Winter in Cesson-Sévigné

Snow in our parking lot.

We haven't traveled since Jimmy and Jenny's visit for several reasons. First, we're going on several longer trips this term than last (one to the UK next week, one across northern France, Belgium, and western Germany over Easter weekend, and a week-long trip to Greece in May) so we need to save our money for those. Second, Lisa has been invited to give a paper at Cambridge University next week so she's been hard at work on that on weekends. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, Europe (as you may have heard) has been suffering through an awful cold spell since January 25th. It stays below freezing most of the day and it's been rather windy much of the time, too. The newspaper last week said it's the worst cold snap in France since 1985 (although it's unclear how they calculate worst - coldest? longest-lasting? affecting the most people?). Last Monday, France set a new record for the most one-day electricity consumption because most people in France have electric heat, not gas heat as in the US. We even had a couple inches of snow the first weekend of February! So all of this has reduced our desire to leave our house and travel on weekends. Fortunately, though, this sub-freezing weather seems to be ending and we should be warming up nicely this week.

Our Saturday market runs year-round, despite the cold. Some of the vendors we got used to seeing in the fall are no longer there, like some people that only sell tomatoes. Most of the produce is now shipped in from Spain and southern France, but the apples we buy are still local and the cheese, meat, and seafood vendors aren't affected by the season much so they're all there. I think we're becoming regulars at many of these places. The cheese vendor actually asked us "How's it going" this week and her husband said good-bye to us when we left, even though he was helping another customer, neither of which have ever happened before. The couple from whom we buy free-range eggs also chatted a bit with us, too, asking us to compare the weather in France with the weather in the US (they learned we were American on one of our first ventures to the market last fall). It's sort of nice to be able to establish something of a rapport with our food-sellers.

Lisa's former student, Nathan, came back for a brief visit at the start of the month. His study-abroad program in Dijon ended so he was traveling around France for a bit before going back to the US. He stayed with us for a Sunday night, went to Mont Saint-Michel the next day to spend the night there, returned to our house on Tuesday, spent the night, then got up very early Wednesday to get a train to Paris for his flight home. I didn't get to spend very much time with him, but I was very glad to meet him and I'm glad we could provide a free place to stay around his visit to Mont Saint-Michel.

We've also gotten to spend time with some American Mormon missionaries whose church is about a mile down the road from our house. Two of them overheard Lisa speaking English on the bus during Nathan's first visit, introduced themselves, and then invited her to their weekly Wednesday night ping-pong games at their church. We've gone a couple of times. They're very friendly people and they promised not to try to convert us. It's actually sort of nice to spend time with some very committed Americans and I think they enjoy being able to speak English to other Americans, too!

Geneviève serving food, Aaron looking anxious.

The highlight of our time since Jimmy and Jenny's visit, though, was probably the party we were invited to by one of our colleagues, Geneviève, and her husband, Jean-Paul, the last Friday in January. Our fellow American lecteur Andrew also came, as did two other Americans and a French person in our department and two of their partners. Geneviève and Jean-Paul live in a wonderful old house in Rennes near Sainte-Anne, although initially we had some difficulty in finding it and tried to walk into someone else's house first! We began with champagne and appetizers in their ground floor sitting area before adjourning upstairs to the dining room for a dinner of quiche, salad, cheese, fois gras and, of course, wine. The dinner also involved quite a bit of lovely singing from Geneviève and Rémy (the partner of our colleague, Nicolas - the ones who invited us to their country house back in the fall). Todd sang Carmen Ohio and I tried to sing with him before realizing that I don't actually know the words, just the melody!

The galette des rois.

After dinner, though, I tried to play Geneviève's piano, but it was difficult without sheet music and after not having played since last May. Nicolas had also written a quiz game for us to play, which, according to Geneviève, is perfectly in keeping with Nicolas' love of teaching.

The main point of the party, however, was the "galette des rois." This is the French version of the king cake traditionally served around Epiphany in many Catholic countries (and in New Orleans during Carnival). It's a puff pastry with a filling of frangipane and containing a small ceramic favor. Whoever gets

Pour qui, Andrew?

the piece with the favor is declared the king of the party and he or she then wears a paper crown for the rest of the night. To make sure that the pieces are randomly distributed, the youngest person at the table climbs under the table, the server asks, "Pour qui?" ("For whom?", although to me it sort of sounded like, "Porky?"), and the person under the table has to name each of the guests in turn. For our party, this meant that Andrew was the person under the table, which was quite enjoyable to watch! In case you're wondering, Rémy found the favor and was named king. He
promptly declared Nicolas to be queen since they have been together now for nearly twenty years.

King Rémy, showing off the favor to Anthony.

It was quite a fun night of good food, good spirits, lots of laughter, lots of French (some of which I understood), and it was a wonderful way to break up the monotony of these cold winter weekends!