At long last, blog silence is broken!

In the long and storied history of our blog (tee hee), I have frequently let a few weeks slip by sans post, but this long period of blog silence has really set a record. In my defense, it has been an unusually busy and exciting few months for us. There is WAY too much to write about in detail, so instead please turn your attention to this timeline and summary...

Picking up from where we left off in early November and our visit to Champagne:

November
15th - Black Keys Concert - Ancienne Belgique - Brussels - Click Here for Photo Album

25th - Simone/BCS Concert - We performed Carmina Burana to an enthusiastic sold-out crowd at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels. The first half of the program was the world premiere of a piano concerto, plus the concert was recorded for a DVD!




Photo credit: Bernard de Keyzer

Me, caught in action at dress rehearsal the afternoon of the performance



View of the stage - I'm on the first row, far right, practically standing in the orchestra

27th - Thanksgiving 2010 Chez Raarup - Click Here for Photo Album

December

December ushered in the season of Christmas markets, parties, concerts, and travels. Oh, and super cold, unusually snowy weather.

5th - Brussels Winter Wonders Christmas Market



12th - Aachen (DE) - Christmas Market - It seems that the Germans invented christkindl markets and they are always great, so we try to visit at least one each year. Last year was Cologne and Frankfurt. This year, we chose Aachen.







Mosaic ceiling inside the Aachen Cathedral, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.



The altar and Charlemagne's remains in a golden reliquary.





Aachen Christmas Market (plus other stuff from Christmas, birthdays, Luke & Kristen's visit, etc...) - Click Here for Photo Album

15th - Jamie Cullum Concert - Paradiso - Amsterdam - Click Here for Photo Album

18th - Simone/BCS Concert - We performed a somewhat unusual Christmas concert of works by the English composer John Rutter with the Brassband Buizingen at the Salle du Conservatoire Royale de Bruxelles.



Two days later, Troy and I set off for a three week holiday in Colorado. We narrowly avoided a repeat of last year's unexpected visit to Frankfurt, under eerily similar conditions, but with a little Divine Intervention managed to make it to Denver only a few hours late. We celebrated Christmas with our families, plus celebrated birthdays with Troy's father - 80! - and my sister Blythe. We also spent an inordinate amount of time at our storage unit, sorting, repacking, donating, tossing, and ultimately shipping some and re-storing the rest. After 3 years living without a large chunk of our stuff, it was time to rethink and rearrange. We shipped off an air-crate, which arrived a few days after us and has been sitting in an Antwerp warehouse awaiting the call for delivery to our new apartment (more about that in a bit).

January & February

The New Year seemed to inspire friends and family to visit La Belgique, and so we only had a week or two to readjust before we welcomed two sets of visitors, two weekends in a row.

27th - After a few days in Paris, where they got ENGAGED, my brother and his lovely fiancée Kristen spent a long weekend with us in Brussels.



Luke & Kristen in front of Brussels' iconic Mannekin Pis



Lukie & Me, freezing our butts off in Bruges

The following weekend, my best friend Angie arrived for a whirlwind few days tacked onto the end of a business trip. We were so busy having fun that we forgot to take a single picture. Oops!

After all that fun, it was time to get down to business -- the apartment-hunting business that is. It is just as common for people to rent, rather than own, their homes here in Belgium. As a result, a crazy system of 9-year leases has evolved, and our 3rd year on our current lease officially ends on April 15th. This means that we can terminate the lease and move out without having to pay a penalty (which is significant -- in the first year, you pay 3 months rent penalty!!! second year, it's 2 months; third year is 1 month; then freedom...).

