Attack of the Macs!

As you may might have noticed from my last few posts, I've been on a macaron kick...

I first tasted these back in 2006 when a friend brought some back from Bouchon in Napa.  A few bakeries in San Diego offered them, but only sporadically. Fast forward to 2013 and now macarons are a bit more widespread than they used to be. Of course, some places are better than others....


Never have sweets and pastries looked better than in this clip from Sofia Coppola's, "Marie Antoinette" (which I hated but loved the soundtrack! 80's galore!). If you look closely, you can spot the macarons!

What a waste of a movie. The acting was totally horrible. Although the costumes and food props were beautiful and they had a kickass soundtrack (I loved the mix of ambient music with the 80's (Bow Wow Wow, The Cure, Siouxsie and the Banshees, New Order, Adam Ant, etc), the prettiness was not enough to overcome what was essentially a crappy flick. I mean, Coppola actually filmed in Versailles for Pete's sake!

Now, back to the macs.  You could say that I've had an on and off obsession with them. Currently, it's "on", haha!

About a month and a half ago, I found these at Trader Joe's (the box says, "Trader Jacques", gag). I believe these were either $3.99 or $4.99 for a box of 12. I was excited because the box had multiple flavors. I'd only seen their bigger box of either a dozen chocolate or vanilla macs.

They had six flavors - Cassis, Coffee, Orange, Pistachio, Raspberry and Salted Caramel.

They were in the frozen case and needed to be thawed out for half an hour.

My favorite flavor of the bunch was the salted caramel. The raspberry had some wierd gummy filling which I didn't really enjoy. These were just "okay". They didn't taste as crisp and fresh as one you'd get from a bakery, but if you are looking for variety in flavors and not wishing to spend too much money on macs, this would be the thing to get.

 A recent visit to TJ's the other day revealed that they are no longer selling these, so bummer to that.

Last month, I found out that Sweet Sisters Bakery in downtown Chula Vista started offering macarons.

The flavors were: peanut butter and jelly, raspberry, strawberry, cookies and cream, pistachio, mango, vanilla, and coffee.

A few weeks ago, I visited again to see if they had more new flavors.

They did! They now had passionfruit! I was hoping they'd have the guava flavor the worker was telling me about.

I bought a couple of the passionfruits to enjoy with Bert later that day.

They were wonderful, but not as good as the ones I've had from the macs in the OC or from Bouchon. My utmost favorite is at the end of this post.

Here's a quick recap of the macarons I've had for the past two months.

Bon Epi with Cathy - Irvine

Euro Pane, also with Cathy - Pasadena

Lette with, who else? Cathy! - also in Pasadena

Here's a pair from A Delight of France - Escondido


Michele Coulon Dessertier - La Jolla

Brodard's - Little Saigon

and here they are at home later that evening...plated nicely and without the "doubles" (extras that I bought).

Here are the magnificent macs from ROCQ Cafe - Lake Forest

Hereis Bon Epi once again...just five this time!

Plus Au Coeur de Paris Patisserie - Westminster

Brodard's yet again...

I couldn't help but post this photo again...These were not my macs, but my SIL's. As you can see, she bought an $#@%-load from the four places we went to that day!

I also couldn't resist posting this again...the cute trio of macaron jewelry boxes that were a gift from Cathy...

My favorite macs from San Diego used to be the ones from Big Joy Bakery on Convoy, They have a nice range of flavors but they are priced differently depending on the flavor, which kind of sucks. Sometimes, if you're lucky, you can buy "day olds" for a discounted prices. After having had macs from many other places since trying the one's from Big Joy, these now pale in comparison.

(from my Macs Again post - October 2011)

I also like the macs from Bouchon in New York. I totally splurged on these macs during that trip. I believe I spent about $30 on a dozen. Yikes. These were bigger and were offered in classic flavors (hazelnut, chocolate, pistachio, caramel, etc). I bought these at the Bouchon in Columbus Circle.

(from my "ANMH, Naked Statues & Macarons!" post from our July 2007 NYC trip)

We really liekd the macs from Pix Patisserie in Portland Oregon (this is from the now closed location on Division street). One of the flavors was actually CALAMANSI (the yellow one!), which excited me!

(from my "Portland Day 3 - Pok Pok & Pix Patisserie" post - April 2009)
I love their mac tubes here! One was for me, the other was for Kirbie!

(from my "Pix Patisserie - N. Williams location" post- March 2012)

Maybe one of these days, if I'm crazy and adventurous enough, I'll make my own like Carol did (see her awesome red velvet macarons here). Aaaaah, who am I kidding? I'll never make these! I'm too lazy, ha ha!

Now the best macs I've possibly had were a gift from Kirbie last year. She had just returned from her honeymoon in Paris and brought me back these macarons from famed pastry chef Pierre Herme, aka the "Picasso of Pastry".

If you click on the link above, you can read about the different flavors combinations of the macs. These were so superior to any other macs I've ever tasted. The closest to it I've tasted thus far are the ones from ROCQ Cafe.

Take a gander at this video about Pierre Herme:

It's easy to see why his desserts and macarons are sought after! Now if only I could get my hands on some macarons from Laduree! Actualy, I am hoping my neighbors who are vacationing in Portugal and Paris might bring some back (along with those pasteis de nata!)!

It's a good thing I don't live in Paris, what with patisseries on every street corner? I would go nuts there and probably end up looking like Jabba the Hutt!

There are so many other bakeries that I want to hit up but they are not in San Diego. I'll have to make sure to make a trip up in the near future to explore the OC, LA and also return to Pasadena ('lette and Euro Pane!).