Miscellaneous

So I was sitting here debating whether or not to post. I haven’t been taking very many food photos, which I’ll explain in a bit, and I just thought that whatever post I write would be very unstructured and I could use the extra sleep. I should post to get back in the habit, so I figured to hell with structure. I hope you guys don’t mind!

I’ve been very very very busy. That and my life is completely being turned upside down and changing in so many ways. I debated mentioning this on the blog because in general this is a pretty happy go lucky kind of blog format, but it would be hard not to mention it if this were to talk about the happenings of my life. My parents are splitting up, which was announced about a week after coming back home. While it was not a huge shock, is still a lot to process especially when I am making such life changing decisions. Such decisions include leaving for Hawaii in August. I deferred from college and I have a couple very promising job leads, but it would involve leaving after a trip to California in roughly three weeks. So I might be leaving home for a year again in basically a heartbeat, when I’ve barely adjusted to being back. I’m so excited, and I’m very fortunate but again, it’s a lot to process. Add to all this my 8 am to 5 pm daily babysitting job and you can understand why I feel like I barely have time to breathe. 

I’ve had some delicious eats these past few days but didn’t document them. By the time I fix the kids’ breakfasts and lunches I’m STARVING and tear into my food. Not to mention that I’m so hungry I don’t really think about what’s photogenic. I did take a picture of this one day:

An Arnold’s multigrain sandwich thin with cinnamon raisin swirl peanut butter and sliced banana, paninied, with a nectarine and a few tart cherries.

It took a lot of effort in my hangry state to clean the nectarine juice off the plate and organize everything to look semi-decent, which is why I’ve been generally slacking in the food pics. Sorry, you guys deserve better! Plus I’m usually chasing after the kids, who eat while I make my breakfast/lunch and interrupt my food process with things such as Can I have fruit chews? and Can you open my juice? But they’re adorable, so I guess that makes it worth it!

A question for you all How do you help picky kids expand their food repertoire? I’ve never fed anyone so much refined flour in my life, but I have no choice. These kids are well behaved, cute, and good listeners. But they are the pickiest kids I’ve met. One day I gave the boy waffles, two pop tarts and crackers all before lunch. I cringed doing so, but he eats virtually no vegetables and only cantaloupe and apples for fruit. And when he eats apples he eats a tiny bit in the middle of the slice, ignoring the peel. There is no whole grains in the house. I consider it a success when I manage to get Danimals or Trix yogurt into their systems. Yes, I am considering bright green and blue Trix yogurt that comes in flavors such as cotton candy wholesome food when you compare it to their usual eats. 

I also considered it a success when I got them hooked on Joe Joes, the Trader Joe’s version of Oreos. We go to Trader Joe’s every Tuesday y to stock up on groceries in their house that only I eat for kids’ activity day. They wanted to buy the Joe Joes last week, and I figured they would find some discrepancy that differentiate them from their hydrogenated oil Oreo counterparts. But they loved them and wanted more this week! And posed in front of them for the summer journal we’re creating to document their activities.

Another success: though Elise wouldn’t try my cinnamon Puffins when I offered them to her before, she saw them in my car today and loved them. I heard her hand them to CJ and say this is yummy! It’s all about the baby steps here, people.

In other news, I’m trying to see my friends as much as I can despite my busy schedule, which included going to a concert for a band I don’t really like yesterday in DC. But it was only $10 and it meant a lot to my friend. To relate that back to eats, I had the carrot cake Cliff Bar, my first Cliff Bar, for dinner in the car after the concert. I was apprehensive about trying it because I heard some mixed reviews but I LOVED it! It tasted very carrot cake-like and I loved the white chocolate bits. If you guys say there are better Cliff Bars than that out there I can’t wait to try the other flavors! Hopefully tomorrow I’ll see my friend who’s been studying abroad this summer! I also bought an iPhone yesterday. When I bought my Macbook Pro I got a student deal of a free itouch, which I sold and used to buy the iPhone, so it paid for itself. And I love it!

This post was all over the place, I hope you don’t mind! I’ll check back in when I can, and hopefully with more food pictures. Right now Im digesting the dinner I had at 9 of the biggest salad that would put a Huge Jass to shame. It had tons of carrots, tomatoes, cooked cauliflower/snap peas, and kidney beans. It was loaded mainly because after my Huge Jass I stuffed raw romaine lettuce in my mouth like a classy lady. I’m hoping loads of vitamins while help the exhausted look I’ve been sporting, but I think the best solution to that is sleep, which I hope to be getting tonight. 

A toute a l’heure!

Maya

I’m Officially a Marylander

I had crab for the first time today! So I am officially a Maryland girl!

