Metro Maps of Paris and Lyon for iPod
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according to apple computers, 42 million ipods have been sold to-date (reported by steve jobs at macworld san francisco last week). that’s a lot of ipods out there. if you have one, particularly an ipod photo or 5th generation video ipod, and you travel a bit, you’ll love these cool subway maps for ipod. there are two ipod subway maps for france to download (paris and lyon) but here’s the complete list of cities available: berlin, germany – bilbao, spain – boston, ma u.s.a. – chicago, il u.s.a. – hong kong – london, england (tata to A to ZED london street atlas ) – los angeles, ca u.s.a. (what? no more need for the thomas guide?) – lyon, france – melbourne, australia – milan, italy – montreal, canada – new york, ny u.s.a. – paris, france – philadelphia, pa u.s.a – salt lake city, ut u.s.a. – san diego, ca u.s.a. – san francisco, ca u.s.a. – seoul, korea – singapore – tokyo, japan – toronto, canada – vancouver, canada – washington dc u.s.a. there will be more cities to download as they become available.
[download your ipod maps here: isubwaymaps]
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French Radio: RadioFG
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in general, i’d have to say that france has some catching up to do (like 25 years!) in the world of broadcasting a wide variety of good music for radio. there are just so many times i can be subjected to listening to “If you leave me now, you’ll take away the biggest part of me oooh, oooh, oooh, oooh, no, baby please don’t go..) maybe it’s a question of budgeting and buying licenses but anyway, those days are over! at least for some people with an internet connection.
fans of house music, garage, hardcore, electro, techno and deep can find amazing music and playlists at paris suburb-based RadioFG. the station offers online streams that accommodate even wimpy, merdique internet connections like mine, as well as high speed broadband. they have two main streams (live radio, chic and underground) keeping it real by in-house and guest djs. in addition to the streams, they house a library of audio and video mixes and playlists. you can also purchase cd’s online.
while i’m talking about french radio stations, here are a few others (internet and non-internet): beur fm – music and culture of maghreb. fréquence JAZZ – jazz from lyon-based internet radio station. radio latina – latin music on 99 fm from paris and on the internet. nrj – pop and top 40. ouirock – rock radio.
[via activeradio and e.orensten]
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Piss Off…I Mean Piss a Lot – You Fat Bellied Pigs!
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are you thinking the same thing i am? (aside from thinking how rude i’ve become for writing a title like that) the “pisse-dru” label was likely created by people that unarguably heavily “tested” the product, but more so, clearly takes the prize for the most blundering marketing idea for this beaujolais wine. before i go further, “pisse-dru” means “piss a lot.” you know, just like beaucoup. don’t some americans say “buckets”? (that would work here.) the label un-whimsically features three extremely unattractive troll-like pot bellied plastered winos staggering about in unabashed bumbling-stumbling fashion. (one of them is even lifting his leg, as if….nevermind) yes, the prize goes to pisse-dru until i come across a ratty tat touille (the non-vegetarian version made with rats) or a caca dru cassoulet or even a fatty liver made by overfeeding and ramming food down a goose’s neck. oh wait a minute…
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where was i? ah, the wine label. did you notice that it is YELLOW? yellow, like…nevermind. i don’t claim to be a marketing expert but i can only imagine father of advertising, david ogilvy turning over in his grave about this product campaign gone insane. the whole concept of the label seems soooo wrong. or is it just me? i can’t seem to get past the eye-catching, bright red letters that spell out the word PISS, can you? and by the looks of things with the shelves being completely stocked, not many, or hopefully no one fell victim to this stuff, which will most likely rot your gut to a point of no return, let alone make you pee a river seine. i wonder; does customer loyalty come into play here? (i’m envisioning all the towns’ winos cutting in line at the cashier) all i know is, it would have to be some wickedly amazing wine to bypass that uninspiring label. of course, you’d have to buy it initially but how would you get past that pee pee yellow? another question: do french people even notice the label? and if so, do they care? WWSGD? hmmmm. come to think of it, maybe this beaujolais for fat urinating alcoholics sells because, as marketing guru, seth godin says, “all marketers are liars” perhaps french consumers know this and enjoy their yellow label wine anyway. so let’s hope it is the case of marketing-itus and the french advertising executives of pisse-dru were indeed lying.
