The morning after

On Saturday night I attended a dinner party. It was the last in a long series of events celebrating the New Year. It’s a family gathering on my mother’s side of the family, organized by her cousin’s children. Although we are only distant cousins, we are rather close, probably because our grandmothers were twins.

Each year, on the last Saturday of January we meet at a restaurant and share a festive meal. The bill is equally split among all the participants. This year the dinner took place in a restaurant in a nearby village where three of these distant cousins and their partners live. The restaurant is called ‘Caméleon Citron’ and owes its name to the three chameleons that live in a large glass cage in the centre of the dining room.

Photo: curtesy Caméleon Citron

In the evening the restaurant proposes a special menu offering an attractive choice of six starters, six main courses and six desserts, plus half a bottle of wine per person for a reasonable price of 40 euro.

I had a warm goat cheese in crisp puff pastry and a mixed salad with an excellent vinaigrette dressing. For my main course I chose salmon slivers with new potatoes, mixed vegetables and a lovely pink cream sauce. I found the salmon somewhat overcooked and dry, but the sauce was delicious. Dessert was a panna cotta with a raspberry coulis. We started with an aperitif, of course. A classic Martini Bianco on the rocks and a small bowl of very nice garlicky green olives.

We had a great time. When I came home, it was almost midnight. I watched some TV before going to bed, and fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. I’m sure the Australian white wine I drank, had something to do with it.

The next morning I didn’t really feel like cooking Sunday lunch, but I had no other option because my mother was coming over as usual. So I quickly prepared a meal of paprika chicken, French fries and a green salad. Simple but tasty.

Later, in the afternoon I fell asleep in front of the television. Was it because the program was so awfully dull? Or is it just me finding it harder and harder to recuperate after a ‘night on the town’ now that I'm not twenty anymore?

Are you ready?

I won't keep you waiting any longer. Here are some photos of my new apartment. You may be disappointed because it  looks so bare and colourless. But just try to image it with the new curtains, furniture and wallpaper ...

The living room as you see it when you walk in by the front door.

The door on the right is the front door.
The one on the left leads towards the bedrooms and the bathroom.

Part of the master bedroom.
Imagine this in different shades of blue and nice wooden floor.

The kitchen.
The new dishwasher hasn't been installed yet.

I'm keeping the light fixture for the time being,
but will replace it by something more modern
as soon as I've saved some more money!

The view from the living room window.
It's all wintery and dreary now,
but it will be very green in spring and summer.
The 'hump' on the horizon is a small wooded hill
which offers beautiful fall colours.

I can almost feel your disappointment.
But wait till you see it all again in two months time ...

Bargain

Yesterday I received the keys to my new apartment. My friend and I immediately went to visit the now empty apartment. The last time I saw it in the beginning of December, most of the furniture of the previous tenant was still in place. Over the last six weeks the relatives of the deceased lady have been emptying the different rooms.

When we walked in, I was surprised by the size of the living room and how light it was, with the sun streaming in through the large window, which measures 2.5 m (H) by 3.5 m (W). I know, because we measured it up to know how much curtain fabric I needed, my current living room curtains being too short for the ceiling-to-floor window. Then we set out to a nearby interior decoration store, Home Market. It’s part of a chain store that is also active on the French market under another brand name. If you live in France you may now it by the name of Saint Cloud.

On their website I had seen these curtains …

The colour scheme is perfect with my clear blue coach and the two brown armchairs I bought two weeks ago. I wanted to know what they looked like in ‘real life’ and how much it would cost to have these curtains tailor-made, including a special lining that would keep the winter cold and the summer heat out. I was secretly hoping that I would get a nice discount because the ‘solden’ (sales) are still on (till January 31st).

The sales assistant put all the data in her computer and produced a quote. Although it was well under my budget, I enquired whether there was a special ‘sales’ discount. “No, I’m sorry,” she replied “these curtains are very popular. We only give discounts on fabrics that don’t sell well.” Well, it was worth asking, wasn’t it? I didn’t order them there and then, but will return in a fortnight to do so and to pay the required deposit. It’ll take about three weeks to manufacture them, which is perfect, considering that the move is scheduled for March 18th.

Before leaving the store we decided to have a look at the carpets. The colour scheme of my current carpet is neutral and won’t clash with the curtains, but it is thirty years old – it was a wedding present – and it's getting difficult to hide ‘bald’ spots. A new carpet was therefore an optional, nice-to-have item on my shopping list.
 
We found ourselves looking at some fluffy rugs that were either too dark or too light coloured, until I suddenly saw THE perfect carpet. It was as if it had been made to match the curtains. Here’s a photo.
 
 

You'll have to wait till it is rolled out
in its new place to see its true colours!

