Food Recap of London

Went to London this weekend to visit a dear college (!) friend and to see the xx perform in a specially curated event call Night + Day that they put on. It was essentially a 1-day music event/festival with fantastic food and cider as well. It was basically what I would like heaven to be. Amazing music in idyllic green British countryside surrounded by amazing food. Ok, I would also like a little more sunshine and maybe some CA dry mountains as well.

At the festival, food consisted of a pork sandwich with apple sauce and rockets. By rockets, they mean arugula. It was delicious of course. The food stand had hogs throughout the day roasting on spits from which they would cut off the pork from. I don't usually eat pork, but when I do, its awesome. Most people were drinking cider at the festival. The cider was delicious and came in several flavors. I had pear as seen above, elderflower and lime, and cloudberry. Elderflower and lime was my favorite I think. They all tasted like fruit juice though and were much lighter than those 8% Belgian beers I've been drinking these past few weeks.

The next day, we walked around and did some tourism things in London. We took a boat ride down the Thames from Westminister to Greenwich so that I could see the adorable town and satisfy the inner astronerd in me and see the prime meridian and stand in UTC time! In the town itself, there is a market (called the Greenwich Market of course) that sold all sorts of artsy, handmade crafts and vintage fare in addition to some fantastic food. For lunch, we got Haloumi and Lamb wraps from the stand that had the longest line, and it was SO worth those 6 pounds. There were obviously dessert stands as well, so I got a Trekking Cookie that won some sort of award (though you could have anything win an award). I love trail mix cookies, or kitchen sink cookies as they're sometimes known. This one didn't have raisins in it either, which made me extra happy. My friend got an ice cream sandwich from them which looked amazing as well!

I had dinner with an elementary school friend who happened to be studying abroad in London. Her parents were also visiting that weekend so we all walked around a bit and had dinner together at this vegan/gluten free friendly casual dining place. I ended up getting a sweet potato falafel box with brown rice and slaw. It reminded me of fresh CA fare and was probably one of the most health-minded meals I've had in a while, which was awesome. I failed to take pictures of this though. Above, are cookies I bought at St. Pancras while waiting for my train back to Brussels when I got hungry for something sweet. These were surprisingly accurate in emulating the "neapolitan" taste. And scent actually.

White Asparagus: I Still Can't Cook Savory

My attempts to embrace the food culture of Belgium is happening with varying success. I'm loving all the fantastic bread and cheese that exists here, not to mention the excellent waffles and jars and jars of speculoos. However, I'm struggle-busing a bit with being unable to tell if the meat I am buying is chicken or pork or salami and "bruin" does not mean brown bread apparently. Thankfully, I have not bought milk here, which I hear from my fellow Yalies is oftentimes buttermilk or fullfat instead of our delightfully 2% in America.
One of the most confusing things foodwise I saw when I first got here (minus all the freaking processed deli meats) was white asparagus. It was everywhere at the farmers markets and I couldn't figure out for the life of me what it was. It couldn't be bamboo, I mean, bamboo in Europe? No....Turned out it was asparagus. My PI (principle investigator, aka the boss of a research lab) waxed poetically about it one day at lunch for me though and his fine cooking methods for it that involved steaming it and serving it with a butter sauce and lemon if there were any at home.

I've never cooked asparagus, not even the green variety, but I've grown pretty fond of it whilst roasted. Unlike green asparagus, white asparagus has to be peeled before cooking. The asparagus is grown underground and harvested just before it breaks the surface (it turns purple if exposed to the sun). My first attempt to cook white asparagus was pretty embarrassing, so lets just say it was like eating chewy sticks. This time, it was at least mildly edible. I tried to do a basic steamed asparagus with a brown butter vinaigrette  Needless to say, as evidence by these photos, the sauce was really not mixed all that well. I didn't have most of the things the recipe I loosely followed asked for, so I basically made what seemed like my go to olive oil, balsamic, and dijon mustard salad dressing--except with brown butter instead of olive oil. The brown butter didn't seem to add much in my opinion though. Although, as I may have already mentioned, I'm terrible at cooking real food.

I don't think I've mastered the "art" (lol) of boiling asparagus, as some of the stalks were still a little chewy. While the tops of the asparagus were deliciously soft and a delight to eat, the lower halves of the stalks were a bit more fibrous, to put it gently. Still edible, but only because I have the food standards of a dog when it comes to my own cooking.
White Asparagus with Brown Butter Vinaigrette adapted from Gastronomer's Guide.

