Fete--a noun, meaning PARTY!

What do the Rose-Zadows do best? Socialize, bring people and neighbours together, and laugh! We're no different here in Belgium, and since there's always an excuse to celebrate SOMETHING, we're about to have our first neigbourhood party here in Brussels to introduce our new friends to our home, my inlaws and to one another. If all who have been invited come tomorrow, we'll have about 15 adults in attendance for a cocktail gathering, and potentially a dozen more if you count kids, ours and others'.

Menu: nibblies which include my mother in law's hot artichoke dip, veggies, hummus, multiple moutardes francaise to dip Ardennes saucisse (sec) and gouda cubes (my father-in-law tells me this is a typical treat when he worked here at Belgacom and there was a catered work gathering, so I'm going with it) and other salty treats such as greek spiced olives and german pretzels...yum.

Beverages: beaujolais nouveau since the season's in full swing, and a selection of our favorite beers to date: jupiler, orval, duval, triple karmelite, and rochefort 8*. Kiddies will be happy with Spa gaz avec grenadine (flavoured syrups in carbonated water)...

If you're free, arrive at 5:00 and toast the season! Pictures to follow.

Word of the day: Lavez

As in wash...laundry...lots of it!

Here's a picture of my youngest after he has used every item of clothing in the dresser due to a particularly troubling (and re-occurring) tummy bug that for a 4 year old translates into messy toots or missed washroom visits. Enough said. We did four loads of laundry yesterday, and most of it was his. This on top of the three baths he had to get clean after each episode, and you can understand why I have the verb above as my word of the day (did you know we're charged on a per-litre water usage system in this country? I wonder how much our facteur/bill will have spiked for this weekend!)--oh, and for those of you wondering, Duncan is wearing the legs to a pair of zip-off pants as a shirt: creative guy!

Two good things about Duncan and all this washing is that I had to do laundry anyway (my inlaws arrive tonight) and he seems no worse for wear for all this gut activity...in fact his energy and appetite seem to be right up there for him. Unfortunately however, he does like spicy food (last night we had fajitas and he was tucking into the salsa like it was ketchup) so I hope things settle down for his rear end so as to avoid any "ring of fire" on top of the frequent lav-atory visits.

Street Food, Belgian Style...

Yes it is worth writing about the lowly waffle--Torontonians eat your wieners, Ottawa, you can HAVE your beaver tails...not until you’ve tasted a “gauffre” right from the wagon can you say you’ve eaten street food.

Some background: I was here in 2005 for two weeks, and because of lack of opportunity and and a little bit of fear, I avoided the frites and waffles very successfully. I think maybe having just reached a weight goal and kept it for 4 months, I wasn’t going to sabotage that hard work just yet. Those fears have long gone, but still I thought the waffle was an evil thing. Oh boy, was I wrong.

How do I describe the crispy, sweet outsides, gooey, eggy, rich, souffléd insides without waxing poetic? How do I suitably describe the heady yeasty sugary smell wafting from the 1970’s VW-style wagon parked outside almost every city attraction--university, museum, shopping district, theatre, transit station? There just aren’t the words in the english language for such tastes and sensations.

We succumbed when coming home from borrowing CD’s and DVD’s from the media-bibliotech (“Ou est le biblioteque?” finally came in handy from grade 7 french) while waiting for a tram...we shared one right then and there, and bought a second and bagged it for the boys, who we were meeting at the end of our journey. Even Duncan who rarely eats rich sweet things (must have been adopted) gobbled it down with gusto. The enthusiasm of my four year old and the width his eyes opened upon swallowing his first bite gave me the understanding of why Belgians love their food and celebrate this icon of their culture.

I’ll have to have another to compare other vendors...this social scientist needs a greater sample size, folks!
(here's a guy named Dave eating a waffle in Grand Place...I got his image off the internet, so thanks Dave for your photo--you look like every Belgian who has ever clasped this warm pastry and since I didn't have my camera handy I appreciate that you had the forethought to have your picture taken during your consumption of this lovely delicacy)

Dinner at the Quickie-Mart

We're nearly there! The landlady has only one more day conducting business in her home office (also known as our TV room), then we get our normal lives back. It has been a challenge keeping the kids quiet during the evening and specifically, meal times (due to the conflict of when people feed their children in this country compared to Canada, our pychotherapist-homeowner entertains clients until 7:30 pm--right about the time I'm doing bed times with MY clients). To top it off, Matthew's homecoming is still 5 days away, so I'm needing a bit of a break.

So as a treat, I took myself and the boys to a restaurant last night, and to one I KNEW they'd like (I sacrificed a glass of wine and table service for them, I hope they appreciated it). We went to the equivalent of McD's call the Quick Quality Burger Restaurant (check them out online: www.quick-restaurants.com/consumer/be-fr/main.asp ) and they each got a Magic Box (read: happy meal) and I got a pretty decent salad (the fast food joints in Canada should come compare their products--no wimpy iceberg in this lovely concoction of seasoned chicken, corn, croutons, cubed cheese, boiled egg sliced, mesclun mix and shredded carrot served with a mustard and white wine balsamic vinaigrette).

