Ladurée

Occasionally we all need special treats.  And occasionally we disguise these special treats as gifts for our dearest friends and family.  I'm guilty of doing this on multiple occasions - once I got one of my best friends to come with me to see Julius Caesar at the ART (and the academic dean saw us there with his wife and thought we were dating, but that's a story for another time) and another time I took Ursula to Ladurée and another time (today) I took Caleb to the same place.
For those of you who haven't been, Ladurée is a haven of green-and-gold Parisian opulence on the Champs-Élysées with delicious tea and macarons.  As my darling brother is a bit of a connoisseur about his tea, it's a pretty good place to take him.  And, since we don't hang out just us as often as we should, his birthday present/special occasion/present to me is always a good time to do so.  It was lovely to see my brother make a face of amazed happiness as he bit into an orange-flower macaron and another of mock-outrage when a woman answered her cellphone and proceeded to have a loud conversation (in English) while having tea with someone else.  And it was really nice to walk with him there and back and just talk.  We talked about everything - books we had both read, how we're not ready to go back to America, our first memories of houses and places we'd been.  I highly, highly recommend Ladurée as a place to "take someone out" to talk and drink good tea and eat delicious pastries in a Belle Époque setting.
Thank you so much, Caleb!  We should go again soon...
(photo from here)