View from the Big E

Brussels’ sad little river

2010-03-10T18:11:00.002+01:00

Think of a European capital – other than the seaports – without a river. Well, Brussels has a river too, although you’d never know it. The River Senne/Zenne has its source near Soignies and passes through – or is it round? – or is it under? – Brussels on its way northward to make a four-way junction with the Dijle, the Leuven Canal and the Rupel, which carries it onwards to the Schelde.

The Senne used, indeed, to flow through the centre of Brussels and was navigable at least as far as St-Géry, which was actually an island in the river. Bringing boats into the city can’t have been much fun, though, because the Senne was also Brussels’ sewer. In fact it was so ghastly that Brussels’ mayor between 1863-1879, Jules Anspach, conceived the idea of covering it over and building on top of it the grand boulevards which cross the city.

In the 1930s, the underground river was diverted to follow mpre or less the course of the ‘petite ceinture’ between Midi and Yser and the old tunnels through the centre used as the basis for the 1976 cross-town pre-Metro through Bourse and De Brouckere.

Consequently, there are only two places within the Brussels city limits where you can see the Senne. One short section is in the Poxcat area of Anderlecht and the other is the last 500m or so of the river before it exits Brussels and enters Vilvoorde.

The ‘eaux usées’, as they are euphemistically described, no longer enter directly into the Senne, but pass through treatment plants, one at either edge of the city. The photo was taken from the bridge on the chaussée de Buda and just behind me is the huge northern plant, which I had the opportunity to visit a couple of weeks.ago Despite being much cleaner since the plants opened, the river is still ‘biologically dead’, which makes you wonder what the ducks and seagulls are looking for…

You think the globe is warming? Which planet are you on?

2010-03-09T14:58:00.001+01:00

How cold is this winter? Sitting here, looking out over a clear blue sun-shiny sky on a mid-March morning, I would expect it to be 10° - or better. Some hope.

To provide some perspective, we have a small garden pond, which in a normal winter will usually develop a covering of ice at some stage, kept open with a water jet from an ornamental fish. In a really protracted cold spell the hole will get smaller and smaller, and in extreme cases need extra help with kettles and saucepans of boiling water.

Last winter, which was the chilliest for a while, there was one occasion like that, and another where the ice never reached the critical stage. So far this year there have been three serious freezes and we’re currently in our second non-critical ice-over.

So … winters are measured in Ponds. A mild one is a Half-a-pond, a regular one is a Pond, and a fairly harsh one is a Pond-and-a-half. So how do you classify a Three-and-two-halves?

Bicycles, steam trains and … beer

2010-02-26T13:02:00.013+01:00

All connected by one word – Leireken.

One of our favourite cycling routes is the Ros Beiaard, a 50km circuit through the region to the North-West of Brussels that takes in the attractive town of Dendermonde, the woods at Buggenhout, a section of the path along the Schelde and large swathes of Flemish farmland. We take as our starting point the disused station at Bardegem – now a pleasant pub – and the first 10km or so follow the track of an old railway, converted to foot- and cycle-path. Straight and flat.

This section forms part of another circuit – the ‘Leireken route’. If you don’t turn off it towards Buggenhout, but continue a bit further, you will come to another disused station at Steenhuffel, just behind the Palm brewery, which has been transformed into the Leireken tavern, complete with restored 1st class passenger coach.

Fast-forward to a trip to the Moeder Lambic speciality beer bar in St Gilles. There, chalked on the blackboard of today’s specials is that word again – Leireken. A penny drops; I’ve seen that beer for sale in my local health-food shop. For some reason, I’ve never been inclined to buy beer in a health-food shop. But next time I visit, I have a closer look. Leireken bio buckwheat blonde – I’m still not convinced, but the label on the bottle clinches it – a heroic-looking engine-driver battling through the night.

But what does Leireken mean? It’s not in the dictionary. And how does it connect with my cycle route? Well, it seems that the line, which runs from Asse to Londerzeel via Opwijk, was past of a longer route from Douai to Antwerp. How often it was used I don’t know, but it produced a character, an engine-driver named Valeir, well-known to all the locals who used the line or lived close to it. And, in that curious Flemish way, his name was affectionately ‘shortened’ by making it longer – Leireken ! When the line closed, he was immortalised, first by the bar at Steenhuffel and subsequently by the cycle-route.

When the former head brewer of the Opwijk brewery, best-known for the Affligem abbey beers, decided to set up a new venture there was oneobvious name for his new product. His choice of buckwheat rather than barley was unusual, but he knew what he was doing. The beer is delicious.