We have really loved our apartment -- lovely exterior, modern interior, great location -- but have also grown weary with the seemingly unending stream of construction and management-related issues. (Remember this one?) Most recent case in point, it took us three successive winters to finally prove to our landlords that we had a faulty thermostat and heating system, resulting in the heat never turning off. That kind of thing, combined with a desire for a little more space, really pushed us to look for a new place. So, I spent some part of every day for 6 weeks scouring Immoweb, contacting real estate agents, and visiting apartments. We had this triangular sort of equation, trying to balance our ideal location against our ideal apartment against our budget. Ultimately we found something that met most of our criteria, including the most important ones: superb location, across the street from a lovely park, around the corner from a great grocery store and pastry shop, more space, two big bedrooms, 1.5 baths, and with an elevator. We hope it will be a great new home.



On visit Number 1 to what is now our new apartment. Note my measuring tape and notebook -- this was serious business!



A sneak peek -- looking through the archway at the living room (with some of the old furnishings in it). Don't worry -- once we actually move in, you'll be seeing a lot of the new place.

As you can see, quite a lot has transpired since November. But, oh my, I haven't yet mentioned the other BIG thing that has been going on:



Yep, that's a baby bump!!! (Much more pronounced these days -- this was taken in February). We took the plunge and are expecting a little girl in early August!!! Needless to say, there will be much more to come on that topic, but for now it's time for this installment of Days of the Raarups' Lives to come to a close. I have errands to run and things to prepare for our third houseguest of the year(!), Troy's sister Tami, who arrives tomorrow. And don't worry, it won't be nearly as long before I post again. À tout à l'heure...

A Visit to Champagne

Earlier this fall, Troy was working like crazy on a project in England. The new system went "live" on November 2nd, and thankfully everything went well! He hadn't had a day off in ages (sometimes not even a weekend!), so just after Armistice Day we decided to sneak off for a long weekend to the land of Dom Perignon: Champagne!



Wine has been produced in the Champagne region since Roman times, but "bubbly wine" was not produced until the 1600s. According to legend Dom Perignon, a Benedictine monk from Hautvilliers and keeper of the abbey cellar, was experimenting with production techniques and stumbled upon the double-fermentation process that creates all those lovely bulles.



A visit to wine country in November might sound odd, but it turned out to be lovely. It was definitely chilly, but there was also something quite beautiful about the frosty Côtes des Blancs landscape.





We found yet another wonderful, unique B&B in our Sawday book, this time an 1800s farm/manor house located in the teeny-tiny village of Oyes (about 30 minutes south of Epernay).



The B&B is the home/side-business of a charming New Zealand couple whose primary métier is art and costuming for the film industry. Their eye for scene-staging is evident throughout the house, from the beautiful and delicious meals they served...



To the book-lined loft-style room where we stayed...





To the original mason's marks preserved on the old plaster walls.



Even the village itself contributed to the B&B's atmosphere: named Aupres de l'Eglise (literally "Near the Church"), this was the view from our bathroom window. As Glennis (the owner) said, 'Contemplative bathing'.



With such a lovely base from which to venture forth, we set off on a round of dégustations. Armed with recommendations from friends, we visited three small champagne houses. We were definitely the first people EVER to get lost in the teeny village of Romery looking for Champagne José Marc. We circled the village streets a couple of times before the vintners themselves came outside to rescue us. There followed a lovely tasting, complete with appearances from the hosts' daughter and grand-daughter. We had such a nice visit that we completely forgot to take pictures. We also neglected the camera during our second tasting experience, but we did remember for the third small house: Diogène Tisser et Fils, located in the pretty hillside village of Chavot-Courcourt.



Oddly, everyone else in the tasting room at Diogène was Belgian! We met a nice couple from Grimbergen, who left with over twenty cases(!) Needless to say, our purchases were much more modest.



No visit to Champagne is complete without a least a stop in the "capital city" of Epernay. Famous names front the gates all along the Avenue de Champagne, not the least of which is the iconic Moët & Chandon.





We chose the grandaddy of all champagne houses primarily to get a glimpse at its cellars.



Thankfully the visit is guided because the cellars form a subterranean labyrinth. They stretch for kilometers beneath the streets of Epernay and reputedly contain more bottles than there are residents of France!