Soupe Nazis i WISH the title was a reference to an episode of seinfeld, but sadly, it isn’t.
there’s a political group in france that is distributing pork soup and ham sandwiches to poor people all across the country, and they are being denounced for racially discrimminating against muslims and jews, who are forbidden to eat pork. now, before you roll zee eyes, listen to this:
- the president of one of these associations was joined by her husband, a former MP for jean-marie le pen’s far-right (fascist) national front party
- the association is close to “le bloc identitaire,” an extreme-right umbrella group, lead by a former leader of “unité radicale,” a neo-Nazi cell
- soulidarieta, an extreme-right group based in nice, which is also a bloc identitaire member, has literature that claims: “Our people face being submerged by a rising black demographic tide,” and announces “the launch of a voluntary social and political action in favour of our most deprived blood brothers.”
- the group’s slogan calls for “solidarity with our european brothers” and “our own kind first before others”
[via the scotsman]
French Video Clips from the 60s & 70s
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i’m so glad i stumbled across this. at you tube, you can check out bibi’s playlist of deliciously kitsch 60s & 70s video clips of popular french singers. you’ll see an almost unrecognizable, young serge gainsbourg, brigitte bardot, jacques brel, michel polnareff, jacques dutronc, francoise hardy and lots of france gall. there’s also a kooky clip of jodie foster singing serge gainsbourg’s “comic strip” (in french) with claude francois here: jodie foster and clo clo! obviously before the fateful bath day that took poor clo clo away from us.
[via we make money not art and bibi's box]
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Lulu Lundi* Chiddes, France 
click here to enlarge the above photo
when passing by this hilly area of burgundy, it was hard to miss the hill, le mont charlet hosting a rather unattractive monument. from afar, we actually thought that it was an antenna for mobile phone access, but as we approached, we realized that it was made out of cement, and of course finally noticed the cross at the top. it turns out that this “antenna” was a monument dedicated to “our lady of supreme forgiveness” aka the virgin mary. the monument was built between 1925 and 1930 by an architect named, “renaud” who was also responsible for launching the particular style of architecture utilizing fortified cement. (i, for one, am grateful that it did not catch on). every year on september 8, people make a pilgrimage to this monument in the village of chiddes to pay homage to the virgin mary and baby jesus.
with a population of nearly 400 inhabitants, the hilltop village of chiddes has more residents than most of the other nearby villages so they actually have their own bakery, post office (open 9am to noon monday through saturday), library, equestrian club, folkloric group and restaurant! yes, this is exciting! make fun of me all you like but so many of these beautiful, quaint villages in france are dying out slowly, which is clearly a shame and extremely disquieting to me. chiddes is definitely worth a visit if you’re ever in the southern morvan region. there are hiking trails for the more active adventurers and there are ancient ruins from the 11th century in chiddes as well, to explore. chiddes also turns out a big andouille festival every year during the first weekend of may. this festival began more than a hundred years ago. no matter how old and traditional this fête is, however, i will not be attending. 
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chiddes was an active area of warfare between the resistance and the german occupation beginning in the summer of 1944. the maquis louis fighting with the resistance was located very close to chiddes in the nearby forest, Fraichots. Around the forest you’ll inevitably run into memorials like this one with the resistance’s symbol, the croix de lorraine (the double cross) commemorating the capitaine louis and his resistance fighters. the resistance used and wore this symbol to be able to distinguish them from the french nazi collaborators (who wore the french flag plus the swastika). the maquis louis played a major role in liberating the territory.
[more about chiddes at the chiddes' website (in french)]
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Lulu Lundi* – every lundi (monday) is dedicated to an adorable boston terrier, lulu – you’ll find photos of lulu in different places around france and travel information posted exclusively each week on www.whytraveltofrance.com
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Weekend Dog Blogging #17! 
some people (usually non-dog people) claim that dogs do not smile. remember lulu in the hay field? Look for yourself here to see a happy smiling dog. today’s photo is no different. the above photo is lulu showing off an ear to ear smile (wait, where are her ears?!) and running around the small village of chiddes, which i’ll post about tomorrow for “lulu lundi” (Lulu Monday).