It’s rolled up with the topside inside, so it’s a bit hard to tell what the colours are. But I can assure you that the lively turquoise, pale cream and chocolate brown are just gorgeous and will definitely brighten up the room.

And the best part of it all was that apparently nobody wanted this carpet and that is was on SALE! They gave me a discount of 37%, which brought the initial price down to 85.50 euro! A real bargain for a 1.60 m x 2.20 m carpet, and a unique opportunity. We put the carpet in my friend’s car and brought it home. It’s now sitting in my bedroom, waiting to be moved to the new place as soon as the decorator has put up the new wallpaper.

P.S. During our short visit to the apartment, I also made some photos of the different rooms. I’m sure you are curious to see them, aren’t you?

Feathery and furry friends

The lease of my new apartment stipulates that the tenant – that’s me – is not allowed to bring domestic animals into the apartment. That’s not really a problem as I don’t have any feathered or furry friends. Except perhaps Hector … but I suppose I can rule him out.

This is Hector. I've posted this photo before.
If you're new to my blog, just click here
to find out what's so special about Hector.

My parents had a dog once, a German shepherd called Tosca, but that was long before I was born. Although I’ve never actually known the dog, my mother has told me many times how the poor thing came to his untimely end. It's quite a gruesome story. So, If you are of a delicate nature, you'd better skip the next two paragraphes.

Apparently, thunderstorms would freak Tosca out. During a particularly violent storm, the dog went completely mad and escaped by jumping through the window of the garden shed where he used to sleep. Injured and bleeding from the cuts it got from the broken glass, it ran off. My father followed it in an attempt to help it.

When he finally caught up with the dog, the animal turned against him, growling and ready to attack. There was no way of approaching it to see to its injuries. And my father had no other choice than to take his rifle and to shoot the dog. After this upsetting incident my parents decided never to have another dog.

At about that same time they also had a parrot, a medium sized grey and red bird that answered to the name Coco. It lived in a large cage next to my mother sewing machine. As far as I know, Coco died of old age. After its death, my parents stored the cage in the attic, where it remained for many years, until the early seventies, when I brought home an albino guinea pig that I had won at our village summer carnival.

I named the guinea pig ‘Mieke’ which is the Flemish diminutive for Mary! Mieke was my first ‘furry’ friend. Before that, we had had a yellow canary, called ‘Janneke’, which is the Flemish equivalent for Johnny. Janneke was almost ten years old when he died. During a large part of his life he enjoyed the company of Flipper, our goldfish, which lived in a large bowl that sat on a small table under Janneke’s cage. Flipper reached the respectable age of seven, which is quite an achievement for a goldfish.

But back to Mieke. My father brought Coco’s former cage down from the attic, scraped off the rust and painted it bright white. We put a layer of straw in it, in which the guinea pig could make a nice, warm nest. We also put in a bowl of water, a raw carrot and a special seed mixture. Mieke seemed happy in her new home, judging by the speed at which she gobbled down her daily food supply.

Pretty soon she became overweight, and I decided that some exercise would do her good. Once a day and weather permitting I would take her out of her cage and carry her to the far end of the garden – a good 50 meters – where I put her down. I then lightly slapped her fat behind and off she went … scurrying full-speed back towards the safety of her parrot cage and the waiting food. I would repeat this routine three or four time before letting her into her cage again. It worked just fine, and after a spring, summer and autumn of physical training Mieke had regained her initial waistline.

And then came winter. It was too wet and cold to continue the daily training program. Mieke remained in her cage most of the time, stuffing herself with seeds, carrots, lettuce and cabbage leaves, stale bread … Every day I took her out of the cage and sat her on my lap to watch TV together.

Finally it was spring again. One sunny day, I lifted Mieke out of her cage for a new run down the garden path. She was fatter than she had ever been before. I put her down in the usual place, patted her behind … nothing happened. She just sat there. “Come on,” I said “It’s time to take a little walk.” After giving her a gentle push, she finally started moving forward, gradually gaining speed.

Suddenly, halfway down the garden path, she stopped. First she remained motionless. Then a violent shiver went through her body. For a split second it looked as if she was lifted off the ground and then she fell down and rolled over on one side, … Mieke was no more. And I had killed her. I should have known better than to make a little fat guinea pig run like that after spending an entire winter eating, sleeping and watching TV! The sudden excercise had given her a heart attack! I still feel bad about it ... even today.

Sunday lunch – Popeye style

Spinach is definitely my all-time favourite vegetable. I’ve practically grown up on it. My mother tells me that it was very hard to make me eat vegetables when I was little. Carrots and spinach were my standard vegetable diet. She would mix the cooked and chopped spinach leaves with mashed potatoes. The mash usually came with steak or sausages. Luckily things have changed drastically over the last four decades and today I will eat almost any vegetable … except Brussels’ sprouts!

