Le Galette Des RoisYesterday was Bon Annee or as my roommate Belinda likes to call it “Appy New Years!” Matthias’ friends decided to put together a dinner party for the occasion. It was a French dinner party, which meant a traditional five-course meal. My roommate bought an Appy New Years dress and Matthias tried to warn me about just how intense these events can get. I am paraphrasing, but it was something along the lines of: “We are going to eat for like four or five hours. We are going to eat a lot of food and drink a lot of Champagne. And then we are going to eat more.” I wasn’t all that worried except for the fact that I was going to be the only vegetarian in attendance. Like many other places, In France, vegetarianism can mean a lot of different things. Some French people say “Je suis vegetarien.” because they do not eat red meat. Fois Gras (the liver of ducks that have been force fed to death) is still fair play. Others believe that being a vegetarian simply means no land animals. They still feast on Christmas oysters without a flinch. I am an ovo-lacto vegetarian. If it has a nervous system, I say “Non, merci.” That means I still have the joy of lapping up thick creamy French milk and slathering kilos of salty French butter on my baguettes. I also enjoy the occasional orange hued French egg and I couldn’t pass a single day without…the cheese!
A few nights before the dinner party, the women who were hosting came by my apartment for a visit and the discussion of being a vegetarian in France came up. That’s when I realized that they thought I was the fruits de mer (seafood) eating kind. Woops! I always feel bad about imposing on people with my special dietary needs and now I had imposed and confused and imposed again. C’est la vie. Luckily the hostesses didn’t seem to mind accommodating for me even further and interestingly enough, brought up the topic of onions in French cuisine. Apparently, one of their friends has an onion allergy and they seemed to be even more perplexed about the idea of preparing a French meal with no onions than about making a few dishes sans le meat. The party ended up being fantastic and the food went a little something like this:
As people were filtering in we drank a fruity spiked punch and nibbled on olives that Belinda and I had picked up earlier in the morning at our favorite marche (farmer’s market.) When I say “we nibbled” I mean, “I devoured.” There were several varieties all mixed in but I was mostly aiming for the basilique flavored ones. Yum.
After taking our places around the table we were served square puff pastries filled with sun-dried tomatoes and melted cheese. When I asked what to call it they told me it was "un briquet" or a brick….but I promise it was much more appetizing than the name implies. Our bricks were accompanied by salad with homemade vinaigrette (to further prove Matthias’ point that I mentioned earlier…nobody buys vinaigrette in France except for stupid Americans.)
White wine flowed like the Seine and my neighbor informed me that it was quite good. I thanked him for telling me because as I admitted to him, I don’t have very good taste in wine so it honestly helped to know.
Next up was the fish course. It was some thin sliced salmon on baguette rounds with a crème fraiche, I believe. I did not partake in the salmon but I was offered a second brick, which I declined in order to save room for…well, cheese.
After the fish came the meat accompanied by the red wine. There was a lovely dish of curried beef and rice. This may not sound very French but Paris is quite culturally diverse and full of really good ethnic cuisine so this wasn’t too out of the ordinary. I had a special bowl of curry reserved for me that was separated before the beef was added. It was delicious and I had coincidentally been craving curry all day.
The fourth course consisted of a platter of huge hunks of three different cheeses. Roquefort, which after putting in my mouth I exclaimed “this is the blue-est blue cheese I’ve ever tasted” comte, and some other creamy goo which I generously slopped onto a ripped off hunk of fresh baguette. I could have entire meals of French cheese. In fact, I often do. A lot of French meals also end with a cheese course. Even Matthias and I do this on a nightly basis with our frugal meal budget. We eat sliced cheese with jam (I’m obsessed with rhubarb which I generally only get a few times a year back in the States when my grandma prepares me my own special bowl and France is overflowing with rhubarb products, including my favorite jam) or honey and a yogurt because as Matthias says “It’s good for your tummy.”
