La pendaison de la crémaillère
Although I've been living in my new apartment since mid-October, it wasn't until a couple weeks ago that I finally felt ready to throw a proper housewarming party. In French, a housewarming party is a Pendaison de la crémaillère , which translates to something like "hanging of the trammel." According to the internet , a trammel is a thing that you put in your fireplace which can be adjusted to hold a pot at different heights. Presumably, in the past, one could only truly say that they had moved into a new home when they had put this very important piece of cooking apparatus in the new fireplace. At any rate, nowadays I don't think anyone has any idea what a crémaillère is or why you would be hanging it, but the phrase survives. So, despite the fact that my apartment is pretty tiny, I decided to invite everyone I know in Switzerland (aka my labmates, my boss, and the administrative assistant) to my home for an evening of merrymaking. Upon being invited, many ...