Reunited

Dear foodies, families and other readers,

Rather than catching up with you again about the past month or so, I would like to share with you a very personal story about my love for food.

I think it has been since the age of 8 that I was able to hold a pan and tried to cook, or bake for that matter. There are some very strong memories left in my 40+ year old brain which I hold very dearly. Like making French toast for my little sister on Saturdays. Or making sate sauce with dad once - an enormous volume of it as we kept adding ingredients because the flavour wasn't right according to us. Baking Dutch apple pie and shortbread cookies on a regular basis. Moving on later to making big pots of Nasi Goreng for the whole family on Friday evenings. And so on...

Both my parents always showed a love for (good) food and both have had a big impact on my love for food as a result. 

In the earlier part of my life, it was my mother who was my biggest inspiration I think. She was always at home and she was a very creative cook as I call it. The 'let's open the fridge and see what we can make of some of the food in there' sort of cook. That's the kind of cook I have become too. She is also the one who has brought the food history into my life. Her family were bakers. Her dad, then her brother, and now my cousin have run the Lexmond Bakery in Hillegersberg, Rotterdam. I think that even her grandfather was. Am not sure how far back it actually goes. I am planning to catch up with mum's oldest sister early in the New Year to see what she can tell me about it.

Dad was a business man and started to cook later in life. I call him 'The Surgeon'. He has the patience of a saint and is able to carry out the most precise jobs in the kitchen for hours.. I have huge admiration for that as I am not really like that I have to admit ;-). He is a brilliant cook and has created 'Michelin star quality' food for family and friends many a time. He also knows a lot about wine. When I was in my twenties, I cooked together with him a lot. Started washing up and cleaning vegetables... Then 'worked my way up' as it were. That sounds a bit 'cheffie' perhaps but it has taught me lots of different processes and it also helped me to appreciate the products we cooked with.

Five years ago, 8 years after mum died, dad left the farm that had been our family home for 28 years. The farm was where the high times of cooking, baking, loads of dinner parties, growing organic vegetables, fruit and herbs, etc. took place. When dad left the farm, it probably felt like the end of an era. Lots went into storage as he moved to an apartment in town. Come to think of it, it was probably a turning point for all of us. He is now coming to the three of us for nice food ;-)!! My younger brother and sister love cooking too so he can't  go wrong really!

My life was taking place in England for 13 years until we moved to Belgium last year and so with dad's 'stuff' going into storage 5 years ago....a lot of my 'stuff' went in with it.
Last weekend, my husband and I finally rented a van and drove to dad's self storage unit to pick up everything that I was still separated from..

And together with all my children's toys, tennis rackets, vinyl records, teenage books and all sorts of other things from the first 30 years of my life....I brought back with me the biggest treasure there was to find amongst all the furniture and boxes of 'stuff': mum's 'Margriet Kookboek'!! 

'Margriet' is a bit like 'Good Housekeeping' in the UK. They published a cookbook (first print 1953) that became the main source in the kitchen for many housewives in Holland. My mum's 14th print version is from 1964. You've got to love the illustrations too :-)! 
Here it is......

From this book, I have baked lots of things on many occasions when I was young. Amongst which the French toast for my little sister, as mentioned earlier. This book means the world to me. It resembles my love for food for as long as I can remember. The smell of the book. The pictures. It all brings back so many memories... Absolutely wonderful!

And so by being reunited with the book, I feel reunited with mum again as well. I connect with her regularly at lots of different levels. But this is a very special link.

From the storage also came with me a biscuit tin with cookie cutters in it. When I opened it I found this Christmas cookie cutter: 

It wouldn't surprise me if this cutter came from my grandad's bakery. In Holland around Christmas time they sell all butter 'shortbread-like' cookies in this shape with shaved almonds on them. They call them Christmas wreaths ('kerstkransjes'). I will be making these this week for sure!

It has been an interesting year and I have loved setting up my blog and sharing my love for food with you. In 2013 I will keep building on the food history in my family. I am planning to give this more direction and carve out something that I can grow with all the energy and enthusiasm I have in me.

