Author: dolcevitaspinelli

Your next meal is just around the corner

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What do you do with your leftovers? Well thanks to the newspaper “De Standaard”, I discovered “Thuisafgehaald”. Thuisafgehaald is like a virtual food shop that helps people who don’t like to cook to buy some food and people who have lots of leftovers to get rid of them.

How does it work? First of all both the person who will cook a meal and who wants to eat the meal have to subscribe themselves for “thuisafgehaald”. Both specify their neighborhood, as normally it is the aim that food sharing happens within a same area (but not mandatory) to make to logistic part easier as the “eater” needs to go and pick up the food.

From the moment you share a dish, you will be known as a cook on the website, otherwise you’ll be an eater (this is a name I gave to it myself). The chef specifies what dish he’s sharing, when it can be picked up, before what time the ‘order’ has to be given and the price (for ingredients) and a picture if wanted.

The eater can then order this dish. Once the cook accepts this order, the eater will get an email with the confirmation of his order and the address of the cook where the dish can be picked up.

In the Netherlands this is already a very popular concept, but in Belgium it is growing every day. It is true that the only thing you won’t be able to control as an eater is the ‘quality’ of the dish. But I guess that bad dishes will be ‘punished’ with negative comments or few orders.

For more info look on www.thuisafgehaald.be

I find a very good initiative to have less food thrown away!

Keep up the good work.

Proud to be a Belgian

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One should always be proud of its local products! Me for example I ‘m very proud to be Belgian and Italian (I’ve got both nationalities). Lucky for me that these 2 countries are filled with products from a very high quality and that are world renowned! Yes both countries!! I’m sure you’ll probably be able to some up more Italian products than Belgian products or Brands. I think a reason for this might be that sometimes you know the name (or heard of it), but you didn’t realize that it is actually a Belgian product. A perfect example of one of these products is “Mandarine Napoleon”, I always thought it was a French brand… but boy was I wrong 🙂 This product is 100% Belgian.

For who doesn’t know “Mandarine Napoleon”, I’ll give a little history lesson which will explain more about the background from this drink of Emperors.  What you first of all need know is that “Mandarine Napoleon” is a Belgian fruit liqueur. Although the liqueur originates around 1892, it was actually much earlier that the “foundations” for this liquer got discovered. Around the end of the 18thcentury and begin of the 19th century one of the main ingredients of “Mandarine Napoleon” (Mandarins 🙂 ) were seen as a luxury product as they could only grew in China and you can imagine how long a boat trip from China to France around 1769 would take. A bit later they discovered that mandarins could also be grown in places like Corsica, Andalusia or Sicily (basically they need very hot temperature to grow). One day a guy named Antoine-François de Fourcroy (aka Napoleon Bonaparte’s doctor) had the idea of soaking mandarins in a mix of alcohol and cognac (and of course distillate it). I’m not sure, but I also think it was because the mandarins were already cheaper than the time they had to be imported from China (so more affordable)so easier to start experimentig with them. FYI I’m imagining a dude with long white curly hair and white tights, you know like the English people in the House of Parliament in front of a copper distillery. I know this is not relevant info, but I needed to share it :-). (But the picture below shatters the image in my head) Anyhow, so to make a long story short, Napoleon tried the “drink” made by Mr. de Fourcroy and liked it a lot and dranks lots of them during his life! As I said it was after that only around 1892 that the Froucroy family (Belgians from around Brussels) decided that refine the Antoine-François’ drink by adding herbs and spices (the same recipe still gets used today). This resulted that on today’s day Napoleon gets exported to 137 countries and gives everybody who drinks or tastes it the same pleasure it gave Napoleon Bonaparte 200 years ago (maybe even more, because of the extra ingredients)….