I am practically a lifelong vegetarian (my mom tells me that one day as a toddler I just wouldn’t eat meat anymore), but this past year I started eating fish to make my eating options easier in Belgium. I don’t see myself eating land animals anytime soon, but I have to say, eating fish has broadened my options. For example, today my family went to Kent Island on the Chesapeake Bay, aka lots of seafood restaurants. Previously, I would have had to order a lame-o salad or get a pasta dish with grilled vegetables and no flavor. But today I could partake in the fish eating, and was it ever glorious.

I ordered a broiled crabcake on wheat bread;

And it was delicious! Those fries were out of this world, I had maybe five. They were soft on the outside and crispy on the outside, I would take them over the Belgian fries any day. The seasoning bottle in the background is Old Bay, a Maryland spice blend of celery salt,  mustard, red pepper, black pepper, bay leaves, cloves, allspice, ginger, mace, cardamom, cinnamon, and paprika. It is a great blend and is delicious instead of ketchup on fries. Maybe even on sweet potato fries/roasted sweet potatoes…I’ll have to check that out for you guys! I had the crabcake on one piece of bread, a few of my brother’s hush puppies, a few bites of his lobster pasta, and one of my mom’s fried scallops. She also wanted me to photograph her meal;

She got the fisherman special or something like that, which means a lot of fried seafood, including soft shell crab.

The restaurant specialized in nutty buddies, or soft served ice cream dipped in chocolate and salted peanuts and then frozen again. I was stuffed from lunch and still feeling the cupcake/desserts from the Georgetown visit but my mom still wanted the ice cream mentioned on the blog. Love her.

My brother and mom reported that the frozen creaminess of the ice cream was wonderful with the sweet salty combination.

And my brother and I took a picture by the boatyard;

He’s almost 12 and has his annoying moments, but I’m proud of the teenager I think he’s going to become.

A toute a l’heure!

Greens for Breakfast

So I hope that no one thinks this is too strange…

but I incorporated Amazing Grass chocolate superfood in my morning cereal.

Yesterday I rolled out of bed at 7:30 (yes on a Saturday morning) and had to address my growling stomach before my run. I snacked on a few dried cherries and salted peanuts and then laced my sneakers to run. It was originally going to only be max 5 miles but when I reached the point I would ordinarily have returned home I thought why not and went for the six mile marker. What I love the most about running now that I’m home is attacking the humongous hill near my house. Before I would stop and walk but now I tackle that b!tch and don’t even feel out of breath afterward. I’m amazed that my fitness has improved in that respect after a year of no gym.  I guess that shows that a gym is definitely not necessary to improve your exercise routine.

After showering I wanted to try my new Peanut Butter Puffins, so I mixed a cup of multi grain cheerios with 2/3 cup of those luscious puffins. Seriously, the cinnamon puffins are good but the peanut butter ones are OUT OF THIS WORLD pockets of peanut butter bliss. Like Captain Crunch but better. I wanted to incorporate Amazing Grass into my breakfast so I mixed it with 3/4 cup of almond milk for my cereal. It tasted like I poured Yoohoo into my breakfast. I couldn’t stop thinking there are vegetables and grass in my cereal but it tastes like rich chocolate milk. Try it guys.

Sorry for the silver spoon glare. I also added bananas and blueberries, as you can see. I’m going to have to find a way to hide these puffins from my brother.

Yesterday was a good mother/daughter day in Georgetown, which my mom and I both needed.  Georgetown is beautiful, ad though many of its boutiques consider a sale reducing a 500 dollar skirt to 365, we both found some great deals, including $5 shirts at Urban Outfitters and a high waisted black skirt at American Apparel. We also found two amazing vintage/second hand dresses. The secret to shopping in expensive neighborhoods is checking out the thrift stores, where the rich and glamorous donate their fabulous clothes. I got a Betsey Johnson dress for $28, which would ordinarily go for over $350. Score.

We snacked at Georgetown Cupcake in the morning. It was a cute little place with dainty cupcakes, delicious, but I could probably bake something similar. We ordered a mocha cupcake. I have to say though, the icing was very good. Tasted like coffee and cream cheese.

My mom is a teacher and received a gift card for a fancy Georgetown restaurant called 1789 as a thank you for dealing with my bratty kid who doesn’t like to work end of year present from a student’s parent and we had a wonderful dinner. I suck at taking pictures at restaurants (I kind of sneak out my camera like I’m a spy or something and then quickly hide it back in the bag) but I did take a decent picture of the first course:

I love how restaurants like this plate dishes. This dish was part of a prix fixe menu and I can’t find the description online, but it was some kind of cucumber soup with raw rockfish, radishes, vegetable slaw, and croutons. My mom is so cute, she became friends with the Sierra Leonean (sp?) bartender and spoke in Spanish the whole time to our Guatemalan waiter, and was thus treated to a free martini and wine (though that’s not why we talked to them!) Unfortunately, I can no longer participate in public alcohol consumption, unlike in Belgium. Sigh.

