Letter from Paris: Pastries

Photos by Hélène

     My suggestion last week that EGD Paris bureau chief Jack Clark consider exploring pastries was poorly received by some readers, who claimed that it was bad form of me to tell a writer as skilled as Jack (to see his oeuvre, go to  jackclarkbooks.com) what to do. Perhaps. Though I thought of it more as a gentle hint, part of the push and pull that goes on at any publication. Either way, Jack took the bait, producing the following mouth-watering account.

     When I first visited Hélène in Paris, our walk to her favorite bakery took us past two others. At the closest bakery, the bread arrived by truck, so I understood why we didn’t stop. The second bakery, only a block away, was popular and often had a line, which I took as a good sign. Hélène refused to give it a try. We’d always cross the street and walk up a bit further to her favorite, which was also a popular and attractive looking place.
     Whenever I went to the bakery by myself, one of the clerks always seemed annoyed to see me coming. It took me years to figure out what that was about and, strangely enough, that revelation happened when I was back in Chicago.
     I thought the clerk’s mood might have something to do with how I ordered. Walking up the street towards the bakery, I would practice what I was about to say. “Bonjour. Une tradition, S'il vous plait,” which translates to “Good morning. A tradition, please.” This is the old-style baguette, which costs slightly more than the standard one.
     The clerk would usually say, “Une?” back. I would say oui or une again and hold up a single finger to confirm that I wanted one. Half the time, she would try to sell me two and we would go through the entire dance again. This went on for years.
      Even when I came with Hélène and she was doing the ordering, the clerk gave me unpleasant glances. She never tried to sell Hélène two loaves, I noticed. The bread was excellent, of course, especially to an American who’d spent half his life eating fingerprint white bread. On the other hand, I knew good bread when I found it. When I was a child my mother had baked her own bread and rolls. There’s nothing better on a winter’s day than a hot roll fresh from the oven with a dab of butter melting inside, and I’ll never forgive some of my siblings for talking my mother into going whole-wheat back in the days of the Whole Earth Catalog. The experiment never took, and she finally gave up baking bread completely. But that, of course, is another story.
     The bread wasn’t the best part of Hélène’s favorite bakery, it was the pastries. Actually, it was one specific pastry, the diplomat, which the French call le gâteau diplomate.     

     The diplomat, a cake made from leftovers, is sold by the slice. The basic recipe is day-old brioche soaked in crème anglaise and then baked. But every bakery does it their own way. Some throw in the old pain au chocolats and croissants as well. Some use raisins or other fruits. Some add sugar. Others a bit or rum or cognac. It’s a rich dessert and too heavy for a standard bakery bag. A slice is usually placed in a white bakery carton. To insure safe passage, I usually keep a hand on the bottom all the way home.
     If there are no leftovers there can be no diplomat. So it was always a special day when we stepped inside and saw one or two behind the glass. The worst days were when someone just ahead of us bought the very last slice. In Chicago, there are Harold’s Chicken murders. On those dark days when the last diplomat disappeared right before my eyes, I’d sometimes wonder if there had been any diplomat murders in Paris’s long history. Or would this be the first?
     Hélène was friendly with the baker and with his wife, who also worked behind the counter. She didn’t seem to have any problem understanding me. In truth, the clerk who did have a problem never bothered me all that much — at least not after I was out the door with our bread and maybe a diplomat or two. I told myself that it probably had nothing to do with me, not really. She might have been jilted by a guy who looked like me or maybe she just hated all Americans (This was during the Obama administration, by the way, in case you’re thinking: of course she did. Who wouldn’t?). Or maybe it was just Americans too dense or too lazy to learn the local language. 

