This newsletter is moving to Paris

And getting a new name!

Paris streetscape, captured on Kodak Portra 400 film

This past Thanksgiving, I turned 38. To celebrate, I asked my boyfriend to reserve two seats at our local floating “social sauna.”

When it opened earlier this year, I became fascinated by this minimalist space: inside, there’s room for the sauna itself and the world’s tiniest coed locker room, but absolutely nothing else. Its owner took a trip to Norway and fell in love with their national obsession; upon his return to the States, he dedicated himself to designing and building a wood-fired sauna, which you can now find bobbing in a harbor on the northeast side of Lake Washington.

My boyfriend agreed to this outing on one condition: that I would jump in the lake with him between sweat sessions. I agreed—then spent the ensuing week dreading the prospect of a cold plunge.

I’d heard about the exhilaration that follows immersion in cold water, especially when it’s preceded by fifteen minutes in a room heated to 195 degrees Fahrenheit.

Still, I was worried I wouldn’t be strong enough to handle the chill. The worst part: I wouldn’t know my own limits until after I’d jumped in.

We walked down the pier as the last bit of late afternoon sunlight glimmered on the surface of Lake Washington. We checked in, selected a locker, stripped off our street clothes, and slipped into the sauna. After two minutes, I learned that my metal water bottle would have to be left outside, because it was already too hot to touch.

The room filled up with sauna aficionados—the regulars wore felt Viking caps for insulation and comic relief—and our chatter and laughter bounced off the walls. The back half of the sauna was stacked with tiered benches; the front was floor-to-ceiling glass. We watched the horizon turn dusty rose and orange as the tiny hourglass on the wall kept track of time, though none of us were in danger of staying too long.

Once I’d discovered thousands of new sweat glands on my body, I knew it was time for my cold plunge. I slipped on Tevas to protect my bare feet from the freezing pier.

The sky was dark now, the water inky blue, and twinkling lights hovered above the shoreline. I stepped gingerly down the slippery ladder, and by the time I reached the final rung, my ankles were submerged. Even then, I wasn’t actually sure I’d go through with it.

One tiny leap of faith later, and I was in.

My boyfriend had taken the more direct route—a cannonball—and he grinned upon hearing my verdict. “It isn’t as bad as I thought,” I said, treading water next to him.

Apparently, I was stronger than I imagined, or reality just paled in comparison to my anxiety. Like everyone said, there really was exhilaration waiting beyond the leap.

I’m remembering that lesson now as I prepare to make another leap next month: moving (temporarily!) to Paris.

If you’ve been reading this newsletter the last few months, maybe—just maybe—that sentence doesn’t seem teleported in from left field.

In September, I started casually Googling “croissant-making classes” in jetlagged fits of insomnia during the trip that got me hooked on breakfast pastries. More recently, my Fridays at Midsommar Bakery answered the question “would I enjoy working in a professional kitchen?” in the affirmative.

But here in Tacoma—the small city south of Seattle where I live—there aren’t any full-time, brick-and-mortar bakeries that make the kinds of pastries I’m hungry to master. All local opportunities for on-the-job learning come with built-in glass ceilings.

So I started researching boulangerie and viennoiserie programs, the technical French terms for “bread baking and breakfast pastries,” and found options in San Francisco and Paris. (The Parisian options were actually more cost-effective per hour of instruction—dreamy, right?)

But despite my daydreaming and thoughtful experimentation, I might not have followed through on applying for baking school—at least not immediately. It was now on my bucket list, sure, but it could have stayed a “maybe next year” or a “maybe before [milestone birthday]” kind of dream.

Then, suddenly, my home life changed: my boyfriend got a job offer he couldn’t refuse…in New Mexico. Fault lines emerged in places I’d hoped were stable.

Amidst the uncertainty, I decided to learn this new trade in earnest while we figured out whether or not I’d be Santa Fe-bound, too. Because if life continued to hand out question marks, Paris seemed as good a place as any to look for answers.

So last month, I committed to the three-month Intensive Professional Program in Bread Baking & Viennoiseries at Ferrandi Paris. It starts in February, with the option to continue with a bakery internship after graduation.

Moving to Paris is such a ubiquitous fantasy, I’m almost sheepish to admit that it’s one I’ve never really shared. (My own living-abroad fantasy has always centered around Istanbul.) Still, I can’t help but find myself inspired by all the food-obsessed women whose lives were changed by their time in France. Julia Child! Judith Jones! Ruth Reichl! Ina Garten! My own grandmother, aunt, and mother! With any luck, I’ll be able to add my name to that list.

On my birthday twenty years ago, I unwrapped a box set of DVDs—all Audrey Hepburn classics—and proceeded to fall in love with Sabrina.

Hepburn plays Sabrina Fairchild, the daughter of a chauffeur, who spends two years in a Parisian cooking school after reaching rock bottom in an unrequited love affair. At the end of her time abroad, Sabrina sends a reflective letter home.

“I have learned so many things, Father—not just how to make vichyssoise or calf’s head with sauce vinaigrette,” she writes, “but a much more important recipe. I have learned how to live, how to be in the world and of the world…and not just to stand aside and watch. And I will never, never again run away from life…or from love, either.”

Later, she tells Humphrey Bogart: “Paris isn’t for changing planes. It’s for changing your outlook.”

Moving to Paris may not be my fantasy, but it is about to become a chapter in the story of my life. And as I write that chapter, you can be sure I’ll find out whether or not Sabrina was right.

If I’ve learned anything during the last two years writing this newsletter, it’s that any concrete plans I make will always be in danger of going up in flames, and I will always be on the cusp of…well, whatever I’m about to become next. In those respects, the first two titles of my newsletter feel just as relevant and evergreen as before.

Still, for the first time since I left my career in financial planning, I feel truly committed to the new professional path I’m walking, and I’d like the name of my newsletter to reflect that.

So, as I head to Paris with two thematically unified directives—bake pastries and eat pastries!—it will be under the banner of a newsletter called Breakfast Club.

As someone who grew up in the same stretch of Chicago’s North Shore as filmmaker John Hughes, it’s a name that feels like home. If I’m being honest, I’m more of a Pretty in Pink gal myself (I mean: that soundtrack!), but I love that Hughes’ Breakfast Club is a celebration of personal growth in the company of others. That’s a theme that will always get airtime here, even when I’m elbow-deep in flour or waxing poetic about croissants and danishes.

Starting next month with my arrival in Paris, each edition of Breakfast Club will provide a peek into my life as an international baking school student (!). If you have burning questions about any part of that experience, let me know—because it’s your curiosity that will help fuel future editions of this newsletter.

The next few weeks will be a hectic flurry of activity ’round these parts: an unexpectedly early wrap-up of my Depth Year project (which planted the seed for my baking obsession!), a mini “farewell to America” tour, and so many administrative and logistical details to tie up before I leave.

On that last note, I’d love to hear from you:

Maybe you began traveling this road with me two years ago, when I started this newsletter after a brutal one-two-three punch of loss. Perhaps you just hopped aboard yesterday.

Either way, I can’t wait to take you along on this next adventure—one that promises to be, without a doubt, the biggest one yet.

Warmly,
Maddie

Breakfast Club is a newsletter about pastries with a side of personal growth, from an ex-financial planner turned baker. If you savored this edition, click the ❤️ (or share with a friend!) to help new readers discover it—and subscribe to get each letter fresh from the oven.