not that film industry—on the production side of some big studio flicks, my heart was never truly in the work. Unfortunately, that was all I did: work. Though I was making good money, meeting interesting people, and found the work to be challenging, I had no free time to pursue any of my interests.
I didn’t mean to take up guitar or learn Russian or anything like that, but time and again I found myself thinking: What good is making money if you don’t have time to enjoy it? So after a couple of years, at an opportune moment, I quit.
That was it, I just up and quit. Granted, I had more of a plan than that, but my plan did not extend beyond a few months. If I really stretched things, I figured I had the savings to live on for a little less than a year, but I didn’t want to go back to the daily grind anytime soon, so I quickly started casting about for an alternative career.
As luck would have it, I met a food writer while I was out one night, and he indulgently gave me some helpful hints about how to start freelancing. Before that evening, if you had asked me whether I would have ever thought I’d be employed as a restaurant reviewer, I probably would have laughed in your face. I had always been interested in food, and loved eating out, but until I really started to think about it, I never thought I was qualified.
Turns out that if you are a good writer, curious about food and restaurants, and are driven, you can be a food writer. I was all those things, and on top of it, I started cataloging all the fine restaurants I’d eaten in around the city and figured out that I had an excellent base of reference for becoming a restaurant critic.
Once I started thinking this way, I found out I could write about just about anything, especially once I got a few sample clips published. The more I wrote, the more writing work I got. Editors seemed to appreciate the way I punctually met deadlines, my fastidious research, the fresh angles I took, and the genuine passion I had for the work.
Before long, I was pretty much fully employed, though I made my own hours, worked from home, and got to spend my days wandering the city in search of the best places to eat. Not only that, but I also got to travel and write about my experiences. It also gave me a good excuse to eat at really nice places while on the road. For research purposes, of course. Life was good.
Most important, however, was keeping up-to-date on the food scene in Los Angeles, since that was my bread-basket, so to speak. Whenever I heard about a new restaurant, bar, or café, I hastened to try it, hoping to get a review up before the competition.
That was why one day when I was strolling through my neighborhood doing my errands, I was interested to notice a new pâtisserie right near my dry cleaner. I had been traveling a lot, so I had not even noticed that the place had been under renovation. The sign said: PIERRE’S PÂTISSERIE.
That was a little too cute for my taste, but I decided to pop in anyway, and I had to concede that the baking smells that were wafting from the door were incredible. The places smelled like heaven. Buttery, pain au chocolat heaven.
I dreamily walked in the door prepared to order up a pastry from the shelves and shelves of golden croissants, colorful petits fours, and assorted bonbons, but no one was in sight. “This is a fine way to run a business!” I thought.
I hungrily wandered the bakery, looking at all the different goodies; then I noticed that there was a little doorman’s bell on the counter. So, not knowing what else to do, I rang it, fully expecting some grandmotherly type woman to come flouncing in from the backroom.
Imagine my surprise when the person who came from the kitchen was actually a scrappy young man in his late twenties with dark, spiky hair, smoldering brown eyes, an earring, and tattoos winding their way up his sinewy forearms. He gave me a little smirk, which was funny because he was the one with some flour smudged on his face.
Then he asked, “May I ’elp you?”
Hearing his accent, I realized he was French. I picked my jaw up off the ground and answered him in his mother tongue, saying, “Yes, I was wondering what you’ve just baked, I’d like to take home the freshest product.”
He smiled at me, saying still in French, “Ah, you speak French?”
“A little bit,” I modestly replied. “I have spent a lot of time in Paris.”
“That is where I did most of my stage when I trained to be a chef,” he told me. Then he introduced himself. “I am Pierre.”
“Ah!” I exclaimed. “So this is your pâtisserie?”
“That is correct. I am a chef, but I was always most interested in being a baker like my grandfather. I came to California to work, but wanted to start my own business.”
“Well, it looks wonderful,” I told him. “Where in France are you from?”
“A town called Aix,” he told me. “Do you know it?”
I had indeed spent a little time in Aix. It is in the southeast of the country in Provence and is known for its fields of lavender that thrive in the sunny Mediterranean climate. Hearing he was from Aix also made me smile, because the city is known for a particular pastry.
“You’re from Aix?” I repeated. “Then I would love to try some of your calissons.”
Hearing me say that, Pierre positively lit up. His huge smile completely transformed his smirking, mischievous face into that of an excited little boy.
“You know of calissons!” he exclaimed, completely surprised.
These special treats are tiny sugar cookies trimmed with pine nuts, and have been a specialty of the pâtissiers of Aix-en-Provence since the Middle Ages.
Suddenly, Pierre was my new best friend. He invited me behind the counter and started to ply me with the treats of his trade.
There were chaussons aux pommes with flaky buttery shells surrounding fresh-picked apples swimming in cinnamon. The fruit tarts were made with the most colorful berries I had ever seen. There were fluffy meringues, nutty dacquoises, dark chocolate ganaches, creamy financiers, and utterly delicate napoleons. My favorite, as Pierre soon figured out, were the cream-filled éclairs that he had made with a variety of glazes. He made me try the chocolate, the mocha, the caramel, the maple, and his own homemade buttercream.
I was going to go into a sugar coma, but I couldn’t get enough of Pierre or his pastries. He would dip his finger into an éclair’s creamy center and make me taste it. When I didn’t suck all the cream off his finger, he would finish the job himself, giving me an impish little grin as he cleaned his finger with his tongue.
Each pastry was more delicious than the last, and I made sure to sing Pierre’s praises. Everything was so delicate and decadent, yet simply made from the freshest ingredients. I made a mental note of what I was tasting so that I could write about it later.
The rest of my concentration, however, was taken up by checking out Pierre whenever he wasn’t looking at me. He was definitely French, but not in that annoying, mousy way. He was like a celebrity chef, with real machismo, though with each passing moment and each additional goodie, I could tell that he was gay and that he was definitely into me.
As for me, all I could think about was working off my sugar rush by fucking his brains out. He was my height with a svelte body that was knotted by the muscles he had gained plying his trade. It takes hard work and effort to run a bakery: long hours, hauling ingredients, rigorous mixing, stoking the ovens. His arms were pure muscle, and I could make out the outline of a round little ass through his flour-stained jeans.
I asked him more about himself and learned that he had been in the U.S. a few years. He had been dating another chef, but when their relationship soured, Pierre decided he needed a big change and that it was time to start his own bakery, just like his grandfather had.
I asked him specific questions about his techniques, ingredients, and his culinary background so that he could see I was no common dilettante. My plan must have worked, because after the last éclair, he raised his eyebrows and gave me a searching look.
I looked back at him, questioningly, then