Weekend Dog Blogging #17 is generously hosted by amazing cook extraordinaire, sweetnicks – visit her food blog and while you’re there check out all of the cute canines posted for this week’s dog blog day. (photos are posted after 9pm eastern u.s. time) thanks, sweetnicks!
Biking in Paris
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paris rando velo is a group of people that meet every friday for a leisurely night ride through the streets of the city of light. everyone is welcome and there is no fee to ride with the group. on fridays, meet at the hotel de ville at 9:30pm. if you’re a weekend rider, meet at 10:30am on the third sunday of the month. don’t have a bike? you can rent one for only 6 euros if you can pick it up before 6pm at the shop, Roue Libre (see their site for details). the rides last approximately two and a half hours and the route is mapped out on their site if you’d like an exact itinerary for a particular ride. **NOTE: please remember to wear a bike helmet.**
is rollerblading more your style? click here to find out about paris blading.
[paris rando velo]
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Hidden Gems in Burgundy: Of Iron Mice and Eccentric Men we’d heard somewhere that there was a funky folk art sculptor in the vicinity of semelay, a tiny village in burgundy. specializing in sculptures made out of iron, cow horns, other metals, nutshells, and found objects, this artisan also creates a series of sculptures of his signature mice. we felt like a bit of exploring, so we were soon off and headed that way, toward semelay. we didn’t have a name, address or phone number but that never matters to us.
after a couple of stops to ask for the sculptor’s house and some directions from locals; directions that sounded like, “drive over those two hills, cross the bridge and make a right at the farm,” we were miraculously getting closer. yes, those directions sound simple enough, right? if you know burgundy, you’ll know that there are many bridges, zillions of hills and farms everywhere. we consequently found ourselves at a few farms then finally found a huge house, reminiscent of the mansion housing norman bates. you know, the scary, huge haunted house from PSYCHO? there were no signs of life. we weren’t sure we’d found the place. deep down, we were hoping it wasn’t the right place…but it was.
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however, we did not regret knocking on his door. from the cold appearance of the norman bates-eque mansion, the artist, jerome champenois, warmly welcomed us into a fun and playful place, his home. i felt like we’d walked on to a movie set that was the real-life version of pinocchio. not only did mr. champenois look exactly like geppetto, pinocchio’s maker, but his home was surrounded by toys and sculptures that were made mostly of metal instead of hand-carved wooden puppets, much like the workshop of geppetto. we spent the next hour or so chatting while he showed us his works. [click here to enlarge photo you'll get a closer look at some of the sculptures and especially the amazing work of a cowboy with lasso. his chaps are made of real cow horns]
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every bit about him and his place was most adorable even down to his own business cards. they may be teeny tiny cards but they are overflowing with personality like his art. even though these are his business cards, at his request, i still had to blur out his information because of what happened when the local television station visited him. apparently, hoards of people came around to his house wanting to buy his sculptures and a lot of people were taking pictures like crazy! (sort of like i was doing inside his house but i did get his permission!) he is a bit eccentric and so things like having a business card and not wanting anyone to know where he is, somehow makes sense. if you saw his gigantic hornet and roach on the living room wall, you probably wouldn’t want to question any of his decisions, either. (remember what happens in pinocchio…)
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though oftentimes not obvious, he does, in fact, want to sell his work! he is thinking about setting up a website to streamline his work process. he says he often receives fax orders at 3am from japan (his mice series are very popular with the japanese) then feels obligated to start working immediately. he already has many sculptures in stock but he also creates custom designs. for now, if you’re around this part of europe, you’ll be able to find his work in various specialty shops all across france.
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i just couldn’t leave dear mr. champenois without a sculpture! it’s really impossible to choose from all the sculptures. but i got this one (click here to enlarge the photo) completely made out of iron, it’s about a 5-inch high sculpted standing mouse holding a typical french shopping basket containing a bottle of wine and a newspaper. it reminds me (in a small way) of the tin man (french mousy version) from the wizard of oz but much more whimsical, and of course…smaller.