What a nice piece of history, isn’t it? I have to be honest that I had never tried “Mandarine Napoleon”, not until last week that is! Last week the owners from “Mandarine Napoleon” had asked the Belgian/Dutch from Antwerp Michelin star awarded and Njam chef Roger Van Damme (het gebaar) to create 2 desserts that would match with a glass of Mandarine Napoleon on the rocks and with a cocktail based on Mandarine Napoleon. FYI, for making the cocktail they had asked the renowned Manuel Wouters (who knows really everything about cocktails) from Sips bar, who made a really beautiful and yummy cocktail (one of those that you don’t notice that you’re drinking alcohol)

It is obvious that it wasn’t an easy job for Roger to find and create a dish with this Liquor (or any drink for that matter), but during a small workshop in his kitchen Roger told us how and which steps he took for making this exquisite and beautiful dessert(s). Something he didn’t want to do was serve us the obvious, which would have been dark chocolate (just think of the orange filled cookies they sell in the supermarktet). So Roger started looking further and looked at what ingredients (or some of the ingredients) that get used to make “Mandarine Napoleon” besides mandarins.

All this brainstorming resulted in a heavenly dessert with some the softest ice I have ever eaten! As surprise they also filled the ice cream ball with an extra flavor (when you cut the ball in two it looked like a boiled egg) . When eating dessert is was like a party in your mouth. A mix of sweet tastes from white chocolate combined with fresh flavors from mango and passion fruit with from time to time a salty taste in between that accentuates the flavor of the chocolate…and those are only a few of the flavors I tasted. To make the experience of the dessert ever better they served the dessert on a plate (I might even all it a box) that had all the ingredients from “Mandarine Napoleon” under it. This way you could experience the smell (as you know from my Foodpairing blogpost you taste mostly with your nose) from the ingredients and gives another dimension of tasting the dessert.

The second dessert were actually pancakes that got pimped with Mandarine Napoleon, this to show that food doesn’t have to be complicated to be good and tasty. (This dessert reminded me of Crêpe Suzette, but without the ice cream)

I wasn’t really a Liquor lover in the past, but Roger and Manuel did a good job convincing me to try Liquor more often 🙂 Thank to both of them and also to Mandarine Napoleon to let us have this great experience. It are products like this that make me very VERY proud to be a Belgian!

Btw, if you also want to try the desserts, you can always go to restaurant ‘Het Gebaar’ and hope these desserts are on the menu :-). If you want to try Mandarine Napoleon, you can find it in most supermarkets  ….

Mmm, what a long post, but now I’m sure you get the whole picture 🙂 🙂

Women and beer part 2

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Who is this Sofie Van Rafelghem I was talking about in my blogpost? Well Sofie is a young lady who has done law school and decided to start studying for Wine sommelier, but in the end ended up becoming Beer sommelier. I’m not sure anymore how it exactly happened, but she got in contact with beer and it was love at first sight… so she changed and became a beer sommelier instead of a wine sommelier and now even has her own beer that she initially started to make in her own kitchen 🙂

What is Sofie’s goal? Well she wants to get rid of the macho image around beer and also encourage women to drink more beer as beer can be as elegant as beer (maybe just by serving it in a wine glass or so …)

As this event was at Duvel Moortgat, there was of course also some beer to try 🙂 and boy did we try some beer. On top of that they also asked Ilse Dupocheel to do some food matching with the beers.

During our walk through the Moortgat assortment we started with a nice glass of Cuvée (not to start cliché) which for me was a perfect way to open your taste buds. This glass got served with some nice fresh oysters (you can’t go wrong with oysters).The cuvée is a beer cherry beer that gets fermented between 18 months and 3 year and only gets made 1 time per year.  This got followed by some Vedett Extra white with some marinated mackerel, string bean, lemon and wasabi (with the last to give it that little touch of spiciness).  Did you know that the Vedett beer gets made (besides with the regular ingredients for beer) with ingredients like dried orange peels and coriander? (I was as surprised as you are now!!)

Who says Moortgat, says Duvel so the next beer on the list was the one and only Duvel  The Duvel got matched with another typical Belgian product, mussels, prepared with chicory, chorizo and a butter sauce (so all typical belgian besides the chorizo). I did miss some fries (but that might have been the greedy person in me that wanted them).

No, it didn’t stop there! FYI, it were all smaller glasses in which we got our beers served (No, not a good enough excuse?) The next to taste was a Dark Maredsous , a beer that the gets made by the Benedictines whoalready started making around the year 768… so you can imagine how much tradition there and knowhow there is put in the making of the beer… This beer has a soft aftertaste with some notions of chocolate and caramel (just try the beer (and drink slow) and I’m sure you’ll agree). This aftertaste is a perfect match with some Tuna and some puffed paprika .

