Gallette des rois (I think) and the dentist

[N.B.: this is a little out of order; the previous post had the menu for the Friday night dinner]

January 12
Things are fine here - Sharif is in FL for the weekend giving a talk, and I am on my own. I went driving around Paris yesterday. Literally ''around'' to get my bearings and revive my French driving skills. Actually it is very easy to drive here, once you know their customs (people on the right ALWAYS have the right-of-way) and they have lots of little traffic circles, which they call camemberts after the little rounds of cheese These make life a lot easier - as long as you keep eyes right!I am going to drive to the other side of town tonight to see my old French friends, who are leaving for Egypt tomorrow. I did a dry run yesterday to see how to get there, and it was pretty easy. On the way back, I took the boulevard perepherique, which is a beltway that runs all around the city proper, just within the city limits. All very rational. They have very informative LED signs above all the major freeways, telling you how many minutes to the next major intersection, and alerting you to accidents.

January 14
Dinner on Friday concluded with the gallette des rois - or king's cake. This is a large, round pastry made out of croissant dough, in which is hidden a little figurine or two. This is an old 12th night tradition (Epiphany), celebrating the visit of the Magi. This is when it was traditional to give gifts (like the Magi), and the poor, whio had nothing to give, made these simple cakes to give to friends. Spain and Mexico have very similar traditions (tres reyes), and it has survived in France as a delight to children. The cakes are sold with a paper crown, and whoever finds the figurine(s) gets to wear the crown. There was something similar in England, preserved among some Episcopalians, in which a sweet cake was baked with a ring in it, and whoever found the ring had to bake the cake next year. As Jean-loup observed, "it's good for dentists."

And speaking of denstists, as soon as I got here (before the gallette des rois) I broke a tooth (it was ready to go: I broke it on a crust of French bread!) Since I could feel it when I sucked air, I thought I had better have it seen to. Sharif's dentist is a New Zealander expat. Here's how it goes with dentists in France. You call, and if he can't see you today, he can tomorrow. When you get there, the receptionist asks whether or not you have an appointment. Apparently, you don't really have to have an appointment, if you are willing to wait. I had an appointment, and I had to wait less than five minutes. Then you go into a room with a desk, computer, files, and medical cupboards and a dentist chair. The old-fashioned kind with a porcelaine spitoon on the left - just like I remember from childhood. In fact the whole thing was very much like my childhood experience of dentistry: one dentist, one assistant, and somebody out front, who serves as appointments secretary top a number of professionals on the same floor, who share a witing room. I was out in 15 minutes, and the installation of the temporary cap cost 30 euros ($39), which I delivered in cash into the hand of the dentist. This was so cheap that I am seriously considering having him do the whole crown, as long as I'm here. It would have taken at least a week to get an appointment at my denstist at home, and cost almost three times as much.

Jean-loup and I are planning an excursion to Normandy, Mont St. Michel, and Brittany in a couple of weeks. Just five days, but J-l wants to see an old friend in Normandy (a peasant woman, whom he befriended in their hamlet). I once helped him make hay for her husband. M. Denis is the one who makes cider with an old press, which J-l says is the twin of one in the museum of rural antiquities in Valogne (nearby). It is at least five hundred years old. When we arrived early in the morning, he gave us coffee and calvados (apple brandy). Then we went to work. Everything is on a smaller scale here: the tractor, the field, the hay-wagon, the bales themselves (about 25 pounds as opposed to 40 in America). This made it a piece of cake. It also required many trips back to the barn. Each time, we had to drink a nice big glass of cider. M. Denis died of alcoholism about 15 years ago. Mme. Denis lives on in the same old stone farmhouse, about as old as the cider press.

Then we will go to Mont St. Michel, which will soon be inaccessible to cars. (They're going to bust up the old causeway, which is causing sediment problems. The place is now a UNESCO treasure of humanity and they want to keep it an island. Good idea. J-l likes to visit it once a year. Then we will go on up the north coast of the Bretagne penninsula, stopping at St. Malo (Louis XIV fortified town in the English Channel) and Brest - France's western-most harbor, which J-l says is very beautiful, and then back along the south coast to Nantes, at the mouth of the Loire, where J-l wants to look for property.