I went to the bakery yesterday and noticed that a bunch of weird flat cakes had appeared there in my absence. So I purchased one. It came in a special bag, which also included a paper crown. What on earth...? So apparently, this was a galette des rois, a crepe of the kings, which has to do with Epiphany. I found good descriptions of this phenomenon here and here
Epiphany, as you may recall is the day the three kings or wise men made it to see the infant Jesus and gave him gifts. It's also the official end of the Christmas season, according to the calendar of the Catholic church. The wise men told Joseph to get the heck out of Egypt or maybe an angel told him, I forget. Anyway, they took a sneaky route back to his home town while meanwhile, the bad King Herrod had all male children under 2 killed! Ack! Good thing it's all folklore.
The French celebrate this by having these cakes with little toys hidden inside, called fèves. The uses to use fava beans, but not the use funny little figures. Cola found the fève, so she got to be crowned la reine. 
The queen of Epiphany! Huzzah for Cola!
I'm charmed by the huge numbers of traditional foods that go with little fêtes and how these things are celebrated in small ways in daily life. It's super.
In other food news, I tried buying fake meat again from the hippie store. Are these fake hotdogs or fake real sausage? I also got some vegetable pate and I have no idea what to do with that either. The other day, I accidentally bought rolled wheat instead of oatmeal. I never know what I'm getting or what to do with it. Every meal is a surprise.
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