Boxing Day 2018

Christmas has come and gone and we are in the final countdown to the end of 2018, which for the most part has been swell, if you don’t count Cindy smashing her wrist and fracturing her foot! We are looking forward to a quiet New Year’s Eve and day here in Brussels where the weather has been particularly lovely, sunny but cold as you would expect for this time of year.

I’m not big on generalizing things about countries or the people that inhabit them, but I’ll do a broad brush for you on Belgium. The food is wonderful, every bit as good as France and in some cases better. The portions are enormous so you need to share lots of things or run the risk of not cleaning your plate, which seems to upset the Belgians. The service is really quite terrible at most restaurants. They are slow to take orders, the wait for food is very long (although they do deliver the food hot), they seldom if ever check to see if you need anything, and overall are just plain lackadaisical. The prices are horrible, the worst we have seen in Europe. Not sure why - perhaps because of labor and unions, perhaps taxation, perhaps they make more here and can charge more - whatever the reason, we don’t like it. Gone are the walks to find a place for lunch with two courses and wine for fourteen Euros as we do in Paris. Here a simple lunch of mussels and fries (mussels in Brussels is a must!) will set you back twenty-five euros with a glass of wine costing another five. We are fortunate to be staying with our daughter-in-law Meagan, whose lovely apartment is well equipped for me to cook and that suits us all quite well. 

Everyone knows Brugge (Bruges) in Belgium - and with good reason - but for our money, Ghent is the place to go. First of all it is a real city and not just a tourist town, and it also has some of the most beautiful architecture and canal system we have ever seen. Hours of walking are rewarded with stunning views of towering castles, cathedrals and old canal-side homes of the old wealth of Ghent. We spent three days in Brugge and two in Ghent and will go back to Ghent again, having said our final goodbye to Brugge.

Both Brugge and Ghent have fantastic Christmas Markets but here in Brussels there are at least three of them within walking distance and they are grand affairs. We have been wandering all of them and ended in a small one on Christmas Eve to have a glass of Champagne and watch all the families strolling about.  They close at six thirty in the evening on Christmas Eve and when I say close, I mean that at six thirty they turn off the lights to make sure everyone understands that it is time to go home. We did and we left!  We had a small Christmas Eve dinner of patés, cheeses, breads and fresh vegetables.  I sliced some potatoes and then browned them in butter and used them as small edible plates for spoonfuls of rillettes on some and smoked salmon on others. Quite lovely with the Champagne, Muscadet and Beaujolais that we had selected for our meal.

Tomorrow night Meagan has invited some of her friends that live in the building for dinner. I made a cassoulet a few days ago and have been letting it ‘develop’ so that by tomorrow when I heat it up and add the garlic/panko crumb crust to the top, it should be spectacular. I found some Cahors wine, which is a must for accompanying this dish so it will be as authentic an evening as I can make it.

Hope your holidays were bright and the New Year brings you joy.  Cindy and Wm

Christmas Luncheon

Birthday in Paris

Ah, Paris in the springtime.  Oops, it’s winter!  We knew it would be cool but the reality was about 10 degrees cooler than expected, with a lovely “breeze” to boot.  But we had lots of layers and managed to walk miles and miles each day all bundled up.  I had been dreaming of a birthday lunch at Le Train Bleu in the Gare de Lyon, a restaurant we have enjoyed several times over the years.  Our last visit was nearly 10 years ago so there was a bit of trepidation along the lines of “you can’t go home again” - would it be as good as we remembered?  A resounding OUI is the answer - everything about the experience was wonderful.  Well, except for the detours we managed to take on the cold walk there and back - but heck, maps are overrated.  

The restaurant itself is worth a visit with all the stunning murals on the walls and ceiling.  We had been told that it was recently sold to another family and we were thrilled to see that the old traditional trolleys, thick linens, heavy silver, and beautiful crystal glassware remain.  I wanted gigot d’agneau served from the trolley, and when the time came they rolled the classy cart over to our table and proceeded to carve a generous portion of rare delicious leg of lamb.  The scalloped potatoes on the side were fabulous too.  But I digress! - wait ‘til you read about the amuse-bouche and our first courses.  To get us started they brought us a tiny dish of smoked salmon purée with a bit of fresh fennel and a caper.  Cindy ordered the set menu and started with the ravioli with mushrooms, which was far fancier than it sounds - tiny little squares stuffed with cheese and served with whole porcini in a delicious cream broth.  

My first course looked like a stunning chocolate dessert but it was actually a delectable stack of duck liver, gizzards, gelée, and artichoke - words can’t quite describe it so please open the photo.  Afterwards I tucked into the lamb and Cindy had pike quenelles.  We finished with a cheese course and a small dessert selection called café gourmand which is rather normal (and better than wonderful) dessert in France that includes a cup of espresso with small rich desserts, in this case a chocolate pot de crême, a tiny lemon meringue tart, and a baby baba au rhum with more rum than you can imagine - it came in a little bitty plastic ball, to be squeezed onto the cake. And squeeze I did. 

The other diners seemed to be about half locals and half travelers on their way to catch a train.  The age range was interesting - families with very small children and older couples even older than us, with every age in between.  Everyone seemed to be having a very wonderful time, as were we.  Wow what a birthday!

Metamorphosis

Metamorphosis 

For most of my adult life those people that knew both my mother and me, always would say how much I looked like her.  Oh, you have your mother’s legs, hair, eyes, etc. I never minded it at all because my mother was a handsome woman with dancer’s legs, and if it was a choice between having my mother’s features or my father’s, I was pleased with the former.  But that was then and since my mid-sixties, I have steadily begun to metamorphose into my father. 