This cave contained a paltry 8900± bottles, but keep in mind that there are thousands of caves in the cellars.



These turning racks help the sediment to settle near the mouth, making it easier to remove prior to the second fermentation.



Near the end of the tour, we passed an entire cartload of Dom Perignon Rosé Vintage. A bottle of this will run you about $500.00.



We had such a lovely little trip to Champagne, met some nice producers, and came home with a few bottles of the bubbly. All in all, the perfect weekend away. Cheers!

Champagne Photo Album - Click Here

Armistice Day in Ypres

Belgium suffered terribly in World War I, and thus November 11th (Armistice Day -- aka Remembrance Day/Veterans Day) is still an important day of commemoration and honor here. Two years ago, we attended the commemoration ceremonies in Brussels, but this year, on the recommendation of friends, we decided to drive out to western Belgium to attend the ceremonies in Ypres (Ieper, in Flemish).

Ypres was all but obliterated during World War I. About five major battles were fought in the town and the nearby countryside, and the surrounding Ypres Salient was the scene of some tragic 'firsts' in the world, including the first use of poison gas as a weapon. The British Commonwealth in particular suffered immense casualties here (there are 137 British WWI cemeteries located in the former battlefields of the Ypres Salient), and it became a place of pilgrimage for veterans and veterans' families. The town eventually rebuilt itself, but never forgot the war.

In 1929 the Anglican Church inaugurated St. George's Memorial Church, and they hold a special Remembrance Day Service each year on November 11th. Because so many people wish to attend the service, visitors must obtain (free) tickets to get a seat in the small chapel. My great-grandfather (Duke Chiasson - 114th Trench Mortar Battery, 39th Division, Army) served in the trenches of France during World War I. Obviously we're not British, but we still thought it would be nice to honor my PaPa by attending the service at St. George's and so I e-mailed about tickets. Given that it was the week of the event, I was not surprised to get a reply that all the tickets had already been allocated. However, it was a lovely surprise to receive an e-mail the day before the service informing me that two tickets had been returned and asking if we would like them. So, we got up at 6am that Thursday (I know, can you believe I did that?!?) and made the 1.5 hour drive to West Flanders. We arrived early, but the church was already packed by the time we found our seats. The little church is very lovely and is completely filled with plaques, flags, banners, medallions, and other memorials to the fallen soldiers in the Great War.





This is the plaque that was on the seat in front of me. We were seated next to a friendly Australian man, a member of the British Legion who has been traveling to Ypres on Armistice Day for the last 20 years. He explained a lot of the medals and bits of history and trivia to us.





Regimental crests decorate the stained glass window above the altar.



Patrick Hawkes, the thoughtful church administrator who set aside the tickets for us, is standing behind Troy. He also took pains to show us the plaque dedicated to American service personnel.





You can see several red spots on people's lapels in this photo. They are artificial poppies, a symbol of the fields of poppies immortalized in John McCrae's iconic poem In Flanders Fields. It is now a tradition for people in the British Commonwealth to wear a "poppy" in their buttonhole during November as a sign of remembrance.



More poppies.



The poem in bronze.



That's me standing outside St. George's after the service. Originally, our plan was to attend the service, then head over to the Menin Gate for the commemorative ceremonies, and finally round out the day with a visit to the Flanders Field American Cemetery. But, as you can guess from this picture, by the time we got out of church the weather had turned bad. So bad, in fact, that we had to reconsider the outdoor portions of our day. Now, we've had our share of poor weather while living in Belgium, but this day was a rare, miserable trifecta of cold, rain, and super strong winds. It was like walking in a cold hurricane. We did stand in the main square long enough to watch some of the ceremonies on the big outdoor screen, including listening to the bagpiper's salute and a ceremonial playing of The Last Post. As you can see in Troy's short film below, hundreds of people braved the wretched weather to watch the ceremony. It was really moving.





