Pâques

We celebrated a beautiful Easter (Pâques) weekend. Each evening, we read a little more of the Easter story together, and on Saturday night the dark, clear sky reverberated with tolling bells from the ancient Saint Medard church around the corner. Then Sunday! The morning dawned chilly but glorious.

Of course in the midst of discussing the real meaning of Easter—both the darkness and the joy—we also enjoyed the typical cultural accompaniments. I couldn't resist getting chocolate "poules" for the boys instead of the usual Easter bunnies. They loved them!




We even managed a family shot on Sunday afternoon before changing out of church clothes ("handsome" clothes, as William calls any shirt with buttons).

Good Friday isn't typically a day off here, but Easter Monday is. With the boys off school and Jesse not needing to start his work day until early afternoon (he works many nights until 11 p.m. or midnight), we took advantage of the free hours. It was a perfect spring day, and a chateau about 45 minutes away had advertised a chasse aux œufs, Easter egg hunt.

The Chateau du Rivau is fairytale-like. It's still inhabited by the owners but several rooms and much of the grounds are open to the public. It's filled with a mix of priceless antiques and quirky modern art. Fun! 

There was a ton of real taxidermy, but art pieces were mounted in and about the legit stuff...like this knit warthog! 

The egg hunt was very different from ones back home. Of course, the first difference was that we were on the grounds of a castle....not some open lot beside a Wal-Mart.  :)  I think chateaux are becoming commonplace for Josiah and William, but it was definitely over the top for me and Jesse. A costumed staff member managed the affair. She told a story and brought the group of children all around the grounds and gardens for about an hour. There was no wild scrambling and hunting for hundreds of plastic eggs. Instead, she read clues that helped the children locate several hidden baskets and/or new clues. The baskets were filled with little chocolate eggs, evenly distributed among the children at each stop.

Can you see the boys at the top?

After the egg-hunt was over, we spent another hour enjoying the gardens, which included a little playground, a forest of hammocks, a hedge maze, climbing areas, lots of fairy-tale inspired art and sculptures, and of course beautiful flowers and scenery in every direction.

Happy Easter!

Poisson d'Avril

The boys had fun being introduced to the French version of April Fools' Day last week. Here it's known as poisson d'avril (april fish), and the chief goal is for children to sneakily attach paper fish to adults' backs. Both boys were gleeful in reporting that their teachers had several paper fish on their backs all morning at school! Other tomfoolery sometimes happens too. When William was picked up at noon (Wednesdays are always half days), all the children and teachers in his class had the April pox.

Of course the boys had to make fish to hang on Daddy's back while he was working. Under the guise of giving him a hug, both boys managed to tag him successfully. It helped that Jesse had never heard of poisson d'avril so was entirely unsuspecting!

The origin of the tradition isn't clear—there seem to be a few popular stories—but it's been around for a good 500 years. Back then, real fish were used. Thank goodness that's no longer the case!

Oddly enough, in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the poisson d'avril temporarily became a (bizarre) symbol of love and affection instead of a tag for a fool. Thus for a few decades the rage was to send romantic, atmospheric fish-themed postcards to loved ones on April 1st. And no, I'm not "april fooling"! I found these antique examples for sale on French eBay for a euro or two right now. Gotta love a flower and dead fish bouquet, eh? And there's nothing creepy about a little girl cuddling a beribboned fish, right? I just can't imagine why that tradition phased back out...

William came home with this holiday hybrid on Friday: a poisson d'avril on the front and a little glass jar full of chocolate Easter eggs attached at the back. He's very proud of it. And...I was even prouder when, unprompted, he emptied out the chocolates and divided half for his brother!

Chimney cakes

In the last post, I mentioned that Teanna bought a chimney cake (kürtőskalács) for the boys when we were in Budapest. I also mentioned that they loved it. What I didn't mention was that just a few minutes afterward, she came around a corner with a kit of four wooden batons—a gift so we could make our own. So generous!

Of course it didn't take us many days to give chimney cake making a go once we returned home. It would be a stretch to say that the included information constituted a full recipe or instructions (and it was written in Romanian and Hungarian!),  plus the little tray was made of something that scorched and smoked so intensely that I had to discard it within the first few minutes of cooking, but somehow or other, the end result was not at all unpleasant...

After winding the dough onto the batons, flattening them, and rolling them in sugar, I set the boys up twirling them over a burner. The square pan was included with the kit, notched to allow easy twirling for even cooking. It was great to start. Unfortunately, within a minute or so, the kitchen filled with smoke. I finished off the cooking by holding the batons directly over the open burner flame instead.

A little melted butter, cinnamon, plus a touch more sugar finished off the cakes once they were cooked through. 

The cakes are meant to be slid off the batons first, but the boys preferred them as handles.  :)

Thank you, Teanna!!! We'll be thinking of you every time we make kürtőskalács in the future!