Belgian sugar waffle @ home

After the epiphanic discovery of the Belgian sugar waffle at Mr. Crepe in Davis Square, I realized three things:

a) I needed to eat more of them
b) I might not get another opportunity to do so
c) I'd better find a recipe and learn how to make my own.

The authentic Liège waffle is made with a yeast dough, which means it needs at least an hour to rise, which would require me rising an hour earlier to start breakfast. Um, no.

There are a lot of recipes out there, but as I'm not a seasoned baker (thanks, crappy oven!), I wanted to find something that specifically called for an overnight proofing session, rather than guessing whether it would work.

So I went with this one (ignore the terrible page layout).

The key to making real proper Belgian sugar waffles is the secret ingredient: pearl sugar. It's essentially regular sugar pressed into larger chunks, so it doesn't melt and burn under high heat. It's also hard to find: IKEA carries it, as do some online stores.

But that didn't help me: I needed it nownownow!!

So I improvised with crystallized sugar coffee sticks that had been in the back of the cupboard for years. Once I'd collected the sugar, bashed it with a rolling pin and mixed it into the dough, I figured it would work pretty well.



As you can see, the dough is sticky, which made dividing it into single-serve portions a challenge. I quickly realized it was better to go with small dollops so they didn't ooze out of the waffle iron.







So, okay, not as pretty as the Belgian sugar waffles at Mr. Crepe. And I underestimated the Big Sugar quantity, so there weren't quite enough nuggets of sweet crunchiness.

But overall, not bad for a first attempt. And the recipe yielded 12 waffles, which meant enough left over to freeze for subsequent breakfasts.

Just need to find me some real pearl sugar ...

Belgian sugar waffle @ Mr Crepe

When I posted about the deep-fried cupcake from Kickass recently, I compared it to the Belgian sugar waffle from Mr. Crepe.

A confession: I had no idea what I was talking about.

That is, I hadn't tried the Belgian sugar waffle from Mr. Crepe. And I assumed I probably wouldn't have the chance to do so, given that the Chowhound thread on the subject suggested they were rare (delicious) birds.

This morning, feeling both pancakey and lazy, we went into Davis Square for breakfast. Mr. Crepe was open and quiet for a change. I was about to order something chocolate-and-banana-related when I saw a chalkboard that had a drawing of a happy waffle sporting a jaunty green scarf and the words "Belgian sugar waffles are now available!"

"Um ... are Belgian sugar waffles available?" I asked.

"Not right now," said the guy behind the counter. My heart sank.

"I need to defrost and cook some; it'll take about a half-hour."

Only thirty minutes between me and the legendary waffle? I could wait.

So we ordered coffee and smoothies, and The Boy got a ham-egg-Brie crepe, and we sat in the window and watched Davis Square wake up.

And then it came.



Fresh from the iron.



Glistening with sugar.



It was steaming and caramel-fragrant.

It was like warm, sweet bread.

It was like a freshly frosted, dense donut.

It was heavenly.

But aaagh! Who knows when I'll get another? What are the chances of being near Mr. Crepe when the Belgian sugar waffles are ready (or when I'm just hungry enough to wait)?

I guess I could always make my own ...

I have no taste (aaugh!)

I started coming down with a cold over the weekend. By Monday, I was going through tissues like an elephant watching Dumbo.

Halfway through Tuesday, I realized something terrible: I had no sense of smell or taste.

Lunch was a salad of arugula, roasted red beets, blood orange and goat cheese. I could tell the difference between beet and orange only by texture; the greens were completely anonymous.

After work, I gamely went for a drink with friends from work (y'know, something medicinal). I ordered single-malt scotch, figuring the fumes alone would clear out the pipes: nothing. I may as well have been trying to smell a glass of water.

For dinner, The Boy made curried roasted butternut squash soup, topped with wilted baby spinach. He went a little overboard on the ginger—that, I noticed, but only because it made my throat tingle—but the spices, and The Boy's claim that the apartment now smelled like Rupali (which serves Curry Hell, the world's hottest curry), were beyond my reach.

After dinner we had mint tea. I had to check the label to see what flavor it was; I was getting no clues.