     One night, we were coming home long after the bakeries usually closed. For some reason, ours was still open. So we went in and yes, there were two diplomats in the display case. The baker, a friendly middle-aged guy who spent most of the day down in the basement slaving away, was by himself behind the counter. He and Hélène made small talk and then I carried the heavy box of diplomats the long block home. I think we shared one that night and kept the other for later. That’s how we usually did it. Eating an entire diplomat in one sitting is truly decadent. It might have happened a time or two but usually we managed some restraint.
     The next time we walked by, our favorite bakery was gone. We decided that we’d stopped on the last night and had gotten the last of the diplomats. The baker had stayed late to get rid of what he could before he closed for good. He wouldn’t be using the leftovers to make anything.
     We wondered what had happened, of course. We heard rumors of this and that, marriage, or financial trouble. I’m not sure anymore and rumors are just that. It was tough for Hélène. Losing your favorite bakery in Paris is probably somewhat like losing your favorite saloon in Chicago. There are plenty of others nearby but it will never be the same. She missed the baker and his wife and, of course, we both missed the diplomats.
     We switched to the bakery across the street. It took Hélène awhile to come around but she finally agreed that their traditional was almost as good as the one from our old bakery and she liked their brioche. Their pastries were good too, but not exceptional, and there was no diplomat.
     Back in Chicago, I ran into my friend Francis, who was born in Paris. “Did you figure out the number thing yet?” he asked.
     “I can count,” I said. “But I only go up to sixty-nine. After that, I think you guys are nuts.”
     In French 70 is soixante-dix, in other words 60 plus 10 (the plus is silent). Eighty is quatre-vingt, 4 times 20. Ninety is quatre-vingt-dix, 4 times 20 plus 10.  

     “Couldn’t you guys invent a couple of other words?”
     He ignored me. “You guys are nuts too,” he said. “I’d go to Wrigley Field and the hot dog guy would come by and I’d order two and he’d only send down one. I finally figured it out. I’d hold up my thumb and my index finger and they’d only see the finger. In France the thumb is one. The index finger is two. Here for some stupid reason the index finger is one.”
     “Oh, that explains it,” I said, and I realized why the clerk had a problem with me. I was holding up my index finger which she saw as two while saying one in my incoherent French. She probably didn’t know any English so she couldn’t tell me what I was doing wrong.
     And I was so convinced it had something to do with my accent, pronunciation, or her old boyfriend, that I never considered that it was a completely different language that was causing the problem.
     A few months after his bakery closed, we spotted our old baker in one of the neighborhood cafes having a drink with our new baker and, before long, he was working at the new place. I can’t pretend I knew him. I didn’t. And, like at the old place, he spent most of his time down in the basement with the ovens and the other bakers. But he seemed to have a better time working for a paycheck than he’d had running the show across the street. He really seemed to fit in at the new bakery. The staff obviously liked him. He and Hélène would always say hello and it was clear to everyone that we were two of his old customers.
     We had hopes that his diplomat might appear behind the glass one day but it never did.
     Paris is like any big city, people come and go, and half the time you never know what happened to them. But one of the clerks at the bakery went out of her way to tell us that our old baker had died suddenly after a heart attack. She was clearly heartbroken. We were too.
     Months later, we found another diplomat up the street, in a bakery that was run by a mother and daughter. They were both beautiful women who carried themselves with that regal stature that the French do so well. They weren’t unfriendly. They were cool, not cold, and both had a good sense of humor, and eyes that could suddenly sparkle. You could see that the younger woman would one day look just like her mother, that her mother had once looked just like her.
     Hélène actually liked the new diplomat better than the old one. I was loyal to the old one. Maybe because it had been my first.
     The daughter eventually got married and started a family. She had no interest in taking over the bakery, her mother told Hélène. Soon the bakery was sold — another diplomat bites the dust — and was replaced by a place that doesn’t use sugar. That was all it took for Hélène to write them off our list.
     What Hélène misses even more than the diplomats are the people that came with them, joking with the mother and the daughter, small talk with the old baker down the street. To me, the worst aspect of not speaking French is missing all those tiny interactions with people whose names you might not know, quick exchanges that can sometimes brighten even the dreariest of days.
     There are about a dozen bakeries on the mile-or-so-long street where we do most of our shopping. We’ve tried them all. We still buy our traditions at the place we call our bakery. But we stop here and there for this, that, or the other thing. We’re always on the lookout for another diplomat.
     When we’re out of our neighborhood, we’ll stop at interesting looking bakeries. Even if we don’t see a diplomat, we’ll ask if they make one. Usually the answer is no. But every so often we get a yes. But, of course, with diplomats, it’s always a question of timing. You have to get lucky.
     One day, while I was back in Chicago, Hélène told me that one of the neighborhood bakeries had turned over and the new baker made an excellent chausson aux pommes. This is a staple of French bakeries. It’s their version of an apple turnover. Most of the ones I’ve tried are nothing special. Half the time you’ll find industrial apple sauce or apple puree inside. But a few years before, Hélène had found an excellent one near her job. Sometimes I’d take the 45-minute, two-train morning commute with her, just so we could sit on a bench around the corner from the bakery to have a couple for breakfast. Unlike the typical chausson aux pommes these came crusted with cane sugar but what really made them special was the freshly cooked apples inside. Now Hélène had found one almost as good closer to home — the same sugar-coated crust, the same fresh apples. 
     The bakery has specialties from the Alsace region of France, including kouglops and
bretzels, but they also have the French standards, the pain au chocolat, the croissant, and of course, the chausson aux pommes.
     Hélène was in the bakery recently without me. She spotted an interesting looking pastry. It was dark and heavy looking. “What’s that?” she asked the clerk.
      “It’s. ..“ he said something she couldn’t understand over the lunch rush. His next words were clear. “It’s made with leftover kouglops and cream.”
     “It sounds like a kouglop diplomat,” Helene said.
     “I couldn’t have described it better,” the clerk said.
     Hélène bought a slice and we split it right down the middle. It was different than the other diplomats — that’s always the case — but it was truly excellent, dark and dense, with a rich flavor, heavy from those old cream-soaked kouglops, with a soft texture that felt lighter than pudding. Half was more than satisfying. I was disappointed to hear that Helene had left a few others behind at the bakery. What was she thinking? But we rejoiced. After a couple of bad years, we have a neighborhood diplomat again. But there’s a catch. The bakery usually has lines for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. They seldom have anything left over. “We almost never make them,” the baker told Hélène.
     But we have hope again. We can bide our time and wait for the next huge storm or any halfway-decent national disaster, something that might keep people out of the bakeries and leave some kouglops behind. While the rest of the country is transfixed by scenes of whatever catastrophe has transpired, the same footage running over and over again, we’ll go to bed early, and set the alarm so we’re waiting outside when the bakery opens.
     Even if they don’t have the diplomats we crave, we’ll get the first chausson aux pommes of the morning, with the fresh apple inside still warm from the baker’s oven.
     There’s only one better way to start the day.

