Breakfast on our first morning in Paris, March 2012. Croissant, baguette, and hot cocoa.

When we took our 18-day FISH trip a couple years ago (France, Italy, Spain and Holland), we enjoyed some awesome food. I especially indulged in eating croissants in France–sometimes just buttery and flaky ones, other times buttery and flaky ones with chocolate inside. Since going to France, I have yet to enjoy croissants that are as delicious as the ones we ate in Paris. (I mentioned before that Starbucks’ new La Boulange line has some croissants, but they can’t compare.) Elizabeth Bard describes croissants perfectly in her book Lunch in Paris, which my sister-in-law and I made recipes from for our book club months ago.

“I like flake, a croissant with an outer layer so fine and brittle that you get crumbs all over yourself from the first bite. When you pull it apart there should be some empty space, pockets of air between the buttery layers of dough. When you finally do rip off a hunk to dip in your coffee, it stretches a little before it breaks. More crumbs, but utterly worth the mess.“

Ahhhhhhh *drools*….oh yeah…where was I? Oh yes, I was reaching a point about all this croissant-love. After leaving Paris, we headed to Rome, and part of the breakfast served at our hotel was croissants and Nutella. This was my first experience eating Nutella. (I had always mistakenly thought Nutella originated in France–when in actuality it’s from Italy–because when I studied abroad one of my French dorm-mates was constantly eating the stuff. That was the first time I had ever seen or heard of Nutella, so I wrongly assumed Nutella was French. My error was corrected by one of my lovely French friends a couple weeks after we got back from Europe, but when we were in Rome I was like, “Wow, Italians love Nutella, too!”)

Apparently, everyone loves Nutella (and why wouldn’t they!?), because the Nutella-croissant combo was also offered to us at our B&B in Barcelona. I quickly realized that I was developing an unhealthy addiction to the new-to-me breakfast treat, so it was good to return to Japan where Nutella was too pricey to buy regularly.

Believe it or not, I actually never did purchase Nutella–not until I needed some for our bake-off last weekend. In honor of those glorious days in Europe, I decided to whip up some Pillsbury croissants this morning to have with some of the leftover Nutella. Of course the little meal wasn’t the same as what we had on our trip, but it definitely was good enough for a stand-in on a blustery winter morning. I’ll never tell how much I ate.

Do you have any foods that just aren’t the same as ones you had while traveling? What are some breakfasts you enjoyed while on a trip?