This morning, I made scrambled eggs on toast. As I melted butter to cook the eggs, I instinctively leaned over the pan to inhale that simple/luxurious aroma, and came up empty. And that's when I realized what a gift it is to be able to smell food—and how much I'd miss my sense of smell if it went away permanently.

The scent of lemon zest makes me happy. So does fresh ginger, basil, rosemary, garlic. The smell of vineripe tomatoes reminds me of my grandfather, who used to grow them in his greenhouse. (Demeter's Tomato fragrance is a pretty good representation of that dusty-vegetal aroma). And then there's fresh warm bread, and aged Gouda, and roast chicken, and roast pork, and OMGBacon! Losing this simple pleasure would be like becoming color blind.

Well, at least I still had texture. My breakfast strawberry-banana-yogurt smoothie had a thick, creamy texture; I noticed the tiny strawb seeds much more than usual. The eggs were light, fluffy, pleasantly slippery to swallow. And I was more aware of the butter soaking through the toast.

Oh, yay.

I'm not worried that my senses are diminished forever. But this Saturday is our anniversary, and we've planned a night of Drink (get yer bacon-infused bourbon ready, kids!) and Radius. I'd really prefer not to have to ask for the special texture menu ...

A few final food-related vacation highlights

Our Montreal vacation now seems so long ago (two whole weeks; time does fly when you're, um, back at work). But I can't move on without mentioning a few more tasty highlights from the trip.

1) Breakfast at Eggspectation, Montreal
From the outside, this place looked like a sketchy chain diner. But after the previous day's Ritzy $100 breakfast for four--which worked out to about $10 per fried egg, plus juice and coffee--we were up for something (anything) cheaper.

Inside, it was cool and funky, all alterno-hip waitstaff, college radio music and exposed bricks and ductwork.



Eggspectation's menu is mostly, um, well, ovo-centric, with unusual takes on classics and some of their own creations. But there's also a plethora of carbs: bagels, waffles, crepes, French toast. And smoothies, including one of fruit and granola, which would make a sufficient breakfast by itself. (I, of course, ordered it as well as more solid food, and realized I couldn't manage the whole thing.)

The rest of my meal: Brioche Beauty, which was actually two sizable cinnamon rolls covered with yogurt, honey and almonds, served with a fresh fruit salad.



This, to me, is the epitome of breakfast: 50% healthy and nutritious, 50% sweet and decadent.

I'm so used to "fruit salad" that turns out to be awkward chunks of under-ripe melon with a few grapes thrown in; here, the strawberries had flavor, the kiwi wasn't sour and there were slices of mango and papaya.

Eggspectation is a Canadian franchise, with only a handful of locations in the US; our closest is South Portland, Maine. (They're in one other country: India.)

I'm not saying I'd want to make a trip north solely to eat there, but if we were in the area ...

2) Hotdog and poutine, Cité Souterrain, Montreal

I really don't think this needs an explanation.



3) Turkey dinner at The Parson's Corner

We were on our way back from Montreal, somewhere close to Nowhere, when we realized it was time for lunch, and took the next available exit off Rte. 91: Barton, Vermont. The pickings were slim--an ice-cream place, a Chinese resto called Ming's (which is always a dubious name to the English) and The Parsons' Corner, a pretty house that claimed to be a restaurant.



They stopped serving lunch at 2:30. It was 2:15. We hurried inside, and found a full-on diner counter, a guy slinging hash and the living- and dining-rooms converted into booth space.



I went for a straightforward grilled cheese sandwich; The Boy chose the steak and cheese sub. His dad ordered a burger, and his mom decided on the day's special: turkey dinner.



Everything was good, but the dinner was the winner, getting big points for nostalgia (canned peas! Gelatinous cranberry sauce!), for the silky mashed potato and gravy (doubtless both reconstituted, but who cares) and especially for--because there's no way you can fake this--the tender, moist, thick slices of roast turkey.

4) Scotch eggs in Portsmouth, New Hampshire
The last leg of our return trip included lunch in Portsmouth. We wandered the streets for a while and decided on the Portsmouth Gas Light Company, which has a look and vibe much like the Miracle of Science. The food was lovely, fresh and interesting.