In the early years of my life, the spinach was always fresh; straight from my grandfather’s garden or  bought at our local market or green grocer. It was considered as ‘very-good-for-you’ as it contained a lot or ‘iron’. That’s why Popeye was such a strong man. Whenever his sweetheart Olive was in trouble, Popeye - the sailor man - would squeeze open a tin of spinach, pour it into his mouth and speed to her rescue. Nothing could stop him, not even the formidable Brutus.

Freshly washed spinach leaves.

Later I learned that those funny little cartoons hadn’t been made to promote spinach, but tinned food in general. I had tinned spinach only once and it gave me a bad case of food poisoning. I had been camping with the girl scouts and on the last day of our camping trip we had to make our own lunch, as the mess tent had already been taken down. They gave each troop some sausages, potatoes and a large tin of spinach. We had to cook our lunch over a small camp fire. I remember the tinned spinach having a foul and unappetizing kaki colour.

The next morning I woke up with an itching rash all over my body. My mother called the doctor who prescribed some anti-histaminic tablets to subdue the itching. They made me very sleepy, and I spent almost two days and nights in bed, sleeping and scratching.

A few years later, my grandfather gave up his vegetable garden and my mother started buying frozen spinach … something she still does today. Most of the time I do the same, but just every now and then I buy some fresh leaves. This is what I did last weekend, when I decided to make ‘épinards à la crème aux croutons’ – spinach in a cream sauce and grilled croutons.

This is what you do:
Start by removing the stalks of the spinach leaves before rinsing them in ample cold water. Use a wok to wilt the spinach in butter. A soon as the butter has melted, put in the spinach. Stir well until the leaves have reduced to about half their volume.

Peel a fat clove of garlic, cut it in half lengthwise and remove the germ. Firmly stick it on a fork and use the fork to stir the spinach until it has completely wilted. The garlic will subtly flavour the spinach without being too overpowering.

The wilted spinach just before adding the cream.

Finally, add pepper, salt and grated nutmeg to taste. Finish by stirring in some liquid cream. Before serving the spinach, sprinkle some croutons over it. I make my croutons by putting two slices of bread in an oven 140°C for about 20 minutes. You can of course also use an electric toaster.

Grounded

I’m going to bore you one last time with a post about the damp problem in my apartment. Although I can’t be bothered anylonger now that have I found a new place to live, I still am under the obligation to allow experts to come into the apartment to try and find the leak. And today is the day. At ten this morning the janitor and two experts showed up to perform a forth leak detection attempt. So I’m grounded for the rest of morning and maybe even a part of the afternoon.

While I’m typing this, they are putting up a ladder against the façade. They’ve asked me to open the kitchen window in order to plug in the electric drill that they will be using to drill holes into which they will insert a camera. The next step is to pour water on the roof and to film the flow of the water coming down through the until now undetectable hole that is at the origin of the damage.

Just for the record, one last shot showing the extend of the damage.

Soon this will be nothing more than a bad souvenir,
one I intend to forget as quickly as possible.

I do want to co-operate, but after everything I have been through, I just want them to go away and leave me alone … so that I can go out shopping for new curtains and wallpaper. Which is so much more fun than sitting here, waiting for something that is probably not going to happen …

Anyway, I have an appointment at the hair salon at 2.30 p.m. Even if they haven’t gone by then, I’ll be off, and they will simply have to cope on their own. There’s nothing like a new haircut to cheer a girl up … and to make up for the ‘moral damage’ this damp problem has caused!

Update: They've just come in to tell me that they've found the origin ... even without drilling the hole! Why couldn't they have done that a year ago? Now it's 'just' a matter of finding a way to fix it! Which seems to be more complicated than it sounds. Anyway, I don' t regret my decision to move. It's an excellent excuse to buy new stuff!

Bookworm

I was fourteen when on the first day of the Easter school break I broke my right arm. It was a silly accident, as accidents tend to be. It happened on a Sunday afternoon. I was wearing a brand-new dress – red tartan – that my mother had made for me and was dancing in my stocking feet to a popular song on the radio, when I slipped and landed rather violently on my wrist. It hurt like hell and I almost fainted. Although the pain was mainly situated in my wrist and underarm, I soon found out that I could no longer completely bend or stretch my arm at the elbow.

My mother rang the doctor, who took one look at my arm and sent me to the emergency unit of a nearby hospital to have some X-rays made. Although my parents and I were the only people in the waiting room, it took hours – literally – before a young doctor showed up to take care of me. The X-rays showed that a tiny fragment of the lower part of the humerus had been chipped off. It was stuck in the cartilage.

They put my arm in an L-shaped position in a plaster cast that started halfway my upper arm and ran all the way down to the knuckles of my hand. In the evening, my mother had to cut open the side seam of my new dress in order for me to take it off and put on my pyjamas. I never wore that dress again!

