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Ghent, East Flanders, Belgium
Ghent is often overlooked by visitor’s since the bigger and much more preserved town of Bruges overshadows it. The cool thing about Ghent is that it’s not overrun by tourists. A plus in my book. The center of town is impressive. Lot’s of tall gothic buildings and churches and town halls. Sadly though, much of Ghent is now undergoing a massive renovation. Scaffolding covers a great deal of the buildings. The roads are dug up. Lots of cranes populate the skyline and there’s a huge arhiclogical dig smack dab in the center. Apparently they found an entire building under a building that was demolished. But once you get a bit out of the center square and into maze of tiny streets that criss-cross over the canals and run along side them. It’s very cool. So we spent our time there. Walking down alleys, along embankments, crossing tiny stone bridges until the sun set. The buildings were nicely lit and so were the canals. Ghent gets even quieter at night. The day trippers and tour buses have left and the town is able to reclaim itself. Being that there’s a large university located in town, the embankment along the main canal is popular with groups of students discussing philosophy, politics and Lady GaGa all while swilling Belgium’s finest export. Walking and sitting along the embankment is a great nightcap in itself.
The name of the B&B we’re staying at is called Chambreplus. It’s run by a husband and wife team and they are both cooks. The attention to detail is meticulous. The room, the building, the decor – all of it with purpose and tied into cooking. So usually the breakfast that’s included with B&B’s or pension’s run from measly to masterful buffet. But the breakfast here, damn. I did mention they were both cooks right? We found a plate of chocolate bon bons awaiting us when we returned to our room that night. Mia’s husband made them. Creamy and delicious. Little did we know this was the foreshadowing for what would come the next day.
The next morning we arrive at the breakfast table with a setting just for us. I see a three tiered serving platter. Beautifully presented on the bottom tier are seven types of meat and cheeses. All artesian crafted. Not the Oscar Meyer and Kraft love affair I grew up on. The second tier is filled with various miniature chocolates, gingerbread cookies and sugar coated, jelled candies. On the top and final tier are six jars. Each filled with scrumptious jams and sauces. Of course Mia made these. The first one I tasted was a chocolate sauce that had the consistency of peanut butter but melted the instance you put it in your mouth. Really creamy and chocolately. After one taste, I had to try the rest. There was a peanut butter that was just as creamy and had a hint of gingerbread flavoring in it. Carmel was next. Again, creamy, didn’t stick your teeth and really buttery. Moving on to the orange marmalade. Normally I don’t like marmalade because most often I find it to have to much rind in it and it leaves the jam a bit bitter for me. But guess what? Not this one. It had just the right amount of citrus zing and an orange taste that was juicy. The last was an apricot jam. True to the name. Not too sugary, not too sticky but just right.
But before I could serve myself a helping of the meats, Mia set a parfait glass down in front of me. In it was homemade yogurt topped with a nice array of various berries. As I dug in like a big kid, I noticed an elaborate fruit plate off to the side. The pineapple and melons were cut into a butterfly of slices, the peaches into flowers and the strawberries and a grapes were of course plated in key locations to compliment the bigger pieces of fruit.
And to top all of this off, in the center of the table was a woven basket of freshly baked breads and lemony, cheese danishes all prepared fresh by Mia of course. French pressed coffee and a egg boiled just right and I was in heaven. You know how you find yourself eating something and it’s very tasty but your brain is signaling that you’re getting full, probably even past that point but for some reason your arm didn’t get the memo and it’s continuing to stuff load after load of goodness into your mouth and your stomach is now in full control yelling “Bring it on, I’ll find the room dammit!” That’s how it all went down.