Every day, you learn something new

2010-02-19T11:58:00.005+01:00

For me, Caran d’Ache is a maker of pencils with a name you’re never sure how to pronounce. Well, I learn that the pencil is actually named after a French cartoonist, whose main claim to fame is one single drawing – well, two actually – along the lines of the H.M. Bateman ‘The man who …’ cartoons.

There it is, on the left. The first picture is entitled 'let's not discuss the Dreyfus Affair' and the second is 'they discussed it'.

But there’s more. While Caran d’Ache the pencil is named after Caran d’Ache the artist, Caran d’Ache the artist is named after … a pencil. For karandash (карандаш) is the Russian for pencil, and while the artist, whose real name was Emmanuel Poiré, was of French extraction, he was born in Russia. Now how about that?

One thing leads to another, and I recalled something I was taught at school, that the Russian word for (railway) station is vokzal (вокзал), and this came about because a visiting Tsar was mightily impressed by these new-fangled trains at Vauxhall, in South London.

This, of course, is a myth. Vokzal was in use long before this supposed visit, and it didn’t mean railway station – well it couldn’t, could it? In fact, it meant ‘pleasure garden’. I wonder if that had anything to do with the fact that an Englishman established a Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens in Moscow in 1783 – named, of course, after the ones in South London.

You learn something new every day

It was 30 years ago today…

2010-02-04T14:56:00.000+01:00

… I caught the first morning flight from Heathrow to start my new life in Brussels. I knew where I was headed – I had visited the offices twice already – but the sense of excitement and adventure was palpable. It was a Monday; they had more sense than to call me in on my official starting day, Friday the 1st.

I don’t actually remember much more about that week. I was lodged in a flea-pit hotel just off the Avenue Louise, by Place Stephanie. I didn’t spend any more time there than I had to, but I don’t recall going out either. I spent a couple of afternoons traipsing around the neighbouring streets looking for the orange and white ‘à louer’ signs, without success. Then I found an ad for a furnished apartment in Avenue Albert, shook hands on it on the Thursday evening, and on Friday headed back to the UK for the weekend.

All in all, not an auspicious start, although the simple sense of ‘differentness’ was enough to keep me on a very mild high. It’s a feeling that I still get from time to time – curious, that. It doesn’t happen around the busy areas, or the sights; it happens around the suburbs and the side-streets.

I’ve been here half my life (nearly), I’ve left my home country far, far behind, and yet from time to time Belgium still inspires a sense of wonderment. Hope it stays that way.

Rara avis

2010-02-01T10:56:00.002+01:00

Our weekly bird-food bill during this cold snap is probably around €15. Grains, apples, raisins, cheese, balls and blocks of fat stuffed with creepy-crawlies (where do they get the raw materials from?). Special muesli for birds. We even had a pot of worms in the fridge for a while – yes, they were alive but no, they weren’t moving about very much.

All this virtue has its rewards of course, in the form of a garden full of birds. Nothing very exotic – it’s the pigeons and the collared doves which rule the roost, starlings, blackbirds, chaffinches, sparrows, magpies, tits both great and blue, a robin and the ubiquitous green parakeets which have so successfully colonised Brussels.

They are all welcome at the banquet except one – the heron, with whom we’re at war over the proprietorship of our pond and its fishy contents.

It’s very rare indeed that we see anything outside this community of ‘common or garden’ birds. Very occasionally a wren comes to visit, and last summer a red kite perched on the edge of the pond. Just once I saw a pair of yellow wagtails. So it was quite exciting to find we have been adopted by a pair of fieldfares, at least for the duration of the current snow. I knew what they were because of a BBC report on how this winter they were appearing more regularly in gardens; the fieldfare was described as a ‘large, aggressive thrush, stealing food from the blackbirds’ which fitted them exactly.

As a bonus, the vet was visiting at the time, administering the cat’s annual jab. He didn’t know what these birds were, and was most impressed when we got out the birdie-book and said ‘there, you see, that’s the one!’ Even looked up for him the name in French – litorne.

A further fall of snow overnight means they’ll stick around a while longer. Don’t worry, the blackbirds won’t starve. There’s plenty of grain, apples, raisins, cheese etc to go round – we can always buy more.