The doctor said that I would have to wear the cast for three weeks, which meant that I would be ‘handicapped’ for the full duration of the Easter school break. What was I to do? How would I spend my time? That’s when and how I discovered my mother’s collection of Barbara Cartland novels. I spent the next fortnight reading one novel per day, swooning over the romantic intrigues and antics of Barbara Cartland’s heroes and heroines.

Three days and three novels later I became very good at guessing the (happy) endings, as the plots and build-ups were very similar in each book. The story often featured a beautiful orphaned girl of humble birth who secretly falls in love with a tormented nobleman of whom she believes his father has killed her family. This man usually carries a formidable secret – mostly a mad father or sister – which stops him from marrying as he is afraid that he or his offspring may also be struck with the illness.

The evil mother of the nobleman then tries to marry off the beautiful girl to some villain who will abduct her. When the good guy learns what his mother has done, he realizes that he really loves the girl and jumps on his horse and rides off into the night to rescue her. In the end the evil mother admits that there is no hereditary madness in the family. Surprisingly someone in the village suddenly remembers and admits that the girl is of noble birth too. And so love triumphs … and the tormented nobleman and the poor orphan get married and live happily ever after.

After this memorable Easter vacation I became a real bookworm and book collector. Over the last four decades I have bought many, many books, in English and in Dutch and I have built up an enormous collection. I keep my all-time favourites, which I like to re-read every now and then, in two bookcases in my apartment. I also have several cardboard boxes filled with books stocked in my mother’s garage. And finally, during my last move, in 2001, I donated three dozen of books to our local public library.

The other day, while I was trying to figure out how and where to put my furniture in the new apartment, I realized that I would have to get rid of some more books. However, my love for books forbids me to throw them away or to destroy them. I will therefore be donating more books to our local library. I’ve already called the librarian and she confirmed that they will gladly accept them.

Now the hard task awaits me to select the books I don’t want anymore … Tell me, should I keep the Barbara Cartland novels?

Sunday lunch – ‘Chef’ style

It’s been a while since I’ve done a ‘Sunday lunch’ post. Probably because I often make the same old favourites: paprika chicken in a chicken brick, salade liégoise, steak béarnaise, meat loaf, chicons au gratin, …

After successfully trying my hand at Michelin star chef George Blanc’s ‘Poulet de Bresse’ on Christmas day, I felt confident enough to try another Michelin chef’s recipe: A ‘hachis parmentier’ of oxtail and a mash of sweet potatoes by Anne-Sophie Pic of ‘La Maison Pic’ at Valence in the Drôme in the Rhone-Alpes region.

Anne-Sophie is the third ‘Pic’ generation to obtain three Michelin stars, after her grandfather André in 1934 and her father Jacques in 1973.

The recipe in itself is rather simple, but it takes a lot of time and many ingredients. Here they are (serves four):
1250 gr. of oxtail on the bone
1 carrot
1 leek
1 onion
1 branch of celeriac
5 cl. of Cognac
25 cl. of red wine
1 l. of brown stock
1 clove
A few stalks of parsley
Butter
Pepper and salt


500 gr. of sweet potatoes
300 gr. of potatoes
Butter
2.5 cl. of liquid cream
grilled breadcrumbs (aka ‘chapelure’)

The oxtail happily simmering away with the aromates.

This is what you do:Cut all the veggies in small cubes, except for the onion. Coat the pieces of oxtail in some flour and bake them nice and brown in some butter or olive oil. This takes about 3 minutes in each side.

Sweat the vegetables in some butter and olive oil. Put the seared meat on top of the vegetables; add the wine, cognac, and stock, plus the parsley stalks. Put the clove in the onion. Stir well and let simmer for three hours. Stir every hour or so to make sure that the ingredients don’t stick to the bottom of the pot.

Peel the (sweet) potatoes and boil them until they are done. Drain and make a mash, using the milk, melted salted butter, grated nutmeg and an egg yolk.

Remove the meat from the bones and shred it. Put a layer of meat in an oven proof dish. Put the mash on top of it, and sprinkle some ‘chapelure and some olive over it. Put in an oven for 20 to 30 minutes, which you have pre-heated to 180°C .

In the meantime, filter the cooking liquid and let it reduce at high heat for about half an hour. Mix a coffee spoon of flour with some water and stir it into the reduced stock.

Serve the oven dish with the sauce on the side, and enjoy! 

Oops, I did it again

Yesterday I went shopping for a new kitchen unit. As I mentioned before, the fitted kitchen in my future apartment – although the room has the same size and shape – doesn’t have as many cabinets as the kitchen in my soon-to-be-former apartment.

