la Chandeleur, jour de la Crepe addendum politique Française

In two days it's Chandeleur, or Candlemas. The Christian tradition in France started when priests would bless candles for the next year and signal the end of the religious holiday season. It's the day to put away the mangers for next year. Or sort of. Some say it was started to blot out the Roman pagan traditions existing and others well, only the French would make a day of eating crepes. Candlemas is always celebrated on February 2nd and—like Christmas, which you know, and Michaelmas, which once celebrated Satan falling into a blackberry bush and getting stuck—was created partly to compete with the Roman holiday Lupercalia, a fertility celebration that also has a purification slant to it. It also involved making a sort of medieval pancake. Which is fine by me. The French use this as an excuse to make crêpes. This Jour de Crêpes harkens back to the old Roman pagan pancake ritual and was co-opted thanks to Pope Gelasius I. The idea was that, if you were able to properly flip the crêpe in the air and expertly catch it in the pan, your family would be blessed with plenty for the next year.

The trick is cooking the crepe on one side then flipping it up and over onto the other side. If one does that successfully it's good luck for the rest of the year. And in my friends house, earn a Euro. I wasn't going to mention politics but this just in from my friend Gilles in Paris concerning the upcoming French election: "the primaries of the socialist party were not very interesting and now it is all back door tactics as the socialist party is the thin ham slice between the 2 bred slices which are Melenchon (very left) and Macron (center or the brinks of socialist liberal, depending of the day)!!! Hamon has pretty no existence as a president candidate, so he has to ally with one of the 2 but none want any link to the party of the current president!! On the right the conservative Fillon is struggling to get out of 500K€ he gave to his wife (they all do that and that was probably leaked to the news by one of his own party "friend").... Pretty boring!!! at least things are more fun in the US with daily surprises!!! and only 2 days after these primary elections the only headlines in french newspapers are for your president ;)" Cara - Tuesday