That’s the word that comes to my mind when I see a tray of macarons.  Cloying.  Not delicious or elegant or French. Why do so many Americans and Japanese think “le macaron” is theParisian dessert?  I’m not sure about the Japanese, but I know where Americans — especially American women — get that idea: from “Sex and the City.”  From the pages of American Vogue and Gourmet and just about every other magazine I thumb through whenever I’m back in the U.S.  If the editors have decided to do a piece on Paris, or on French desserts, we are bound to read about the virtues of les macarons.

I get a craving to go to the original Ladurée, that jewel box of a pâtisserie on the corner of Rue Royale and Rue Saint-Honoré.  Once we get through the doorway, which is inevitably blocked by a mob of tourists and aging Parisians, we will be served either by a charming waiter in a heavily used suit or by a grumpy middle-aged waitress who, via her perma-grimace and rough movements (she drops, rather than sets, everything on the table) lets us know that she would rather be home with her family than serving us.

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