But this isn't about that place. It's about the place I wanted to go, but which didn't open for another hour: The Coat of Arms, a British pub whose menu included not just yer usual faux-Anglo fish 'n' chips and bangers 'n' mash, but also a ploughman's lunch, sausage rolls, treacle pudding and custard and (gasp!) scotch eggs.

After lunch, as we were heading back to the car, I ran a quick errand.



I probably should have ordered them uncooked; they came hot, and they warmed my lap for the rest of the ride home. Sadly, we were too full to eat more, and didn't get to try them until the next day, when they were cold and a little tough and chewy: not at their best.

This just means we have to go back. And also try the treacle pudding.

To reassure The Boy

The Boy is away in Miami this week, being corporate. As is often the case when he leaves me to fend for myself, he worries that I eat enough (bless 'im).

He knows I'm not likely to spend hours creating a culinary masterpiece when I can quickly slap together a couple of slices of bread and cheese (like the fabulous Seaside cheddar with which I am currently obsessed; it's strong and mature, with crunchy calcium bits. Apparently it's a WholeFoods exclusive. I'm convinced that they're waiting until I'm completely addicted, and then they'll stop carrying it ...)

Sorry, that was a tangent, wasn't it?

Anyway, to quell The Boy's fears that I'm starving myself, this was last night's dinner:



Okay, I did slap some bread together, but it was organic wholewheat, filled with Alaskan salmon and cucumber. Add a couple of grilled asparagus and some leftover salad (greens, tomatoes, apple, green beans) and it's a tasty plateful.

And this morning's breakfast?



A yogurt-banana-strawberry-orange smoothie and a bowl of oatmeal topped with strawberry-rhubarb sauce.

Yeah, I'd say I'm eating okay.

Weekend food roundup: Morocco, Mexico, France

Saturday night
The Boy whipped out his tagine (ooer missus!) and threw together Tagin Djaj Bi Zaytoun Wal Hamid, aka chicken stew with preserved lemons and green olives, from Claudia Roden's cookbook Arabesque.

The recipe calls for some of my favorite aromatic ingredients--saffron, lemon juice, garlic, ginger, cilantro--and even though I was supposed to be doing other stuff, I kept wandering into the kitchen to inhale. And take photographs.



In goes the cilantro:



The Boy discovered preserved lemons at WholeFoods, so every now and then he brings some home. They're marinated simply in salt and lemon juice, and have a bright flavor that combines the best aspects of lemon and salt while minimizing the brash sharpness and intensity of both. Unsuprisingly, they keep pretty well, so over the next few weeks we'll find excuses to chop up a chunk of rind and throw it into anything that needs a lift.

Sunday morning
We'd dined at Tu y Yo on Friday night, and came home with leftover rice, black beans and cochinita pibil--the result of a deliberate act of sacrifice on my part. Even as I ordered the dish, I was already dreaming of the reheated remains on a warm tortilla with grated cheddar and a fried egg.



Sometimes, dreams come true.

Sunday afternoon
You know how you develop certain expectations of a dish, based on repeated encounters? Take apple pie, for instance. You start to define it as a kid, and refine your benchmark at diners and holiday meals. Right now, you can probably conjure up your definition of apple pie: the depth of the dish; the level of cinnamon in the sauce; whether the crust is glazed or sparkling with sugar granules.

And then, one day, you meet a pie that blows all your preconceived notions out of the water.

My awakening came over lunch at Petit Robert Bistro in Kenmore Square. The source of my enlightenment: coq au vin.

I thought I'd had coq au vin before. But apparently that was merely chicken that had shared a pan with red wine.

This was something else entirely: deep and rich, the red wine sauce almost carmelized onto the meat, with a generous fistful of bacon to add a smoky undercurrent.



It was amazing, and it is now my gold standard for the dish, but it was also not my lunch of choice: I had andouille and boudin noir, which was lovely, especially as it came with thinly sliced carrots bathed in garlic butter. (They're vegetables, so it's healthy.) The Boy was lucky, though, that I didn't steal his entire plate of chicken.