Gone is the sleek runner’s body, replaced with the fire hydrant look that was my father’s profile. While I still have hair, if you see me in a baseball cap and my green windbreaker, you would  swear that my dad was still with us. I find myself getting up in the morning and instead of jumping out of bed to seize the day, I stand there and do the ‘Pop checklist’ letting my brain see if everything is working and all the parts are in the right place.  I like to think that I’m combining the best of all possible worlds as I glide between parental characteristics.

Speaking of change, it is coming down to the wire as to whether we get out of here before a big snow.  While we were in Florida after the cruise, it snowed quite a bit here but by the time we got home it was all gone. Yesterday I mowed the lawn, mostly just to mulch all the leaves that had covered the yard, so at least the grass is ready for snow even if I’m not.  The forecast for the next two days is wonderful, if cold, so I’m off the hook on snow, unlike our friends in Greensboro, NC which has more than they could ever need.

Our Yellow Vests are packed and we are ready for our arrival in Paris on Thursday.  Hoping they’ll not tear gas Le Train Bleu on Saturday since we’ll be having a birthday luncheon there and I can’t think of a wine that pairs well with tear gas!

Bonne Chance et Joyeux Noël,  Cindy and Wm 

Our Love is Here to Stay

Reality Hits

It is a cold, wet and miserable December 1st here in West Virginia. I have Cindy, a fire in the fireplace, and memories of a marvelous trip across the Atlantic to keep me warm and help me forget the reality of now. For twenty-one delicious days I didn’t make a bed, cook a meal, shop for food, do laundry (although Cindy did on the ship) or wash a dish; I had people!

We were very lucky with weather across the Atlantic on the Crystal Serenity. With the exception of the first two days when the seas were somewhat rough and high, the bulk of the seven-day crossing to St. Thomas was smooth, warm, and delightful. On the evening of the second night there was a classical pianist whom we had heard on the last cruise with Crystal. He is fantastic and we were looking forward to his concert. Despite the fact that they had sandbagged the legs of his grand piano to minimize motion, there were several times as he was playing that the piano would move away from him a few inches due to the rocking of the ship. He would stretch to keep his fingers on the keys and then the piano would roll back to him and he had to once more adjust, without missing a note. He was professional and funny in that he turned it into a game, much like Victor Borge would have done. We enjoyed it immensely (his playing, not the piano rolling around).

The journey was wonderful and we easily fell into a ‘schedule’ that included lots of exercise in the morning, followed by coffee and fruit and then more walking the decks. Cindy was fierce in her commitment to keep her PT schedule at least 3 times per day (the orthopedist was mightily impressed with her progress upon our return). If I reached my goal of 10,000 steps before noon, I would reward myself with a glass of Champagne before cleaning up and dressing for lunch. After lunch Cindy would attend art class - where she made all kinds of lovely tiles, cards and colorful envelopes - while I walked the deck.  We would meet for a nap at four, walk together at five, and then proceed to dress for cocktails at seven and dinner and eight-something. After dinner we would dance for a few hours - or longer if the Disco was jumping - and then sleep, wake up and repeat.

The food, wine and service were uniformly wonderful, with some highlights in their Italian and Asian specialty restaurants. We are not buffet people so most of the time we would eat lunch and dinner in the restaurant, which was always half empty for lunch since most of the guests seemed to enjoy eating at other venues. The first night we asked for a table for two and since most everyone was eating in the restaurant the first night, we were seated about six inches from another two-top, which was six inches from a third table for two on the window. The couple at the middle table just insisted on being chatty and introducing us to the others they had just met.  If it hadn’t been so absurd, I’m sure we would have found it horrible but we outlasted them all by lingering over Champagne before ordering and they finally disappeared. The next night I slipped the Maître d’ a few Sees Lollipops and told him of our plight with our new “friends” and mentioned we didn’t need any more of them - and from then on we were always seated at a table for four by the window with no one around us. (It didn’t hurt that we had contributed $200 to the Crew Morale Fund, something that seemed to pop up every time they checked our room number.)

We chose this cruise because it had a Big Band theme and they had a marvelous sixteen piece big band that played all of our favorites and had outstanding musicians, all of whom seemed to be genuinely happy to be there.  They also had a competitive Bridge theme and there were two hundred passengers who were deeply, deeply involved. We would see them in the morning lined up for coffee before the lectures and tournaments that began at ten.  We would see some of them at lunch, hunched over their sheets of whatever, talking about how to bid and things like that. Most evenings they would have more games or lectures, and oh my goodness how earnest they all seemed to be.  Give me dancing anytime!

Had a day in St. Thomas and we got off the ship just to walk on dry land for a bit and then right back to our routine.  The last two days were smooth sailing and we were soon off the ship and in a HUGE GMC Suburban (dubbed The Beast) that seemingly slept six, for the drive from Ft. Lauderdale to Punta Gorda where we stayed for two days and visited the kids for Thanksgiving. On the day after Thanksgiving we had lunch at a lovely country club in Sarasota courtesy of our dear friends Barbara and Rodney who also invited our friend, now their friend, Sharyn. We had all lived and worked in Europe, Barbara and Sharyn for the Department of Defense Dependents’ Schools and Cindy, Rodney and I with Boston University.  It was a delightful afternoon filled with great memories.  All too soon we mounted The Beast and headed to Tampa Airport where I spent the better part of twenty minutes filling it with gas!!

We are now getting organized for our next excursion to Europe, departing on the 12th and returning March 1st. I’m determined to avoid snow!

Best wishes, Cindy and Wm