Will Chicago happily eat dolmades and drink roditis in Trump Tower?

     In southern Greece, at the foot of Mount Artemisio, is a tiny village called Nestani. About 500 people live there, some still herding goats, as did their fathers and grandfathers before. Above the town, built into the imposing Rock of Goulas, is a monastery, founded in the 13th century. And on the gate of that monastery is an inscription, honoring the women of "Sikago" for their generosity sending money back for renovations.
     Local lore insists that more people born in Nestani live in Chicago than live in the village itself. Many came here over the past century and made a good living.
     One of them is Petros Kogiones, whose Dianna's Opaa was a beloved fixture on Halsted Street from the mid-1970s to the mid-1990s.
     "From every other house somebody came to America, came to Chicago," Kogiones, 89, remembered when I phoned to chat. "Some had coffee shops or candy shops."
     Why did Greeks go into food service?
     "It was the natural thing to do," said Kogiones. "For Greeks, it was the easiest thing. With a lack of language, what else could they do? Wash the dishes. Cooking, like me."
     Dianna's closed 30 years ago. But we are still a city blessed with excellent Greek restaurants. My favorite, Psistaria Greek Taverna on Touhy, is a boisterous room. Lively service. And great food. The chicken spanaki. The center cut pork chops. The green beans.
     Chicago's Greektown was decimated by the twin blows of UIC and expressway expansion. But there are still plenty of Greek eateries on the shred that remained: Greek Islands and Athena and Artopolis Bakery, where I would reverently visit to stock up on melomakarona, those luscious honey cookies, before diabetes made the practice unwise.
     And those are just the old-school places. There are many newer Greek restaurants, like Lyra in Fulton Market and Elia in Bucktown.
     With more coming. In Tuesday's paper, we learned that a La Grange restaurant, Prasino, is opening in the base of Trump Tower.
     Normally, I'd welcome any addition to the Greek restaurant pantheon, particularly one as centrally located as Wabash just north of the river.

