Oh, those pastries ...

By RACHEL HUNTER
WATERTOWN TIMES INTERN
SUNDAY, JULY 10, 2011

CAPE VINCENT — Holding a cream puff in his outstretched left hand, Brian M. Sanford yelled for people to take his last pastry.

"I just want someone else to taste it," the Alexandria Bay man said. "The cream puffs were so sweet, and I know that I won't be able to eat the last one before I leave here today. It'll be hard to enjoy the festival if I have to carry around this plastic container."

Mr. Sanford was just one of the thousands beckoned by the sweet smells of 10,400 French pastries and breads at the Cape Vincent Fire Hall on Saturday — the first day of the two-day 43rd annual French Festival. Excited chatter rose as the attendees surrounded three oblong tables filled with a plethora of French desserts, including cream puffs, turnovers and cream horns.

"I like to bury my head in the sweets right after I buy them," said Lucille M. Danilowicz, Cape Vincent. "I have a really, really large sweet tooth that needs to be satisfied. I am already a sweet person, but I like to devour sweet desserts as well."

Wiping cream from the corner of her mouth, Brenda L. Schultes, Sackets Harbor, said she arrived in the early morning eager to sample the pastries available.

"They're really the reason my daughter and I come every year," she said between bites of her chocolate cream puff. "The pastries are always so delicious and the filling is amazing. All the pastries go really fast each year, and I wanted to make sure to get some."

Brownville resident Sandra D. Delong said that the desserts were perfect, and that she realized only afterward that something was missing.

"They really needed to have milk available," she said. "People really want a glass of cold milk at the end, but it didn't matter in the end. The pastries are always the best part of the festival, and I've got pretty much all that I came for — my French bread and desserts. Now I can go to the vendors and watch the parade without them on my mind."

While many kept their desserts in the provided plastic containers, Cheryl A. and Thomas A. Biebler, Rochester, said they couldn't resist the temptation, savoring each morsel of the delicacies before them.

"The cream horns were so rich that I got a sugar rush just from eating it," Mr. Biebler said. "I don't usually have this much sugar early in the morning. The desserts kind of put me over the edge, but then I probably shouldn't have had that Icee on my way here. Next time I'll know better."