I had an appointment at three o’clock and my friend and I arrived early … as always! I hate being late for an appointment, although it may be considered as fashionable.

We didn’t have to wait long though before the store manager arrived to help us choose the right colour for the unit, the doors, the work top and the handles. As soon as these vital choices had been made, he showed us into a small office where he started designing the unit on his computer. On the wall opposite from where we were sitting was a large monitor, showing exactly what the man was doing on his computer. We could see how the unit came together, with all the right colours, shapes and materials. At the same time you saw the little counter adding up all the prices of the different elements.

When I mentioned that I had asked my decorator to wallpaper the wall behind the unit in bright red, the guy ‘threw in’ the colour for free! The result was superb. And so was the price. It was way under my budget and I therefore decided to have a small fridge integrated in the cabinet. There is a fridge in the new kitchen but it’s a lot smaller than the one I have today. I’m sure I can use the extra space.

As soon as I had signed the contract and paid the deposit, the manager plunged into his desk drawer and produced a small white box. “Here’s a little present to thank you for shopping with us.” He said. When I opened it, this is what I found. Cute, isn’t it? And useful too!



An EGGO technician will deliver and install the unit in the beginning of March. I can’t wait to see it in real life in its new surroundings!

Oh, did I mention that I bought two armchairs too? But more about those later …

A brief media career - 2

A few weeks after sending my CV to our national broadcasting company, I received a letter inviting me to an audition. When I arrived at the radio station’s headquarters at the set date and time, I was given a text and led into a room to familiarize myself with it while I waited my turn to go into the studio and do my thing. Imagine my surprise when in that waiting room I found five former fellow students waiting to audition too. We were all pretty nervous. One by one we were called in.

Finally, it was my turn. I can assure you that walking into a recording studio can be pretty intimidating when you’re 23 and have no media experience! I sat down, put the headphones on and cleared my throat. From behind the window, a technician waved to attract my attention. I looked up from my text page and he said: “Whenever you are ready.”

How did I do? Lousy! I stumbled over my words, overlooked a sentence and therefore completely lost the sense of the story. Due to the increasing stress, I also forgot to breath and I ended up almost choking in the last part of a sentence. And most important of all; I didn’t pay attention to my vowels. Where I live we tend to pronounce our ‘i’s’’ and ‘u’s’ rather sharply, while people from Antwerp for instance, pronounce their ‘a’s’ like ‘ae’s (which is wrong too). And people who live in the coastal region systematically make a silent ‘h’ sound like a ‘g’, and so on. All these mispronunciations were unacceptable when you wanted to become a newsreader.

And then there was my guttural, rolling ‘RRR’, of course. In those days it was considered as a handicap, which was only tolerated and even applauded when you spoke French. Today, speaking Flemish with a rolling ‘RRR’ is fashionable.

My media career ended right there and then. A few weeks later I received a very formal letter announcing that I didn’t have ‘the right profile’ for the job and that another candidate had been offered a contract. Later I learned that it was one of my former schoolmates. He really worked his way up and became and remained the anchorman of the eight o’clock television news for several years.

He was held in high regard. However, he was banned from the screen and sent back to the newsroom after making the capital mistake of jumping in front of Pope John-Paul II in an attempt to obtain an impromptu interview while he was visiting the Jubilee Park in Brussels in 1995. He also made a spectacle of himself when, during a life television award ceremony, he tried to dance on stage with the flamboyant Dame Edna (Barry Humphries)!

Life in the spotlights can be tough, can’t it? Looking back, I’m glad my career in the media ended before it really started …

A brief media career - 1

On Sunday morning our national radio station broadcasts a very popular program featuring music from the sixties, seventies, eighties and nineties. For two consecutive hours – thirty minutes per decade – the most popular songs from a particular month of a particular year are put on the air.

In between records the DJ talks about facts and events that took place at the time these songs were in the charts. Some are happy events, some are sad. Some things I remember, while others are long forgotten. They also broadcast excerpts from old radio newsreels. Hearing these fragments can give you a bit of a shock, especially if you forget what program you are listening to.

When recently the original newsreel announcing the ‘The Herald of Free Entreprise’ disaster was put on the air again, I thought for a split second that a new shipping disaster had happened in the English Channel. The above mentioned ferry capsized on the night of 6 March 1987, moments after leaving the Belgian port of Zeebrugge, killing 193 passengers and crew. It was the worst maritime disaster involving a British registered ship in peacetime since the sinking of the Titanic in 1912.

However, the 1980ies newsreader’s elocution and vocabulary were an instant give-away. It is strange to hear how much Flemish speech has evolved over the last 25 years. A quarter of a century ago it sounded so much more artificial and you could tell that the person behind the microphone was really doing his best to produce clear and correctly articulated vowels in an attempt to conceal his regional accent. As a result each syllable was unnaturally stressed in a way that, after a while, made your jaws itch.

