Last first dates and wild strawberry sorbet

On the balmy evening before Bastille Day, G. and I went down to the Ile Saint Louis for wild strawberry sorbet. The kids on our street had already acquired their firecrackers - and were squealing with delight as they set them off underneath our windows.

This feels like a special time. Without thinking, G. and I seem to be retracing our steps - visiting our old haunts, craving familiar tastes. We are doing a bit of reliving, turning back the clock to ten years ago, when G. walked me around Paris for the first time.

Our friends are away, our August vacation plans long canceled because of the arrival of the baby. So we are on our own again, like the bubble we lived in those first months together, before I could speak French, when we couldn't get ourselves out of bed before noon, and every tarte au citron and sprinkle of fleur de sel felt like a revelation.

The only ice-cream in Paris worth eating is made by Berthillon. In the true measure of French success, the original Maison Berthillon is closed from mid-July until the end of August - but they sell their wares to restaurants and tearooms throughout Paris, with a cluster of stands on the Ile Saint Louis, the tiny Island of aristocratic mansions and beamed ceilings in the middle of the Seine. We usually go to Pom' Cannelle, which has a strong selection of flavors and is as far as you can get from the tourists flowing out of Notre Dame. The ice-cream is dense and creamy - served in golf-ball sized scoops. You have to be a real purist to order a 'simple' (pronounced samp-le), I usually order a 'double' (doob-le). Menthe (fresh mint), Creole (Rum Raisin) and Nougat Miel (Honey-Nougat) are at the top of my list.


As good as the ice-cream is, it's the sorbets that are Berthillon's real stand-outs. Creature of habit that I am, I almost always order cacao amer - a bitter chocolate sorbet so dark it's closing in on black. My second scoop depends on mood and whimsy: poire (pear), melon, rhubarbe or framboise à la rose (raspberry with a hint of rose). But again, habit often sets in and I go back to my old favorite: fraise des bois (wild strawberry). These gem-like fruits are tiny strawberry grenades - releasing a tart, concentrated flavor that downgrades every other strawberry I've tasted to the level of Bubblicious.

We took our cones, wrapped in a single paper napkin, and walked down the narrow stone steps to the quai - just a few meters above the Seine. We stepped over boys with bongos, waved at the passing Bateaux Mouches. We sat down on the tip of island, our feet dangling over the water. This precious month before the baby is born feels like a 'last first date'. We will never again be entirely alone in the world.

There's a different kind of romance beginning. I know I've been younger, and lighter, and having to pee 26 times a day is no picnic - but I've never been happier.