21 posts tagged “brussels”

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Coming soon... local beer

Waterloo Double 8
Waterloo Double 8
I've not written much lately but I have been queueing things up for when I have some time to write for pleasure. I thought that if I posted about what I'll be posting I might force myself to follow through. So here's a post about what I hope to post about this weekend: Waterloo Double 8 Dark beer.

It's local to Brussels (the battle field is just eight miles away) and London, which has a large train station named after the battle. I saw it advertised outside the supermarket this afternoon and thought it would make an enjoyable review item. And I like the picture on the label. And I'm always happy to drink to the defeat of a Napoleon.

So, my plan is to take it out of the fridge when I get back from Geneva and drink a bottle before writing about how good or bad I think it is. With any luck I'll think it's brilliant and have a second bottle.
Post a comment Tags: beer, food, brussels, waterloo double 8

Dead Pigeons: a history

I rarely see dead pigeons. I know this must be true as I remember each one I've seen over the last decade. I'm not sure why this is. Perhaps they tend to die on rooftops, or perhaps foxes and other carrion eaters are so quick off the mark they spend precious few minutes on the streets and squares of our cities. Whatever the reason - they are a rare sight in my experience.


The first one I remember seeing was not just a dead pigeons but also a live pigeon. I was standing at the tram stop, waiting for a tram. There was a pigeon pecking away at something on the road. It was so entranced by the baked goodness of whatever it was pecking at that it ignored the bus the drew up behind it. Alas, it didn't pay attention when the engine tone became higher, indicating the bus was about to pull away.

The bus pulled away just as the bird was pecking at the ground. Its head fell beneath the bus's tyre and came clean away. The headless bird continued to wander around for a minute of so after the bus had departed and then fell down. No doubt, whatever it was that kept the pigeon walking after the loss of its head was a little confused.

The second pigeon (pictured below) was a brace of birds that seemed to be a religious offering of some kind. I walked past them on a Sunday afternoon in Montevideo after a very long flight from Amsterdam. I've never been quite sure why people would want to decapitate a brace of pigeons are serve them, uncooked, on a bed of popcorn. If you can explain it, please leave a comment!

Finally, this afternoon's dead pigeon. This one still had its head attached to its body, although it had a far less glamorous resting place than its family in Montevideo. I found it around the side of my apartment block and I can only hope that some cat or fox makes a meal of it before it starts stinking the place up.  

I'm almost tempted to get out a recipe for pigeon and start looking for some fresh pigeon meat from a farm. I'm sure a smoked pigeon breast would make a tasty starter and a couple of pigeons could make a tasty casserole. Mmmmm.

Post a comment Tags: pigeon, travel, dead, pigeons, montevideo, brussels

Pears of Granite

Eddie Izzard was right. Pears really are "gorgeous little beasts", although I have severe doubts about whether I will actually get to eat one this year.


I love citrus fruits and berries but I don't normally buy apples, pears and the like because you tend to have to make a commitment to eating a whole one. If you open a satsuma you can eat the segments slowly without worry that they'll go brown from oxidisation and berries, of course, are perfect little self-contained wonders. Not so with an apple: leave it for five minutes while you take a phone call and you come back to something that looks like it's already decomposing.

Which is why I was glad to see some small pears in the supermarket when I grabbed some groceries before my evening calls last Thursday. Of course, they were hard when I got them but I was hoping that they'd ripen up over night and that I'd be able to have one for breakfast the next day, or over the weekend, or maybe on Monday. But by Tuesday morning they still felt like they'd been carved from jade.

That was a little disappointing as I had to go away for a couple of days and I expected that I'd return to a bowl of liquid pear goop. But no. This evening I returned home and found the pears are still giving me a nine or 10 on Mohs scale. So maybe I'll get to have pears for breakfast and maybe they'll have their moment of ripeness overnight and they'll be "dead pears" in the morning.


Post a comment Tags: food, fruit, pears, brussels

Electrical Storms

I love 'em! It's just started and I'm hoping the crane across the street is going to light up later on tonight, once it's good and dark.


Post a comment Tags: weather, lightning, thunder, brussels, electrical storms

Wild Asparagus

It's asparagus season. I know it must be because you couldn't move for special asparagus menus in restaurants in Berlin last week.


I like asparagus a lot and try to make good use of it in season. I used to buy a lot of 'baby' asparagus spears and nibble on them raw as a snack while watching TV, sprinkle them on home made pizzas, toss them in salads and put them in sandwiches. I also love using the big, thick asparagus spears in soups, although I think they tend to be a bit too chunky to make a good vegetable side.

So I was delighted to see these beautiful wild asparagus spears this evening. They remind me of the seed tops on the summer grass on the village green by my primary school.

As you'd expect, I tried them raw. After all, almost all good ingredients can be eaten raw and lots of them actually taste really great that way (lamb, beef, salmon, tuna, onions, mushrooms, cauliflower, peas etc...). These wild asparagus spears are lovely raw and gently cooked. I par boiled them for a minute and tried them with a little olive oil and grated goats cheese. 

The verdict? Whether cooked or raw they have a lovely gentle flavour, are crisp and fresh and just different enough from the regular commercially farmed asparagus to make an interesting change. But, one punnet of asparagus was far too much for me for the next couple of days as a vegetable side so I think I'll try and make a soup from the rest tomorrow evening and chill it down to be served as a summer soup.


