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| Gingerbread. Not considered a bread, you can eat it or put it between bread for breakfast or a snack. It reminded me of fruitcake. |
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| We went into a beer/wine store and they have a glass for each beer. This in only a fraction of two of the 3 shelves. |
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| A lot of the beer labels are really cute. |
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| These are caracole a type of snail from the sea. Not to be confused with escargot (specifically land snails). They are pretty small, these are about penny sized. To eat them you first pick out the foot (round black object in lower right) then pull the animal out with a pin, then eat. I spent a lot of time inspecting it at first, maybe not the best idea. Of course it makes sense but it was a little surprising how long their little foot is (you can see the curled end of the foot on the one stuck on the pin). They have a strong and briny tatse, they make me think of eating the sea. They taste like how a good fish store smells. I made the boys try them. O said: They are okay but not my taste. Diplomatic for "Too strong for me". L took it in one gulp and swallowed without chewing. I think because his brother was over encouraging him to eat it, which made he suspicious. Then I asked how it tasted and he just said: It is lodged in my throat and tasted maybe like an olive. |
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| Very typical Belgium dish, mussels! |
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| Some of the family (Lennie has 28 or 30 some cousins!) and a family friend. |
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| Bart put up lights in the garden for last night. |
Today we had a rest day here in Zele. I got to run a few errands with Marleen which was fun to do and see. One stop was to a beer and wine store and it was overwhelming to see the beer selection. I don't know how you would begin to choose. I'd need a guide, I guess I had one! The boys got to go swim at Lennie's aunt and uncle's pool. It has still been pretty warm here. It was perfect for them to be able to do that.
We went and picked up mussels for the family dinner that night. 20 kilos of mussels (that is 44 lbs for the metric challenged, don't be impressed- I used an on line calculator). It is a really typical Belgium meal to eat mussels and fries (home made fries). It was really fun to eat them after having Lennie tell us about them the whole year he was with us. They are like our mussels but they were delicious. Just cooked with some onions, leeks, celery, salt and pepper. They also do a really clever thing to eat them (I'd never seen this in the US anyway) where they use one empty shell like a tool to eat the other ones, like tongs. O really loved them (my dad would have been proud), L ate a few to taste them but wasn't his top choice.
We are being spoiled here and made to feel very welcome. Levin spent the night perched on Lennie's lap and the cousins all taught him a mildly offensive phrase to come repeat to the adults in Dutch.
Lennie missed the muscles the whole year he was with us. He was also semi distressed by our fries a few times. Once I took him to a Belgium fry cart in Portland. He was offended by the skin (SHOULD NOT be left on) and way too much salt. His parent's fries were DELICIOUS.
