January can only mean one thing in our household – it’s open season for galette des rois! It seems the limited time availability only fueled my hunger for more, so this addiction is unlikely to go away anytime soon. However, after two seasons of buying small/single portion galette des rois on a nearly daily basis, this year, a change of strategy. We would buy only at the weekends, and fancy galettes des rois are on the table. * happy dance *
A whopping eight galettes des rois had came through our door so far. Well, we started early this year, over the New Year’s long weekend, before Epiphany officially kicked off. It made sense since C&M were staying with us and C loves them as much as I do! We’ve largely stuck to one galette des rois per weekend-day rule, except yesterday when we had a small tasting party with friends; three galettes des rois were served and today we’re having none. It was a “sacrifice” I’d gladly make because it’s a lot more fun to share them :)
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You know what I’m missing this week? Rushing around to grab last minute presents – I’m impressed with my own efficiency in getting all shopping done and delivered – and packing to travel to Ireland come Friday. Otherwise, instead of the cheese, you’d see flutes of pink champagne in the Shelbourne; instead of The Parisianer artworks, you’d see street lightings displaying Nollaig Shona Duit; instead of the kouglof, you’d probably see slices of Bailey’s cheesecake. Nonetheless, exciting time ahead: my very first French Christmas coming right up!
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16 Dec: What a glorious sunset! F was off work today, so we went on a little date in Montmartre. The last time he came up here with me was when we photographed a very snowy Sunday morning in January. We didn’t do too much, just strolling in the neighbourhood, visiting the Sacré-Coeur, peeked about the Christmas market, and then watched the sun set over the City of Light. It sure makes a memorable outing.
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We enter the last month of the year without much fanfare. I have, afterall, been holed up a good bit at home this week, working on finishing up a few courses on Coursera. Many final assignments are due this week, and as we enter into the exam period, a little revision is in order too. I am happy that the courses have so far gone well (bar the little assignment incident last week), and found them rather interesting to boot too.
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25 Nov: On the River Seine, a Lady Liberty stands at the end of the artificial islet of Île aux Cygnes. This sister of the Statue of Liberty in New York stands at 22m, about one-fourth of the statue gifted to America, and they are oriented to face one another across the ocean. I am seeing this more regularly nowadays since it’s located right next to Beaugrenelle, and as we all know, I can’t seem to stay away from M&S Food Hall. She is quite a beauty, isn’t she?
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Final week of holiday and then we’re back in good ol’ Paris. We were lucky to not have suffered too much from jetlag when we flew out to Southeast Asia, courtesy of a 3-hours hotel room rental in KLIA to nap before we headed further south to Bali. We were all adjusted from Day 1 after arrival. Coming back, it’s different. We now find ourselves up at 5am and ready to sleep by 7pm. Good thing we have relatively flexible working hour, since it means starting our work day by a couple of hours earlier than usual (might as well) and therefore ending it slightly earlier too.
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30 Sep: Many many years ago, my friends and I did a geographical survey of the area surrounding this former (reconstructed) Dutch fort, designed in the 17th century to store and to protect the abundant tin supplies in the state. I don’t remember what we wrote, but it was certainly back in an era when I was punching away at a typewriter so we would have a neatly written report. Spaces were left empty on certain pages so we could incorporate tables, charts and photographs. There were just no such thing as instant paragraph editing and constant play with format etc, so we really had to plan ahead on layout to make sure everything was good to go!
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This has been a week of small victories. Getting my carte vitale, progressing positively with my project at work, celebrating the anniversary of my move to Paris, semi-plotting meet-ups with friends who live elsewhere (including Malaysia and Australia!) and pencilling in diary the dates to host them. I love it when things run smoothly. Only one big last administration hurdle for the year looms big – I’m heading to the Préfécture in a few days. Fingers crossed, all will be well.
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4 Mar: One of the busiest day yet. It really was home -> work -> home kind of day, without any time for detour. Luckily F offered to cook dinner and deal with all the washing up. And so you are stucked with a photo from Sunday actually. We took advantage of the free monument visit Sunday and went to the Arc de Triomphe. On our way down, I couldn’t resist taking a pause to grab a couple of photos. Since it was relatively dark, I needed longer exposure time, resulting in the ghost-like moving feet as other visitors walked past me to descend the monument.
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As I’ve promised previously, back to normal transmission. I’m glad that the days are getting longer, but I’m a tad frustrated too that I’m rather busy at work so by the time I’m out of the office, it’s dark outside. There’s a limit to how far I can go without being home too late for dinner either. I must try harder to get more variations!