I wish you all a very Happy Christmas. A time to truly connect with family and friends. To take time for each other and relax. To enjoy home made food, to cook and bake together. Or simply, to enjoy what someone else has been cooking for you!

May 2013 bring lots of inspiration for you - in the kitchen, the garden or any other 'place' you feel most happy.

I am leaving you with this Christmassy 'Mother & Child' painting by my late mother, Theresia Maria Kooijmans-Lexmond.

Love,
X Bee

Let's catch up!

Dear foodies, bakers, cooks, gardeners, mothers, fathers, creative peoplezz and other interested folk,

Life has been a bit hectic recently... And that won't change very soon. Will it ever ;-)?
So let's try and catch up a bit!

Last post was from the 4th of October. Since then we have had the 'Slob' family over with their 3 little girls (that is actually their real family name - Dutch!) which was a lovely weekend. Suzanne is an old uni friend of mine and the two of us hadn't caught up for a year - let alone met up with both families... Cakes were in order of course! Made a 'Lime and Basil Bundt' and 'Chocolate & Hazelnut Cupcakes'. Think they all went down well.

The weekend after that we went to Holland ourselves to celebrate the Birthday of the gorgeous Myrthe - my eldest niece. I had offered my sister to bake one of the cakes and tried to make a special thing of it for the 10 year old young lai-dee!
Another Bundt - as the shapes are so spectacular without having to do much about it. A chocolate cake with a hint of cinnamon and mixed spice for an Autumn twist. Decorated with 10 sugar roses. Fit for a 'little' chocolate queen. The result:

That same week I also 'harvested' an enormous bunch of cutting celery, simply because I had let it go wild completely.... Without wanting to waste it of course, I decided to chop it all up in the food processor and make a 'cutting celery pesto':

I added garlic, walnuts, pine nuts, salt, pepper, parmesan and olive oil. Great simple way of keeping and storing a surplus of herbs from the garden. Did this with sage as well a couple of months ago.

You don't have to make loads to have enough for a few plates of pasta. And if you do make a bit more, divide it over cute little pots - they make great presents too!

Same evening I had a spelt spaghetti with the cutting celery pesto and it was delicious. Don't need anything else... Although I added a few blobs of young goats cheese ;-)!

Also, I often feel that eating your pasta in the simplest way possible is also the best way possible. That's what the Italians do: keep it simple, fresh, pure. Respect the original ingredient(s). 

Might have this dish tonight again actually.....!


Then there's the 'speculaas' project I have introduced into this household.
Many of you will probably know that in Holland and Belgium people celebrate what we call 'Sinterklaas'  - St. Nicholas in English. His Birthday is celebrated on the 5th of December in the evening when children sing their hearts out in front of the fire until 'someone' knocks on the door... If you're lucky, Sinterklaas and his helpers will have left a big bag of presents for you by the door....! 

Living here now, we felt last year we had to introduce this phenomenon to the kids. There simply wasn't any getting away from it with school etc anyway. Plus it's great fun :-)!! 
So these two are lucky in that they get to celebrate the Birthdays of both old men: Sinterklaas and Santa Claus.... Funny that....quite similar names ;-)! I shall leave it to you to look up the history on the Internet but it is all quite similar and close between the two old grey 'beardies'!
So when I was in Antwerpen recently, I saw the wooden moulds for making 'speculaas' - bit like gingerbread men/cookies. I bought three of them - together with the special 'speculaas' spice mix.

Before the old man arrives I shall be making my own speculaas men and women and a bunch of smaller cookies too. Look forward to it! And I will show you the results. If you follow me on Twitter @BeezzzzzBee then you might get to see them sooner. I tend to tweet cooking results more frequently, using Instagram for the piccies.

Then there's of course the fire place project....................................................!!!!!!!!!!!!
What can I say..................................?

This is what it looked like before we started:

It had to be completely demolished as we had a huge smoke problem last winter. So bad that one night we had 12 firemen standing in our lounge trying ripping out bits that were smouldering away... Dangerous!
Appears that the people who sold us the house never really used it... Only to burn bits of paper.....!!!! I ask you.......!!?? 

