From Our Man in Antwerp

[E Pericoloso Sporgersi]

GAME: Word of the Day (WOTD), Sun Jul 04, 2010
... The crowd was growing.

Before he knew it (vodka straight for three hours straight will do that), the time had arrived. Across the grass, the orchestra struck the first chords of music reflected out from the famous Hatch Shell stage and the celebration was officially under way. Dusk had settled with the settling people all evening, but now most jumped up from the ground and swayed, gyrated and generally moved as close to the beat as their inebriations would allow.

Before he knew it, the spectacular, colorful, beautiful, LOUD blasts began ...

That reminds me of Rock Werchter, which I never attended, it being too youthfully boisterous and loud for my tastes. This music festival is quite famous in Europe though. My youngest son (born 1978) gushes about it and never fails to attend with his girlfriend, a 2-person tent, a little gas-powered fridge and a generous supply of beer, soft drinks, vodka and fruit juice. All that and a gaggle of lissome girls (they all have to sleep in rather cramped tents) is all that it takes to make it a fun time for him and his friends.

[E Pericoloso Sporgersi]

scandals ... sandalised ...

You fell for it.
Good!

[E Pericoloso Sporgersi]

In another forum (CoU)

Have you read any good books lately?

Oh yes, positively yes! I did, I most assuredly did. Absolutely! Emphatically affirmative. As sure as can be. No doubt about it. No kidding. You can rest assured.
Did I say YES?

I've recently reread the whole Vorkosigan Saga. Boy, this is captivating. No matter where you start, in publication or in internal chronological order, or somewhere in the middle of a story, you're hooked in no time, without realising it.

Boy, oh boy, can the lady write. I can hardly wait for November when Cryoburn, the latest Vorkosigan novel, will be published.

I cannot stress how much I recommend the books of Lois McMaster Bujold. I'll drop any computer crisis unresolved just to read her latest unread story first. That darn computer can wait ...

[E Pericoloso Sporgersi]

Cloudy with a Chance of Lamb Balls Breton Style

(serves 3 - 4)
- 350 g minced lamb
- salt & pepper to taste
- 1/5 freshly ground nutmeg
- 1/2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
- 2 tsp Dijon mustard
- 1/2 tsp paprika powder
- 4 or 5 drops red Tabasco
- 1 egg
- 16 strips of lightly smoked, thinly sliced lard

Now comes the highlight of the day: except for the lard, mix it all well BY HAND. Ah, the exquisite feeling of the minced meat squishing from between my fingers.

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But also the hardest part, the burning sensation of the Tabasco in a cut in my hand and the self-discipline required not to lick my fingers before I'm quite finished with it.

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Roll the lot into a sausage and divide into 16 cilindrical portions.

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Roll each portion into a strip of lard. Now, because of a dumb shopping mistake, I was 9 strips short. Oh, well, I folded the remaining portions into slices of pancetta I still had in the fridge.

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Finally, on medium-to-low heat, fry the little meat balls in some olive oil on both sides until brown.

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Scoop out excess fat if needed.

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[E Pericoloso Sporgersi]

I don't know about you, but in Flanders we call summer the cucumber season because there are little or no scoops in the news media. Well, here you go, seasoned cucumber.

Spicy Cucumber Salad

(serves 2-4)
- 1 cucumber, peeled but for a few stripes of green; the green peel has a bitter taste, but I leave just a little for colour

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the core seeds partially removed, because I've been told that removing the seeds will keep the cucumber coming back afterwards

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sliced to +/- 2 mm thickness.

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- salt & pepper to taste
- 1 tbsp salad oil
- 2 tbsp white wine vinegar
- 4 tbsp water
- 1 tbsp chopped chives
- 1 tsp chopped tarragon
- 2 - 3 spring onions

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- 3 very finely cut chili peppers for the spicy taste and the contrasting colour.

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- 4 cloves

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Put the salad in a plastic bowl with a lid, shake vigorously and keep in the fridge (possible for several days, but the cucumber will gradually lose its crispness).

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Mangez, mangez sain, mangez frais, mangez ... des concombres!

Sorry, no cucumber song available, so I picked the next best thing ...

[MidasKnight]

Interesting that you call 'strips of lard' what we 'Merkins call bacon.

[Darb]

I enjoy cucumbers. I've found that a small squirt of simple syrup adds a nice faint backnote of sweetness that really brings out the vinegar and chilies.

Great photos, BTW. You have a real knack for instructional photography.

[E Pericoloso Sporgersi]

Interesting that you call 'strips of lard' what we 'Merkins call bacon.

I wrote 'strips of lard' to avoid any confusion with what I always thought bacon to look like

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But that is *British* bacon.