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Save candor for people you respect

Scott Pelley
Courtesy CBS News

      Yeah, Scott Pelley is heroic. He's also unemployed, having violated one of the core tenets for long term office survival: "Save candor for people you respect." 
     Why, if the venerable "60 Minutes" reporter felt that his new CBS bosses were "murdering" the popular program, would he lay the accusation out before the culprits responsible for the crime? What was he expecting? His new boss to blink, smack his forehead and say, "My God Scott, you're absolutely right! We are being vile corporate asshats wrecking a half century legacy to curry favor with people who are never going to like us anyway. Thank you for alerting me to just how unqualified I truly am... "
     In the years I worked for David Radler, I never looked him in the eye over lunch and said, "Hey David — you're kind of a crook and a scumbag, aren't you?"  Though I certainly thought it.

     Cowardly? Sure. In war, the brave lead the charge to an early grave, while the timid, bringing up the rear, become generals. Telling off people is like punching them — it looks great, in the movies. In real life, however, you break your hand and end up in court proceedings that stretch out for six years.

     That doesn't mean I didn't try to nudge Radler in certain directions. He was very much pro-whatever-Israel-is-doing-at-the-moment. I remember saying something to him to the effect of, "I was a high school debater. Part of being persuasive is acknowledging what value you can in the other person's argument. You're 110 percent pro-Israel. But if you were only 90 percent, you'd be more effective. For instance, the Palestinians, they're human beings, right? We can agree on that? Can't we?"
     Apparently not. Which returns to the futility of holding a mirror to idiots. They won't see their true reflection, won't see anything they didn't see in their bathroom mirror that morning when they were cooing, "Look at you, you handsome devil. Just the guy to fix '60 Minutes.'" That's why I try to never argue with Trumpers anymore. They built this solid house of a personality, brick by brick, row by row, over their whole lifetime. And I'm endeavoring to put my shoulder to the the thing and topple it in a throw? Never happen.

     So, as much as I believe that the labels "liar, bully, fraud and traitor" are not insults, not rhetoric, but mere dry journalistic descriptions, backed by facts, when referring to Donald Trump, should I find myself actually in the presence of the 47th president, I do not believe I would try to inform him of the fact. What would be the point? 

     What would I say instead? Maybe something that had a shred of a chance to lodge somewhere. "You know, in constantly honoring yourself, you make such honors hollow. A joke, really. Maybe consider pivoting to becoming a good president who respects American traditions the last two years in office. You'll be honored a lot more."

     Nah, even that is giving myself too much credit. I'd probably shake his hand and say, "We met when you were buying the Sun-Times Building. What have you been up to lately?"

Sometimes a fellow just can't avoid going to fancy restaurants

     I don't live in New York City and am neither rich nor a foodie. Yet I've been to four of "The 100 Best Restaurants in NYC/2026" just laid out Sunday by the New York Times.
     And I kinda dig that.
     I hope this isn't pure vanity — there's too much of that going around — but a laudable embrace of enriching life experiences. I don't seek out high-end dining establishments. But, given my circle, they sometimes find me.
     While I realize I'm writing about Manhattan eateries that most Chicagoans can't go to, the truth is that 99% of Times readers won't eat there either. There's a pleasure in reading about grub, or should be. The Sun-Times no longer has a restaurant critic. So I'm happy to step up and fill the void, occasionally.
     The circumstances that placed me inside No. 14 on the Times list, Kono, in Chinatown, are more impressive than the meal itself. My son wanted to thank me for being such a great dad, agreeing to help him pack up his apartment and drive his wife and newborn to Washington, D.C.
     The Times description begins like a Kurosawa movie: "Fire in darkness. This is one of the most seductive dining rooms in town. Chicken, ubiquitous and underestimated, is the focus of the yakitori omakase here, which proceeds from soul-cleansing broth to bronzed skin, pulverized livers, crunchy gizzards and creamy testicles..."
     "Omakase" is Japanese for "you-eat-what-you-get." Nothing as plebian as ordering off a menu. I don't remember any creamy testicles. Maybe the shipment didn't come in. The place served a lot of small food, delivered with a flourish. Dining at Kono is like watching close-up magic tricks where you eat the props.
     The second restaurant, No. 48, abcV, is noteworthy for being inside a ... I wanted to call it a "carpet store," but that's like calling Tiffany's a ring shop. ABC Carpet & Home store on East 19th Street is a place... well, here is how I described it in 2020:
     "New York interior space is given to weird combinations: kitchens with bathtubs in them, living rooms with sleep platforms. abcV is Jean-Georges' vegetarian restaurant inside ABC Carpet, whose prosaic name belies a sprawling pillow and silverware emporium for Manhattan's money set. A large, white room, filled with beautiful people. Friendly, attentive service. None of the pretension radiating off their mission statement: 'Plant based, non GMO, sustainable, artisanal and organic whenever possible. Locally and globally from small & family farms. abcV is here to serve, inform and inspire a cultural shift towards plant based intelligence, through creativity and deliciousness....'"
     And liberals wonder why red staters hate us. ("...every piece of lettuce is flawless," the Times gushes. Really? Every piece? How would they know? Did they check? Maybe they assume that, at $20 for "crunchy gem lettuce," it had better be perfect.)