Anyway, the malfunctioning monstrosity was finally going to go!

This is what it looked like when it was all taken away. They have now built a new wall around this mess and the new big stone tiles have been laid in front of it yesterday.

We have ordered a lovely wood burning stove which will hopefully be installed early next week after which the plastering (by pro) and painting (by me) can be done. Let's hope we can light our fire again by the weekend of the 10th of November..

Will share a picture of the end result.



The weekend of 20/21 October we had the gorgeous Susie Buckridge over from London. She had recently got engaged with her 'Mush' on mount Kili - how cool is that :-)!? Congrats to both of you: super news!!

We had mussels with her for supper on Friday eve and I made a chocolate beetroot cake for the weekend which went down a treat, especially after our Susie's hockey results on Saturday morning! Top of the table still after drawing against biggest rival 'Victory'.
Soon thereafter Susie B and I escaped to Antwerpen for a grown up girls day in town ;-). Lovely to see how much Sus liked Antwerpen and thought she could easily live there. She bought some gorgeous clothes by Dutch and Belgian designers and spotted this 'cake tray' at an antique stall with old hotel silver:

I HAD TO HAVE IT!!!

Actually got it for an almost ridiculously low price. 

Can think of soooooooooo many ways of using this.

Duncan insists it can only have one purpose: champagne fountain. I might just let him...

Out for supper with Susie B the second night which gave me time off from the kitchen - lovely too! Great to have you chick. Thoroughly enjoyed it! Next time: bring Mush too!

This weekend just gone we had Duncan's parents over so did lots of cooking and baking again. In short (and any particular order): marzipan fruit cake, chocolate brownies, Irish brown yeast bread, wild boar ragu with papardelle, 'the last of the chard'-tart, roast lamb, amaretti pudding with cherry sauce, schnitzels with Duncan's chips and home made coleslaw, vanilla custard pudding with blueberry/blackcurrant sauce. 

Think I kept everyone happy.....

Irish yeast loaves & marzipan fruit cake:

 

'The last of the chard'-tart.












This coming weekend we are having Liz Bath-Jones over. Another friend from London! What I have in mind food wise is:
Friday 
- Beef & stout pie (Jamie Oliver's 'Kate 'n Wills pie')
- Ice cream of sorts for who has space left..
Saturday
- Smoked salmon with soda bread
- Mussels
- Cheese board (Liz likes her cheese, hasn't got a sweet tooth - just like me :-)!)
Sunday
- Pear, walnut & blue cheese salad
- Roast chicken (Liz lives on her own and rarely does this - I know she likes it!)
- Chocolate mousse

Will also make a lemon drizzle cake as have a large number of lemons in fruit bowl and probably a banana bread for the same reason!


In the meantime I have also kicked off my 'bulb project':

I have planted numerous bulbs (mainly loads of different tulips but also grape hyacinths, dwarf daffodils, crocus, etc). Lots of them in pots (so that I also have a few nice presents lined up come Feb/March) but also in some of the beds in the garden. 
I am excited like a child and CANNOT wait for them to come out.

Broad beans have already come up. So quickly!! Apparently quite normal. Thanks to @TheMontyDon for reassuring me.

Dahlias had the first frost last weekend and can now be dug out to keep over the winter.



Today I put a new sheet of water colour paper on the board and am finally going to start the robin painting I have promised my little sister when she turned 40 in February..! Wish me luck - here are some previous drawings I hope to rely on:

Right....... Think that that was it from Belgium for now.
You can see: I have not been and won't be sitting still for very long...!

Stay warm! Keep baking! Get cooking! Until next time.

Love,

X Bee

Autumn Pleasures

Good morning everyone!

Happy Autumn rain.....! Not to everyone's taste and pleasure I know...

However, for our garden - and in particular the vegetable bed - it is very welcome right now. We decided last week to get a skip and cut/trim down all the trees, bushes and hedges. Good shot! The weather was amazing in the weekend - sunny and 18/19 'C - and we got it all done by Sunday late afternoon. Skip was measured by skip company on Monday and it was 1 ton of garden rubbish in total...! It looks very neat now - a delight to see from the warm and cosy house.