The next beer on the menu is not really my personal favorite (because it is to bitter), but it seems that is a beer that is liked by most women…. the beer I’m talking about is that Houblon Chouffe. This beer is also known as the La Chouffe Triple. This is a beer that doesn’t get filtered). This beer is in good balance with a dish with pork (which has a sweet sugary/fatty taste) with some celeriac crème and a sojasauce (the salty part).

And our last beer for the night (we did indeed eventually stop drinking) was the Liefmans Goudenband (yes indeed, made by the first or one of the first Belgian Female head brewers was Rosa Merckx-Blanquaert) . This is a more complex kind of beer and is even unique brown beer that gets fermented between 4 and 12 months  in the cellars at Liefmans and has a very strong aroma. When I think of strong aroma’s I also think of goat or sheep cheeses… which was also what Ilse matched it with. She had foreseen a gingerbread toast with some apple jam and sheep cheese.

I’m really happy that I got the try all these beers and being surrounded by so many wonderful women made this experience even more unforgettable (that’s another reason why women should start drinking more beer). I also think and hope that more women will start drinking and appreciating beer …

If you would want more inspiration regarding beer/food matching, checking the Beer Bits book might be a good start. In case you want to know more about beers you can check the beer consumers’ organization website Zythos

What better way to end than with a quote from Kaiser Welhelm:

“Give me a woman who loves beer and I will conquer the world.”

Women and beer

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For some reason women and beer don’t always seem to go together? Or better that is what most men think. Personally I think those words fit perfectly! After my workshop with Sofie Van Rafelghem’s at Duvel Moortgat I got convinced even more that not only those words are a perfect match, but also that if it were not for women maybe there wouldn’t have been beer at all! Yes indeed, no beer at all! The first fact is that the first actual ‘beer recipe’ was a tribute/homage to the goddess Ninkasi from between 5000-3000 BC.

On top of that fact it is also known that until 17thcentury it were only women brewing beer. Mostly this beer was made by priestesses. They were making the beer because most men saw it as an inferior job and therefore good enough for women. It was even so that if the beer they made was too good or too bad these priestesses got executed for this! (Cruel times). It wasn’t until men in the 17th century noticed that a lot of money could be earned with making beer. From then on beer became a really manly drink with for some reason a macho tone to it. We cannot get around it; all beer related advertisement is always focused on men drinking it… I think if marketers would get rid of that macho image in the commercials more and more women would start drink beers. Although I have to admit that most women I know drink beer, all kinds of beers. The fact that women only drink fruitier or sweeter beer is a misconception.

Maybe we should also add some science to convince you? As you most probably have read in some of my previous post around beer, one of the key ingredients in making beer is hop (FYI, this plant helps against menopause). To make beer it is only allowed to use the female hop flower (virgin flower). It is even so that there is even a law that forbids planting a male hop flower within x meters from the female flower (not sure which cop would know the difference, but still…).

Sadly enough today’s day there are not too many female brewers in Belgium (or the entire world).  The first or one of the first Belgian Female head brewers was Rosa Merckx-Blanquaert from Brewery Liefmans her stamp and knowhow can still be tasted in the Goudenband. A few other female brewers that come in mind are An de Ryck from brewery De Ryck, Anne-Françoise Pypaert from Orval (she hasn’t yet been named officially as head brewer, because the friars need to get used to the thought) and last but not least Sofie Van Rafelghem herself 🙂 she started making her own beer (first at home, now more professional). I’m not sure if there are more, but I have to say it is pretty poor knowing that we have over 140 official breweries in Belgium. Never say never, maybe one day there will be more female brewers (it is said that women have 30% more taste buds than men, which only help making better beer). Don’t worry, we won’t burn you if you make it too good like in th 17th century  🙂

It becomes more and more clear that women and beer have more in common than we men knew!

To be continued….

