galette des rois recipe – easy and delicious

‘Tis the season of the “kings’ cake” in France…starting on the day of Epiphany (Jan 6) and continuing…well, apparently until the bakers stop selling their ‘galette des rois‘. This year’s research into what this holiday is really about (in the religious sense) brought in the information that the bible doesn’t mention “3″ kings specifically, just “3″ gifts. So the number of ‘wise men’ (or kings) is uncertain. Which is just fine for the galette tradition, where in a season or at a party, the number of kings (or queens) varies greatly. The kids (the 7 year olds) argued this year about whether the person who finds the one ‘feve’ (a porcelain figurine for us) gets to keep the paper crown or has to give it to his/her queen/king, and who keeps the feve? All this became much too confusing last weekend, and thankfully, the 5-year-olds saved the day by initiating a pass-the-crown sharing game, and we all just ate the lovely galette.

What we know for certain, however, is that the PRICE of these galettes at the local boulangerie is always shocking relative to the size, and we’re always left craving just a bit more of that luscious, fatty, lovely almond filling. So

an exquisite corpse

Here’s the exquisite corpse we all made up two years ago on Halloween night while sitting around the fireplace at a friend’s country house. The authors include 2 six-year-olds and 5 adults.

Aujourd’hui je suis en vacances. Halloween is tomorrow — and I like its spookiness. Once when I was young, my friends took me to a cemetery on Halloween night. And there, I felt a chill wind on my neck, and I saw a scary sight. The sun had set, but the only color in the sky was red, plus a black bat winged its way towards the window in the old stone north tower. And guess who lived in the tower? You’re right! It was the shaggle-tooth, green-haired frog princess. And she obviously had grown younger since I saw her last, and she was a more luminous shade of green. We thought she was really funny with shining green … especially how the tip of her nose blinked on and off … when she lied. And the lie she was telling me now was a doozy: She told me that her friend got married and the cake was poison! I was shocked and wondered if the bride ate the poisoned cake or if she just had a bad tummy ache. Hoping for the former, I brewed her a cup of broth of eye of newt and made her drink it in an ice-cold bath. Suddenly, she had an inspiration that saved her from this fate: She would cross her toes, blow her nose, sing a song of sixpence, and finally, blow a kiss to the moon … and then all would be well in the world. –FIN–