Some might consider a brunch featuring a dozen oysters as decadent. But this is the third Sunday in October and I’m in the Belgian city of Ghent.
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A man in his 20s squeezes past our chairs, places a bag on the floor and delves his hand deep into Mariette. I’ve never seen anything quite like this in a café.
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Chef Lieven Lootens often finds inspiration from vegetables. “I think they are more inspiring for me because they have more beautiful colours and textures, and more differences in shapes. I really have something with vegetables and herbs. I really love herbs and things that grow in my own garden. We go outside in the countryside, at home, see those herbs and smell them. By the smell only you get teased by your senses. You associate them with other vegetables or the meat that you have. From there on you start building those flavours together. That’s how I create dishes when I have products from the season and can feel it, taste it and smell it,” he explains with passion.
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A lambic beer undergoes spontaneous fermentation in a vast open tanks known as a coelship. To an untrained eye a coelship looks much like a shallow swimming pool filled with wort prepared by the brewers of the Pajottenland.Translated from Flemish into English, Toer de Geuze means 'Tour of Gueuze'. Typically held over one weekend every two years, the event is a celebration of gueuze beer presenting aficionados with opportunities to visit lambic breweries and gueuze blenderies.
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This project, for me, was a discovery of all the other things that Breugel is — the intelligence of his compositions and the landscapes in his paintings. People like Breugel’s work a lot and identify with it as typically Flemish or Belgian culture and its joie de vivre. At the same time he really is a very interesting painter who invented the snow landscape as a genre and played an important role in developing the landscape as a genre of painting,” added the curator of Breugel’s Eye.
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I travelled to Antwerp for a day out with two friends. We were all within arm’s reach of Jean Til as he began speaking. They confirmed they’d also heard the line. It was genius. Sheer brilliance. We all commented to that effect in the immediate aftermath of our two-minute encounter.
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Terrorism, unfortunately, is a part of 21st century life. On 22 March 2016 three suicide bombs were detonated in Brussels, killing 32 victims and injuring more than 300 people.
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Britain has its fish and chips, Germany has Currywurst mit Pommes while in Belgium the ‘must-try’ national dish is surely mussels with fries. To do that I headed to Chez Léon in the heart of Brussels.
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“I am a chocolate maker. I started in 2001 and now I have a shop and workshop together, working more like a restaurant,” says Laurent Gerbaud, introducing himself at his chic, central Brussels base.
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I’ve pulled on a disposable overall, I’m holding a torch and have a camera slung around my neck. If it wasn’t for my floppy black wellies you might take me for a crime scene investigator. The kit is compulsory for tours of Antwerp’s underground canals, the ruien as they are known here.
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