#94: Everything I ate in Brussels this month*
March's round-up is full of vim and vigour (and sweets).
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Here’s March’s round-up, contining the culinary theme of recent weeks…
By the time this month’s round-up arrives in your inbox I should be on a train half way to Strasbourg. Even though I promised myself I’d pack the night before, the chances are that I’ve left it to the last minute again and, thanks to today’s general transport strike in Belgium, will have had to cram as much as I could into the old counterfeit North Face bag I bought in Hanoi 12 years ago and is only just showing its age.
In the best case scenario I’ve packed myself a lunch - I specifically made a giant loaf of focaccia for dinner yesterday in the expectation of taking it with me on the train - and my copy of MFK Fisher’s The Gastronomical Me. Fisher spent her formative food years in Strasbourg, discovering the life of a gourmand beyond her puritanical American upbringing, and I enjoy reading bits of it on café terraces in the evening with a small French beer, pretending to myself that I am like her, that is transmogrified by food and the eating of it from a provincial into a cosmopolitan.
Worst case scenario I’ve forgotten both the book and my lunch and will have to make do with gnawing the dusty armrest of my chair until we arrive at the station in three hours.
Anyway, in keeping with March’s focus on food and eating, here’s a list of everything I ate in Brussels* this month (*that I bought outside of home):
A falafel wrap from My Tannour (at their new Bourse location). Three tubs of Delhaize Moroccan hummus. Three tubs of Delhaize Pico Grissini. A Terry’s Chocolate Orange fondant egg, which was really just a rip-off of a Cadbury’s Cream Egg and less nice for it. Half a packet of Yolloh strawberry marshmallow sweets I found hidden behind my phone at my desk. Four fruit Mentos I found in my dressing gown. A full pack of Yolloh strawberry marshmallow sweets I bought in a moment of weakness. A basket of fries at Brasserie de la Senne, shared. A portion of Boon Mariage Parfait cheese squares, with mustard, shared. Duyvis Crac-A-Nut Paprika nuts, three or four packets, the small ones from the vending machine. Kerrygold cheese and unidentified crackers, free at the Irish embassy reception for St Patrick’s Day. A bucket of Bukchon cauliflower bites and Sweet Spicy Gochujang sauce from Seoul South Station in Gare Centrale, eaten on the train with my hands after I dropped my disposable chopsticks on the tracks. A small salad bowl from the Foodmaker salad bowl at the local Delhaize (contents: hummus, three “falafel”, edamame salad). Bananas - too many to count. A Côte D’or bouchée (possible two). Superbon Salt And Pepper Chips, two bags. A Panic Snickers™.
Writing - Brussels Notes
Writing - elsewhere
“Donkey Work - On Brasserie de la Mule” - For Belgian Smaak, I was delighted to write a longread profile of Schaarbeek’s Brasserie de la Mule, a story as much about the origin of the brewery as it is about the friendship of the three men behind it, the obstacles they've overcome to open it, and how it is they came to sell German beer in Brussels.
Reading/Listening/Eating
Brussels can do everything (even if we often convince ourselves we can’t)
I could have picked any op ed by Fabrice from the past month, such is the lack of progress on government formation. I chose this one.
Is everyone I follow on Instagram going to the newly-opened Grain Bakery? Should I?