Anyway, it was exactly how I wanted to spend my Saturday and I’m currently in my new American Apparel wear. Love it.

Have a great Sunday!

Update

Anyone still read this? So I wanted to take a hiatus of a few days while crossing the Atlantic…

Which turned into three weeks of no blogging. 

I’ve still been reading all your blogs, I’ve just been so busy. Last night was the first night in almost three weeks that I slept eight hours. While being back in the United States is glorious, my sleep schedule was totally whack for a week and then I started running around like a lunatic–babysitting all day, intense yoga sessions, doctor appointments, necessary shopping, midnight Ihop runs with friends, ya know. 

There were some days that I woke up at 5 am and didn’t come home until 9 pm, at which point I crawled into my bed around midnight. 

And there has been some family drama which definitely kept me pretty restless. 

But there have been many happy things as well–seeing my friends and family, falling in love with Bikram yoga, buying a sexy Macbook pro, and my awesome job as a summer nanny for two cuties. 

 

See those bags under my eyes? I think that was from the day I only slept an hour the night before...

And of course lots of food love. I’ve been hitting up Trader Joe’s and other grocer stores like it’s my jobs. Recent pleasures include raw unsalted almond butter (which I actually like more than the salted, roasted stuff…crazy), puffins, Kashi Honey Sunshine, Oikos, La Tortilla wraps (and wrap filling inspiration from Jess), fresh blueberries, dried strawberries, Larabars, Luna bars, Arnold’s sandwich thins, Better n’ Peanut Butter (I know it’s hit or miss for ya’ll but I loved it, especially on banana bread), and red peppers/kale/tomatoes from my mom’s garden. Oh and I love barbecue sauce. I avoided it because as a longtime vegetarian it was a flavor I associated with meat. How silly. I even went to Whole Foods and sampled the cold bar. I got lunch for only about $7.50 which I think is a pretty significant feat according to other blogs, and it took major restraint on my part, but I tried at least seven different things including the best tempeh I’ve ever had. My tummy was so happy all afternoon after that lunch. And tonight I tried my chocolate Amazing Grass I ordered from Amazon mixed with vanilla almond milk. A frickin mazing. Like chocolate milk. Seriously. 

And of course I’ve had some culture shock/un European-izing. In Belgium the prices you see at the store are tax included. Almost every time I bought something I was so surprised that the 14.99 product was all of a sudden 15.97. And, as in Belgium you give cheek kisses as a salutation it took me a couple of weeks to turn off the reflex of reaching over to someone’s cheek when greeting them or saying goodbye. Adjusting to a qwerty keyboard took some time, too. 

I can’t promise daily postings, but I will update more often (though that isn’t hard to achieve considering the three week hiatus precedent). There should be a lot going on still this summer, I think I’ll be spending this year in Hawaii (on the island of Oahu) so I’m trying to figure out the job situation/living situation on that front and still running around seeing people and working. 

Have a great weekend and catch ya later!

Leaving on a Jet Plane

Happy fourth! Mine was spent in the most un-American fashion, that is, in Europe. I did smell quite a lot of barbecued meat in the neighborhood today, does that count for anything?

Today, my last day in Belgium, was so…ordinary. Host mama MC has been super busy at work (she’s hoping to change jobs and is thus working extra hours to make a good impression) and she thought I was leaving today and not tomorrow. So she organized meetings and such today, and I didn’t see her for most of the day. My friends are busy spending time with their own families, and my Belgian friends are mostly gone on vacation. It felt like any other day, and then I would remember that I’ll be back in the U.S. tomorrow–so strange.

Anyway, today started with chocolate hazelnut Jocalat oats.

which mens rolled oats cooked in coffee and milk with chopped dates, hazelnuts, and sliced banana. Deliciousness.

I did some last errands and finished the last of the packing. My room is almost completely empty, très bizarre. I took a half hour nap, and, as has been the case for most of the week, I had such bizarre dreams. I came back from a run and host mama MC had my maternal grandma’s head and was being all stressed out and yelling at me (even though she’s been super chill this year). Weird. After my nap I went on a long run, about six miles. I’ve run or walked the same path all year, and it was strange to run it one last time. Despite the heat the run felt very refreshing. This was the feature song of today’s run:

It came up on my shuffle and I thought of the beginning of my year in Belgium. A friend from the U.S. told me about this song a few weeks after arriving in Belgium and I was obsessed with it for at least a week.