Photo: Francis Barraud - His master's voice

It also reminded me of the time when I auditioned to become a newsreader with our national broadcasting company. Don’t look so surprised! Yes, I could have been the Belgian Angela Rippon or Oprah Winfrey!! But destiny, or rather my rolling French ‘RRR’, decided otherwise.

I clearly remember the occasion in the spring of 1980. In those days, finding a job was a real challenge. The economy still hadn’t recovered from the oil crisis and unemployment was very high, especially among young people who had no experience to show for. I had studied all the possible options. Each weekend I used to buy three newspapers and browse through the job offers, hoping to find something in my line of work … meaning something which involved language skills. This is how I came to send in an application for a job as a newsreader on the radio.

(to be continued)

La Tourangelle

One of my recent finds in my cellar while I was looking for a surrogate Christmas tree was a bottle of special hazelnut oil. I knew that I had bought it in France during one our Loire Valley trips. But I couldn’t for the world remember where. I tried to reconstruct some of our less recent trips in my head … Finally it dawned on me. It came from the ‘L’huilerie de la Croix Verte’ aka ‘La Tourangelle’ in Saumur.

Like most of the places we have visited over the years, I had found this traditional ‘huilerie’ on the internet. We visited it on two consecutive occasions. I can’t quite recall the years because I have no photos and I usually write the date and place on the back of each photo. It’s a shame that I don’t have any pictures to show you as the 'interactive' visit was actually very interesting.

Delicate hazelnuts

Photo by  http://www.marmein.nl/

I remember we had some trouble finding the factory as it was located in one of the semi-industrial outskirts of the town. ‘Mauricette’, our capricious GPS, hadn’t come into our lives yet, and all we had was a print of the itinerary as it was shown on the website. When we finally found the place, we thought that we had wasted our time, because the building looked deserted.

The bleak façade wasn’t really inviting and one of the three blinds of what looked like the shop windows was closed. However, when we walked up to the door we could see that there was a light on inside. The door made a squeaking noise when my friend pushed it.

Inside, the back of the dimly room was a top-to-floor glass wall behind which we saw some impressive, almost 19th century looking copper industrial equipment.

Behind a counter next to the entrance sat a young lady, guarding what looked like an impressive pile of boxes that all had the ‘Croix Verte’ logo on them. She asked us whether we wanted a guided tour or whether we just wanted to buy some oil. We decided to visit the exhibition on our own, and she gave us a pamphlet explaining the different items that were on display. We wandered around the large room, looking at the old tools, millstones, kettles and other strange objects that had been used in the past to produce the dark liquid gold.

We were particularly interested in the giant copper kettles behind the glass wall. But the lady told us that the production plant was off-limits to visitors and that we had to content ourselves with a look through the tick pane of glass. As soon as we had finished our tour of the room, we handed in our pamphlets and were about to leave, when the young lady asked us:

"Would you like to taste some of the different varieties?” Ah, now it became really interesting. Of course! We had tasted wine, cheese, … before, so why not taste some oil. She produced some plastic cups and small coffee spoons from under the counter and marched us towards a wall where numerous bottles where lined up on different shelves.

She explained that it was best to start with the simplest and therefore somewhat plain colza oil. Next we moved on to a mixture of colza and walnut, next came different ‘millesime’ of walnut oil; to be followed by hazelnut oil. Each time she poured approx. one centimetre of a different oil in a cup and handed us each a plastic spoon that we had to dip in the oil. The tastes were surprisingly different: from plain oily to a fruity and nutty aroma; the hazelnut oil being the strongest and tastiest of them all.

We ended up buying two bottles of walnut oil and one bottle of hazelnut oil. We returned the next year to stock up on some more bottles … one of which I found in my cellar two weeks ago. I had forgotten all about it.

Although salads are more a summery thing, I think I’ll open this vintage bottle one of these days and make myself a nice green salad, maybe with some smoked duck breast, hard-boiled or fried quail’s eggs and a generous splash of hazelnut oil.

About sideboards and cupboards

Yesterday I went shopping for a sideboard. Why? Simply because I’ve never owned one. And because I will need the extra space in my new apartment. No, I didn’t buy any extra crockery or cutlery. Let me explain.

Although the kitchen is exactly the same shape and size as my current kitchen, the furniture is lined up against one wall, instead of L-shaped. The short leg of the ‘L’ currently holds the sink and the dishwasher. In the new kitchen the short leg of the ‘L’ is missing and the sink is in line with the rest of the cupboards along the wall. I therefore ‘loose’ two cupboards under the sink, while another existing cupboard has to make room for the brand-new dishwasher. Moreover, there is no revolving corner unit, which I currently use to stock dry goods.