Rowing to Vienna - I

2010-01-29T17:24:00.001+01:00

I rowed 14km (and a bit) on the Concept 2 ergo last night, which took my total for the month and for the year-to-date past 100km. To keep me motivated, I thought I’d check out my progress against something I could relate to – like a real journey.

If I were to equal my 2009 total of 1014km, that would be close to the distance from Brussels to Vienna.

I’ve already spent 8 hours and 12 minutes of my year on the infernal machine, so I’m covering a kilometre every 4 minutes and 27 seconds, or a mile every 7 minutes and 9 seconds. That’s about as fast as I used to run – when I was a runner.

So I’m not rowing in a cold, cheerless hall – I’m running to Vienna!

I’ve crossed the border into Holland already, just passing Maastricht.

Self-improvement

2010-01-29T12:02:00.003+01:00

A meagre selection of drive-in music this morning. Kraftwerk – no thanks. Floyd Wish You Were Here – much better. Two horribly low spots though – Alain Bashung, who I thought was my un-favourite francophone singer, and Arno, who promptly replaced him in the bottom spot. You wonder how people with such ghastly voices get into music, but you wonder even more about the people who buy their records.

I’m getting better at ‘chanson’. I try and follow the lyrics as best I can but eventually they always run away from me. If they catch my imagination I can Google them afterwards. You can learn a lot that way – the meaning of ‘le tintamarre du pognon’ for example (from Eiffel’s A Tout Moment la Rue, which I like very much).

Apart from Bashung, the other artist I can identify without checking the readout on the radio is Gerald de Palmas. Now him, I like, probably because his songs sound more American, country-rock-ish. On the other hand, I don’t like Cabrel when he’s trying very hard to pretend he’s an American who just happens to be singing in French. I’m told I must like Cabrel, so I’ll persevere.

Today’s featured Wikipedia article is Keats’ Ode on a Grecian Urn. I shall study it at lunchtime – I need to improve myself.

Into the home straight

2010-01-27T17:52:00.001+01:00

Temperature on the drive in today: -4.5° most of the way. -2.5° in town. On the radio: AC/DC – Highway to Hell; Madness – Night Boat to Cairo; Rod Stewart – Do You Think I’m Sexy. High spot – Madness of course.

Out of mere curiosity (yeah, right) I calculated how many more days I might spend chained to this desk – God and the management willing. And it’s as I’d guessed – I’m into the last thousand. I don’t intend to tick them off like a prisoner chalking on his wall, but it’s a sobering thought that if I count back a thousand days, it doesn’t seem to take me very far into the past.

So I decided to have another go at this blog. To help to fill out those days, to divert my attention from the ticking clock. Will I have the imagination or motivation to keep it up? Remains to be seen.

Caroline happy hour 26/01/07

2007-01-26T11:52:00.002+01:00

It’s an occasional habit of mine to tune into Radio Caroline between 8 and 9 in the morning. Always a few nuggets in an eclectic mix and the occasional gem.

This morning’s nuggets included:
Clapton/Motherless Child
Dylan/Just Like a Woman
Paul Simon/Love Me Like a Rock
Blood, Sweat & Tears/You Made Me So Very Happy (borderline nugget - they can do much better)
Fleetwoods/Rhiannon

The gem was Sparks/Amateur Hour – not one I would normally have picked from among the more illustrious company above, but I certainly enjoyed the listen.

Wrongsiders

2007-01-25T18:03:00.000+01:00

For those who are unfamiliar with the place, the centre of Brussels is very compact and clearly-defined, in the shape of an elongated pentagon, about 3km long by 2km across. It is surrounded by a dual carriageway, the inner ring or petite ceinture. Around this are ranged the other Communes, 19 in all, which make up the city.

The main axes run roughly Northeast-Southwest: the railway, which is underground through most of the centre; what used to be the main shopping thoroughfare, now very much gone to seed; and the Canal, which runs along one side of the pentagon. Half the city, including all the centre, lies on the Southeastern side of the Canal

As far as expats are concerned, and probably many native Bruxellois, the part of the city beyond the Canal is unexplored territory. They whizz through it (mostly under it) on their way to the Coast, and they may tentatively venture into it to visit the Atomium and the amenities that surround it in the Heysel complex, like the National Stadium, the Exhibition Centre and the big cinema complex there. But live there? No way.

I’d hazard a guess that, of the Anglophone expats in Brussels and the surrounding areas, less than 5% live on the ‘wrong side’ of the Canal. The Bulletin, the weekly magazine that caters to this market, will have upwards of 100 ads for accommodation in each issue, of which maybe 2 will be for the unfashionable bit.