When I got back I made stewed green beans the way my mama makes them–cooked with onion, garlic, green beans, canned tomatoes, white wine, veggie broth, tomato paste, and 1/2 cup chickpeas. I topped it off with an egg.

Sarah posted recently about eggs and I like mine over dishes like this with the yolk all over it. Because of this:

I chillaxed at the house and then went to the town square to develop photos for host mama MC’s present and buy speculoos spread for my friend who specially requested it (I sent her some at Christmas) and maybe I bought some for myself.

Love that sh!t. Can’t wait to try it with pretzels (which I couldn’t find in Belgium!). I live for sweet+salty combos.

Today’s fruit orgy was eaten properly in a bowl with vanilla gunk. The gunk is good in Swiss oats, but with fruit I can really taste the artificial flavor and the gum thickner crap they use, which is why I really don’t like Light and Fit esque yogurts usually. But it was good to dip my spoon in the yogurt and then scoop fruit.

I went chez les Granville to say goodbye. They thought I was leaving today and were surprised to see me. I wouldn’t have left the country without saying goodbye! But because they thought I was leaving today, they planned on going to a bbq, but at least I got to say au revoir. The following photos are not of the best caliber–Clemence just woke up from a nap and had her crankyface on:

Maybe we could pretend that she’s crying beause I’m leaving?

Then I tried to tell her faut pas pleurer, don’t cry. Hence the finger to my mouth.

Yeah, we’ll say that. She’s sad that I’m leaving.

I’ll remember Clemence with this face, though:

Such a cutie.

Then host mama MC and I went to her parents’ house to say goodbye. Her parents are adorable, we had the traditional Belgian Sunday lunches there, which included potatoes of some kind, meat of some kind, vegetables, and soup. With bière de la table, or beer with low alcohol content. We ate at noon on the dot. Her mom always made me a veggie burger instead of the meat. Belgians are very proud of their potatoes, luckily I was spared this year as host mama MC was happy to try the new things I cooked for her, like quinoa and brown rice. One time I told her I wasn’t a big fan of potatoes, though I will eat them, but I also try and eat starches with more nutrition. She had no idea what I meant, as she believed that potatoes were very nutritious, even without the peel. Can’t say otherwise to a Belgian.

We had a little family photo session with her parents and her brother.

For some reason host grandpa wanted a picture of me with the unripe blackberries. One of the few times I’ve been in front of so much fruit without sampling.

Dinner may sound a bit strange but try and follow here. Host mama MC hates oats, so I had to use up my supply. I thought savory oatmeal, so I blended in laughing cow light and tomatoes with hot sauce. Then I topped it with 1/4 of an avocado because I had to use it up I thought guacomole flavors, right? With the tomato and all?

The avocado didn’t add much to it now, but it is rather photogenic, isn’t it? the savory oatmeal+sweet potato was delicious, though. Belgians aren’t really familiar with sweet potatoes, luckily I was able to find it at one grocery store near my house. If I didn’t have sweet potatoes this year I would have died been un peu triste. To people not familiar to sweet potatoes it was a bizarre concept to explain (well you can prepare it any way you do with a potato…but you could also use it in pies, muffins, waffles, even ice cream…I can see where the confusion comes from).

Host mama MC and I went out for ice cream afterwards. I had a scoop of violet sorbet, mainly because I was intrigued. It was good at first but the flavor got kind of sickening. The only reason I finished it was because I wanted to get to the cone! Glad I tried it though, definitely more of a European flavor that is hard to find in the U.S. We had a good talk about life and the future and such.

So I have to leave the house in four hours for my flight! I need to get up at 3 am, gag me! My next 24 hours will be packed, for sure, and I’m not sure when I can post again. Tuesday at the latest?

Hope you all had a wonderful fourth and have a great weekend!

A toute à l’heure!

Maya

Dernier Weekend

Hello lovelies! It is my last weekend here in Belgium, and I am so excited to go back to the States! I’m so glad I did an exchange year in Belgium, but it’s time to go home, ya know? I of course have missed my family and friends this year, but not in a need to see them right now way. Sometimes this year I did cry, but it was more in a ahhh having a hard time, feeling out of place way and consequently I felt homesick, but I wasn’t really crying for my family. But the other day I thought about my mom and I started to cry thinking about her, even though I’ll be seeing her in only a few days! The closer I get to my arival date the more anxious I get to see my family, which I guess explains the tears. Phew. Emotions are complicated.

