Lilac Colored Glasses

I was just downstairs, casually spreading some shrimp in dill sauce on a cracker when it occurred to me that my eating habits and preferences have definitely changed over the past two years. Some of it definitely has to do with availability, but some of it is definitely exposure to new things and taste combinations. Here are some comparisons I came up with off the top of my head.

What I snack on?
Then: Kettle Chips and Helluva Good French Onion Dip
Now: Shrimp in dill sauce and wheat crackers (usually KrispRolls)

What I miss the most: Triscuits with sharp cheddar cheese and spicy mustard

Soups in my pantry?
Then: Campbell’s Hearty Steak and Potato, Campbell’s Chicken and Wild Rice
Now: Campbell’s Leek Bisque with Scallops, Knorr’s Broccoli with Boursin

What I miss most: New England Clam Chowder

Late night munchies?
Then: Sheetz MTO or nachos grande
Now: Kebap or fries

What I miss the most: Sheetz, I do so miss Sheetz. SHEEEEETZ!!!!!

Morning pick me up?
Then: Grande non-fat caramel macchiato
Now: Koffie verkeerd (a.k.a a simple latte)

What I miss the most: The choice to have skim milk or a larger size

Favorite restaurant?
Then: Toss up between Red Lobster, Shogun and Don Pablos
Now: Alaturka (Turkish cuisine, probably best Turkish pizzas in Gent), Kastart (really awesome pasta place)

What I miss most: Affordable seafood and real Tex Mex food

Tipsy time?
Then: Margaritas, SoCo and cranberry with a twist of lime, Yuengling or Guinness
Now: Pinot des Charentes, Kir Royal, Rodenbach, Tripel Karmeliet

What I miss most: Frangelico

And don’t get me wrong, this is totally not my day to day diet, just some noticeably different tastes I’ve developed since moving here.

Gent is not the place to go if you’re looking for fast food. Or chain restaurants in general. In the entire city they have one McDonalds and one Pizza Hut. They don’t even have a Quick, which most Belgian cities have in abundance.
And this doesn’t bother me at all. In the U.S. I ate way too much fast food, but that was for conveniance, not because I really enjoyed most of it (except Arbys…mmmmm…Arbys). So now, if I’m in need of something fast, it’s just as easy to go to a Panos (the only mega-chain foodwise in Gent) and get a reasonably priced, reasonably healthy, mediocre sandwich. I mean, Panos is okay, but the only choice you get is white or brown bread. Half of the time. The other half they’re out of brown bread, so tough shit. Cause the service is usually crap too.

CB has rarely eaten fast food in his life and actually tried Subway for the first time while we were in Cologne. He was a bit taken aback by the fact that he could basically pick whatever he wanted on whatever bread he wanted, toasted or not toatsed, etc. but otherwise he really enjoyed it. In fact, his exact words may’ve been close to:

“It’s a shame we don’t have Subway in Belgium, they’d kill Panos.”

And lo, last week in Brussels south Station, what did we see? A Subway!
And later in the week we spotted another one…in Gent center!!

So after some errands the other day, we hit up Subway for lunch. I ordered a large club, toasted and when it was time to choose veggies I asked for everything but onions and jalapeños. We ate our sub, it was lovely, and we were on our way when about halfway to the bus stop CB said, “I see what you did with the vegetables there.”

And I, confused, said, “Huh? What do you mean?”

“Well it’s just so American. No European, when asked ‘what vegetables do you want’ would reverse the answer and say ‘everything but these two things.’ They would pick 2 or possibly 3 vegetables, if the server wasn’t getting annoyed by then, that went well with the sandwich.”

“But I got a club! All veggies go well with a club! I mean, if I’d gotten steak and cheese, I’d only want lettuce and tomato…”

“But that’s not the point. It was just funny the way you asked for ‘everything but.’ It’s so American. But it was good! I liked having all the vegetables, it just never would have occurred to me to ask for it like that.”

So hey, at least some of my American philosophies are good for something, right?

Today we’ll be out all day visiting with CB’s family. But it seems it’s becoming a tradition for me to post pictures of our New Years Eve meals so I wrote this out last night and scheduled it to post today. On our first New Years together we made Tandoori chicken, Buddha’s delight, an impromptu Chinese soup and ginormous margaritas that resulted in sleeping through the actual countdown to midnight. Last New Years we made seafood gumbo with rice (photo lost to the hacking in June) and I believe we had Pecheresse to drink with it.

Our menu this year is as follows:

We Wish You All A Happy, Healthy 2010!!

As promised, plenty of pictures. I’ll start you off with some food. Well, what we were able to keep out of our mouths long enough to take pictures of anyway.

Fried potato pancakes with lingonberry sauce

hot spiced wine

The regional beer, from Peter's brauhaus (brew house)

Lattes to go with our gelato

Our gelato...mmmm, nutty

Ham, cheese, tomato covered Schnitzel with fried potatoes and onions

There were also garlic bread spread with olives, wurst, brötchen, pretzels, lumumba (spiked cocoa), meat from a spit and a surprisingly yummy Japanese spread of sashimi, sushi and tempura (that’s a story in and of itself). It was definitely a delicious, albeit belt busting, weekend!

You know those commercials for Special K? The ones that say how good it is for your health and how easy it is to lose weight by going on the Special K diet? The one where you eat a bowl of Special K for breakfast and one for lunch and a sensible dinner? Sounds like a pretty good deal, doesn’t it? Especially now that they make like 8 different variations on the traditional Special K.

Well, I still have to lose 60 pounds before the wedding so I’ve been calorie counting and eating healthy again (I make exceptions on weekends…I started having dreams about chocolate fudge ice cream cake and waking up drooling so I figured I better give myself a break one or two days of the week). Breakfast has been consisting of cream of wheat with a tablespoon of jam or maple syrup (the real, fresh, Canadian kind…which we’re running out of quickly….waaah) but I’ll tell you, when I wake up and it’s already close to 80° in the house (we have no AC), the last thing I want to eat is hot cereal.

Hence my epiphany today while cycling past the supermarket: I’ll buy a box of Special K! Then I can still have a healthy, whole grain breakfast without raising the temperature in the room a degree or two. So I went and grabbed a box and glanced at the calories. Hrm…30 grams was a serving and a serving is 115 calories. Okay, well I use 35 grams of cream of wheat (that’s dry, pre-milk) and I’m always full, so 30 grams of Special K can’t be much different, right?

Until I got home and weighed out 30 grams of cereal.

Well, shit! No wonder people lose weight on the Special K diet…they only get 6 mouthfuls of cereal for the first two meals of the day. I mean, come on! I’m making sure that I only eat between 1200-1300 calories a day but to do that I need to feel full after breakfast and there’s no way that’s gonna happen with this cereal. Tomorrow I’m going back to the supermarket and buying a box of All Bran…sure it tastes like lightly sweetened wood chips, but at least it’s a decent amount of lightly sweetened woodchips!