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Plum Village and the Art of Mindful Living in France
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it’s a long way from the instant smiles posing next to the eiffel tower, and it’s miles away from the diesel fog fumes that guarantee an all-day pounding headache. you won’t find it anywhere near bursting stores with people packed against each other in human sardine fashion to find the best soldes, nor is it even remotely near the shiny tans of the cote d’azur. in fact, if you go to this place, you may forget that you’re actually somewhere in france.
past the tensed shoulders and anguish deeply embedded in tight chests is a place, another world where “mindful living” takes priority over the superficial, the stuff that shouldn’t matter. it is where the art of living involves awareness through breathing and small, ordinary acts. under the wings and core teachings of the honorable thich nat hanh (writer, zen master, poet, peace and human rights activist) and the permanent buddhist resident monks and nuns, you are one step closer to transforming and healing your psychological state, restoring individual inner peace, which is interconnected with the quest for universal peace.
situated in france’s southwest region of dordogne amidst verdant rolling hills and the prodigious and famous vineyards near saint emilion, is a retreat center called, “plum village” where people from all over the world gather to learn or deepen their practice of mindful living in order to take it back to their daily lives.
as simplistic as the overall premise of mindful living seems, it is far from effortless and some would dare say that they may never achieve the level of mindful living as they would like, in their entire lifetimes. some core ideas for mindful living training involve: Openness, Non-attachment to Views, Freedom of Thought, Awareness of Suffering, Simple, Healthy Living, Dealing with Anger, Dwelling Happily in the Present Moment, Community and Communication, Truthful and Loving Speech, Protecting the Sangha (the practise of understanding and compassion), Right Livelihood, Reverence for Life, Generosity and Right Conduct.
i was first introduced to thich nat hahn while i was visiting a friend in rhinebeck, new york, who, at the time was working at the holistic institute, omega. i waited a while for her there at the omega campus and finally asked someone if i could volunteer to help out while i was waiting for my friend to finish up her work at the institute. i was given the task of greeting the 400 people soon to be arriving for the mindful living workshop given by thich nat hanh. everyone at the institute called him, “thay” (pronounced “tye”) which means “teacher.” the arriving students take a vow of silence for the duration of the mindful living retreat so, although i wasn’t taking the course, i joined several other “greeters” to welcome these students silently with a nod and smile. the herd of people came all at once but it was the quietest arrival of 400 people i would probably ever see in my life. i loved looking at all the different faces of all ages, wanting a more peaceful life and a more peaceful world.
Plum Village
Son Ha Temple
Fontagnane 24240
Puyguilhem, France
Tel.: +(33) 5.53.22.88.89
E-mail: sonha@plumvillage.org
Website: www.plumvillage.org
Related: Buddhist Temples in France
recommended reading of works by thich nat hanh: fragrant leaves (journals 1962-66) – journal entries from America and Vietnam in the ’60s-a portrait of the Zen master as a young man; call me by my true names – is awe-inspiring, one of the most powerful texts on interconnection; anger – we all need to know how to deal with our anger; the miracle of mindfulness – the essential teachings of mindfulness; peace is every step – “Every morning, when we wake up, we have twenty-four brandnew hours to live…”; the art of mindful living – how to bring, love, compassion and inner peace into your daily life; teachings on love – love is more than an emotion; breathe! you are alive – sutra on the full awareness of breathing; zen keys – a guide to zen practice.
[Photo Courtesy of Plum Village Practice Center, France] |
pooxi – online videos
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with mwsf kicking off to a great start yesterday in san francisco with the buzz reaching all the way across the globe to france, i have tech on the mind, i guess. (btw, so far, new hardware on the list: macbook pro and imacs with duel core intel chips) – i am a geeky girl, what can i say.
back to this blog entry! pooxi is a french website that features a huge online video guide and video search engine. the videos are from everywhere and most of the videos will most likely be in english but here’s the place where, if you’re looking for vids in french, they’d be on this website.