Yesterday started with some 30 Day Shredding. I’ve been seriously slacking in the strength training department. I’ve always been more into cardio, and I kind of got into a habit of thinking that the 30 Day Shred is only 25 minutes or so, what difference does it make? Well then I realized, 25 minutes is a heck of a lot better than no minutes, and can certainly do some good. So glad I welcomed that crazy mofo Jillian back into my life. Afterwards I was starving for my bowl of Swiss oats with the European version of Light and Fit vanilla gunk yogurt.

This bowl included medjool dates, chopped cashews, the most delicious cherries ever, and diced banana. And thanks for the bowl compliment Janetha! Host mama MC doesn’t have a lot of dingingware options, but you’ll see new bowls when I’m finally chez moi, and hopefully pimped out ones when i go to Anthro and Target!

I had a few more errands to run including, unfortunately, another trip to town hall because they forgot to give me some papers, which ended up costing a few euros. But I ain’t complaining, at least I don’t have to go to Atlanta! (though I would love to go one day, but not after flying from Europe after staying there for a year and I just want to go home and not wait at some consulate for papers for customs). Then I got some shoes repaired and dropped off some German books at school. I know, you’re all thrilled right now. But I did see these beauties during my travels:

I’m not a big fan of hydrangeas, but I just loved the rainbow of color here. Literally this house’s entire front yard is hydrangea haven.

I lunched on a huge jass salad and baguette:

I have to say, you can’t usually find carrots like that in your average American grocery store.

My salad included my new favorite dressing: creamy herb blended with 1/4 of an avocado:

My salad included shredded carrots, chopped tomatoes, chopped red pepper, cucumber, spinach, and the dreamy dressing. I topped my multi grain baguette with raw goat cheese.

Look ma! I ate almost all raw without meaning to!

Then I took the train for the last time (whoah bizarre) to Brussels, because July means les soldes! The major shopping sales in Belgium are only in January and July, so when its soldes time il faut en profiter, meaning grab your wallets, ladies!  My exchange student friend met me there and I dragged her she accompanied me to the stores of Rue Neuve (equivalent to Fifth Avenue). She only complained a little that I shopped for 3 hours and only bought one shirt, but in my defense it was cute and only 8 euros.

Shopping tires a girl out, so I snacked on the fruit I packed:

The famous Wépion strawberries with canteloupe. Then my friend dragged me I accompanied my friend to buy Belgian souvenirs for her family. We were both b!tching at each other like none other, but it was the fault of our tired feet (but at least well pedicured feet) and we’re basically sisters, so we know we still love each other. While searching we found these huge crazies:

A couple of beers gets me kind of tipsy already, I can only imagine the damage those would do!

We met up with another friend and they had Thai food while I kept them company. I had my own dinner plans, because a friend of my family’s works for NATO in Brussels and, as I’m interested in international affairs and political science and all that jazz, we meet up for day trips and dinners. He has lived one CRAZY life. He worked in the foreign service and basically lived and travelled everywhere, including Kenya, South Africa, Haiti, Kazakstan, Kosovo, Bosnia, Croatia, and so many other countries. I always hear new stories when we meet up. I didn’t photograph dinner but it was Moroccan and cooked in this:

a Tagine, which apparently moistens food. My dish was like a vegetable stew with couscous, very good though the appetizers disappointed me a bit with the dry pita bread. NATO man told me he admired my year in Belgium, and I thanked him, but later on during the meal he told me about the time he worked in Kosovo in the 90s and worked 120 hours a week for 10 months. He slept 4 hours or much less a night and worked basically non stop on organizing teams and crisis resolving. he survived on coffee and lots of cigarettes. When he came home to the States after his tour he slept for 4 days straight. And homeboy admires me!? Let’s just say he’s lived quite a life.

While looking for my friends NATO man and I found some Medieval reenactment going on in the Grand Place. I didn’t really get what was happening, but it was cool to watch.

Those were the best pictures my camera could manage, and trust me I tried my hardest for all you lovelies.

When I was six my family had an AFS exchange student from the Dutch speaking region of Belgium, Flanders. He now lives in Brussels and we reconnected before I came to Belgium. I spent the night at his apartment, as he lives near the Grand Place. I’ve been sleeping so intensely lately with crazy dreams, I think it’s because of the anticipation of going home soon. I gave host mama MC a blueberry plant for Mother’s day which suffered from some disease for a while (it’s better now!) and last night I dreamed that MC’s backyard was next to my house and the blueberry plant became all green and giant. My mom explained that she took care of it. The blueberries were as big as apples (too bad this isn’t real life here). I guess this symbolizes the fact that no one can fix a situation like your mama? When I woke up this morning I was surprised by how sore I was, then I remembered my session with Jillian yesterday? And that my friends, is why we do strength training. Lest I ever forget. Anyway, today my Flemish friend and I went to the Magritte museum.  I am a wannabe art buff and I was so excited to see this new museum, especially because I love Magritte. He is a Belgian artist and this museum has received a lot of hype recently. This is my favorite painting of his,

entitled Les Amants and this is one of his most well known works,

which is often referenced to. Unfortunately, the museum really disappointed me. The paintings didn’t have any explanations, which means you had to buy an audio guide if you wanted to understand the paintings better.  The collection didn’t include his best works, which I’ve seen at MOMA in New York. I can spend hours in an art museum and we were out of there in less than an hour. I’m glad I went though. Probably my favorite part of the museum was the exterior:

