Glub Wine

It seems as though many ciites are coming to realize the magical charm of a Christmas market. Quite a few people we talked to this past week had visited Christmas markets: Andy & Ali in Birmingham, Nick, who'd had his own stall at the market on Queens Stree in Leciester, Dom in Toronto.. and us. We were priviledged to be able to visit the oldest market in Germany held in the town square in Frankfurt.

We arrived late afternnon, when the sun was going down and the Christmas lights were beginning to sparkle.

There were many stalls selling Christmas decorations, and local crafts such as wood turning and lace. There were also many stalls selling street food -- candy floss; frankfurters; roasted chestnuts; fried pastries; all manner of German Christmas cookies and gingerbread, that imparted a wonderful aniseed and molasses scent in the air. But by far the bast stalls were those with steaming vats of Gluhwein.

It was cold, really cold, and we did try hard to distract ourselves by watching the children on the most amazing merry-go round I have ever seen, and by buying some of the Christmas goodies -- gingerbread for Andy and Almut and some beeswax candles, complete with beeswax bees.

We also bought some glass ornaments -- round globes that held tea-lights. Unfortunately, my packing skills are less than stellar and we have arrived home with only two out of three intact.

Despite our best attempts to keep warm by other means, we confess that we were forced to visit the Gluhwein stalls three times during the course of the eveining. Gluhwein is marvellous, it not only warms the hands, and body, but also warms through to the verycoldest parts of the soul. It is pure magic. We may have had jsut a little more than we needed, as H didn't seem to be able to read the signs after the first one. He insisted on calling it Glub-wine, claiming that it was spelled that way. Glub, glub, glub...

Courier

The meeting in Brussels took place in one of the European Commission buildings. Being rather jet lagged I managed to leave the flyers I had brought to hand out back at the hotel. A colleague loaned me her cell phone and I called the hotel and woke up HG. Stirred into action, he finally made it across the city on the metro, and hand delivered the flyers, walking stright into the meeting room. he said it was like wlking into the set of the movie Dr Strangelove. A hushed tiered lecture room with laecture benches, and headphones and microphones at every seat -- more suitable for a meeting of the United nations than a bunch of scientists.

Sad to leave Brussels

We could have spent much more time in Brussels. I hardly saw any of it, but HG walked around quite a bit on Tuesday.

He found the Grand Place -- the main square in the centre of the city. The architecture is stunning, such fine stone work, and gold leaf on the buildings. We went back in the evening, when the Christmas tree was ablaze with lights. there was a son et lumiere playing against the buildings on the other side of the square, and the biggest creche ever, since the real thing.

On PS's recommendation, we had dinner in an Inn opposite the creche -- which kindly decided to take us in. The food was good, but the most notable thing about the Inn is the taxidermied horse. I have never seens a stuffed animal that big. It was a little moth eaten, going bals in patches, but I gave it a stroke anyway. Unfortunately HG forgot the camera.

Our hotel was very close to the cathedral. But despite the huge landmark, we seemed to be incapable of finding our way home. None of the roads led to anything familiar, and we walked around in circles again, until we were rescued by a kind Belgian guy, who claimed to have lost a whole posse of Japanese business men in the 5 minute walk from the train station to the Domincan hotel. He claimed that he had had to rescue them by car. We felt better, warmed by te story, the very fast walk home, and finally getting to the hotel and out of the -5C cold.

Da Vinci

I decided that the Brussles hotel felt a bit like being in the movie the Da Vinci Code. It was stone and grey and felt old and contemporary at the same time.

There was very little light in the room, or in the corridors. And downstairs in the lobby braziers were burning at the entrance.

The atmosphere was not helped by the damp bone-numbing cold of a late November Brussels fog.

Leaving for Europe

Not the best start to a translatlantic flight -- exhausted from a trip to Saskatoon. This taken at the Ottawa Airport (Maple leaf lounge). Im not usre whether it was tiredness or having to endure the Grey cup.

We are staying at the Dominican, Brussels. We found it after a lengthy walk from the train station. It has a bit of a monastery, gothic feel to the place.

I'm not sure that this photo does it justice. It feels much more sinsiter in a way. We have a window set in our room with a bay that looks down on the diners below. The background music is Palestrina, or some other monastic chanting, and most of the corridors are stone, or dark and menancing. I'll try and take more photos tomorrow, if I get hold of the camera. For now, here's a picture of one of the lights in the corridor. there is a matching blood red design on the beige carpet beneath.