So you see, I'm desperately short of cupboards. I will solve the problem by buying an extra kitchen cupboard, similar to the existing units and line it up against the opposite wall. This will supply the required storage space for my pots and pans.

The dry goods will go in the upper units where I now keep my fancy china, which will be moved to the new sideboard in the living room. All this has taken a lot of careful thinking, measuring and budgeting. As soon as I had made up my mind, I realized that it wouldn’t be easy to find a cupboard that would match the existing kitchen and a sideboard that didn’t stand out like a sore thumb against my existing dining room furniture.

The cupboard should be the easy part though, as it will be custom made and I can choose the colour/material and design of the doors and the worktop. All this comes at a price, of course, but January is traditionally a ‘solden’ (sales) period. I therefore should be able to get a reasonable discount on the standard price.

What worried me most was finding an elegant, yet practical sideboard to go with my cottage-style dining room table and chairs. They are made of very dark, almost black wood and have a delicate yet intricate shape. Finding something similar would be impossible or horribly expensive. Not that they were very expensive when I bought them 30 years ago, but they have a rare quality and shape that I really like.

So yesterday morning I set out to a nearby furniture store. I had little hope of finding THE item of my dreams, but you have to start somewhere, haven't you. I had the place almost to myself, with just a young couple who were shopping for a coach and armchairs. The girl at reception immediately enquired whether I wanted the assistance of a salesman. I replied that I would look around on my own first and come back to her in case I saw something that I liked or/and when I needed extra information.

I made my way through a labyrinth of consecutive showrooms. At one point I felt completely lost. I moved along a little further, until I realized that I was turning around in circles. Finally, I found my way into the main entrance hall. I had seen some nice pieces, but they were either too large or too expensive. And nothing had struck me with a ‘coup de foudre’ – ‘love-at-first-sight’ feeling. When I approached the reception desk, the girl looked up in anticipation. But I shook my head, and said that I hadn’t seen anything to my liking yet.

I moved on, this time taking a right turn, into another part of the showroom. I saw some nice armchairs, looked at the price, and decided that they could wait … And then I turned another corner, and there it sat… winking at me: the perfect sideboard. A simple, straightforward but fashionable design made of ‘smoked oak’ and discrete brushed aluminium fittings. The colour was perfect, the design modern yet universal and perfect in combination with my existing furniture. Nowadays it is fashionable to combine antiques with modern design. And, almost best of all, the price was under my preset budget.

My future sideboard (partially hidden by the table - beneath the painting).

Photo: www.heylen.be

I hurried back to reception where the girl called a salesman. Together we took a closer look and he confirmed the price. Next he invited me to take a seat in the lounge area of the store, where he served me a drink while we went through the paperwork. It takes about twelve weeks to produce and deliver my new sideboard, which brings us to the second half of March. Perfect! As my move is planned for March 17^th!

The beginning of the end

The preparations for my upcoming move have now officially started. On Tuesday I contacted the call centre of my insurance company to change the ‘insured risk’ (aka the apartment) as from February 1st, the date on which the new lease takes effect. But because my current lease only comes to an end on March 31st, I need to insure this place till that date. At first I thought this would cost me extra, but then the charming lady of the call centre informed me that the insurance policy includes a special clause made to cover situations just like these. There is an automatic overlap of three months, without any extra charge!

Next step was to buy some moving boxes. Usually, when people move in Belgium they start ‘collecting’ banana boxes. These very sturdy cardboard cases are excellent to stock and move heavy objects … like bananas or … books, kitchenware, etc. Supermarkets are often ‘raided’ by people who are preparing a move. The banana cases are therefore hard to get and you have to be on good terms with manager and/or supermarket employees to get them.

When I moved into my current apartment in 2001, my cleaning lady – who knows most of the people in the village – started collecting the boxes for me in February (my move took place in May). Although she volunteered to do the same this time, I kindly declined as these cases – bulky as they are – are also very difficult to stock while you’re preparing your move. On the internet I had found the name of storage company – Shurgard – which also sells packing cases, plastic bubble wrap and tape. You can buy these items separately or in a pre-packed kit; the kit-version being cheaper than the ‘à la carte’ option.

Although I had no idea of the size and the weight of these kits, I thought it wiser to ask my friend to accompany me to the nearest Shurgard shop to go and buy a 2-3 bedroom kit. Here it is:

The black plastic bag doesn’t come with the kit, but contains strips of paper that I shredded during my vacation, using the new paper shredder that I bought last summer. It'll come in handy to protect fragile items.

When I saw the size of the kit – and its weight (22 kg) – I congratulated myself on taking my friend along. The box would never have fitted in my little Opel Corsa. Moreover, its awkward size made it very difficult to handle. The shop attendant helped my friend to fit the box in the back of his Ford Mondeo Break, while I tagged along carrying the feather-light role of bubble wrap!