I remembered seeing an Ethiopian restaurant and my Flemish friend had never tried the cuisine so I said faut y aller (we must go). We took almost two hours walking around to find it, which was fine because it was a wonderful walk and we were starved when we did find it.  I also don’t have any photos of this meal, but try Ethiopian food, it’s very unique. It’s served on injera bread, made out of teff flour. It’s sort of like a crepe but with a sourdough, fermented taste. You eat with the injera by scooping the food and there are no utensils involved. Ethiopian food often includes lentils and lamb. Our meal included lentils, fish, stewed cabbage+carrots+potatoes, and spicy goat cheese+spinach salad.

I took some last photos of Brussels:

At the Grand Place.

Also a Grand Place pic.

The Bourse, the Belgian Wall Street. A very convenient meeting place by the Grand Place.

King Albert's humble abode! Brought to him by the wealth of the former Belgian colony, the Congo.

So strange to think this will be my last time in Brussels for a while!

My train ride home included some more coma like sleep, and host mama MC and I went to her parents’ house for some champagne. We also picked cherries and raspberries, and had some of her mom’s delicious vegetable soup. That and cherries will probably be my dinner, Ethiopian food is always a big feast for me and my tum is still enjoying all that injera goodness.

Tomorrow is my last day en Belgique. I can hardly believe it. This year feels like a long nap and I’m only now waking up.

Enjoy the fourth of July with your family and friends, I’ll definitely be thinking of mine! We usually spend the fourth at my mom’s best friend’s farm, with beautiful scenery, absolutely delicious food, and my dad’s attempt at fireworks. I’ll be there soon enough!

A toute à l’heure!

Maya

Clean(er) Eats

Good morning ladies! Well, at least, it’s morning for me, for a lot of ya’ll in the states it’s the middle of the night. Soon enough I’ll be back on East Coast time, I only have 2 full days (!) left in Belgium.

Thanks so much for your comments on the last post! Luckily, when I feel like I’ve been out of balance I’m more than happy to get back to lost of fresh fruit and veg as I do love them so. Few things make me happier than a big bowl of cherries or watermelon, as you’ll see later!

I went to the market in the morning–though I can go to farmers’ markets in the U.S. I’ll miss the bantering in French! The vendor today bragged about his Wépion strawberry prices (Tu vas à la rue de Wépion et tu achetes une mignonne boîte de fraises pour le même prix que les deux grosses boîtes que j’ai ici!). PS I’ve tried the strawberry beer they mention in the link, loved it! I picked up some strawberries, canteloupe, bananas, cheries, and flat peaches at the market. Afterwards I breakfasted on  a bowl of Swiss Oats which included one of the few non-clean aspects of yesterday’s eats. I got the European version of Light and Fit yogurt because it was about to expire in the store and they reduced the price. I love the vanilla flavor in my overnight oats, but try and ignore the ingredient list! This bowl included the vanilla gunk yogurt, chopped Brazil nuts, medjool dates, strawberries, and diced banana.

Hope you like the stray oat flakes hanging out on the rim of the bowl.

Then I had a few errands to run, including a trip to town hall. I had to inform them of my departure this weekendand do so some other official shiz. I was a little worried because I no longer have my Belgian identity card–my wallet was stolen on a trip to London. I heard from other exchange students that they were informed that if you don’t have your card they send you to Atlanta or something crazy like that to go to the U.S. embassy (why it wouldn’t be to D.C. I’m not sure) and I was just a tad concerned. No problem at my town hall though! The lady just told me I should have gotten a new card (yeah, and pay 35 euros when I only had 3 months left in Belgium and the card itself takes a month and a half to develop? Not thanks) to which I shrugged my shoulders. When she gave me the papers I needed at the end without a problem I wanted to kiss her, but refrained. I dropped off some books at the Granville house that they let me borrow way back when and delivered cookeis to them.