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'Willie the Wimp and his Cadillac Coffin'

Illustration by Lauren Nassef

     Spencer Leak Jr. passed away at the young age of 56. In their obituary of the scion of the famous South Side funeral home family, my colleagues Violet Miller and Mariah Rush include a few of the high profile funerals A.R. Leak Funeral Home have held, such as for singer Sam Cooke, Rev. Jesse Jackson and drug kingpin William Morris "Flukey" Stokes.

     I had to wonder how many readers, 42 years after the fact, knew just what a wild display of the funerary arts that last send-off truly was. I plunge into it in my 2022 book, "Every Goddamn Day." Honestly, I was reluctant to do so. The man was a drug dealer, his funeral a garish display of the values that killed him. Told haphazardly, I could see it coming back to bite me.

     But it happened on a Feb. 28, and that date needed a story. Context was everything, and I tried to gingerly tell the tale with sympathy and understanding.

Feb. 28, 1984

     “Willie the wimp was buried today,” the song begins. “They laid him to rest in a special way.” 

     Yes, yes they did. 

     White organized crime is celebrated. The Godfather. The Sopranos. Black gangsters, not so much. The glorification of rap, true. But those are Black artists singing about a life they know, in theory. “Willie the Wimp” will be written by a Texan, Bill Carter, who saw the news story and was fascinated. It’ll become a minor hit for blues rocker Stevie Ray Vaughan. 

     “Southside Chicago will think of him often / Talking about Willie the Wimp and his Cadillac coffin.” 

      Maybe the street-level carnage, the tragic effect on ordinary Black lives, is just too great to pretty up. Italian American kids are not being cut down every day in every city by the mafia. Drug dealers like Willie do too much damage, take too many lives. He’s easily, gratefully forgotten. And yet, what a sight he was. 

     “With hundred dollar bills in his fingers tight / He had flowers for wheels and flashing headlights.”           

     The funeral happens today, just as the song says. Willie “the Wimp” Stokes Jr., the 28-year-old son of drug kingpin Flukey Stokes. At the South Side’s A. R. Leak Funeral Home. In a pink suit, propped up behind the wheel of a coffin made to resemble a Cadillac Seville, down to its wire-spoke wheels, and authentic grill, put on at a body shop. The headlights and taillights work. Enormous wide-brimmed gray hat on his head. To some, the effect may be more of a toddler’s play car than anything that would seem elegant to anyone who isn’t high on the drugs he sold. 

     To others, however, there is a pride in the ostentation, a definite respect. Jet magazine gives the funeral three pages and is not critical. It ends pointing out that his mother finds comfort in the send-off. “I think he would have really liked it because that’s the way he was,” she says. “He was flashy and he believed in style.” And this is definitely style, of a certain sort. 

     "He been wishing for wings, no way he was walking / Talking about Willie the Wimp and his Cadillac coffin.”

