Flemish Foodfest Part 1

Happy Thanksgiving!! Just in case you were wondering, Maggie and I are attending two Thanksgiving dinners: tonight, we're joining some other American expats at the apartment of our friends Rachel and Adam (we're contributing a banana cake and stuffing); tomorrow we're taking the train to Munich to have another dinner with Maggie's first and second cousins who live there. We'll spend the weekend in Munich and come back Monday - oh, and we're taking Panda.

But before that happens, I wanted to celebrate Thanksgiving (a food-centric holiday if there ever was one) by finally describing some of the Flemish food we ate on our trip two weeks ago. And as with all our posts recently, there's too much information to give all at once, so this will also be in parts.

In Lille, at A la Renaissance, Maggie ordered carbonade, which is the typical Flemish dish. It's beef stewed in beer, chocolate, and pain d'épice (gingerbread), usually served with some version of potatoes. As Belgium is known for having invented French fries, both times we ordered carbonade it came with fries.

I tried potjevleesh, a terrine of different kinds of meat (pork, rabbit, turkey, beef) served cold and held together by a kind of gelatin. I liked Maggie's carbonade more, but this was good too, especially if you like meat.

Our night in Bruges we dined at a disappointing establishment called Poules Moules, which (as you might guess from the name) specialized in chicken and in mussels (moules-frites, or mussels with fries, is a "specialty" of Belgium, although I'm sure you can get better mussels elsewhere). So I won't talk about that meal, except to say, don't go to Poule-Moule.

Luckily before we left Bruges we enjoyed some amazing chocolate (for which Bruges is famous) and a waffle (which is more of a Brussels/Wallonie thing than a Flemish thing, but what the heck.)

The chocolate came from Van Mullem Servaas Patisserie/Salon (believe it or not, that's written on the little slab of milk chocolate), the waffles from one of many tourist-oriented stands scattered around the old city.

Aside: We just got back from dinner at Rachel and Adam's, and cannot believe we're going to do this again Saturday. Right now, I can't even conceive of putting any more food in my stomach for at least three days. When we post pictures of all the incredibe (and surprisingly gourmet/non-traditional-for-Thanksgiving) food we just had, you'll understand why.

La Brûlerie

Seeking refuge from the rain in Lille, we stepped into an inviting café/teahouse just next to the Wazemmes market, called La Brûlerie.

The selection of teas was fabulous. I had a tchaï bio (organic chai) that was deliciously spiced, hot, and milky. Louis got a "cappuccino" - in quotes for real because instead of frothy, foamy milk, it was topped with a mountain of whipped cream!

If you get a chance to pass through Lille I would highly recommend stopping in to La Brûlerie when you're in need of a break from all that shopping you'll do at the market!

More Lille

We planned our trip so we'd get to spend one full day each in Lille and Bruges, but it didn't quite work out that way. Thanks to a last-minute rush to get Panda one more vaccination before she went to the kennel, we didn't arrive in Lille until Wednesday evening (instead of early afternoon), so we only had a few daylight hours on Thursday to explore. We split that time four ways:

1) We checked out the "famous" market at Wazemmes, the outdoor portion of which was similar to the Marché aux Puces in Paris, or Cowtown in New Jersey; the indoor portion of which was much like the Reading Terminal Market in Philadelphia (fairly swank, high-quality stuff). The building around which the Marché takes place (Lille's own, well-preserved "Les Halles") is quite nice too.

2) We visited the Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille, one of the premier Beaux-Arts in France (supposedly second only to Paris). Again, I was as impressed by the building housing the collection as by the collection itself. Highlights: Velasquez, Rodin, arch-arcade hallways, the modern extension behind the building (which reflects the older building beautifully; everyone wants their own glass-pyramids-at-the-Louvre kind of thing), I could go on . . .

3) We walked around the Grand Place, Place Rihour and Vieux Lille, all of which was fine, but not too distinctive. (Sometimes it seems like every city in Europe has a pedestrian-only shopping district centered around the "old" part of town (including a central square) characterized by winding, narrow streets first laid out in medieval times and recently gentrified to attract tourists like us.)

The Grand Place

Lille's Opera, just off the Grand Place

4) We ate at an amazing restaurant we stumbled upon quite randomly. It's called À La Renaissance, and the food we savored there deserves its own post. Coming soon.

We left Lille after spending almost exactly 6 hours touring the city. Clearly, we're going to need to go back, and since it's only an hour from Paris, it's possible to make a day trip out of it. Anyone want to join us?

Lille v. Cracovie

First stop on our whirlwind mini-sightseeing adventure last week: Lille. Once again, we found a great host via Couchsurfing. While we were on the train, we received a text message from Xavier, our soon-to-be host, saying that he had some extra tickets to a basketball game, and would we like to come along? Never ones to turn down random and potentially interesting opportunities, we were more than happy to take him up on the offer.

Here we are, with our host, post-basketball game:

And here's a shot of part of the crowd and the delightful clown mascot/pump-up-the-crowd-guy.

But wait - here's something I bet you weren't expecting... (and neither were we!) the basketball game we went to was professional, and women's. SO. Awesome. The Lille team is known as the Entente Sportive Basket Villeneuve d'Ascq, or ESBVA and is part of the Ligue Féminine de Basket.

Watch this video to get a little taste of the sweet, sweet basketball action and hear from three of the players themselves, including former Wisconsin Badger all-star Joelene Anderson!

Oh, and I cannot forget to mention one of the highlights of the event: the pep band, Les Z'hurlants! This video comes from their official website [warning, there is unstoppable (but really awesome) music at this site... best not to open this link at work]:

What an adventure!

I leave you with a not-so-great action shot that taken right from my seat because I was too stunned to leave it: I was at my first-ever professional women's basketball game... in Lille, France!