Lunch was this gorgeous salad:

I combined 1/4 of an avocado in the blender with some creamy herb dressing. Loved it! I love avocado and its creaminess and dicing it just isn’t the same for me. The avocado dressing was perfect! I tossed the dressing in lettuce and spinach leaves and added red pepper, tomato, cucumber, meatless meatballs, grated raw beets to my salad. Raw grated beets are delicioso, and apparently you keep all the vitamins usually lost when boiling beets.

Plus you get that awesome beet color.

I then made my second trip of the day to Belgium’s answer to Walmart, Traffic. It was my second trip because I went before lunch at 12:30 only to find that they closed for an hour between 12:30 and 1:30. Oh Europeans and their leisurely lunches. The trip to the store is a half hour round trip walk, x2 in my case. I bought a binder and those clear page protector covers. I kept a lot of random papers from school, trips, letters, trains, concerts etc, and I organized them semi chronologically in the binder. It’s the lazy girl’s answer to a scrap book.

I then caught up with the crazy kids in NYC Prep. Wtf Taylor, news flash, being a philosopher isn’t a profession, but nice idea. That Sebastian is one playa. Afterwards I had to catch up with Weeds, there is never enough Silas (and specifically shirtless Silas) for my taste.

I had another fruit orgy, of which I didn’t take pictures, but know that it included watermelon, frozen grapes, and red currants.

I finished the little packing that was left, and it’s so bizarre to have an empty room, but beautiful at the same time, because it reminds me that I will soon be in my own room sweet room in Maryland!

Dinner included a feat for me–using the pressure cooker for my dried black beans. Granted, I didn’t cook them long enough, but I tackled that pressure cooker and survived, which is a big step in my book. I cooked the black beans in onion, garlic, red pepper, tomatoes, tomato paste, oregano, cumin, and veggie broth until I liked the consistency. If any of you guys use tomato paste, freeze the open can and then dip the can in hot water to release the frozen chunk of tomato paste. Then pop the rest in a bag and stick it in the freezer–whenever you need tomato paste just chop some off the block. It’s great because I don’t use tomato paste often enough and if I store it in the fridge it’ll go bad. My bible, Cook’s Illustrated, taught me this trick.

Anyway! I topped a baked sweet potato with the black beans and added chopped avocado on top.

I maybe took a few bites before I remembered I should take a picture!

I then felt antsy and anxious, so I grabbed Harry Potter and went on a two hour walk. I didn’t intend for it to be so long but I was loving the nice weather. I walked maybe about seven miles or more. Harry came back to Hogwarts and sh!t is about to hit the fan with Voldemort.

Host mama MC and I caught up on life afterwards–she’s been working a ton because she hopes to change jobs and I commiserated. I feasted on this bowl o fruit:

Cherries, canteloupe, and strawberries topped with a little of both strawberry and blood orange sorbet. I love ice cream/sherbert/sorbet over fruit salads, you don’t need a lot and the melted frozen treats make a great sauce for the fruit. My grandpa always makes this in the summer, so it’s also kind of comforting for me. I ate this beauty while catching up in blogworld.

My day of vitamins made me very, very happy!

It looks like today and tomorrow will be busy, I’ll catch up with you hopefully by Saturday morning at the latest.

Check out SnackFace’s giveaway!

A toute à l’heure!

Maya

3 Euro Night

Hey! It’s felt like so long as the past couple of days have been really busy!

One of my best AFS friends spent the night on Sunday after the family barbeque at the end of stay orientation. I’ve been thinking a bit lately about intuitive eating, which has been discussed a lot in blogworld and something that I’m trying to work on. Listening to your body could never be a bad idea, right? At the barbeque I did NOT feel hungry at all, even though it had been a while since I’d had my last meal. I guess it was because of a lack of activity over the weekend–we mainly sat around in our groups. Even though there was a delicious quiche for vegetarians, couscous salad, and a large array of veggies in the salad bar I was just not feeling dinner at all, so I had an apple. But on the other hand, I woke up at 4:30 am starving, so I made a really early breakfast of a toasted roll with walnut butter. The power went out before my toast finished, and I had to fish it out of the toaster with a knife in the dark and then eat it in the dark. Classy. Needless to say there were a lot of crumbs on the counter in the morning.

Anyway! When I woke up at 9:30 I could still feel my early breakfast so I kept my pre exercise meal simple:

Fresh canteloupe and watermelon. My friend doesn’t run as much as I do, so I told her that I wanted to complete at least 5 miles, and I would be comfortable walking them all, so she could dictate when we jogged and when we walked. We ended up jogging for 10 minutes and then walking about 6 miles. It was a beautiful day and we had a good time talking about our years in Belgium.