It appears I was the one confused. Now I know why and I stand corrected.

Dutch (and Flemish) ..... English ............... French (if I'm not mistaken)
spek .......................... bacon ......................... lard
bacon ....................... British bacon .................. bacon

Thanks for nudging me.

[E Pericoloso Sporgersi]

Black Tiger Shrimp Breton Style.

In my local supermarket I bought frozen tiger shrimp, this time for my own delectation.

(serves 4 to 5)
- 450 g tiger shrimp (16-20 p), pre-cleaned, i.e. head and bad tasting gut removed.
- as many strips of lightly smoked, thinly cut bacon
- spices to your taste or none at all

I peeled the shrimp, which is easy,

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and rolled each one in a strip of bacon.

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I have no garden, nor a BBQ, though I used to have those before retiring. So now I make do with an electric griddle instead of a charcoal grill. I don't mind, because it seems to me that I have more temperature control and moreover, with non-fossil-fuel generated power, it has no carbon footprint at all, except for the carbon dioxide I myself generate.
On the griddle, coated with olive oil, I grilled the little rolls on both sides.

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By the time the bacon is browned on both sides, the shrimp are done.

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[MidasKnight]

Are you provided electricity via nukes or renewable power (non-biomass renewables)?

[E Pericoloso Sporgersi]

Are you provided electricity via nukes or renewable power (non-biomass renewables)?

I don't know the exact ratios, but the nuclear plants Doel (4 reactors) and Tihange (3 reactors) together, claim a total power output of almost 6 GW. They claim to supply 80% of the total electricity consumption.
Meanwhile, renewable sources and windmill farms are growing fast.
I would like to contribute my personal bowel gas, but I haven't yet found a way to collect it. I wonder if and how astronauts manage it.

[MidasKnight]

Hrm, diahrea in zero gravity would be awful ... even while sitting on a toilet. Yuck!

[E Pericoloso Sporgersi]

Though We are no Headhunters

Head cheese is widely appreciated in Belgium, in several varieties, pork's or calf's head based, or even turkey based.
The assortment in my local medium-sized supermarket.

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Coarse Cut "Preskop"

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Fine Cut "Kipkap"

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With tomato sauce "En tortue"

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Based on turkey

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It is eaten in four ways.

1. Thinly sliced (2-3 mm), on bread and with all sorts of garnishing.

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2. Many pubs and bars serve it as finger food, diced (2-3 cm), with strong mustard, to accompany a beer or other drink.
3. The kind with tomato sauce, tête en tortue, is the only kind eaten warm as well, with bread, pan-fried potatoes or Belgian fries.
Personally, I prefer it on toast generously coated with strong mustard, and with a hard-boiled egg, pickled gherkins and onions.

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[Darb]

Mmmm ... I adore a well made head cheese.

I recall posting a pic a ways back in the extreme cuisine thread.

[E Pericoloso Sporgersi]

About "Frut"

I don't know the origin of the word, but I'm sure it means something like "little fragments" or "shreds" as evidenced by

1. "Frut", Antwerpian slang for the Flemish "Kipkap", fine cut head cheese,

2. "Frutsteen", shredded stone, a kind of natural or artificial rock, that looks like "Kipkap", terrazzo or granito, which was also used for kitchen sinks,

3. "In frut schieten", shoot to shreds, as in this video (they can shoot better than spell Rolls Royce),

4. But the fourth meaning isn't easily explained. The slang nickname for Antwerpen's main newspaper Gazet van Antwerpen is "De Frut".
Maybe my great-grands used yesterday's cut up paper as toilet paper?

I've been wondering if other venerable newspapers or magazines like The Times, Washington Post, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Le Parisien, Pravda, Osservatore Romano, Der Spiegel and others have a popular nickname too.

Do you know of any?

BTW.
For Flemish-American US citizens and Belgians in the US, there is a Gazette van Detroit. But I haven't found its nickname (yet).

[E Pericoloso Sporgersi]

Dutch Quirk (Flemish and German too)

Dutch allows words to be concatenated much more readily than English.
This can have funny consequences like:

1. A word with 8 consecutive consonants

Angstschreeuw

In English: cry of fear
angst = fear, but you knew that
schreeuw = cry
In German: Angstschrei

2. Not really a regular word, but it is grammatically correct nevertheless. Its particularity is the syllable "ten" occurring 9 times in total and 4 times consecutively.