Another level of Italian food

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Normally I’m not really into going to an Italian restaurant outside of Italy, but from time to time I make an exception. This time it brought me to Franco di Taranto’s restaurant Spiga d’oro. No regular pizza or pasta dishes like in other Italian restaurants, but real refined Italian gastronomical dishes that get served with some of Italy’s best wines (which fyi doesn’t always mean expensive). Spiga d’oro stands for quality the whole way! There were actually 2 reasons that convinced me to try this restaurant, firstly because a while ago I met and had dinner (quit a few bottles of wine passed the review that evening) with Gianluca and Anne-Sophie (Franco’s son (sommelier) and his future daughter in law (not putting any pressure ;-)) and I really liked them. Secondly because Spiga d’oro has already for a few years a score of 14/20 in the Gault Millau guide.

To open our taste buds, they served us a pumpkin soup with some kind of pancetta in it (if my memory remembers it right). This got followed by some Bio “Aquarello” risotto with pumpkin and red mullet that got finished off with some very special and delicate Laudemio olive oil. Our main course for the night was indescribable good and some of the best pieces of meat I have ever eaten, we had the Tagliata di Bovina, mosto di vincotto, andiva con miele di tartuffo. This piece of meat melted like butter on your tongue. Finally I finished my dinner with a piece of lemon meringue.

My compliments to Franco and his team as they bring Italian food to another level!

Of course we also drank some wine with our dinner. I have to be honest that the thing I like about Italian wines, is that I know more about them than about French wines 🙂 But it is a fact that in a restaurant you always fall back on the wines you know and usually pick the “safe” wine.  If it were not for Gianluca, I would have chosen a Gewürztraminer or a Vermentino. Gianluca then suggested me to try a white wine from Lazio ( a region not really known for its wines), a 2011 Donnaluce made by Poggio le Volpi .I’m really glad we took Gianluca’s advice! This wine had it all, the great smell, fruity taste with a lovely aftertaste that felt like a party in your mouth 🙂 (me and my friends who joined me for dinner liked the wine so much we are buying some bottles this weekend). With our heavenly meat we drank a 2007 red wine from Trentino, Moratel made by Cesconi.

After this meal it is really clear to me why this restaurant has received such a good score in the Gault Millau guide year after year.  The whole Spiga d’oro team really does their best to make your dinner a very nice experience and a rememberable evening by combining their knowhow with good quality products.

Before I leave you, I have to share a picture of my partners in crime to try Spiga d’oro, you guys are the best!

I can only advice you to try Spiga d’oro.

Restaurant Spiga d’oro

Website: http://www.spigadoro.be

Address: Leuvensesteenweg 43, 3191 Hever-Boortmeerbeek  Belgium

Phon n°: +32 ( 0)15 520 535

Ricotta and spinach gnocchi

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An alternative for the classic gnocchi made with potatoes. You can give this as a starter or a main dish. This recipe is for 4 persons. It seems difficult, bu trust me it is veeeeery easy

What you need:

For the Gnocchi

  • 400g fresh spinach
  • 150g flour
  • 400g ricotta (fumicato would be better, but the regular will also do fine)
  • 35g parmesan cheese
  • 1 egg yolk
  • 40g potato flour
  • Salt, pepper, nutmeg

For the sauce

  • 1 tin of peeled tomatoes
  • Handful basil leafs
  • Olive oil
  • 1 clove of garlic
  • White wine (drizzle)
  • ¼ chick stock cube
  • Teaspoon sugar (or 1 carrot if you don’t want to use sugar)
  • Sage ( 1little branch)
  • Salt & pepper

Get started:

  • Remove the leafstalk from the spinach

  • Put a big pot of water to the boil with a teaspoon salt
  • Throw the spinach leafs in the boiling water and cook for 3 minutes
  • Drain and immediately refresh with cold water. Let the water drip out of the spinach  and cool down(press the spinach sometimes to remove water)
  • When spinach is cooled down chop up the spinach (you can also do this with the food processor)
  • Put the chopped up spinach in a bowl and add the ricotta, parmesan, regular and potato flour, salt, pepper and nutmeg. Mix all and start knead it like a dough for bread until the mix is soft

  • Let the dough wrest while you make the tomato sauce
  • Put a pot (doesn’t have to be a huge pot as you only use 1 tin of tomatoes) on the heat with a tablespoon of olive oil and a peeled glove of garlic
  • Once you see that the garlic starts to sizzle, you add the tin of tomatoes, drizzle of wine, fill the tin of tomatoes until the middle with water and add to tomatoes. Add salt, pepper, stock cube and the basil.
  • Let cook on medium heat for about 10 minutes
  • Mix the tomato sauce and drain through a sieve (into another small pot)
  • Put the pot with tomato sauce on very low heat and add a branch of sage in the pot (which you’ll remove right before serving). This doesn’t have to cook, it is just to add a bit of sage taste!

