Candy Floss

Cotton Candy or "fairy floss" as they say in Australia nets good money at any fair including our fair since it is basically nothing but sugar and .. air. Since y'all are interested and according to Gourmet magazine, cotton candy was invented in 1897 by William Morrison and John Wharton and first introduced at the St. Louis World's Fair in 1904 as "Fairy Floss" with great success, selling 68,655 boxes at the then-high $0.25, half the cost of admission to the fair. Fairy floss was renamed to "cotton candy" in the 1920s, and I am sure Moe had some part of this because St. Lous is, afterall, his home town. Tootsie Roll of Canada Ltd. has a bagged product called "Fluffy Stuff" that it claims was first introduced at the 1893 World's Fair so there is indeed controversy. Woo hoo. The US celebrates National Cotton Candy Day on December 7.

So I admit to being waaay behind on my blogging and no way am I going to describe last week's race across Europe. Instead, I will focus on L'église de la Madeleine, which Sonnet and I have visited before and a Roman Catholic church occupying a commanding position in the 8th arrondisement of Paris. It was designed in its present form as a temple to the glory of Napoleon's army and its south is the Place de la Concorde and to the east is the Place Vendome and to the west L'église Saint-Augustin. So Wednesday evening and with my travelling companions we climb the stairs around 8PM to find the entrance doors open and, in concert, is Vivaldi Four Seasons. I am able to charm the door guard to allow us to sit at the back and we hear the most sublime music .. in the most spectacular setting. Afterwards the sun remains at dusk and we find the perfect cafe for wine and dinner. It is not difficult to remind myself why we live in Europe.