food orleans

Remember when I drifted off into a sugar trance a few weeks ago, all gaga over macarons? I've been thinking about them ever since--looking up YouTube videos on how to make them (it's a little more complicated than I was wanting it to be), scouring the Web for recipes (like David Lebovitz's chocolate macarons or this extremely intriguing flavor from Tartelette), and just spending all my regularly allotted daydream minutes on them. So when I just happened to find myself on Magazine Street last Monday, driving through a light summer shower with Paul, I couldn't think of a better place to stretch our legs and spend some money than at Sucre.

I've been seeing Sucre's macarons (and their awesome chocolates) praised in national and local food magazines and on Web sites for the past two years. Like I've said before, I'm not really that big a fan of sweets, but I will spend money on them, and devour them, when they're particularly time-consuming and/or "uh-licious." That's what my grandmother used to call something that tasted too wonderful to describe: uh-licious.

I love the emphasis they put on using high-quality ingredients:

The texture of Sucre's macarons is so interesting and delicate, from the glossy outer layer that crackles ever-so-slightly when you bite into it, to the slightly chewy inner cookie, to the very soft and light filling holding the two cookies together. I've sampled nearly all the flavors now, and I still think that lemon is my favorite. It's like the most elegant and elusive lemon bar possible.

And Sucre's chocolates are a thing of mystery and beauty...I've never tasted any chocolates as serious as these, and I've certainly never seen any decorated more artfully. Some look like marbles, some like mandalas. I doubt that any are less than fantastic--I mean less than uh-licious.