Liege waffles were probably the thing that seduced me most about Belgium. The smell, primarily. That glorious aroma of hot, yeasty waffles caramelizing on heavy iron grills at every corner. I remember my first one ever. I followed my nose like a pig on a truffle. I was served a piping hot Liege waffle in a little waxed paper square and I was a changed woman.

These are not waffles like we are accustomed to in North America – which are basically pancakes cooked in a waffle iron. No, Liege waffles are magical.

They are dense and quite bread-y; thick and chewy and studded with pearl sugar. Pearl sugar which gets pressed into the deep waffle pockets by a blazing hot, heavy iron waffle press – caramelizing it into pure magic. Continue Reading »

…incidentally, Osama Bin Laden is, too. But that’s another story.

I have a crush on Belgium. I lived there when I was an awkward seventeen year old. As any former exchange student would agree, your exchange country will own a piece of your heart forever. Belgium is where I became aware of the world outside of my hometown. It is where I learned to hold my beer and say unladylike words in several foreign languages er… transitioned from teenager to (semi) grown up. It is also where I became vividly aware of the pleasures of la gastronomie européenne – read: flaky pastries, crackly bread, good wine, and the best chocolate in the world. Today I am sharing with you a dramatic breaking news story involving some seriously incredible Belgian ice cream…

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I went to San Francisco this weekend! I ate. I shopped. I walked. I ate. I walked. I ate. I shopped some more… My wallet came back lighter, my nose came back frecklier, and my calves came back stronger (sweet lord, no one gave me adequate warning about those hills). It was lovely.

It started beautifully on the plane ride, when I was seated next to a buxom elderly lady with a thick Eastern European accent. She spent the first five minutes of our flight jabbing impatiently at the in-flight entertainment system with her thick, crooked fingers; nose to screen, eyes squinted, muttering in what I guessed was Polish. I cheerfully helped her navigate back out of the French pop music radio channel. Then she politely informed me that’s what she had wanted. Oops.

She told me she had lived in Belgium and that’s where she had learned French. I told her I had lived in Belgium and had learned French, too! Instant friendship. The rest of the flight, we gabbed back and forth in our imperfect second languages, rolling our R’s luxuriously and sounding quite glamourous, as we exchanged stories about our lives. She was 85 years old. Had been imprisoned at 19, was a refugee at 21, and later became a professor of sociology teaching in French, her third language. Wowza.

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Yesterday morning, Adarsh and I went for a car wash. Which I enjoy with way to much delight to be considered a grown up. What’s that? No, I most certainly don’t pretend I am in a submarine getting attacked by underwater monsters… er… shifty eyes…

As I was excitedly watching the frothy soap being whipped onto the windshield in a confetti of pastel squiggles, the soft blue, pink and yellow reminded me… that Easter is next weekend! And then I was sad that it took pretty (and probably highly toxic) car wash chemicals to call to mind an occasion that I once anticipated for weeks in advance. The egg hunt! The chocolate before breakfast! The hope of a new jump rope, bubbles, a skip-it, and/or a pair of ultra-cool jelly shoes! Continue Reading »

If you had seen the Vancouver weather forecast the past few weeks (months??) you would forgive my urge to thrust soup upon you at a time when you want to be thinking about asparagus and rhubarb and maybe even the first rosy strawberries. Rain! Rain! Rain! Yes, the eternally rainy long-range forecast has been the bane of my existence and the inspiration for numerous unladylike strings of profanities. There may have been tears. And there may have even been a threat to the weatherman about where he was going to get an umbrella shoved…

Then karma bit me in the butt. It snowed yesterday. I don’t wanna talk about it.

Let’s move on. You know, all that being said, the combination of chickpeas, yams, and coconut milk makes a soup I would eat even on a suffering-hot July day. It is a whole lotta yummy. Yummy soup is a good silver lining to all the $%&#-ing rain. SEE?! Unladylike. Shame.

Okay, so you start with a flavour base of onions, garlic, jalapenos, aromatic curry paste and pungent cayenne. The sweetness of yams lends itself incredibly well to curry spices, the coconut milk adds a lovely nutty flavour and a richness that tempers the heat, and the chickpeas provide substance, making this a true meal in a bowl. You know what else would be incredible? Skip the chickpeas, sub in about one third of a cup of natural peanut butter, and puree the entire thing for an African yam soup. Continue Reading »