This is the rebuilt Cloth Hall. Originally constructed in the 13th century, it was the largest non-ecclesiastical Gothic building in Europe and it served as the hub for Ypres' prosperous cloth trade. (Think Flemish tapestries and linen). The Germans bombarded and torched it during WWI, but it was painstakingly reconstructed after war's end. Now it houses the In Flanders Field Museum, which we visited after the ceremonies.



The Menin Gate is a British War Memorial inscribed with thousands of names of soldiers whose bodies were never recovered. Every night traffic stops around it while a bugler plays The Last Post. The only time this custom has been suspended was during the years of German occupation during World War II.



Here, Troy is standing underneath the Menin Gate arch, in front of dozens of 'poppy' wreaths. Right after I snapped this photo, we happened to run into our friends who recommended Ypres to us. After visiting with them for a minute, though, our resolve against the weather gave out, and we headed home. But we are planning a return visit this summer to visit the trenches and the American cemetery.



Despite the miserable weather, we were both really glad that we made the effort to go. All war is horror, but somehow World War I is particularly tragic and sad to me. Perhaps it is the optimism people felt at having fought 'the war to end all wars', set against the ultimate heartrending futility at having it all start over only 20 years later. What I do know is that it was a poignant day, and it felt good to honor the courage and sacrifice of the service personnel and civilians alike. Requiescat in pace.

Le Creuset & Moroccan Stew

Long blog silence, yet again. This time chalk it up to the general busy-ness of life, plus an Armistice Day commemoration in Ieper followed by a long weekend to Champagne. I will get to all that (hopefully!), but first a quick post about Christmas, Le Creuset, la cocotte, and cooking.

I have a few pieces from Le Creuset, the venerable French cookware maker, in my batterie de cuisine--a giant moule à clafoutis (ceramic pie plate) and a pair of heart-shaped ramekins that I received as a birthday gift--but that's it. I eye other pieces whenever I'm in a cooking store, but haven't bought anything else until now because, well, they're expensive. However, I happened to learn from my friend Maisie that there is a Le Creuset factory store not that far away from us (±2 hours), in Fresnoy-le-Grand, France. In fact, it is not just any factory store, but THE original factory and birthplace of Le Creuset! Our friends stopped at the store on the way to Champagne, and their trip sounded so nice that we decided to do the same a few weeks later.



Here I am standing outside the store holding a very heavy bag!

Le Creuset produces many products, but is most famous for its line of enameled cast iron cookware. Interestingly, this iconic French company was actually founded by two Belgian 'industrialists' (a casting specialist and an enameling specialist) who set up their foundry across the border in Northern France in 1925 to take advantage of transportation routes for raw materials.



Now, why are we posing with this box? That brings us to the exciting part of the story. This box was holding our new cocotte (French oven aka Dutch oven aka heavy iron pot), and we wanted to show Troy's parents since they gave it to us as an early Christmas present!!! (Many thanks, again, Dennis and Sharon for the fabulous gift!)


Cocotte unveiled!

Le Creuset's most famous color combo is cerise et dune (aka cherry red for the outside, with a sand-colored interior). As you have seen in numerous posts, cherry red is our 'signature' kitchen accent color, so of course we had to get the cocotte in cerise! To inaugurate the new pot -- in all its 12.5 pound(!) glory -- I decided to make a lovely, fragrant, and delicious Moroccan chicken stew.



Loaded with vegetables, dried fruit, and spices, beyond the eponymous chicken, this recipe is a recent arrival to my kitchen, but one that promises to become a staple.



Red onions softening in our pretty red cocotte.



Before: Layers of goodness. The recipe calls for just black raisins and dried apricots, but this time I also added golden raisins and prunes. (Oh yes, poor ol' uncool prunes are actually delicious, especially in this type of dish.)



Et voila: After several hours simmering on a very low temperature, we have the finished stew. Serve it up with some couscous, toasted pine nuts, and a scattering of fresh cilantro, and dig in! Or, as the French more elegantly put it, bon appetit!