Lots of phone calls, auditions and... moule frites?

Yesterday Maggie and I had lunch at a great restaurant called "le bon coin snack bar" which is on the way to the boys' school: This is a picture taken from the exterior of the restaurant with the carte de menu in the window. The big draw was the hand-lettered sign saying "moule frites 14 EUR", but when we walked in the door at 12:15 on a Tuesday we were disappointed, as the place was already full, with reservation stickies on several of the tables. By the time we were seated at 1:00, the moules were gone.

Incredibly, this was not a problem! For a little snack bar on the corner, we had instead filet de canard avec croquettes and four different vegetables, and I had rognon de veau (calf kidneys) with frites... I defy you to find a snack bar in the middle of our neighborhood in Toronto that serves those dishes, prepared as masterfully as they were, along with a host of other dishes like salmon croquettes, tagliatelli with eggplant, mushrooms and olive oil, etc. etc, not to mention the five page menu of standards, and that also supplies a dozen different beers, including trappist specialties, a wine list, etc, etc.

This picture is of the duck filet, with four different vegetables (leeks, brussels sprouts, carrots and green beans) and that's not including the croquettes (mashed potato cakes rolled in breadcrumbs and baked/fried). The whole thing wasn't terribly extravagant either: our two dinners, the croquettes and the frites, two Westmalle Trippels and a Jupiler for around 30 Euros. We've been doing a lot of our own cooking, and this was a real treat for the two of us; the last time we went out for lunch together alone was on the first day of school, a whole eight days earlier. In Belgium, that's a long time to go without going out for lunch...



I've posted a little video clip of me above, welcoming you to this blog in person... Hopefully this will work, and I'll be able to leave little snippets of video where approriate. I have already posted a short video of what it's been like so far in Belgium: it's available on Youtube at the following link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kh_1KS6c8t4

Maggie was away all day at the St. Johns international school in Waterloo, on a visit that was arranged by our neighbors; he's British, and she's lived and worked all over the world but is a Belgian national. They have two daughters (8 and 5), one of whom is in Malcolm's class, and the family is coming over for pizza on Friday.

This Sunday past we took transit to the Gare Midi, where there is a huge outdoor market, almost a bazaar, of truly mythic proportions each and every Sunday... one has the feeling that anything one wants, be it waffle makers, fresh figs or a new pair of jeans, you can find it there. We were on the hunt for new bikes for Maggie, Malcolm and I; our neighbors Denis and Florence were very nice to invite us over for a drink on Saturday evening, and gave us a small bike that their youngest had outgrown, for Duncan's use.

As it was, the only bike we did discover that was worth getting was one for Malcolm, but no matter: this Sunday the 23rd of September, Brussels has a "no cars" festival, and there will be a big bicycle marché fairly close to where we live, where people can sell their old bicycles, skateboards and rollerblades. We'll look around for some bikes for Maggie and I then.

As for the singing! I've been singing pretty much every day, and despite all the changes, I'm getting into a good routine, singing my oratorio and opera arias through on alternate days. I have a coaching session in Liège on Friday, and then an audition in Antwerp (for concert work) next Tuesday. Maybe Maggie and I will go together and have a look around, as neither of us has been to Anvers, as the French call it, and I've heard it's very cool.

One interesting thing is singing French; I found it, rather bizarrely, a little uncomfortable, until I tried singing it more openly... I talked to Bruce about it, and of course he knew what was going on: I've been speaking a ton of French lately, and that's establishing little habits. You might think that would help my French singing, but the truth is quite the opposite: you don't sing any language like you speak it, exactly, and it is necessary to modify French vowels (and English ones too, by the way) to make them more Italianate... once I remembered that little trick, things were fine.