This was not the end however. We still had dessert left! There were three delectable pastries to be had. One was kind of like a small dense muffin with a creamy center of nutella spread. The next was a canele, which is a small, looks like a bundt cake and has a custardy interior. Canele traditionally come from Matthias’ hometown of Bordeaux. He had mentioned them to me before but this was my first time tasting them and they were one of the best baked-goods I’ve ever put into my mouth. The last dessert was the galette des rois, or the King Cake. My roommate had been slaving over two of these all afternoon so luckily I had been filled in already on the history. The galette des rois is a special pastry served around the Epiphany (though in modern France, it is widely available and consumed from the Christmas season throughout January.) It is filled with an almond sugar paste and a small porcelain statue called a feve is baked into it. When the galette is served, the youngest person at the table chooses who gets the first slice. After each person is served, everyone digs in, hoping to find the feve in his or her slice. The person who does find the feve is named king (or queen) and gets to wear a paper crown for the remainder of the evening and has to choose their partner. Belinda announced beforehand that since we are very modern the person who found the feve could choose a partner of the same or opposing sex. I got chosen by the youngest person to receive the first slice of cake but unfortunately someone else got the feve. Since there were two galettes, we actually had two feves to find but nobody could get through their first pieces and the second galette was sliced but not consumed. Being somewhat influenced by the copious amounts of wine, I decided to search for the second feve without consuming and underhandedly stole the title of the second king.
These are the origami crowns that I made for the kings.
One of the feves (next to the tiny vanilla extract bottle.)Midnight was nearly upon us and the Champagne bottles were opened and consumed. It was a bit strange to count down without the aid of a television set or large illuminated dropping ball but the fact that in France you get to kiss each person twice (once on each cheek) had its own sort of charm.
*please excuse the terribly unphotoshopped images.
After taking a post toast nap, we went on an adventure. Our end goal was Le Trocadero for an amazing view on a sunny day. We passed through Parc Monceau on our way. I guess they'd prefer it if you didn't relax or enjoy the beauty of nature surrounding you here. Luckily, there were still some rigorously fenced off paths for us to walk along and lots more signs telling us not to do things.
This thing was also on the way:
and we finally arrived here:
We decided to walk home from downtown and start getting ready for our evening. The only details that I knew where that we were going somewhere to eat. So we got dressed and jumped on the metro to travel to the far south corner of Paris. We arrived at Aquarius and I saw Végéterien printed on the window. Matthias had managed to find an all vegetarian restaurant whose name corresponded to my zodiac sign for my birthday dinner. He deserved like at least 10 points. Oh, but it got better.
We entered Chez Moune which Matthias informed me was the oldest lesbian club in Paris, dating back to the 1930's. We got drinks and Céline's girlfriend met us with some of her friends, one of which was also celebrating her birthday. Through the loud music and huge crowd of people she leaned over and asked me if I liked champagne, as if that was a valid question to ask anyone in France, and I obviously exclaimed, YES! So she had someone bring over an ice bucket with a bottle inside. You can imagine my joy. If not, it looked something like this:
I started by thinly slicing my potatoes, you could also shred yours if you prefer. I almost always leave the peel on when cooking potatoes, but feel free to remove that as well. Next, I got a pie pan and lightly rubbed it with olive oil. I layered my potato "coins" into the oiled pan until it was completely covered. I baked the potato-only crust for about 15 minutes at around 425˚F.
While it was baking, I got out a bowl and cracked an egg into it and whisked in a little bit of milk (which in France means that it was actually half&half.) I then lowered the heat on the oven to about 300˚F and poured the egg/milk mixture onto the crust and let it continue to bake for another 20 minutes while I prepared the fondue.
After the leek seemed like it was melted and broken down with the butter I removed it from the heat and added a few spoonfulls of crème fraîche and some shaved parmesano reggiano as well as cracked pepper. Then I poured the hot fondue onto the freshly baked crust and and Matthias and I devoured it within a few minutes.
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