So....all veggies gone. All tomato pots emptied. Only things left are the rhubarb, rhubarb chard, cutting celery and of course my beloved Dahlias! We even had a 'new Dahlia kid on the block' a couple of weeks ago, this deep red one - it must be my favourite colour:

Because of the stormy weather last week, I cut out some very large and heavy branches from the older Dahlia plants before they were hitting the ground. I guess it's only a matter of weeks now before they will all be going so trying to enjoy the bright colours as much as I can before 'doom & gloom' time in the garden ;-).

Back to the rain. Can you hear it...? We found that after clearing the veg patch of all the veggies that were left (parsnips, carrots, onions) the soil was actually quite dry - almost dusty. Our summer was not as wet as the English one so the current rain is very welcome before we put in the onion & garlic sets and sow some winter seeds (spinach and winter lettuce).

This was our last harvest. The onions (from seed) have not done that well. They're ok but too small really. So I have decided to use them for Boeuf Bourguignon and/or pickle them.
The parsnips we roasted last Sunday (with olive oil, lemon, honey) to go with a roast chicken and roast potatoes and the carrots and kohlrabi are still in the fridge.

Going to put onion sets into the (wet!!) veg patch this weekend - 'Electric Red Autumn' and 'Radar' organic onions. Also putting in 'Vallelado' organic garlic. Apart from the onion & garlic department, I am sowing two winter lettuces: 'Rouge d'Hiver' and 'Winter Density' as well as 'Super Aquadulce' broad beans. 

I am waiting for The Organic Gardening Catalogue to send me the 'Giant Winter' spinach early next week so that those seeds can go in as well. This is the box of goodies that arrived from them earlier this week (always a happy moment!):

You can probably spot another treasure in there....! Can you smell them when you think of it...?! Sweet peas! 

After having followed Monty Don and his sweet pea project on BBC2's Gardener's World, I have decided to put the sweet peas in much earlier than I did this year. I bought 'Spencer', 'Little Sweetheart', 'Old Fashioned Mix' and 'Chelsea Scented'.

Sweet peas always remind me of mum who used to absolutely adore them and grow them herself to put them in the house.



So back in the garden on Sunday afternoon after my guests have left!

That's another theme this Autumn. Guests! We're pretty much 'fully booked' up until Christmas. 
As I mentioned last time, my sister was going to be over with her new(ly) constructed family - all 6 of them! Well, that was great fun! The weather gods were totally with us still as the kids even went for a dive in our oversized paddling pool on Sunday afternoon. 

They arrived Saturday lunchtime for a bowl of 'my mum's tomato soup' and cupcakes for afters ;-). That went down very well....

I made Mary Berry's Lemon Cupcakes with Lemon Butter Icing and Nigella's Blueberry Muffins with Violet Icing. I think that most of us even had two cupcakes after the soup.... One of each... Piggies!!!

The remainder of that Saturday afternoon was spent outside, playing ball games (curb ball became very popular again that weekend...remember that?). 

We had planned Duncan's chips in the evening, with roast za'atar chicken drumsticks & thighs and roast veggies from the garden. The latter was the fun bit as I got some of the children involved in digging out and cleaning the root veg. They did a brilliant job!
Here they are:

Beetroot, carrots and parsnips! Roasted them with olive oil, honey, lemon and cumin seeds. Together with the chicken and the chips, the kids absolutely wolfed it down. I think that when you involve them in all the prep (especially in growing the veg too) that they will be much keener to eat things like this. It's sort of 'cool' to pick your own crop, clean it, cook it and eat it.

We also harvested our pudding: rhubarb! For a crumble with apple. 
Of course we had to make hats again of the rhubarb leaves, although this time they were so big they became a bit (too) floppy!



The rhubarb crowd:

Sunday was pretty lazy and relaxed after relatively short nights for some.... Chatting, hanging out, more curb ball and a walk around the woods nearby. I had made a chocolate coffee Bundt cake to go with late morning coffees to keep everyone going and that went down a treat! A funny, 'golden shine' picture I took of it before it was demolished looked like this:

So that was the weekend with my younger sis and her gang!