Next we went to a nearby kitchen store, as I need an extra cupboard to store my large assortment of pots and pans. The place was very crowded and there was more than half an hour’s wait if you wanted to see a specialist who could computer-design the appropriate piece of furniture … and to give you a quote. The man who helped us therefore suggested we’d make an appointment. We agreed on this afternoon, 3 p.m., but then I did something completely different this morning, which made me change my mind. So I’ve called them to postpone the appointment till Jan. 21st.

What did I do then? I’ll tell you tomorrow!

Biscuits and Champagne

The other day I mentioned that I had made a discovery in my cellar: four bottles of red sparkling wine from the Château de Brézé near Saumur.

The wine came in really handy during the recent holidays as it made an excellent aperitif and even a delectable and festive afternoon beverage with some fine finger biscuits, called ‘boudoirs’. The ‘boudoirs’ are made by another famous Belgian biscuits manufacturer called ‘De Beukelaer’. The company was founded in 1870. Over the years it has merged with several other companies, which resulted in consecutive name changes, such as ‘General Biscuits’, Parein, Liga, etc. In 1997 the company was renamed once again when the French biscuit maker LU stepped in. Nowadays LU and De Beukelaer both belong to the powerful KRAFT Foods Emporium. 

‘Boudoirs’- or ‘lange vingers’ (long fingers) as they are called in Dutch/Flemish - are long, rectangular and airy biscuits with a fine topping of caster sugar. They are used in many recipes, such as ice cakes, tiramisu, and charlottes. According to Wikipedia, ‘boudoirs’ were created in the late fifteenth century at the ducal court of Savoy in France, on the occasion of a royal visit.

I always associate ‘boudoirs’ with Champagne, because that is what my paternal grandmother used to serve us when we went to see her on New Year’s Day to wish her a ‘Bonne Année’. By the end of her life she suffered from stomach trouble and therefore was extremely careful about what she ate and drank. She never consumed alcohol, except on January 1st when my uncle would get a bottle of Champagne out of the cellar. It usually was lukewarm, and one bottle had to serve eight people – which is approximately one small glass per person.

While my uncle opened the bottle, my mother and aunt prepared the glasses and my grandmother produced her pale beige plastic bread box in which the ‘boudoirs’ were kept. We used to sit around for almost two hours, with just the one glass per person, carefully sipping it from time to time in order to make it last as long as possible; and always secretly hoping that my grandmother would instruct my father or my uncle to get another bottle from the cellar. As far as I can remember, that never happened.

The plastic box with ‘boudoirs’ was passed around until it was empty. In the end, there was just a thin layer of caster sugar left, and I remember wetting my finger and running it through it in an attempt to get the last sugary crumbs.

Those were the days …

Laika

The Holidays are over and so is my vacation! This morning it was ‘back to work’. Not a pleasant idea after twelve carefree days of ‘dolce farniente’ and cooking and enjoying good food.

Yesterday afternoon my future landlord (J.M.) and landlady (G.) dropped in to sign the documents concerning the rental guarantee. I had been to the bank last Friday to open the account and deposit the required sum of two months rent. However, the papers needed both their signatures and mine to make it binding.

They had been to the Belgian coast for a few days and were on their way home, when they came to see me at half past three. This was our second meeting - the first time was on December 13th, when I signed the lease at the agent’s office. That evening they had walked over from their house, which was just around the corner. And they had been on their own. Yesterday, they arrived by car and they brought a small dog with them.

It was a cute little thing, with a fluffy and curly multi-coloured coat, a flat nose and big brown eyes. It looked like a cross between a Pekinese and a Bichon Frisé. At first it seemed somewhat ill at ease, hiding behind G.'s legs. But pretty soon it settled in and cleverly spread out on the living room floor, on the exact spot where the pipes of the central heating run under the tiles. I asked what the dog’s name was, and G. said that it was called Laika.

A cute Bichon Frisé
Photo from the internet

At that moment, G.’s cell phone ran. It was her daughter who enquired when they would be home because she was missing ‘her little girl’. This led to some misunderstanding, with me thinking their grandchild of five was waiting in the car! I was about to say that they’d better bring the girl in too, when I realized that Laika was the object of the daughter’s affection and concern.

We signed the necessary papers and had a drink to celebrate the event. In the meantime little Laika had discovered that the tile floor wasn’t the best place to be after all. And she had moved on to the carpet under the coffee table, where she patiently waited till her 'grandparents' had finished their drinks.

J.M. confirmed that he had ordered the dishwasher and that it would be installed later this month. After all the trouble I’ve have been through with the janitor and my current landlord, it is really refreshing to have a landlord who really seems to care about his tenant's well-being …