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28 Jan: The first woman to ever receive a Nobel Prize, Marie Curie was an extraordinary scientist. She won not only one, but a second Nobel, and both in different disciplines (Physics and Chemistry). Her former lab has now been transformed into a small museum and it was also here where her daughter and son-in-law made new discovery that went on to win another Nobel Prize for themselves. The museum is open Wednesday to Saturday in the afternoon from 1pm to 5pm. The admission is free. (I must come back when it’s open one of these days!)
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I am, as the French would say, accro.
Hook, line and sinker. This is what I look forward to in grey and dreary January in France. My little slice of sunshine and happiness. It is not les soldes, but that flaky puff pastry with frangipane filling (or other delicious almond-based fillings) called galette des rois.
Frédéric thus summed it on his FB:
Définition du mois de janvier pour Lilian : une galette des rois chaque jour.
J’ai tenté de la convaincre qu’il n’existe aucune loi qui nous oblige à en manger tous les jours, mais sans succès…
(Definition of the month of January for Lilian: a galette des rois per day. I tried to convince her that there isn’t a law dictating the obligation to eat one daily, but without success…)
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I have a few favourite pastry shops that I inevitably drop by far more often than I should. Or than my bank counsellor would advise. Given there are a good few other great pastry shops aorund town, I definitely must widen my horizon but the problem is, I normally try to not overindulge when it comes to sweets consumption. That leaves the times when I have visitors. Since they can’t eat their way around Paris by pastry only (or can they? hmmmm…) the options get whittle down too quickly and far too easily. It’s always back to the old favourites.
Pierre Hermé
Pierre Hermé should really gives me a carte de fidelité. I live far too conveniently between his only two shops (for now) that sell pastries in Paris, and this year’s continuous launch of macaron of the month had me popping in and out more times than I can count. Reality hits when I could tell the macarons apart nowadays without having to consult the little chart they give and I have an entire set of glasses courtesy of the émotions I’ve eaten… I know, I know, I should lay low on PH for a little while.
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Pierre Hermé has changed its window front again. And I think I may be going round chez Pierre a tad too often, even if I’m just getting a tart or two to share with friends, or stock up on some waffles and chocolate, or to get a small sachet of macarons to snack on. Ah if only they do customer loyalty card – you know, like coffee shops would, where you get a stamp for every purchase – I’m quite sure I’ll be in line to get free goodies very quickly, hehehe.
For anyone who ever consider vanilla as a boring flavour need to be re-educated and it’s just as simple as getting the infiniment vanille tart. The unmistakeable fragrant, perfectly baked tart shell, spongy cake centre and luscious and smooth vanilla cream layer over the top – it is not secret that this is perhaps my favourite pastry, even more than those which are chocolate-based or fruit-based. Ah, even thinking about it now is making me drool… but no, I won’t go back there again this week. In fact, I must not. Someone save me please!
There’s so much to tell today and I don’t know where to start. Or how to keep it short-ish. Just know that it has been a gloriously warm Sunday and I wish everyday is as wonderful as this.
Only one museum visited this morning – Chloé and I went to the Musée des Arts et Métiers where we caught live demonstrations of Pascaline calculator and Faucault’s Pendulum – before our stomach rumbled and we got very lucky to get a table at Breizh Café without reservation. A galette Breton and a sweet crepe each, yum. Sitting outside at the terrace for a bit of a tan while eating delicious brunch – bonus of the day.
That was not all. Today is Jour du Macaron as well, so we made it to Pierre Hermé’s shop near Pasteur (the queue at the shop near St Sulpice was crazy long and we didn’t even try to go there) for some treats. The flavours I picked: fig, sweetbriar and foie gras; white truffle and hazelnut; and “dépaysé” which combined matcha green tea, azuki bean, lime and ginger. Two words to describe them all – flavoursome, delectable.
As the Salon du Livre was also running this weekend, I went over to check it out. Free entry with my Paris public library card – nice! I bought a couple of books, including Dessine-moi un parisien by Olivier Magny (who keeps an entertaining blog of Stuff Parisians Like), which he also kindly autographed. I would have like to stay and chat with him for a bit, but my French was failing me…
The day was capped off with dinner at Chloé’s where the girls and I were served raclette with potato, salad and saucissons. Even though we were stuffed in the end, we incorporated a little twist to dessert, by serving roti bakar, Malaysian style.
I am having the time of my life :D