Hottentottensoldatentandartsassistententettententententoonstelling

In English: Hottentot soldier's dental assistant's bra exhibition.
Hottentotten = Hottentots
soldaten = soldiers
tandartsassistenten = dentists' assistants
-- tand = tooth + arts = doctor + assistenten = assistants
tettententen = literally boob tents, slang for bra
-- tetten = boobs + tenten = tents
tentoonstelling = exhibition

Sorry, there's no link to the pronunciation.

[E Pericoloso Sporgersi]

Update:

Two "ten"s more in

Hottentottensoldatenkinesitherapeutententamenassistententettententententoonstelling

but also

[E Pericoloso Sporgersi]

About the "Mytilus Edulis" or the "Blue Mussel"
A delicacy in Belgium, worth a culinary Oscar.

About fifty years ago - I was fifteen or so - mussels (Mytilus Edulis) were considered cheap but good and appetising food. As a rule-of-thumb, any month with an "r" in it was considered mussel season, with the additional two weeks after August 15th when the new harvest arrived in restaurants and seafood shops.

Is it because of the Oosterschelde dam or other influences, I don't know, but nowadays mussel season for the famous and delicious Yerseke mussels (Dutch site) starts around July 15th. Also, at € 6 per kg (in the supermarket) they're not particularly cheap any more.

Anyway, I wanted mussels for lunch this Sunday (I prefer on a Sunday because the trash truck collects on Monday mornings). So here goes.

Mosselen op zijn Provencaals. (this is Dutch)
(in French: Moules á la Provençale, in English: Mussels Provençal Style, in German: Muscheln Provencalischer Art, Spanish: Mejillones a la Mediterranea)

For 1 casserole for 1 person:
Note: You don't necessarily have to increase the amount of vegetables for multiple casseroles/persons. I bought the minimum sales units available in my local food store, many items of which were in fact too much for a single person. Just take care each person's casserole has enough vegetables. Experiment with your spouse/cohabitant/roommate before inviting other people to partake.

1 kg blue mussels (these are so-called Jumbo size)

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1 sweet fennel
1 bell pepper
1 tomato
1 large carrot
1 onion
3 to 6 cloves garlic

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1/2 tbsp Hot Madras Curry Powder
1/2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1 shotglass French Pastis or Greek Ouzo

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1/2 tbsp freshly ground pepper (white or black)

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(If you don't like anise, replace the fennel by celery and the Pastis by Scotch or Calvados, or a large glass of dry white wine or sherry)

Onion relish: grated onion, S&P, lemon juice and finely chopped chives.

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Belgian fries or panfried potatoes or plain/toasted bread or whatever you like.
Lacking the gear to make fries, I made panfried potatoes.

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The vegetables are not particularly meant to be eaten, but I like them, so I chopped them very coarsely, making it easier to pick them from between the mussel shells. Finely chopped they tend to accumulate in the shells, which is no objection though.

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I proceeded to fry and simmer the vegetables until just before them losing their crunchiness.

Then I dumped in the mussels, added the ground pepper and the pastis, and let it all cook on high fire, every minute or so shaking the pot to turn over its contents to get all mussels cooked evenly. When all mussel shells have just opened, then they're ready. Depending on your size heat source, it will take 5 to 8 minutes.

Important note: Removing from the heat source at the right moment is crucial. Undercooked mussels are just as yummy to eat, but their shells are difficult to open. Overcooked mussels, fallen out of their shell, still are edible, but then they may tend to be tough and stringy. The shells should all be open, but the mussels should still be attached to one side and not spontaneously fall out. So watch them while they're cooking (a glass lid on the cooking pot is ideal).

Meanwhile I reheated my previously panfried potatoes in the microwave oven (1.5 minutes).

The result of this effort was not just delicious, it was heavenly, even if I do say so myself.

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As an accompanying drink I chose Scotch Whisky. But several other beverages are quite fitting too: a good beer, or a white/rosé wine, or a chilled red Brouilly, or freshly pressed orange juice, or, very surprisingly, a glass of plain cold milk.

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Finally, the left-over liquid with vegetables is a very good "fond" to make Boullabaisse or another seafood soup or even (I think) clam chowder.

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Go for it!

[E Pericoloso Sporgersi]

White or Red ?

Long ago (1974) I had a wonderful lunch in Le Grand Véfour, with master-chef Raymond Oliver:

• Toast á la moelle (toast with veal marrow) for starters,
  Lamproie au Bourgogne (Rouge) (lamprey with red Burgundy wine) as main dish.

It was delicious. (and that night my eldest son was conceived )

This fish with red wine led me to thinking that mussels cooked with red wine might be a good idea. So I tried it with a generous glass of a young red Bordeaux and I chilled the rest of the bottle to drink.

My conclusion:
It was no particular improvement over white wine, not better, nor worse.