[pooxi]
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Podcasts Radio France Tuesday January 10th 2006, 1:37 pm
Filed under:
accessibility and disabilities,
art/culture/design,
cultural differences,
daily life,
environment,
games/software/tech,
language,
news,
people,
politics,
websites
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as if reading all your daily feeds, news, sites and blogs weren’t enough, here’s some more for you – but you can listen to them (in french) on-the-go on your ipod (or other mp3 player) instead of reading them online, or even listening to them while you’re online. radio france now podcasts their shows so you can visit their website and download the programs to conveniently listen to shows on your own schedule. radio france offers a bunch of programs to choose from (topics and themes including philosophy, environment, politics, art, etc.)
while the whole world calls these PODCASTS, france steps out to defy everyone outside “the hexagon” by calling them BALADODIFFUSIONS. (say THAT 10 times as fast as you can)
[radio france podcasts (in french)]
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Lulu Lundi* 
this week’s a short post while i try to recover from a killer french flu i tried to avoid getting, but alas, it was not meant to be. here’s one of my favorite photos of lulu in the beautiful french countryside.
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Lulu Lundi* – every lundi (monday) is dedicated to an adorable boston terrier, lulu – you’ll find photos of lulu in different places around france and travel information posted each week here only at www.whytraveltofrance.com
Sarkozy Poster 
i’m sure this made the rounds but i just found it and had to post it. it’s from a blog, Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité (in french only). it’s a mock UMP campaign poster for the evil nicolas sarkozy (see paris riots and unmasking issues of the paris riots).
translation of poster: help me. i’m an asshole. i’m short and a cuckold but i want to be president in 2007. (thanks for the correction, nana!)
i like it but personally, if it were me making the poster, i’d go much ruder than that…
well. it looks like Ségolène Royal is gaining popularity with 53% thumbs up in the french polls. given the other choices, she just HAS to at least be the lesser of the other evils. let’s hope!
Epiphany Today – Feast of the Kings (and Queens!)
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we couldn’t wait until today to eat a galette du roi, so last tuesday we ate one and i wrote about the french tradition for epiphany. well, it’s epiphany and i remembered to post a picture today of the fève that was inside our galette. it’s a cute hand-painted porcelain fish that is about an inch long. i guess this fish is a quasi religious symbol. in the past, you were more likely to find a porcelain praying mary or church or cross but now, it’s business as usual and bakeries will pick fèves that are more marketably kid-friendly. after this bottom line tradition, bakeries vie for offering the best fèves.
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lulu didn’t REALLY find the fève but she looked the best wearing a crown. surprisingly, she had no interest whatsoever in the galette! it was a rare moment in history when lulu prefers something other than food. miracles DO happen!
we got another galette today.
today’s epiphany is dedicated to weekend dog blogging #16 kindly hosted chez sweetnicks – thanks, sweetnicks! please visit her to see all of the weekend dog bloggers (dogs will be posted after 9pm eastern u.s. time).
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Toxic Oily Beaches Coming to Brittany
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NEWS: two oil tankers (the Happy Bride and the Sigmagas) collided in the port of refinery town, donges, france – in the northwest area of brittany.
60 TONS of FUEL spilled into the sea.
[via Reuters]
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The French Social Model 
we all know how sad and uncomfortable we feel when we see homeless people wearing their live’s hardships on haggard faces; it is nevertheless necessary for the truth to be exposed, no matter how much it hurts, no matter how distressing it is. this is a real problem in france and is worsening exponentially. it’s something that shouldn’t be ignored, and so, with cell phone camera in hand, a new paris-based photoblogger is making a statement about it focusing on the real culprit: the french social model. He says, “these pictures are of the actual france…” Some quotes on the site include:
«The French social model is neither inefficient nor outdated. It has a great ambition which can be expressed simply: permanently to level up. We must keep it. In a way it’s our national genius. It’s a necessity.»
— Jacques Chirac
«If you take the important things in life in society — health policy, the fight against poverty — you see that we are nevertheless in a far better position than the British.»
— Jacques Chirac
«We have a French social model and we want to keep it. And the point is that we cannot accept to leave people out of the society. Exclusion, we cannot accept that. It is not in the French culture. »
— Jacques Chirac
«A No vote would result in globalisation without any constraints. Europe would then become the big market that the Anglo-Saxons dream about, a Europe under US influence, a Europe under Chinese influence.»
