Our time is coming to an end here in Paris.   Though we’ve been here for only 7 days it feels much longer as we’ve done so much.  Last night we had a wonderful evening hosted by good friends who also invited other good friends.  Eight of us for dinner — it was quite the evening.  The noise level was quite high — we were all animated — though I’m not sure why.  Maybe everyone was simply happy to be together — a gathering prompted by our surprise visit in the middle of January.  The evening ended with a treat that we brought along — a Gallete des Rois (galette of the kings).  This is a cake/pastry that is traditionally baked on Jan. 6 – Epiphany.  But over time it became not only a cake for that day but for all of January, even starting around Dec. 24.  Thus, as of Feb. 1, one cannot find this in any pastry shop. I knew about the galettes because a French teacher I had in D.C. taught Nancy and I how to make them.  Well — she showed us – I’m not sure we learned.  Thus, walking around on the first day I spotted them in the windows of pastry shops.  Usually they have a paper gold crown atop them.  George and I went early in the day yesterday to get one from a local bakery –and as luck would have it, it was super delicious.

When the Galette is served, a child goes under the table and says the name of a person at the table — that person gets the next piece of the galette.  And so it continues until everyone gets a piece in random order — based on the names the child calls out.  Then, as each person eats the one who finds the charm gets crowned and gets to pick a mate from to also get crowned.  If it is boy who gets the charm, he picks a girl and visa versa.  it is great fun.  And that’s what we did.  No one got under the tale but our hostess covered her eyes and called out the name of the guests in random order.

Since so many of you have said you like the photos of food and comments about them I’m going to include a few more here.  First — George and I made chorag after we learned about the correct flour to use.  Inspired by our nephew Doug, we have now done this twice.  It came out great — and we took some to our friends who had Doug’s chorag when they were in the States.

Above are a few things we won’t try…. a meringue wedding cake and some tarts to die for. I’ve posted some like this before but these were from two days ago.  So amazing…. and soooo delicious.

one very cold rainy afternoon we walked a mile plus to a relatively new development called BeauPassage. They took an old alley way and transformed it into a modern assortment of restaurants and other shops. One of the restaurants is vegetarian and a gin-bar. What better way to spend a rainy afternoon in Paris? The entrance to the passage has a red fantasy tree molded around the walls. We are upstairs – George has a gin and grapefruit cocktail while I stuck with red wine. Dinner? Grilled sardines followed by broiled white fish and fish and chips.

The rice was a take-off in Persian rice–with sweet-sour red berries in it. Very tasty. You’ll note from the menu that the name of the restaurant is MerSea –mer is French for sea.