Orbital Croissants at CNES Dome

Bonjour mes amis, et bienvenue à la Lune! Your intrepid cactus correspondent has completed his lunar food tour at the pièce de résistance: France's CNES Dome, officially designated the "Station Cyrano" (the French have never lacked for poetry). I saved the best for last, and by "best," I mean the only place in the known universe where you can watch a croissant being made in one-sixth gravity while sipping champagne and contemplating your existence. The French have absolutely outdone themselves.

Pâtissier extraordinaire Sophie Duval runs "La Boulangerie Céleste," and she takes her craft with the seriousness of a theoretical physicist approaching the unified field theory. I arrived at 4 AM lunar time (she insisted) to watch the croissant-making process. Sophie explained that butter behaves differently in low gravity—it stays cooler longer, which allows for more folding and longer resting periods. The result is a croissant with 127 layers (she counted) compared to the typical 81 on Earth. Each layer is so thin you can see light through it. When I bit into my first one, flakes floated around me like delicious golden snow. I wept. Sophie nodded approvingly.

The butter they use is from a combined operation with the Italian dome's moon goats, churned using a process that Sophie developed specifically for lunar conditions. She calls it "beurre lunaire" and guards the technique with the ferocity of a dragon guarding gold. The flour is milled from wheat grown in the dome's agricultural sector under very specific light conditions that produce a protein content ideal for laminated doughs. Every variable has been considered. Every detail obsessed over. This is French excellence taken to its logical extreme: perfection, in space.

Beyond croissants, Sophie creates pastries that have made visiting astronauts and cosmonauts openly emotional. The "Éclairs de la Terre"—chocolate éclairs filled with a cream made from eggs laid by lunar-adapted chickens (the Italians have goats, the French have chickens, every dome has its specialty)—feature a choux pastry so light it practically defies physics. The "Tarte Tatin Lunaire" uses apples from an orchard that the French refused to leave behind on Earth, transported sapling by precious sapling over multiple missions. The apples are smaller but more intensely flavored, caramelizing into something that tastes like autumn made manifest.

For my farewell lunch (because a croissant is not a full meal, even on the moon, though I tried to argue otherwise), Sophie prepared "Cassoulet Cosmique"—the traditional Occitan casserole of white beans, sausage, and duck confit, adapted for space with beans grown in pressurized lunar gardens and duck from a small flock kept in a dedicated section of the agricultural dome. The French refused to do space food without duck. I respect this commitment to priorities. The dish had been slow-cooking for three days in a solar-powered oven and had achieved a level of unctuous richness that I would cross 238,900 miles to taste again.

As I prepared to leave the CNES Dome (and the moon), Sophie pressed a box of croissants into my arms—vacuum-sealed, she assured me, and designed to survive re-entry. She told me that French cuisine exists to bring joy, whether you're in a Parisian bistro or a pressurized dome on the lunar surface. Food is memory, culture, love—portable things that humans carry wherever they go. I thanked her, promised to return, and bounced my way back to the shuttle dock, carrying pastries that had witnessed the Earthrise. My lunar food tour was complete, but its flavors will stay with me forever. Until the next adventure—au revoir from your favorite cosmic cactus! 🌵🥐🌙