— Dominique de Villepin
[see more photos at the french social model (in english and french)]
How to Buy Ground Beef in France – Yes! You Need to Know!
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how could i write about hamburger buns without writing about the hamburger?!? you may think this trivial but i have a recommendation about this issue. instead of buying the prepackaged ground beef in the market, go to the butcher or even the butcher section of the supermarket. this makes the most sense because it’s not only cheaper to do so, it’s also fresher than the packaged version (you don’t really know if you can trust how old packaged ground beef is even with a date stamp) and by law the butcher is required to grind the beef in front of you, ensuring its freshness. i am not sure why this doesn’t apply to pork. (the butcher is allowed to sell you already ground pork). most importantly, you will have less packaging in general, particularly the nasty styrofoam and absorbant (diaper-like) layer, which will go straight to the landfill or incinerators (since they are not recyclable). anyway, after knowing this, there’s no reason for you to ever buy the packaged hamburger meat, is there? |
Invader goes BIG in Paris 
space invader in paris! and it’s big! via one of my favorite sites the wooster collective, a celebration of street art.
Paris Fashion Show Schedules the temporary schedules for fashion shows in paris from january 23 to 25, 2006 are up. collections from: giorgio armani, christian dior, felipe oliveira baptista, anne valerie hash, adeline andre, maurizio galante, valentino, chanel, dominique sirop, christian lacroix, christophe josse, givenchy, franck sorbier, jean-paul gaultier, elie saab. [via modeaparis]
GIANT American Buns that WILL be a reference to my body part if i stay in france and keep up the rate of incessant gluttony. (though for me, it’s more about the pastries in france)
there’s a reason why many french people think americans and american things are not just big, but rather, HUMUNNNNGOOOUUS. ok, admittedly, there is some truth to the meal portions and actual size of some food and other things (and people). try ordering the strawberry cake at gladstone’s (l.a.) or think of the large meal portions at any number of the anytown u.s.a.’s family restaurants. can anyone really finish a complete meal? if i ask my SO what comes to mind if i say, “america” he’ll respond with, “jeeant ahmehreecan peekap tracks” (that’s his failed attempt at a southern accent in america for “giant american pickup trucks”). i personally think of my hometown (l.a.) with all the unnecessary un-space saving suv’s, and the huge malls and stores like super target and (the dreaded) walmart. even ikea is much larger in the u.s. than any of the ikea’s i’ve seen in france or germany. (have you seen the ikea at potomac mills near dc??! let alone that mall!) let’s not forget places like the gigantesque home improvement stores either. the french equivalent: brico-depot or mr. bricolage etc., looks like a mere zit in comparison to the city called, “HOME DEPOT.” (there should be an echo effect here)
american stuff IS big. how could the french think otherwise after watching sensationalistic shows about america, and listening to my sensationalistic stories about america 
and seeng stuff like these GIANT AMERICAN BURGER BUNS and packaging of the like in french markets? it’s so OH SAY CAN YOU SEE!!!!! i mean, even I did a double-take at these buns. they are really big. of course, i bought them and we made a burger that looked like a meatball sandwiched between two pillows. (we couldn’t bring ourselves to eating that much meat just to fit the bun.)
Louis Braille
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if you take a look at google you might notice that the primary colors of the logo has transformed into google braille. that’s because january 4 (1809-1852) is dedicated to louis braille. it’s his birthday; he would have been 197 years old if he were alive today. french national louis braille invented the revolutionary braille writing/reading system for the blind. after an injury to his eyes, by age four he was completely blind. he invented the braille writing system at age 15 (in 1824) but his system wasn’t recognized until 1868, 16 years after his death. his remains are house at the Panthéon in Paris, France. [for the full braille story]
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Art Exhibition in Paris: Ron Mueck
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Melbourne, Australia-born artist, Ron Mueck is currently exhibiting his first solo show of sculptures at the Foundation Cartier de l’art contemporain in Paris.