I needed lunch when we got back (and lots of water!) so I heated up celery root soup, added wilted salad greens to it (making it like a stew) and put some of the goat cheese from the market (which I didn’t realize until today is actually raw) on a whole wheat baguette.

Not photogenic, but delicious. I have been needing a pedicure like whoah, and while walking home from Delhaize I found a poster on the window of a house in the neighborhood advertising inexpensive salon services such as manicures and waxing. 15 euro pedicure? So there. I made an appointment for Monday and it was one of the best things I’ve done for myself in a while. My friend scored a pedicure, too, and we gabbed while she massaged our feet and peeled off entirely too much dead skin. I keep rubbing my toes together and marvel in their softness. After our pedicures we napped for a bit, and after I nap I always need something sweet, which I kept to fruit on Monday, and had a fruit orgy of strawberries, frozen grapes, and a bit of watermelon. We took the train to my friend’s town, Liège, because one of the American exchange students organized a goodbye party of sorts at a bar. Liège is famous for the carré, basically a neighborhood of all bars. I packed a veggie burger and an apple for dinner because I figured drinks would factor into my meal, so I kept the eats light. And boy, was I right.

The bar we went to, Cuba Libre, has 3 euro ladies’ night on Mondays, meaning you pay 3 euros ofor a red bracelet and can basically have as many drinks as you want. The only catch is that you have to wait in a separate line from the bar and it can get packed. I’ve heard there’s been a lot of cat fights that have gone down. I kept waiting for a catch of some kind, but I guess they do this kind of thing to compete with the many other bars in the neighborhood. I also feel like maybe the alcohol was a bit diluted or cheaper because after 3 tequila shots and 3 mixed drinks I felt relatively fine, when usually a couple glasses of wine are enough to make me tipsy. But still gotta love the 3 euro price!

We may or may not have taken those feathered toothpicks from the bar.

A little bit after this photo was taken the bartender had a blending mishap and we got a little frozen beverage on our backs. As a condolence he gave us 10 free tequila shots, which though we could have had them for free, it meant we didn’t have to wait 20 minutes in line! I’ll happily get a little ice in my hair for tequila shots!

Just so everyone knows that AFS was at Cuba Libre.

I spent the night at my friend’s house as she lives outside of Liège. I’m so glad that I had the liberty of grocery shopping and cooking as I please this year– her family eats a very typical Belgian diet which means little fruits and vegetables, a lot of white bread and cheese, and a lot of potatoes. Breakfast was whole wheat bread with nutella/peanut butter/banana and coffee. The fact that they even had whole wheat bread was fortuitous enough. For lunch we had baguette with cheese and sliced tomatoes. As soon as I got home from her house I craved a run, so I went for a 3 miler and made a cereal mess when I got back of a serving of Special K honey and oat flavor, Fage 0% Greek yogurt, and sliced strawberries.

 I made a cauliflower/whole wheat pasta risotto like concoction for dinner, which I served over lettuce/spinach for me.

I made oatmeal chocolate chip raisin walnut cookies afterwards, as I had oats and wheat bran to use up before I leave Belgium this weekend. Host mama MC doesn’t touch oatmeal due to bad childhood memories that not even the most creative of my oatmeal concoctions can reverse and she would have no idea what to do with wheat bran. I baked them while I started packing and had about half a cookie once they cooled. Fortunately my packing is going really well, I’ve done most of the difficult parts and I’m almost all packed besides what I’ll need before Sunday. Since most of my things are already in my suitcase I can see what is still lying around the house in the meantime and pack that as well. At least I don’t have to send anything home, which is very expensive, and I’m pretty sure I won’t have excess baggage. While baking and packing I talked to one of my friends on the phone about her psuedo short lived relationship with her Belgian best friend that ended with him cheating on her over the weekend. Boys. Still up to the same immaturity, even in Europe.

So a lot of people have been talking about clean eating lately, and I gotta say, after this week I could definitely use a few days of much more conscientious eating. I’ve actually lost weight this year (many exhcnage students gain weight) but it isn’t a question of weight. I’m still the same weight after these last two weeks but I just don’t feel so good, which is more important than a number on the scale. I do have to admit, though, I still feel guilt even though I weigh the same. I’m really looking forward to eating well and listening to my body (meaning less ice cream and mixed drinks) before I leave for the States because it makes me feel better.

What do you guys think of indulging? Do you still feel guilt despite what the scale says? Before I would have only felt the guilt of gaining weight after “indulging” and though as I said I still feel some of that guilt, I mainly feel off track and now look forward to balanced eating to feel happier and healthier!

P.S. Emily from Curly Top is hosting a blog makeover giveaway. Check out the the makeover she did for Shelby. Love the banner, much more original than my google search for maps!

A toute à l’heure!

Maya