I would advise adhering to a simple rule-of-thumb I read somewhere:
It's a fallacy to assume that adding a cheaper wine or spirit will make the dish taste just as good. Use the exact same wine or spirits you plan to drink with that dish.

My next experiment will be Scotch, Calvados or Bokma (but without an attempt at impregnating).
Cheers.

[E Pericoloso Sporgersi]

Pesky Flies !

For a couple of months now I've been bothered by a bunch of annoying little flies, just 2-3 millimeters long. I assume they are Morgan's fruit flies, Drosophila Melanogaster.

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I could attack them with a fly swatter, of course.

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But then there's the chore of cleaning up the smudges on the walls and whatnot. And because I have only 50% probability of actually hitting one, I would have to swing twice or more at each insect. I do prefer some other, less strenuous method of countering this pest. I've been thinking of a lure to catch/kill them.

An electronic fly fulgurator would not work because the flies have too little wingspan and too short legs to touch both electrodes at once.

I tried a plastic bag with a few slices of fruit in it, waiting until a worthwhile number of flies have landed and then suddenly close the bag. But this was rather inefficient and wasteful of bags.

Then I thought of the old wasp trap. I offered them a glass of sweet lemonade. But unfortunately for me very few flies were interested.

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On the other hand I had noticed that the flies were very much attracted to Scotch whiskey and shamelessly dived in, always compelling me to carefully examine my drink before each sip. So I sought to reciprocate the annoyance factor and have the flies drown themselves in a little (cheap) Scotch in a glass set aside especially for them.

This was unexpectedly succesful to both parties. The flies eagerly overdosed on booze in their glass while I noticed a significant decrease of drowned corpses in my own glass of good Scotch.

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This glass has a few days worth of flies, but once in a single night I caught 7 in some Scotch left overnight on the coffee table.

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At first I wondered if this was a vanguard of a Scottish Fly invasion, but the flies' equal appetite for Cuba Libre (3/4 Coca Cola & 1/4 Rum) disallowed that theory. Could they be Al-Qaeda infiltrators exempt of alcohol prohibition?

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No, this is no insect on the windowpane, it's an airplane flying over.
Anyway, I now have two recipes for a fly trap. To discover more, I'll start experimenting with some other kinds of spirits and mixtures.

Either the flies will all get killed or I will get very drunk. I'll let you know, after the hangover subsides ...

[E Pericoloso Sporgersi]

I'm spending a couple of days in Ostend, Belgium, a major North Sea sea-side resort with a tormented history.

But not to gamble in its casino, no, just to enjoy a change of air (briny), wind (always blowing) and fragrance (mostly tanning oil or fish wharf, or sometimes used diapers, depending on where the wind comes from).

And of course visit the restaurants with their inexhaustible supply of seafood in all its delicious preparations. The most famous of wich are the North Sea Gray Shrimp, used in countless delectable dishes.

One of the simplest but very enjoyable pleasures in life is sipping a glass of good beer, manually peeling and then eating freshly cooked shrimp in a bistro on the beach-side esplanade and meanwhile watching the young women go by. Waiting for a gust of wind strong enough to lift up their skirts, makes for an added thrill.

I also went to the "Ballet in the Cinema" to watch a performance of Coppelia by the Moscow Bolshoi Ballet (transmitted in 16:9 widescreen with full surround sound). Though I could have seen it in Antwerp, I used this opportunity as an excuse to visit Ostend.

[E Pericoloso Sporgersi]

A year ago, I got a jar of "Cranberry Pepper Jelly, spicy but not too hot (made in USA)" as a birthday present. It's delicious with several kinds of paté of wild boar, deer, pheasant, peasant's and such.

Because I don't remember who gave it to me, I don't know where to buy a new jar and the label doesn't say. So I googled.
Please have a look here.

Then scroll down to and look at what is advertised in "Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought".

I really do wonder what these two articles can have in common?

Edit 31 dec 2011
The Amazon page used to show a big granny-style bra below the Cranberry Pepper Jelly.

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Meanwhile the page has been modified.

[laurie]

I really do wonder what these two articles can have in common?

Simple -- They were purchased by someone with a Y chromosome.

Only a man would buy a bra on Amazon when Victoria'sSecret.com is available..

Hopefully it wasn't a gift for some female he cares about.

[umsolopagas]

Hungry braless female who's in a hurry or man with mistress?

[E Pericoloso Sporgersi]

Disneyland Paris Moves to Belgium for the Summer

Take a virtual visit with a 360° camera. Look around and follow Tinkerbell.
Switch to full screen, move the mouse pointer (hold left button) to look around, use the scroll wheel to zoom in/out.