over the past week or so i've been thinking a lot about what little part of france i most wanted to write about. i finally decided that more than a certain food, or a specific place, my very favorite thing about france is a particular time. so brew a cup of tea, bonbons, and join me for l’heure du goûter.

i suppose if we get technical, the phrase translates to snack time, but if the term is conjuring images of ants-on-a-log or fruit roll-ups, then, as my dad says, we better stop while we're behind. think instead about a cup of hot tea, a bit of toast, a slab of milk chocolate. a table. some chairs. at four o'clock in the afternoon. l’heure du goûter.

ok, so maybe it's something that's really designed for the kiddos. at four o'clock they've just walked home from school and their little bellies need some filling. but for a girl with an insatiable sweet tooth and a constant hankering for a warm cup of something or another, the ritual is pure bliss--a little moment to reflect on the day, to gear up for the evening, to curb my hunger until dinnertime rolls around.

yes, at in four o'clock in the afternoon in france, i have had some of my favorite moments with some of my very favorite women. there is fabienne, who always made a pot of orange pekoe with milk and lump of sugar; valerie, who always prefers tisanes; marie, a lady grey through and through; marie-paule, who always let me choose my own adventure from her collection of triangular-shaped tea bags; the woman at the corner salon de thé in macon, who would tuck crisp nutmeg-flavored cookies underneath my teacup, and rachel, who i could get to sit with me for a little quelque-chose at just about any hour. so many lovely memories, all the result of taking just one little moment, at the end of an afternoon, to just be.

hoping you all have yourselves a real-life goûter this afternoon.

{p.s. for all of those non-frenchy speakers, the -er at the end of the word is pronounced like ay. superfluous information, i know, but i couldn't have you all walking around talking about how much you want to have a "gouter"...it just doesn't have quite the same touch...}. bisous.