Dining with a French pastry chef

Last year when, with a heavy heart, I left my wonderful job to come out to Europe I discovered that two of my colleagues were also leaving at about the same time to take up residence across the Atlantic too. One went to our parent company in Basel and my friend, Chef, went to Paris to attend culinary school. Her story was particularly remarkable, because both her and her husband left good paying jobs at our company (at the time ranked the #1 company to work for in the US) to head to a country where they not only knew no one, but also had no jobs, and did not speak the language of the school she would be attending. Very brave indeed.

We were in contact in the beginning, but as these things go, several months went by and I realized I hadn't talked to them in a while. So I sent an e-mail and found out that she had completed the program and her stage (internship) and was now a full fledged French pastry chef! The bad news was they were planning on moving back to California in less than two weeks!!!

We made plans and I hopped a train for Paris. I got to tour their cute little Parisian flat and the three of us ate at a scrumptious neighborhood restaurant. We were chatting, laughing and swapping stories until we noticed that we were the last customers in the place. We had no idea it was after 1:00 in the morning! We had been there for almost 5 hours! It was one of the best meals I have ever had... there is nothing like catching up with old friends! :)