One red canoe

My birthday gift from DAG.
Suddenly I found myself in the possession of a red canoe. Something I have wanted for about 30 years, ever since HG made me paddle around the dark side of the island at Kashwakamak at 9pm on a cold October evening.


So then what do you do? You have to take it for a spin -- I mean a maiden voyage
Its heavy so you can't carry it too far on top of your head -- it needs to be in water

DAG and I practised carrying it around to the back of the house. that was quite far enough. I have now bought it a set of wheels so that we can walk it down to the end of the street.



But it works best in water. Meech Lake for instance where we saw five loons in one canoe trip.
We have had beautiful beaver tail paddles for at least 10 years waiting for the time when we'd have our own canoe.


Meech lake is not a big lake
But big enough that you can feel like you've left everyone behind for a while, even when a Trailhead expedition has bee organized for the same day.

Aside from the loons there was a chipmunk that decided to eat each lunch of wild raspeberries on HG's leg (couldn't get to the camera) and dragonflies that also took a fancy to sunning themselves on HGs yellow T-shirt.


Check out the locals

Not just a load of old lentils

I think lentils are one of those things that you either love or you hate. I used to think lentil-hate was hard wired, a genetic trait that could not be influenced by environment. It was one of those foods associated with hippies, granola crunchers, and hard core macrobiotic types. I actually have a book by Rose Elliot with the same title as this post. Everything I ever cooked from that book turned out brown and heavy (Sorry Rose).

I have always thought that lentils, particularly the orange ones of my childhood were interesting. On bored days I would be given the task of doing "the seperations" -- picking by hand the odd lentils that had fallen into the rice jar, or vice-versa. Only later did I discover that this was a Montessori age appropriate task (my Mum was an infant school teacher -- did she know?). I forget what my Mother used the lentils for, maybe soup, she would never have made Indian food except out of a vespa dried packet.

Over the past few years I have had a few lentil converts, thanks to the dhal recipe below. I often serve Indian food for dinner when we have guests, especially meat eating guests who can tolerate a bit of spice. The dhal has elicited many quotes, of which a give you a few:
"It really tastes much better than it looks" (CC)
"Well -- I quite like it actually" (MD)
"Now I understand why E always insists on gettting dhal" (MEL)

It originated from a Sainsbury cookbook by filmmaker Ismail Merchant (circa 1992) but has been modified over the years. I never stick faithfully to the recipe.

Lemon Lentils

2 tablespoons oil
1 large onion
2 cinnamon sticks
250g red lentils
1 tsp chopped ginger
500ml vegetable stock
500ml hot water (I add half of this to start off and then more as needed)
1/2 tsp chilli powder
1/2 lemon
2 garlic cloves
pinch cayenne peper -- to taste or piece of fresh chilli
2 bay leaves crumbled
fresh coriander (MEL -- this is totally optional)

Heat oil in a deep saucepan over medium heat and cook 1/2 onion until soft. Add cinnamon sticks, lentils and ginger and cook for 10 minutes until colour of lentils has become more translucent.
Add stock, hot water and chilli powder. Season with salt, bring to the boil an dboil rapidly for about 10 minutes. Squeeze the juice from the lemon and add to the pan with the squeezed lemon skin. Cook for about an hour, stirring frequently until the lentils have broken down and the mixture is creamy.
While the lentils are cooking, make the terka -- chop the remaining onion, heat a little oil in a skillet and cook the onion, garlic, cayenne pepper or chilli and bay leaves until onion is just brown.
To serve empty dhal into serving dish, drizzle the terka over the top and add chopped coriander, unless you are MEL.

That's it for lentils -- except to mention a wonderful one-man play from the Talking Heads series by Alan Bennett bed among the lentils one of six monologues of wonderfully closely observed character studies. I am suprised, but quite encouraged, that they are now part of the GCSE English literature syllabus. Although they are quite short, the honesty and detail of the writing makes them almost painful to read, especially if like me you grew up in the UK of Bennett's mind. There may not be any overt link between the play and the recipe (except for lentils), but like bed among the lentils lemon lentils and the other recipes in Ismail's bookserved to bring a little bit of India into British homes.

Pedantic

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