Serendipity, according to the Oxford Dictionary on my iPhone, refers to “the occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way.” The French don’t have a direct translation; but “un heureux hazard nous a réunis” or “a happy chance has brought us together” works just fine. It was pure serendipity—un heureux hasard—that landed us in Mille-feuille, a bakery in New York’s Greenwich Village, last Sunday morning. We were early for a rendezvous with our daughter and decided to have a couple of lattes with our New York Times. It was already very hot and, as we walked toward an espresso bar we knew, we opted to take a shady, tree-lined street. In the distance, we happened to notice a small sign attached to a massive stretch of scaffolding that currently covers the façade of a building that stands in the middle of LaGuardia Place, between Third and Bleeker Streets. In beautiful script, it read “Mille-Feuille.” Mille-feuille translates literally as “a thousand sheets or layers.” More importantly, it refers to an exquisite French pastry. Traditionally rectangular in shape and about 2 x 3.5 inches in size, these beautiful rectangles are composed of three layers of [...]