Since then Duncan and I did embark on a bit of a detox (8 days of no coffee, alcohol, wheat and dairy) which of course came with the 'necessary' head aches.... OUCH!! 

Delighted that we were able to eat and drink 'normally' again last week, we made our own pizzas again - Friday night is now pizza night here with the boggins off to hockey and footie at different times. 

In honour of @EnglishMum (who I follow on Twitter) I created an 'ARSE' pizza, after having admired her 'BUM pie' and 'ARSE cake' creations! Hilarious! A right laugh! Arse pizza:

Yes, there's a lot of fun to be had on Twitter - for those of you who are not following yet...! If you fancy following me, my Twitter name is @BeezzzzzBee . You will probably get more regular and smaller snippets of info on family life, cooking, baking and gardening there.

I have finally made some proper sourdough bread again as well. The previous lot were too flat (collapsed when slashing the dough as it went into the oven). And I am delighted to share with you that I am back on track with some beautiful loaves, proper oven spring and good air pockets. Result:

I think that this is the most competitive I have ever been...but competitive with ME! Having to improve on my sourdough every time again. It will have to be perfect one day.... If there is such a thing.. It is slowly becoming quite an obsession. The sourdough project. Am also thinking of creating another starter. A white one. Currently have a rye starter which is now nearly one year old.

For the white starter I am probably going to use Dan Lepard's recipe from his book "The handmade loaf". He's my sourdough hero, who's just come back from San Sebastian where he did the amazing 'Loaf in a Box' project all summer.

On that note...

And with this Autumn arrangement on our garden table...

... I shall leave you to be cosy and warm. Wishing you everything wonderful that this season and your family and friends can bring.

I will be back soon with more bread, garden, guests, cooking, baking and other family stories!

Love,

X Bee 

Good to be back!

Hello everyone!

It's been a while... It has felt like a true holiday in many ways - not least because the children are off for NINE weeks (!!!!) here in Belgium over the summer. Every year the summer holidays start on the last school day in June at 12.30 and it lasts until the 1st of September (or the first school day thereafter). At least we know where we are at and - IF we wanted to - we could plan years ahead.........

Soooooo...we seriously had to break up the 9 weeks to stay sane. One week at home. Two weeks in the UK and Ireland. Two weeks at home again. Two weeks in France and two last weeks at home again with summer camps for the kids (horse riding and hockey) planned. Survived pretty well although I think that by last week we were all ready for a more structured life to start again! 

Lovely to have such beautiful weather at the end of the summer by the way! I must say, we haven't had much to complain about this summer anyway because for some bizarre reason the weather was good most of the time - wherever we went. Felt like being in the right place at the right time.

This has probably led to me being absolutely ready for a new season. I have always loved seasonal changes anyway. The change of colours, smells, food, decorations in the house, clothes. And for Autumn especially, the 'drawing in' feeling, lighting candles in the evening, lighting the fire, curling up on the sofa with a good book or watching a good TV programme or a film....it all has its charm!

But before I dive into all that cosiness (is that a word....?!), I would like to reflect on the summer and share a few photos and experiences with you!

In the garden

In my last blog I shared with you the broad beans we picked and the risotto we made with it. Funny coincidence actually that we are having that again tonight (full summer circle!). I had put the leftover broad beans in the freezer and I think that they should be eaten before the real hearty food starts to appear on the menu.

Since early summer we have picked more beetroots and carrots (for roasting with honey, lemon, olive oil and cumin seeds this time) AND we have harvested our first parsnips! First time I ever sowed them (straight into the ground) and they have done amazingly well!! I was very proud I have to admit. They were HUGE!

Then there's of course the Dahlias which have gone completely bonkers in terms of the number of flowers they have been producing. There's absolutely no end to it. And when I watched Gardener's World last Friday I found out that the more you cut them....exactly! The more flowers will come back! 
I feel that they are such almost 'old fashioned' flowers. Vintage-y. That's why I like them so much. Gorgeous.