Count on the Belgians to even do kiddie fast food better than the North Americans. Here's what was in each of their Magic box for 4.85 Euros:

• a very recognizable cheeseburger with a slice of real (not processed) Gouda, pickle, onion, mustard, mayo and ketchup on a fresh bun
  
• a minute maid juice (330ml)
• a kid sized portion of fries (no salt, you had to ask for it, and "sauce" also was extra--andalusian mayo anyone?)
• two yogurt-tubes (actually fromage frais which is less acidic than yogurt) in 2 of 3 flavours (yum--gotta get us some of these!)
  
• a pretty decent toy that kept Duncan busy for an entire sheet of Malcolm's homework (and this wasn't a cross-marketed plastic version of a movie advert: it featured the "Hamburgler" style mascot instead--I was most impressed by this, as who needs to be bombarded with, "mom, I wanna see this show" on top of being under-thanked for the treat of going out to a restaurant?)

So this was a real eye-opener for me, as I thought it would somehow be less than that of our fast food joints (since Wendy's is our family's favourite) but I see even junk food, Belgians get right.

Oh, and to top it all off, for the parents, every wrapper had the nutritional analysis printed right on it: the burger and fries were both 266 Kcalories, the dessert yogurt-tubes provided 30% of the child's daily calcium needs and the juice had 100% of their daily vitamin C requirements! So even parents feel a little bit "happier" about the meal, as they get to feel good that the food isn't really all junk. Now where are Dave Thomas' CEO's on this one?

my kid's breath smells like cat food

I don't have to tell the parents out there, but did you know four year olds are aliens...particularly boys? This afternoon I was prepping dinner when I had to step over my young son just one time too many for convenience. I looked down and saw him sitting cross-legged in front of the mirrored oven door. I said to him, "Duncan, what are you doing?" "I'm having a snack, Mom". I then take a much better look, and he's got the aluminum cat food bowl between his legs and he's "chowing" down (pun intended). "DUNCAN!! You're eating CAT food!" I say as I quickly recall the nutrient label I last saw on a bag of kitty crunchies...(protien 18%, fat 22%, carbohydrates 60%--sounds pretty balanced to me)...I take a calming breath and continue, "Duncan, why are you eating the cat's food? What's he going to eat?" He puts another morsel into his mouth and reflects a bit. "I like it, mommy...the pink ones taste like gum". I stiffle a gag. He ignores me and adds, "and the green ones have chewy insides, they're my favorites".

I guess there's more than one way to get your kids to eat their veggies, but when he starts to cough up a fur ball, who do I call--a vet or a pediatrician???

what to do on a school holiday??

Go to a museum, of course!

We're on our own until the middle of the month, and the school holiday week is just barely half over, so in order to keep ourselves from missing the daddy/husband, we went to the Museum of Natural History today. Online I found out that it just re-opened its dinosaur display after 3 years of renovations (sounds like the Royal Ontario Museum--though theirs has taken 33 years--crystal notwithstanding). Now I shouldn't have been surprised by the crowds, but with the long and meandering walk to the museum thanks to me forgetting the better map at home (ever dragged a 4 year old over the same 8 blocks three times looking for a street that is in an other direction?) we were shocked by the Japanese-commuter proportions for people traffic control outside the building...I had to take a shot of this to be sure I wasn't imagining things. There were three issues conspiring against us: One: midweek of a Continental school holiday; Two: the newest exhibit in the 80 or so city museums and Three: that there were dinosaurs recently unearthed on this continent about 3 months ago: people have gone diplodocus-gooney around here!

A full hour later, when we finally got in, and we had all gone pee (I didn't care it said Men's on the outside: the stalls were clean and empty--I just averted my eyes away from the wall of urinals and the male glances in my direction--kids in tow can provide lots of excuses!) we fought the crowds within to the exhibit with the BIG bones. It is hard to describe the size of the three brontosaurus bones display we saw...from toe to hip joint alone was taller than three storeys -- the plants in this guy's forest must have been scared leafless by his size! (here's an analogy: take a city bus and put it on its end then add a taxi at the top for the hip bone and 3 squashed couches on the bottom as its clawed foot and you might have an idea of the size).

The displays were great, very interactive and in multiple languages (French, Flemish, English and German) so there was no lack of understanding, and plenty for the kiddies to pull, push, poke, lift, light, listen to and interact with...surprisingly, my whiny kids didn't get lost or bored (a success, I'd say!) and it was me who said, "do you think its time to go yet?"

Just as we were going, the best shot of my day was available...the underside of the T. Rex you see here. Malcolm was careful to point out that Rexie had hollow bones, hands that were virtually useless (didn't even reach one another), a massive jaw with multiple teeth, an incredible sense of smell (Me: "How did he smell?" Malcolm: "Terrible!") as he was more than likely a precursor to the vulture than a velocoraptor (hence his olfactory skill AND the stench). I think he was my favorite of the day. Malcolm told me tonight at bed that this was his favorite, too. Duncan, on the other hand liked the drink and snack in the cafe afterwards (typical!).

Now what will we do with our last weekday tomorrow? I don't think I can do another museum...ideas, anyone?