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american, crepe, europe, expat, foodie, france, french, French cuisine, Girl, holidays, le figaro, le figaro in english, paris, travel, valentine's day
15 Wednesday Feb 2012
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american, crepe, europe, expat, foodie, france, french, French cuisine, Girl, holidays, le figaro, le figaro in english, paris, travel, valentine's day
01 Wednesday Feb 2012
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american, bakery, boulangerie, cake, expat, foreigner, france, French cuisine, galette, Girl, holidays, paris, pastry, tradition, travel
Today, I was walking the work when I glanced in the nearby bakery window. What I saw caught me by surprise. The golden, frangipane-filled galette de rois had been replaced by stacks of fresh crêpes. A sure sign that time was passing (faster than I thought imaginable) and the Epiphany season had officially given way to Mardi Gras season, Fête de Rois was giving way to Chandeleur, or Candlemas, which is tomorrow.
And as the holidays change, the traditional pastries change, too. While the perfectly golden, crusty, almond-y galette de rois is reserved for the Feast of the Kings or Epiphany, which falls in January, February is the time for steaming stacks of crêpes for Chandeleur.
Don’t get me wrong, I am really frickin’ excited about crêpe season. Like, really. But like all of life, like the passage of the seasons and the passage of years, moving on also means giving something up. My short and sweet (very sweet) fling with the galette de rois is over. Until next year.
I have been meaning to write about this uncanny affair all month. Before this January, I had never before had a galette de rois or celebrated the holiday that comes along with it. I have to admit something: I wasn’t excited at first. Because (I know this is blasphemy) but I don’t really like flaky pastries. I know. Here I am in Paris and I don’t like croissants or pain au chocolat. Sorry. And the galette de rois seemed awfully similar.
When one of my best friends was visiting from the US, a Parisian friend (lets call her “my Parisian grandma”) gave us each an enormous slice of the pastry. On her last evening here, we had it with chilled rosé and basically died of pleasure.
My love affair had started. Like the best affairs, it was short, sweet and very intense. At the beginning of January, I had never tasted a galette de rois, now as the month comes to a close, I have to admit that I have eaten it on… one, two, three… seven occasions. And several of those occasions included multiple slices.
There was the late morning slump in the newsroom suddenly brightened when a colleague opened up a bakery box, there were the individual cakes (another gift from my “Parisian grandma”) shared as a late night snack when my sister was here, there was the glamorous lunchtime celebration in a covered courtyard presided over by the head of Le Figaro and accompanied by champagne (it pays to be an intern sometimes) and there was the snowy morning slices with my “adoptive” French family. All of this culminated in a baking lesson where I learned to make the traditional cake with my Parisian grandma, rolling out the thin pastry dough and watching it raise to incredible, golden heights in the oven.
It isn’t just the cake that’s fun… the tradition is fun, too. The cake is cut and the youngest member of the family hides under the table. This got extremely ridiculous considering as I was never in a galette de rois situation with little kids. My French “sister” (age 14) was pretty much the youngest it got. Other times, it was someone in their twenties giving up all dignity in the name of tradition. In any case, as the server picks up each slice, the youngest calls out who will get it from under the table. That is supposed to ensure that is completely up to chance whoever gets the fève hidden inside.
Did I tell you about the fève? The fève is a little lucky figurine baked into the cake. Whoever gets it is supposed to have a lucky year.
My friends admitted to me that they were terrified of getting the fève when they were in elementary school. If you got the fève, you were nominated king (or queen) and… horror of horrors… you had to choose your ruling partner from among your classmates. Basically, you were going to get teased the rest of the year no matter WHO you picked.
This January, I did finally get the fève… but considering how many pieces I had eaten by the end of January, the ratio was pretty good.