Three varieties of the 5 I had put into the ground have done really well: Red Manhattan Island, Dutch Explosion, Creme de Cassis. I will include a couple of pictures of the first two.

I have been cutting them every week to put flowers in vases in the house. It has definitely encouraged me to try out new varieties next year. But boy, do they need a lot of space! I will plan that better next year. I think they need at least 1 square meter...

Other developments have of course been our tomatoes! I have two varieties this year: Lilly of the Valley and San Marzano. Both are doing very well. I am picking a bowl full every other day - at least. They are colouring nicely and the taste is good! Not a lot of damage on them at all so we've been pretty lucky there!

My husband made a beautiful salad with them this weekend when we had a (probably our last of the season) BBQ. Pretty meticulous I have to say......! I was a very proud wife! Think I will ask him for help in the kitchen a bit more often :-)! It was a very simple salad, just with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt, pepper, red onion and several fresh herbs from the garden (this time: chives, oregano, marjoram and tarragon). I guess that it just tastes extra delicious when you've grown it all yourself. This is what it looked like anyway:

Bread
My sourdough starter has been on holiday too - in the fridge! Quite amazing what it does when you give it a break and then revive it again, which is what I have been doing since I took it out 2 weeks ago. Most of the existing mixture went down the drain and I completely refreshed it with new rye flour and water.
Last weekend I baked the first loaves from it and I must say that the starter has got very active again and has produced a few good loaves of bread. One of them I baked in the 'La Cloche' (from www.bakerybits.co.uk) and came out well (after having kept the loaf in the oven a bit longer without the cloche to make sure the bottom was crusty too). As a first, I tried the Toasted Sesame Sourdough Cob, which is a recipe from the leaflet that comes with the cloche. This is it:

The other three loaves (for which I still use Daniel Stevens' - previously River Cottage - sourdough recipe form his book 'Bread'; River Cottage Handbook No. 3) have come out well in terms of flavour and inside structure but they went quite flat in shape when I put them in the oven. As soon as I slashed them with the razor blade knife (called a 'grignette') it collapsed a bit. Got to work on that!

So...we have a reasonable supply of bread again and I will hopefully be baking every other Saturday again from now on. Loving it! Keeps me sane. So rewarding too. Will keep you posted.


Restaurants
Over the last part of the summer I went to a few restaurants. Not so much in France, interestingly enough. I went to 2 restaurants in Maastricht, where my friend Carina lives. I lived in Maastricht for 11 years (university & work after that) and it is a lovely old town with so many bars and restaurants you wouldn't know what to choose! But...Carina and I had very good memories (that always does it, doesn't it?) of a restaurant called 'Au Coin Des Bons Enfants' - these days a one Michelin star restaurant. So we went back. 
Well...that was a big mistake! It was bad. On all fronts. Carina had a vegetarian menu and I decided to stick with fish. The fish menu was so same-ish in terms of colour, taste and texture that it reminded me of hospital food... Not over exaggerating! All the amuses arrived at the same time. There was a VERY young, arrogant/snotty waiter. A lot of things arrived late, if not too late. And last but NOT least, they had RED loo paper in the loos..... I ask you!? Red loo paper!!?? In a Michelin star restaurant! They seemed to have completely lost it there. What a shame. And what a thoroughly disappointing evening. Not that Carina and I didn't have any fun together however ;-)!!

But definitely NOT a Michelin star. I have yet to write the review to the chef/owner himself, which I will most certainly do. Unacceptable for a Michelin star restaurant, where it felt like the chef was absent and his wife Paula (front of house) most noticeably was (she was nowhere to be seen). The first time EVER I did not give a single penny for tip. It was a disgrace!

Howeverrrrrrrr, the next day Carina and Henry invited Sammy and I for supper in Chateau Neercanne (also one Michelin star). You will not believe the difference with the night before! The service was immaculate, yet not over the top. We all had a vegetarian meal and it was a-ma-zing!!! We literally felt kings and queens in that beautiful castle with magnificent views over the hills. Taken care of very well and served the most delicious, creative and beautiful dishes. A picture of the chateau:

Here are a few food pictures of that wonderful night (thanks so much again Henry & Carina!):

Starter with beetroot, pickled radishes, dried/crumbed black olive, lime mousse, quinoa, tomato crackers (like prawn crackers!), soy jelly, watercress puree. Sensational!!