'So wholesome and so Chicago' — Lakeview couple comes to aid of porchless neighbor

 

Laurel Parks, left, and Stephanie Vasconcellos

     In an ideal world, homeowners with odd-numbered addresses would buy a lawnmower, while those with even numbers would buy a snowblower. They’d pair off and share, halving the cost. In an ideal world, kids from down the block would play in your yard, uninvited. You’d look out your window, see them, and smile.
     Alas, we do not live that world, but this one, with our dibs, our fences, our jealously-guarded possessions and valorized selfishness.
     But occasionally, a glimpse of that ideal world appears. Such as the story of how Laurel Parks ended up sitting on the front porch of Stephanie and Matt Vasconcellos.
     “I’ve honestly been thinking about it for a couple of years,” said Parks. “My plan last year was to put hand-written notes in the mailboxes of people whose porches I like. In West Lakeview there are a lot of nice porches.”
     But not on the “great apartment” where she has lived for 13 years.
     “I love it,” said Parks. “But there is no outdoor space. Just this window. I get home from work, and I’m not ready to cook dinner. I want to be outside, but don’t want to walk. I want to be able to sit comfortably and peruse the internet, maybe drink a beer.”
     Park, 39, an office manager at an investment firm and executive assistant, who moved to Chicago from California in 2009, decided to try something novel.
     “Dear porch-possessing neighbors:" Parks posted April 12 on the “What’s Happening in Lakeview” Facebook page. “May I occasionally borrow your porch? As the weather finally starts to turn, I am once again confronted with the harsh reality that I am porchless. I am humbly requesting the occasional use of a porch, somewhere in West Lakeview, for low stakes activities such as: • Reading fairy smut • Staring at my phone • People watching...”

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And by "meow," I mean, "You're handsome and a good owner..."

     Our dog Kitty can talk. Well, after a fashion. She certainly communicates with me, from morning — about 5:15 a.m., when she appears at my bedside and makes a plaintive growl, which means, unequivocally, "Get the fuck up and take me outside" — to midday, when she fixes me with a probing glare which means, "Where is my goddamn mid-day snack?" To evening, when she assumes what I consider a "significant look," meaning it's time to go outside, again. With various remarks in between. For instance, during a thunderstorm, she hurries to wherever I am, even in the bathroom, and stands very close, which I know means, "I blame you for this: Protect me!"

     At least I've decided it means those things. I would be reluctant to say so with 100 percent certainty. It's not as if I've done a study. And I can't ask her, yet.
     Though people do believe their pets can communicate with them in a variety of unexpected ways. As I learned over Memorial Day weekend, visiting the Naperville home of some longtime friends. In their kitchen, my attention was snagged by four brightly colored hexagons arranged on the floor by the refrigerator, each containing six buttons that, when pressed, utter a recorded phrase in the owner's voice, like "Play!" and "Cat box — stinky" and "Oops, I puked."   

    I demanded: Does your cat really communicate with you through these buttons? They assured me the cat did. Nor are they alone in this belief.

     "Social media is filled with videos showing dogs, cats and parrots learning the meaning of dozens of buttons and pressing them to 'talk' with their people," Robyn Schelenz writes in "Can our pets really say ‘I love you’? Science is finding out" on the University of California web page. "And a few of these chatty animals have become minor celebrities as they seemingly converse, not just about food and walks, but about more complex concepts like love, strangers and time, opening a window, potentially, into what our pets are thinking." 

     Schelenz turns out to be, not a researcher, but with the school's marketing department. Ah.

     Her story does bring up Clever Hans, the famous performing horse that was supposedly communicating, doing math problems and such by clomping its hoof, when it was really being subtly directed by its owner. The possibility exists that owners eager to be in  closer communication with their beloved pets are misinterpreting random presses. Cat boxes are generally stinky. 

     Schelenz cites a study being done by the Comparative Cognition Lab at the University of California's Animal Communication Project.

     "The use of soundboards has the potential to be a powerful tool through which dogs, cats, and other domestic animals might be able to communicate their needs, wants, and internal states to their owners," the project explains, in a post looking for volunteers for a broad national study. "The potential welfare impacts of this technology are powerful: if pets can tell their owners when they feel ill, for example, they might be taken to the vet sooner and treated before their condition becomes severe."

     So the jury is out, as far as I'm concerned. I'm sure it's been brought up before. But do we really want to know what our pets are thinking? Most cats seem to be trying to tell their owners — and generally succeeding, if demeanor is any indication — "Hey, you suck!" 

     Maybe when Kitty delivers her morning whine, what she means to say is, "There is no God!" but I, misreading her intent, take her outside and, being there, she does her business.