It was our first foray into this restaurant; it won't be our last, especially as they also have such interesting options as calf's liver and tripe and sweetbreads. The Boy points out that it's close enough to my office to be a lunch destination, which is a frighteningly tempting fact.

Sunday evening
On the menu tonight: baked haddock with steamed bok choy. It's probably for the best.

Breakfast: pancakes are a blast

I learned to make pancakes from my parents, who are both skilled in the art. Their pancakes are thin, delicate, golden, rimmed with a crispy, lacy edge, served rolled up and filled with something sweet and simple: lemon juice and sugar, treacle or jam. No need for anything more elaborate.

That, for me, was the pancake pinnacle. And then I moved to the US and discovered that pancake meant something different: thick, spongy, toast-colored Frisbees, served with a scoop of butter and a bucket of maple syrup. Sometimes they're studded with fruit. Sometimes they're stacked three inches high. Sometimes they're--gasp!--served with bacon and sausage.

Apparently, what I'd grown up calling pancakes were, according to US criteria, actually crêpes. See these here? Served at Gaslight in the South End. Just like what I grew up on.



I taught The Boy to make crêpes and he showed me the secret of the pancake (baking powder). He does both better than me because he shows no fear when it comes to frying stuff in butter.

We often have them for breakfast, because the batter is quick to make: a cup of flour, one egg, then the gradual addition of milk until the result has the consistency of heavy cream. And then we'll throw in nutmeg or orange zest or ginger. How easy is that?

But wait--it just! Got! Even! Easier!

Enter the Batter Blaster, which takes all the tedium and mess out of mixing three ingredients by blending them with cultured dextrose and xanthan gum (s'okay, it's organic) and presenting them in an easy-squeezy can--just point the nozzle at the griddle and you're ready to go!

Two things I love about the website: the video that shows the "old-fashioned" method of pancake creation, in which a fake-Fifties housewife throws up her hands in frustration at the tiresome, filthy ordeal (try cutting back on the pre-breakfast Rob Roys, dahling); and the painful grammatical error in the homepage blurb.

Sorry, Batter Blaster marketing team, I'm not telling you where it is. You have to find it yourselves.

Breakfast: Porridge

Growing up, my oatmeal (or, as it were, porridge) experience came from two different angles. At home, winter breakfast meant Ready Brek, an instant hot cereal best known for ads that suggested a bowlful would give kids a visible aura of warmth (and yes, I was always disappointed when I couldn't see mine). It was quick, easy to make, creamy and comforting.

My grandmother's porridge was at the other end of the scale in terms of prep: the oats required constant observation and non-stop stirring, lest they stick and burn. The result was a thick, rich concoction, finished with a drizzle of honey. It was great--real stick-to-the-ribs stuff--but I had to wonder whether the effort was really worth it. You could make, eat and clean up after your Ready Brek in the same amount of time.

These days, we fall somewhere in the middle: we buy oats that take only a few minutes to cook--not completely instant, but not far off--and add dried cranberries, apricots and dates, crystallized ginger, fresh-ground nutmeg.

I thought that was pretty inventive. And then I read about the Golden Spurtle, which sounds like some adults-only Harry Potter adventure, but is actually the world porridge-making championship, held in Carrbridge, Scotland. Now in its fourteenth year, it consists of two sections: traditional (using just oats, salt and water) and specialty (oats plus a "blending and harmony" of other ingredients).

What impressed me most was not that the porridge should be referred to in the third-person plural, nor that the spurtle should be "stirred clockwise using the right hand so as not to invoke the devil," nor even what a spurtle is.

No, the coolest fact was that the winner of the specialty division (whose scene-stealing dish was apparently oatmeal topped with applesauce--hardly outside-the-bowl thinking) owns The Porridge Bowl, a mobile oatmeal truck.

And--even better--he's not the only one. There's also a chain, Stoat's Porridge Bar. Check out that line!

I wish I lived on a porridge truck route.

(sigh)

Hey, look! Breakfast!

I swear, I don't take photos of every meal ...



Baby potatoes roasted with cherry tomatoes, olives and green beans; prosciutto; omelette. Peach-banana-strawberry smoothie. Coffee.