Presented are five of his startling sculptures of people, and these are larger than life-like; they are disturbingly real and shockingly unreal at the same time. Wild Man pictured to the right is a seated nude man that appears to be agitated and terrified. Like this man, all of Ron Mueck’s sculptures easily let the imaginations of viewers go wild with inventing the scenarios behind the anguished or blissful expressions themselves – a lot like reading personal blogs and grabbing a little glimpse of the private world of a blogger’s life – except with these art works, the stories can go as weird, wild and as far as your creativity can take you.
Foundation Cartier de l’art contemporain
261 bd Raspail, 75014 paris france (metro: Raspail or Denfert-Rochereau, lines 4 and 6), tel: 01 42 18 56 50 – open every day except monday – entrance: 6.50 euros – exhibition runs until february 19, 2006.
[photos from the ron mueck exhibition at flickr] |
La Galette du roi/King Cake for Epiphany 
i wasn’t going to write about this until sunday, which is epiphany – but it’s hard to ignore all of the galettes du roi (king cakes) in the bakeries right now. though i’m not really into religious holidays, i do love to eat (so we got a little galette). the galette du roi is something the french can do really, really well.
epiphany, or the feast of the kings is celebrated in france on the first sunday (after the first saturday) in january. the typical galette du roi is made of buttery, flakey fine pastry layers filled with frangipane, an almond cream paste. this is the cake found in the upper half of the hexagon (aka france). in the south, you’ll also find one filled with a fruit paste and another that is closer to a large donut-shaped brioche crowned with fruited “jewels” (representing the jewels on a king’s crown). baked right inside the cake is a tiny ceramic figurine called a fève (literally meaning a bean, which is what they put in galettes long ago). the person who finds the fève is declared the king (le roi) or the queen (la reine) and gets to wear the paper crown that comes with the galette.
on a symbolic level, the cake can represent fertile ground, the fève is like a seed that grows and brings fruitful harvests for the year to come, overall, bringing good fortune for all, during the entire year. the religious representation is more dedicated to the birth and baptism of jesus, the visit of the wisemen to bethlehem and the introduction of god to mankind.
it’s interesting to note that the tradition of “king cakes” was brought to the united states by the french colonists, and even today, king cakes (with a trinket inside) are eaten to celebrate “twelfth night” or epiphany (all the way through mardi gras) in southwest louisiana, particularly in new orleans, but also in parts of alabama.
If you’re in nice, france, please get your galette du roi (frangipane version) from tabarini: 220, ave de la californie, 06200 nice france – tel: (0)4 93 83 80 58. they’re SOOOOO GOOOOOD there! my SO and i once ate a GIANT galette in one sitting; yes, they’re that good — but no human should ever consume that amount of buttery pastry. we’re pigs, what can i say?
i’ll try to post a photo of the king/or queen this sunday, epiphany and the fève. (if i remember!)
The French Deck of Cards 
bringing up solitaire yesterday reminded me that the cards are different in france. this is what they look like, except not as ugly (these are an unusual set designed to be ugly. though i think they’re more silly than ugly.)
they say that cards were invented in asia long, long ago but the modern deck of cards came from europe (either spain, italy or france) in the 1400s. the cards with the suits are ironically called “french suits” because it’s claimed that the french invented the four suits (hearts/cœurs, spades/piques, clubs/trèfles, and diamonds/carreaux,) and were the first to mass-produce them. apparently, the french discovered that it was cheaper to use stencils instead carved woodcuts to print cards.
essentially, french cards are the same as their u.s. counterparts with the exception of the royal cards, an ace is usually a 1 but called l’as, the king is le roi, queen is la dame and jack is le valet.
the set from the above picture is from a free video poker game called, “ugly poker,” designed by french artists. wanna play? download it here: ugly video poker (MAC) or download ugly video poker (linux). NOTE: FOR MAC & LINUX ONLY (NO PC VERSION).
while we’re on the subject of cards, in france, TAROT is not the same as what the english-speaking world is familiar with: cards being read for divination. the french version of tarot is a card game but using a deck of 78 cards and with the addition of 21 trump cards/atouts, a knight/cavalier, a fool/l’excuse, and 3 cards called oudlers or bouts.
interested in playing french tarot? download: mac version, linux version or windows version (does not work with windows 98)
note: if you have problems or questions with any of the games, please contact the developers directly.
[for more information, see french tarot]
