Brussels Travel Tips

1) Service at anywhere sit down is friendly but leisurely. They don't feel compelled to give you your check or follow up with you. Like, ever. However, once they come around to your table, the serving staff are your bestest friends ever.

2) The Brussels Central (Bruxelles Central/Brussel Centraal) train station is like an alternate universe version of New York's Penn Station where everything is modern and clean, it's not too crowded, and there are informational signs everywhere.

The Brussels Metro system is cleaner than the New York subway, but smells just as much like pee, if not moreso, as if someone decided to go all Mannekin Pis all the way down each walkway. Also, you don't need to swipe your ticket all the time, just have it validated in case someone checks.

3) The road structure of Brussels completely thwarts the non-SAS or Green Beret in keeping a solid direction sense, especially on a cloudy day. You will find yourself heading in the exact opposite direction for several blocks, but then, since everything in Brussels is right next to everything else, you'll pretty much be where you want to be anyway.

4) 25 centiliters of beer is remarkably cheap in Brussels supermarkets. Go buy plenty; it's less than $2 a bottle, which you basically can't get for beer of any real quality in the US.

5) Coca Cola is cheaper anywhere but vending machines, which are cheaper anywhere but the airport. Coca Cola "Light" (what we call "Diet") with lemon seems to have real lemon juice in it and is worth drinking.

6) The Magritte museum is closed this January, but that's probably for the best, given that it likely has a Magritte-style approach to geometry, and is therefore a madhouse of floating items, faceless men, openings to the sky where items should be, etc.

Brownish Food is Goodish Food

So, yet another good recipe has come out of Vegetarian Times . This month, they did a "spring cleaning" pantry recipe series, which is where we got the Chickpea Stew recipe from (since every good veggie has cans and cans of chickpeas and some (not me!) have cartons on butternut squash soup). They did a Baked Beans Huevos Rancheros as a recipe. It intrigued The Pedant so last night I made it for dinner. Here's the recipe basically:

6 oz. soy "churizo" (used soy sausage instead)
1 cup salsa
1 diced chipolte in adobe sauce (used 3)
30 oz baked beans, drained
6 eggs
6 tortillas.

Cook ingredients together until warm, place in baking dish, crack eggs, bake 13-15 minutes (really 20 if you like your eggs better done). Serve with tortillas.

Honestly, I was worried. Baked beans!? Really? While cooking I remained wary - it was all a brownish color with no life to it.

The prognosis: AMAZING. Like, oh my God, may we lick the pan and risk the burning of our tongues amazing! It was the perfect comfort food: easy, filling, tasty, aromatic, warm, proteined, and delicious. If you ever come to a brunch hosted by me and TP you may expect this.

Now, on another topic - Diet Coke. I wanted to buy Diet Coke for work toady (since I was working 1-9, I knew I needed a pick me up). I went to the store near the metro and paid - get this - $1.39 BEFORE tax. WTF?! It's diet friggin coke!

Picklemania

I couldn't find it on the web today, but my daily transit newspaper had an article on two new Southern delicacies: Kool-Aid® pickles and batter-fried pickles.

I did, however, find recipes for both items.

The problem with trying the recipe for Kool-Aid® pickles is that, if you don't like them, you've just ruined a jar of pickles.

The Minneapolis Star-Tribune has a good round-up of fun deep-fried foods, including the most intriguing, deep-fried Coca-Cola® on a stick.