Christmas day lunch

Ok, here it is...our Christmas lunch from this year (After 4 days of celebratory holiday meals with different parts of the family).
Not that I am complaining, but really - don't talk foie gras, oysters or escargot for another year.  Or chocolates, for that matter.

Trois amusettes:  a foie gras crème brulée, oyster in gelée with tobiko,and shrimp with a horseradish mousse

to die for, hands down my favorite part of the meal: duck bisque with foie gras in a phyllo shell

Lobster and ris de veau

Veal with butternut squash purée

cheese I can't remember, comté 18mois, Epoisse, Marc de Bourgogne, apricot, cheese I can't remember

pre-dessert: yuzu smoothie

Orange mousse layer cake with orange sorbet

post-dessert: salted butter caramels, house-made hazelnut marshmallows, chocolates with seeds and candied orange and macarons

Galette de rois

'tis the French season of the 3 kings.

'tis the season to stick the youngest person under the table to shout out who gets the next piece of galette (or in our case - the next piece of couronne des rois briochée).

'tis the season to eat a soft sweet bread covered in rock sugar and apricot glaze with a mini porcelain something (baby jesus? brief case?  sportsman?) baked inside that someone will crack their teeth on... and then get to wear the revered, golden paper crown.

I think the game is fixed.   

The windows and the Tree

So continuing in my Christmas Dictatorship, we went to see the vitrines of the Grands Magasins. 

And here they are...

 

Oh yea! The Tree

Christmas is coming, KB is getting ...

 So 2 years ago I was looking at this gigantic thing.
Unlike the hundreds of other planes I had flown in, this one suddenly seemed too large to fly.
(Because airplanes only carrying 600 people are light as feathers! Logical, I know.)
But double decker with double engines on each wing.  HEAVY!

I actually started sweating.  (Clearly a mental break). And too my utter delight when I sat down, I had my own video screen where I could watch live the feed from the tail camera. I could watch myself go down in flames on my own personal tv screen!  How awesome is that!?

Sadly, I did not go down in flames.  It was actually a brand new plane, silent as a hotel room with really comfortable chairs.  The best flight I've ever had. 
Except for that time when my seat was 1A...

__________________________
 

This year there will be no planes, only food.  Feast 1 at parents, Feast 2 at Aunts, Feast 3 at restaurant with Grandma and the extended family.  This was the menu and food for the latter, circa 2011: 

Did I mention PRE-Dessert?

Followed by POST dessert: a round of coffee/tea and homemade caramel & truffles.

Christmas market fun

So there are lights on the Champs-Elysees.  And there is that big, ridiculous ferris wheel they put up at the end of the Tuileries.  But mostly, Christmas in Paris takes the form of Christmas Markets.

Like their close cousin, the produce market, they are all over Paris and filled with cold sellers rubbing their hands together and selling you expensive things.

Christmas Market at....

...La Defense, the business district.  Otherwise known as "that huge hollow square" you can see from the Arc de Triomphe

Sometimes it is old hat: polished rocks and vegetable choppers/peelers/squeezers.
Sometimes the randomness is exciting: a kit to make your own 3-d greeting cards.

But really - isn't all about the food court?
When we went to Vienna 2 years ago we drank gluwine.
At Parisian markets it seems to be the raclette.

At every corner food stand, next to the 3 gigantic flat pans of cooking onions, sausage and meat, you will find about 5 of these:

thanks to www.domicuisine.be

Yes, that is a half-wheel of cheese.  And that other thing is some sort of heating coil.


After you order, they open you a small baguette and fill it with some very salty ham.  And then they go from heating coil to heating coil, scraping off the warm melted cheese directly into your sandwich.

thanks to www.domicuisine.be

I didn't get one.  But I am a fan of trying things.  And since my friend got one, I had to try it. 
Let me tell you, it was worth it.