The State of The Apartment

**note** I am frustratingly forgetful of the capitalization guidelines for titles (as per the style of the publishing company where I used to work) that I used to know and it's a source of irk almost every time I type a title.  (I mean, really, that's the LEAST of the grammatical/style/punctuation issues here... how far I've fallen...)  Something about capitalizing if over four letters... and articles... but not prepositions...  ACK!  I struggle to be a nerd these days.  (Oh sheesh, now you're probably gonna rake through this thing just looking for errors.  Blazes, why did I go and say something?!)

Anyway, without further ado, I give you the apartment as it currently stands:

The girls are finally up!  And there's Dave's piece over the mantle by the nefarious bunny.

Let sleeping cats lie... especially when on their favorite chair!

The is the "Chau nook"... I think they go quite well with Mabel.  (A bar, a dressmaker's mannequin... it's perfectly fitting of the lovely Ms. Chau.  :))  Now we just need a nifty sconce to go betwixt them.

Mabel's got her belly on display.  She's a mannequin after my own heart.

This is Byron's room/project.  What a mess, hm?

The new wardrobe is in place.

Shelves are filling up...

This Taxali is perfect for the bathroom.  Don't think about why too much, but just know it is.

Bedroom wardrobe woes.  Byron's got a nice pile-up of runoff on the floor (yeah, OK, the white pony boots are mine)... I'm not saying anything because he kindly gifted me the lion's share of HIS wardrobe here, as well.  *sigh*

The kitchen, most glorious of rooms.  I want to LIVE in it.  The other rooms are superfluous, no?

Look!  It's Hawk's cheesesteak painting!!!  It's totally best friends with the two Gary Taxali ice cream guys, no?

I hug you with my crazy long arms!

I show you the wisdom contained on my pants!

I stretch to show you the width of my dress and my sweater heart necklace!

Dress is from Cos, and I could wear it every day.  Leggings are from Pixie Market.  I forget the designer and I'm too lazy to go look right now.  Necklace is from Penelope's in Chicago.  Shoes are from Barney's COOP (house label).  Girl is from St. Louis.

The Past Couple of Months

As my last week in Brussels winds down (OK, I'm being dramatic... I'll be back.  Just have to go back to the States for a few months to sort out my visa.), here are some things from the past couple of months that have slipped through the posting cracks.

Watch out, 'cause I'm x-large-ing 'em, people!

Filou (il "adore les gateaux") eyes the custard pie that never was.  Well, the pie was... it was full of lousy custard.  I am starting to suspect my oven... the cake I made today took 15 minutes longer than the estimated bake time.  I'm watching you, oven!

This is cod with yummy breadcrumb/caper/parsley stuff on top.  Did I post this already?  brumpf!

Remember that time I made blanquette de veau because we arrived late at the only grocery nearby that was open on Sunday and grabbed the last (literally, the LAST) package of meat of any kind, which happened to be veal belly?  Meat roulette!  Not a bad way to baptize the Le Creuset into the European ways.

My lunch buddy.

Oh!  This is a good one!  I took it for the "Big Pizza" brand of pizza TUNA-flavored pizza.  (Yeah, there is lots of seafood on the supermarket pizzas here.)  But then I noticed the "Boston" flavor that Big Pizza also offers.  Do you know what's on the Boston variety?  Cream cheese and spinach, friends.  Now that's a hard choice:  tuna or cream cheese and spinach.  Seeing as none of the frozen pizzas fit into my measly little freezer here, I'll go with neither.  But gross and gross.

Pretty ladies making cocktails on a lovely night at Lynsey's.  Actually, I think that is the ouzo we were preparing to drink out of mugs.  Take that!

I just like it.

A great wine bar just across from the church in Place Brugmann.  

You can take your bottle and food treats across the street and hang out by the church and they'll come check on you over there.  Love that.

Bring it.

This is a Japanese-style of beer that is actually brewed in Belgium.  Super-delicious and served in a lovely mug.  Oh yeah, it's at Nonbe Daigaku, and that place is the shizz.  It's the best Japanese we've found here.  Seriously reminds me of Kihachi.  A super-talented, older chef knocking it out of the park.  I haven't been to that many sushi joints in Brussels yet, but they say that he offers things that most don't here.  Can't wait to go back.  