This vast majority don’t know what they’re missing. The ‘wrong side’ can be endlessly invigorating and surprising. I’ve lived there 16 years, and I’m continually making pleasant discoveries. Maybe I’ll post them from time to time.

Stoemp and sausage with onion gravy

2007-01-25T16:37:00.000+01:00

So let’s start with my take on a typically Belgian dish – Which involves Oxo cubes.

Incidentally, if you venture into deepest Wallonia, you might find stoemp referred to as ratatouille, or ‘ratas’. Don’t be misled.

You could use any sausages, I suppose. I prefer saucisse de Toulouse or others with a chunky filling.

I tend to move things back and forth between the hob and the oven, because it’s the best way I know to get the sausages evenly browned. You could just use the pan.

Put a couple of sausages per person on to fry in a little oil. When you’ve turned them once, add one large or one-and-a-half medium onions peeled, halved through the root end and sliced as thinly as you can manage. Cook and cook and cook on a lowish heat, stirring occasionally and turning the sausages.

You know how difficult it is to cook the convex and concave bits? Here’s where the oven comes in. Transfer a sausage from the pan to a plate, shove a couple of cocktail sticks in one of the cooked sides, and skewer the other one on top. You can now put these on a baking tray with one of the curved sides uppermost. Tip the half-cooked onions onto the tray and let them continue in the oven, turning the sausages the other way up after about 10 minutes.

When everything is looking reasonably done (the onions should be soft and golden, or heading that way), transfer the onions back to the pan and turn the heat up to medium. Try not to have any surplus oil. When there are signs of fairly vigorous cooking, crumble in an Oxo cube, stir briefly, then pour in about a third of a bottle of brown beer (Maredsous, Grimbergen, Chimay rouge .. ). It will of course bubble and froth, then quickly reduce to a nice thick gravy. Add the sausages to warm through and turn the heat down to minimal until you’re ready to serve.

Now the stoemp, which you will in fact have prepared while all this was going on. You’ll have to decide what flavour you want. Could be carrot, cabbage or sprouts, leek, broccoli, celeriac or celery leaves – the choice is enormous. A ‘proper’ stoemp will have only one addition, but hey. The potatoes must be ‘frites’ or ‘puree’, NOT ‘chair ferme’ or ‘assez ferme’. Count, say, 2 big or 3 medium p.p. and as much veg as you would have in a regular serving.

If you’re using leafy veg, shred it finely and steam on maximum heat for 5 minutes, to be added to the potato when it’s cooked and mashed. If you’re using root veg, just pile it into the steamer with the potato, cut into smallish chunks and cook until tender, about 10 minutes.

Mash the potatoes with a hand masher in a big bowl, adding a knob of butter, salt and pepper. If you can stand the worry, finish off by beating with a wooden spoon. It is at this stage you mix in any pre-cooked green veg, as well as the final (optional) flourish – a handful of crispy fried onions, which you should be able find in your local supermarket.

Since the mixture will have cooled a bit by now, pop it back in the oven to warm through, pour yourself the rest of that beer and … enjoy.

What is Basse Cuisine?

2007-01-25T14:58:00.000+01:00

It's the opposite of haute cuisine, of course. No-nonsense food.

Some things, I've been cooking for so long I've run out of ways to improve them. You're very welcome to share my tips and techniques. A few words of warning: I'm not necessarily very precise on quantites. I'm a great fan of cooking slowly. And I believe that a steamer is a cook's best friend - if you haven't got one you'll have to boil and guess.

While the point of this is to produce international dishes with local ingredients, one or two may include British specialities. Oxo cubes, for example. Have them shipped from the UK or get them in Stonemanor, but be sure you have them in your storecupboard

Today seemed as good a day as any

2007-01-25T12:24:00.000+01:00

Penultimate day of my week-long congé de maladie, which translates as ‘illness holiday’.

I'm definitely on the mend, the most evident remaining symptom is a voice that belongs to somebody else.

My tastebuds are functioning at about 25%, which is an improvement, since I haven’t tasted anything since Saturday. Downside of a cold this bad is that everything tastes like mud, upside is that I can eat things that taste like mud anyway and not tell the difference. I'm saving a fortune by subsisting on budget-brand pasta concoctions, with industrial quantities of fruit to counteract the damage.

Everything has to start somewhere

2007-01-25T12:10:00.000+01:00

I seem to have established the *where*. Next is the *what*