Chill Box: Froyo So Cool, It's Square

My cooking and food adventures in Belgium haven't been very awe-inspiring or successful. Unless you count being able to eat like 6 gaufre de leige (basically packaged waffles with sugar inside) without dying a successful food story. Most of my dining out has primarily consisted of drinking beer, because, well, its Belgium. And although my internship does give me a stipend, its not quite enough for fine dining every evening. Lucky for this blog, one of my oldest friends ever came to visit me this past weekend! I moved around a fair amount when I was younger so I don't have too many friends from when I was young, but this friend was essentially my "best friend," back in the 90s. Obviously we've grown up in separate ways, but it was great to see her again after so long (last time I saw her was maybe 4 years ago?).

Unfortunately for my dear friend, having celiac while in Belgium surrounded by chocolate was not too kind. Too many times she got served salads 2x as expensive as my sandwiches, yet only half the size. And while one would not expect gluten to exist in chocolate, literally every shop we went into had to carry that sad "may contain traces of nuts, gluten, ect ect." It seriously broke my heart. She would probably shake her head at me, because honestly, despite being unable to eat SO many things, she eats super well and deliciously on a day to day basis by the sounds of it. 

Towards the end of our trip, we did find a small consolation prize for all those near misses with gluten infested chocolates--self serve frozen greek yogurt in Brussels! A la the namesake of this blog, the yogurt was served in these cubic boxes like the one you see above rather than a normal bowl. Granted, there is a bowl. When you get your froyo, you have a bowl and its basically the same thing as US froyo. However, after you pay, they give it to you in this little box to carry around and hold. Probably to look super cool and hipster and attract more customers/tourists to the shop.

While the fact it was "frozen greek yogurt' was what attracted us to the shop, it honestly tasted just like normal froyo. Unfortunately, they only had strawberry, mango, and chocolate as available flavors. I was really hoping they would have just a plain tart flavor, which probably would have tasted amazing and different from normal froyo. Alas, earwax.

Frites Frites Frites

In Belgium, an appropriate meal is a giant cone of fries with mayonnaise. I feel less terrible about my dinners that consist of me spooning peanut butter from a jar now.

This picture doesn't capture the massiveness of this cone. It was about the size of a bouquet of flowers. I'm neither a fries person either, so I'm embarrassed to say that I made it about 1/4 of the way before I was done. I'm not a fan of mayo, but when in Belgium, you kinda have to try the classic frites et mayo at least once. The fries are pretty thick cut, giving you a pretty decent amount of mashy after biting through the fried outside. The red sprinkles you may or may not see are part of the salt+maybe paprika(?) seasoning they gave the fries. That was pretty good. But, still definitely not a fan of fries. Nor of mayo. Nor of mayo and fries combined. (I swear, I'm not a picky eater.)
These were bought at some local grungy food dive in Mons, Belgium when I was there from the Dou Dou festival with other students. These types of dives are everywhere in Belgium (at least of the 3 cities I've seen so far) They sell frites, schawarma, wraps, ect ect.

Pumpkin Scones: A Lesson in Following Directions

The final thing I baked in ~America~ before heading off to Leuven, Belgium for 9 weeks! Retrospective blog post, but nonetheless necessary if this is supposed to document things I've eaten/made. Amusingly, this was the final pumpkin-flavored thing I made as well back in the states.

 I've never been a huge fan of scones. This may stem from the prejudices my mother has against them. Trivial things about how they're too fatty ect ect. But as I've grown older, I'm realizing some of these things are not correct. I'm still not a huge fan of scones, but if you like them, then you should be able to happily eat them without feeling like you've committed a crime in the baked good world.
This was my first time baking scones! It was surprisingly fast/easy. But they also didn't taste stellar, so I may have gone a bit awry. I definitely went awry when I made the white chocolate glaze. The recipe I used for it told me to just nuke the chocolate and butter in the microwave. Yet, as lots of bakers know, you can't just nuke chocolate in a microwave without it burning or seizing up. Something tells me I need to stop blindly following recipes when I know something is probably sketch. Just because the picture is pretty doesn't mean its actually excellent.

Example. This case. Oh wait. These don't even look that great in the pictures.
Pumpkin Scone recipe from Taste of Home.
White Chocolate Glaze recipe from Carly Klock (those cherry almond scones the glaze was originally intended for looks great too!)