Quest For The Elusive Macaroon

I did a 5-hour trek today, my feet were begging for mercy after 3 hours or so, but I had pressed on, trudging along in my wooden clogs that did zilch in terms of cushioning my soles. After sussing out my new neighbourhood, which was all uphill and downhill and this neighbourhood will vastly improve my cardiovascular fitness this summer no doubt, I had persevered down further to the posh village of Woollahra (Aboriginal word meaning "camp", "meeting ground" or "sitting down place"), in my bid to find some macaroons.

It seems that macaroons are very in at the moment, from all the foodblogs that I read. Everyone seems to be raving about the ones at some chi-chi specialty shops in Paris and Tokyo. For the life of me, I cannot remember if I've ever tasted them. I think I'm confused between that and meringues which I am pretty sure I've had before. When I was researching online last night, I had found a florist cum cafe in Woollahra which had a review recommending having a plate of macaroons with tea. So that was enough incentive for me to brave the intermittent drizzle which was supposed to last all weekend, to go and find those elusive macaroons.


The shop was there all right, unfortunately, although the signage was still there, the shop was no longer operating. It was a dismal sight. And my feet were killing me. But since I was already there, I decided to check out the other bakeries in the village. Perhaps, just perhaps, someone was selling macaroons. No, no, no. No macaroons.


But lots and lots of cupcakes in hues of baby pink, powder blue, lime green and lemon yellow. Topped with hundreds and thousands, silver balls, chocolate chips and dollops of cream. Cupcakes - that's the other thing that is in right now. At the last birthday surprise at work, instead of the Lindt chocolate cake which has become somewhat of a departmental tradition, we had a box of cupcakes, iced in all different colours, flavours and designs, for the birthday girl. They certainly looked very pretty. However, they didn't taste half as good as they looked.

This is beginning to feel like the quest for the Holy Grail. I've been researching it online for a while, I still haven't set eyes on a macaroon in real life - I am beginning to be convinced that what I have had in the past was meringues and I've never seen, much less tasted a macaroon. Now that I've made this a personal mission, I'm sure when I finally taste one, it's probably not going to taste as good as I've imagined it to be. Bummer.


And since I have no macaroons (photos or divine foodie experience) to share, I am posting some photos of some doors in the neighbourhood that had caught my eye today. It suddenly occurs to me that the different colours are almost reminiscent of the cupcakes. So different but yet so similar.