1 comment Tags: recipe, food, asparagus, brussels

Closing the Curtains Keeps it Cool

I have a south facing view from my apartment, so I get lots of sun in the afternoons and evenings. It's fantastic in the winter as I get superb views of the sunset and loads of natural daylight. Now that the warm weather is here I've had the balcony doors open and have been enjoying the cooling breezes that have been coming into my living room. I tried sitting on the balcony to read a book but it was far too hot for that.


Not being used to sultry weather I made a bit of a beginner's mistake on Saturday and kept the curtains to my south facing bedroom open all day. At 1am on Sunday morning it must have still been abut 80° in there and I don't think I managed to get any sleep until so late it was early. So I have now closed the curtains in there and managed to keep the temperature down to something under 70° last night.
Looking at this week's weather forecast I think those curtains won't be opening until the thunderstorms that have been promised for Saturday. And although having a really good storm during the day would do a good job of cooling things down, I'd quite like it to happen at night as I love a good electrical storm.

Post a comment Tags: weather, warm, curtains, brussels

Locked out (again)

Last July I managed to lock myself out of my apartment when I lived in Amsterdam and... opened the door with what I thought was the same technique as the locksmith who'd helped me the year before. he was more skilled than me and had a special sheet of plastic for opening locked doors. I sort of destroyed the door frame and it had to be rebuilt. That really did teach me not to lose my keys.


So I was a little bit irritated this morning when I was unable to lock the door to my apartment in Brussels. The key wouldn't turn in the lock, despite trying for a good 10 to 15 minutes. I was a little irritated at this as I had to have the lock changed a few months ago when one of the building's staff lost the key to my apartment. It took ages for the lock to be changed as they had to order a new one from Italy and the lock-making factory closes down for all of December. Apparently.

I met the maintenance man outside my apartment this evening and he used the trick with the plastic to get in. He disassembled the lock and decided that it was broken and would be returned to the manufacturer under the guarantee. I am now waiting for him to return with a replacement and to fit it this evening. Obviously, I can't leave the place until he does.

I really don't seem to have much luck with locks :-(

3 comments Tags: door, lock, brussels

Was it a turd? No it was a Skechers shoe disintegrating

Shortly after I moved to Brussels I found out that the Belgians - those living in this city at least - love cobbles. I'm not a huge fan but I can put up with them. Sadly, I cannot put up with them in the thin soled shoes I had bought a couple of years beforehand. I needed new shoes with sturdier soles. I went shopping.


I saw a pair of shoes I liked in a shoe shop, tried them on, walked around for a bit and decided that the soles felt thicker and sturdier than those on the pair they were replacing and made my purchase. I probably spent about 10 minutes on the whole process. I should have spent a few more.

This afternoon I was walking up the hill on my way back from work and thought that I'd trod on something unpleasant. I wiped my feed and continued. The feeling continued, too. I wiped again but the chunk of stuff that was stuck to the sole of my right shoe wouldn't budge. I was worried that I had trod in some kind of plasticised super-turd. After considerable scraping on a convenient piece of metal something dislodged. I averted my eyes and continued on my way.

When I got back home I checked the bottom of my shoe before walking inside and noticed that it had a strange leather swoosh on it - and that most of the leather had come loose. It wasn't a super-turd. It was a stupid design flaw in the sole.
Frankly, I'm disappointed with a pair of shoes that doesn't even last six months. I'm doubly disappointed because I'd mainly been wearing a seasoned pair of boots but had to switch to the shoes when the weld between the sole the uppers on one of the boots sprung a leak.

Lesson learned? Turn shoes over to check the soles before buying them. Frankly, I wouldn't have bought them if I'd noticed the stupid swoosh in the sole. Oh, and don't buy Skechers because after a while it feels like walking on dog turds.

Post a comment Tags: shoes, skechers, brussels, soles, dog turds

Pee in any language you like

Olof and I popped into l'Atellier just after lunch as he wanted to ask about a booking for a party. While he was chatting with the people at the front desk I took this snap of the door to their toilets. Frankly, it fits the area of the city beautifully and makes it far less likely that anyone dining there will be caught short.


Post a comment Tags: belgium, restaurants, brussels, toilets, multi-lingual

Awooga awooga

LNG Belgium Gas Explosion (2004)
LNG Belgium Gas Explosion (2004)

Our whole building was evacuated earlier today. Initially we were told that there had been a gas leak and so we hung around in the cold for an hour, waiting for the fire engines and gas engineers to arrive. Nothing.

We went and got some juice and came back to find we were still locked out. So we went for some coffee, which turned into a lunch that was followed by a long walk around the block and a visit to a poncy paper shop.

About three hours after it began we were let back into the building and it took another hour for our telephone and Internet connections to be re-enabled.

It turns out that there was never any danger of an explosion and we were just evacuated because there was a power

Mojito
Mojito
cut. I have no idea why a power cut would require our evacuation, but never mind.


What should be done to improve the situation in the future? In my opinion, if the building management evacuates us into the cold of winter for more than an hour then they should have to serve hot chocolate and Kahlúa. If the evacuation happens during the summer then they should have to serve mojitos or chilled rosé.

Updated

When I got home I found that there had been a power cut at my apartment, which is about a mile away. It must have been a fairly major power cut to affect buildings so far away in such a densely packed urban environment.

Post a comment Tags: drinks, brussels, evacuation