Recents

A tiny spider waited patiently while we ate our pizza at La Bottega Della Pizza, which is the real-deal deliciousness we'd been craving.  Go there.  It's at Duceptiaux and Ch du Waterloo.

Me.

Good draw-rings at that little bar we went to after seeing Inception.  "LAPIIIIN"!!!!!

B and I went to Antwerp last Saturday.  There is both a "Jodenstraat" and an "Everdijstraat" there.  And look! They're both on this map!

I've got a big collection of address numbers (and architect signatures) now that I've been saving up to post, but these are too good to sleep on.  Near the Walter Van Beirendonck store in Antwerp.

See how easy Dutch is?  Assuming this means, "I wait here".... outside of a grocery in Antwerp.

Gettin' ready at Antwerp Central Station.  It always trips me out when the animal or piece of meat or whatever is preparing itself to be more delicious, essentially preparing itself for its demise.  Anthropomorphism's a real bitch sometimes.

Favorite cart at the market at Parvis St-Gilles.

Garden Jams

A few of me n' Chi...

So, the dress.  It's really extraordinary.  It's made in NYC by a label called "Jam Jam".  I got it at Steven Alan in February.  I love the jacquard fabric, but it's got this beautiful knit "mesh" with clear sequins at the front and on a couple of spots at the hem.

Dress, Jam Jam; shoes, Jeffrey Campbell; bracelet, Jami Rodriguez; bandeau American Apparel.





Somebody loves her "yard".  Sometimes she does this:

But mostly, she does this:

Pony Party!

Sadly, the Pony Party sign didn't make it to Brussels.  I used it for a party at our old place in Philly (which trickily didn't have any ponies on offer), and someone swiped it!  (Maybe they were mad about the lack of ponies?)  Oh, the times we had with that sign.  It spread like a rash through the A&F parking lot.  A happy, fun rash!

So yes... this is the worried horse/sleepy horse jacket/dress.  I found this gem at the Rag-O-Rama in Cbus, where they gladly took it off the window mannequin for me (unlike those jerks at the R-O-R in St. Louis, who have a "policy" that they can't take anything out of the window display... grrr).  It says "Neigh" on it, as well.  Neigh!  Because that's what horses say!  I'm not sure if it's meant to be a jacket or a dress, and I've worn it as both.  The label reads "The Vested Gentress".  This makes me happy.

Dress, Isabel Marant; jacket, vintage (The Vested Gentress... just wanted to type that again); wooden bead necklace by me; shoes, old Kenneth Cole; purse old Dooney & Bourke).

News From The Kitchen

My new drill.... er, beater!  Bad ass, right?  It was either "murdered out" matte black or a cheap-looking "chrome".  I made the right choice, don't you think?  She works like a champ--even has interchangeable bread hooks and a whipping attachment.  

Considering that Kitchen-Aid stand mixers go for over 599 euro around here, I think this was 75 euros well-spent.  (Can you imagine?!  Almost $800 for a Kitchen-Aid mixer?  They are not cheap in the states, but they're a steal compared to what they cost here.)  I have my eyes on a "robot" for the kitchen, but that will probably have to wait until I get back.  Um, yeah.  They call those food processor-type choppers "robots".  I just *have* to get a robot.  

Nice, right?

Doesn't look like much, but this is roasted cauliflower with tomatoes, onions, olives, parsley and homemade breadcrumbs over pasta.  It was good.

So, let's talk about baking for a moment.  It's got me all in a tizzy over here.  Everything is just more... involved.  I need the computer around when I'm baking so I can do conversions (grams to oz, Fahrenheit  to Celsius).  Baking is a relatively precise endeavor anyway... you have to make sure your measurements are pretty spot-on, lest you end up with something that doesn't rise or is too dry, etc.  So now I've got to work off the cookbook *and* a computer.  Boo.  

And then there's the issue of the products on offer here.  I am still perplexed by the flours.  I'm pretty sure I bought pastry flour last time... but is it the same as our "pastry" flour (i.e., finer) or is it just that is doesn't have a self-rising element, as the all-purpose flours (which are often dubbed as bread flours here) do?  And the baking power comes in pre-measured packets of, like, 3 tbs at a time.  Which is dumb, because when do you ever use 3 tbs of baking power in one bake unless you're in a commercial kitchen?  And the butter!  How I took for granted that butter is easily measured in tablespoons on the wrapper so as to correspond with a recipe's request?  Butter here comes in big squares, so I've got to force it into my measuring spoons and scrape off the excess, making a mess of the butter in the process.  This doesn't sound like a big deal, but it's a pain and I just miss having butter that was sorta measured out for me.  