With a wink to the Autumn already, a mousseline of mushrooms (not visible under the foam), fresh wild mushrooms and that foam. Simply delish. 

Ravioli filled with aubergine, think it was spinach underneath, and a very special little Swiss cheese that went over the top of it, grated at the table. Sorry, forgotten the very difficult name of that cheese.

We had been eyeing the cheese trolley for a while during our meal and it felt like a MUST to have a few slivers (...!). Kept very simple - not too many cheeses to choose from. All in top condition.

My cheese plate, with nuts, dried cranberries and a sliver of panforte. Toppie!

Finally, this was the most original thing I thought, a little home made cake with our coffees/teas to share (cut yourself) at your table. Instead of a tower of chocolates, friandises and cookies. Brilliant! That white chocolate pearl....!!! Passion fruit mousse inside, with a centre of raspberry compote (oozing out when you cut it...), covered in white chocolate. Every table got one (or two). I thought that this was such a lovely idea! Hadn't seen that anywhere before.




Last Saturday my husband and I went out for supper at Petit Cuistot, a restaurant here in Lier where we live. A success too! A very young guy named Willem van den Broeck became Belgian sommelier of the year in 2010 - he owns this restaurant. Great! Because this means that he offers a menu, in which the wines form the starting point and not the food. They build the menu around 5 different chosen wines. This changes every two weeks I think.        I simply didn't have time to take pictures of the food as it was all so good - I was just enjoying it! What I will do is give you a list of the wines and a quick mention of the key ingredient of what we ate with it.

• Tenuta Giuliano 2010, Terre di Chieti, Abruzzo, Italie (with raw tartare of beef, gurkin puree, bell caper, crunchy soy)
• Domaine Zacharioudakis 2011, Crete, Greece (with dorade, tomato, fennel)
• Rosu de Petravaselo 2011, Recas, Romania (with pigeon, pumpkin, black garlic puree, pommes dauphin)
• Domain Massandra 'Pinot Gris' (rose!!!), Ekim Kara, Ukraine (with Italian Lombard cheese and very strong Belgian blue cheese) THIS WAS THE STAR WINE!!!
• Jean-Paul Thevenet, 'On pete la soif', Fleurie (red cold sparkly!!), Beaujolais, France (with melon and citrus dessert)
• Moscato d'Asti (with blueberry cheese cake)

Lovely evening (we went by bicycle!). Great new wines to taste. Very good food to match it - creativity, flavours, textures. Great chat with Willem van de Broeck who had just simplified his concept to move away from all the Michelin 'stuff' hanging over him. Clearly a good move. As far as we are concerned. Lovely people at neighbouring table too, whom we had an extra glass of that AMAZING Pinot Gris from the Ukraine with...! We all loved it so much!

Looking forward

Right...................bit of a biggie this post! Bit like a summer holiday card x 100.....

Hope you're all still with me ;-)!

As I said earlier, I do look forward to a new season with everything it has to offer. Soups, stews, crumbles, cakes. This weekend my sister and her lovely new 'constructed' family are coming over and we will be with 10 around the dinner table - now we're talking!!!! Always dreamed of that! So I will be in the kitchen quite a bit before the weekend. Big pot of my mum's tomato soup I think. Cakes. Blueberry muffins. Since there 6 kids we will probably do roast chicken and uncle Duncan's home made chips...! Rhubarb (form garden) and apple crumble... Simple. Delicious. Cosy. Fun for 10! We are all massively looking forward to it!

We are getting quite a few people over from England as well this Autumn (hurray!!!!) so I look forward to making something special of all those occasions too. Bring on the Autumn! Bring on 'gezelligheid'! A Dutch word for which there is NO other word in ANY other language as far as I'm concerned. 'Cosiness' comes closest I think - if that exists at all.... Brrrrrrrring on the cosiness!

Much love to you all - keep cooking!

X Bee