Oh!  And my regular-sized cookie sheet doesn't fit in my oven.  So I have to use the mini cookie sheet, which only bakes about 8 cookies at a time.  So if I'm gonna bake cookies, I've got to have an afternoon to spare.  Hurumph.

But I will not give up!  At least my cupcake/muffin pan fits in the oven.  And my first batch of strawberry and peach muffins was pretty good.  A little dry, but pretty good.  Hey, Fran and the cat liked them!  :)

Recent Eats

I am obsessed with the lettuce here.  Obsessed, I tell you!  My salad spinner's been going non-stop!  So happy to have a kitchen again...

Lentil salad with red peppers, carrots, parsley, celery and a mustard vinaigrette over such fantastico lettuce!

Salsa verde.  So far I am preferring Alice Waters' recipe to the Moosewood Collective's, but every batch is sorta different anyway.  I mean, it's best to relatively wing it here.

Funny thing.  I don't know all of the translations for the fish and meats in French.  Sure, I know the basics (poulet, dinde, viande... sometimes I even remember that cod is "cabillaud"), but when there are all sorts of fish filets in front of me with mystery names, the only one I can really pick out is salmon.

So my new game is picking out something that looks appetizing (tried this over the weekend with a mystery "pork" from the Ardennes... turned out it was their salt-cured pork--and delicious!), taking it home, and translating it.  So today I picked out some lovely filets of "sebaste".  Care to venture a guess??  Sounds kinda like "sea bass", hmm?  Turns out it's redfish/ocean perch.  Good by me.  I baked it with some fresh lemon and herbs. Yum.  Tune in tomorrow for the next mystery food!

Delicious lettuce with apples, celery, Danish blue cheese, and a honey-balsalmic vinaigrette.

Feelin' owl-y.  Britt gave me this lovely pin when I left Philly.

Window kitteh, 4-evah!

The Farm and The Beach

The other week I had a most extraordinary day.  I had read about a patch of land in an urban part of Brussels that had been reclaimed as a farm.  And I'd also heard about a temporary "beach" that the city'd set up on one of the quays.  Turns out, the two were only blocks away from each other, so I headed out to see them both.  This involved transferring to a metro line I hadn't taken before (exciting!).

Just as I surfaced from the escalator at the Yser metro station, I saw this:

Clearly, there's an urban farm nearby.

And here it is!  It's the  Ferme du Parc Maximillien, and it was set up in the '90s to replace a car park.  It is such a glorious respite from all of the traffic buzzing around just outside these fences.

There were fancy chickens with roosters with peacocks all in the same pen.  A little old lady came out to feed them, and the biggest bunnies I've ever seen were chasing each other under the fences and through all of the pens.

This gentleman was very proud of his pen just off the street.  He came closer and posed regally for me.  I think I got his best angle.

Fence-climbing to get up close and personal.

So... more about the farm.  They also have a small vegetable patch and some fruit trees, and I believe they give instructions on setting up your own garden and composting, etc.  They also have a hutch of Guinea Pigs (you know I love this) and smaller bunnies.  I like the way that different species are put in the same pens, and everyone just gets along.  What a great place!



Now... on to the "beach"!  It's called Bruxelles Les Bains, and it's magic!  They've brought in tons of sand, so that there's a beach on the quay.  But the best part is all of the FOOD.  There are booths set up on both sides of the whole stretch, offering Jamaican, Mexican, Argentinian, Brazilian, and... um, some Italian and French food.  But 95% of it is all Latin or South American or island cuisine.  YUMS.  I want to know where are all of these people are cooking when they're not at the beach because I want to go to their restaurants!

I stopped by on a Tuesday afternoon at around 2 pm.  All of the booths were open and there were some people out.  Not bad for a random weekday afternoon.  When B and I came back on a Saturday night, the place was jumpin'!

Random Tuesday afternoon.... but you get the point.