Now we continue with the gnocchi

  • Cut the dough in 4 horizontal pieces
  • Put some flour on your worktop and take one of the dough pieces
  • Make a long sausage from the dough (or if you would have one of those old fashion machines to make croquettes  to make the sausages from the dough)

Manuel way

With the machine

  • Cut the sausages in small pieces from 2 max 3 cm

  • Put all the cut ‘Gnocchi’ on a tray
  • Once the water starts boiling you throw the Gnocchi in the water one by one

  • Once the gnocchi start floating you leave them 1 minute and drain them

To serve them you have 2 options

  • You either put some tomato sauce on a plate  and put some gnocchi on top
  • Or you put the gnocchi back in the pot and mix tomato sauce under them  and then serve on a plate

Enjoy!

The one man restaurant

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Devotion, that is the word that I can use to describe Thomas Verbist from restaurant ‘T leeuwekopke. Cooking, serving and cleaning, Thomas does it all himself in his restaurant and he does it all with a smile (if only there were more people like him). If this doesn’t confirm that he likes his job than what will? After years as chef on cruise ships and private yachts Thomas decided in April (this year) it was time to come ashore. You might think that because Thomas does everything alone that this might influence on the waiting time, but I can say for a fact that this wasn’t the case. ‘T leeuwekopke only has room for about 10-12 people, which allows Thomas to provide his guests with all the attention they need.   This restaurant is a cozy restaurant that truly gives you an ‘at home’ feeling.

 

 

 

For my Fiancée it was already the 2nd time at ‘T Leeuwekopke and she told me I had to try this restaurant.  I’m glad she did! We had also asked from friends of ours to accompany (Beatriz and Tim).

On the blackboard written ‘à la carte’ menu you’ll find 2 types of starters, 2 main courses and 2 desserts.  I don’t know it for a fact, but I think that Thomas decides every morning what he’ll put on the menu.

Back to the food! As appetizer Thomas made us a yummy pumpkin soup (you might be surprised how difficult it is to make a good soup).  This was followed by some Scallops with scorzonera also known as black salsify and duck as starters.  Wild seabass, deer fillet and sole as main courses. We finished with some apple pie (I looooooooooove apple pie)

 

 

 

 

 

We drank a 2011 Austrian Grüner Veltliner from Netzl with our starter. For our main course we went  for a red 2009 Portuguese Douro wine named D4U (Douro for you).

I can only say that I’m glad I tried ‘T leeuwekopke , honnest food for an honnest price and served with a sauce of love and devotion.

Restaurant ‘T Leeuwekopke

Website: http://www.tleeuwekopke.be/

Address: (close to the vrijdagmarkt)

Leeuwenstraat 6, 2000 Antwerp, Belgium

Phone n°: +32 (0)497 37 71 06

Taste Eat love, love eat tastings

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Ghent is a beautiful city and for me it always feels a little bit like coming home. Especially in the evening Gent is a magical city, with all its illuminated buildings!  Ghent also has some very nice restaurants, but when I used to live there I usually went to the same restaurants. So now every time I return I try to go to different spots… Something I cannot ignore is that Ghent has a lot of trendy and very cozy restaurants (I might say even more than in any other city in Belgium).

Do you guys remember my previous post about restaurant Eat Love? (find it via this link) In that post I mentioned that Valentina Gatti (fashion journalist and owner) also had a second restaurant ‘Mineral’. So this time I actually wanted to try it as I liked Eat Love so much, but when checking their website I had discovered that they had changed concept and renamed the restaurant and it is now known as ‘Eat Love Tastings’. Now they are spreading even more love 🙂 (and they also seem to have a waffle shop, they really have a lot of Love to give so it seems 🙂 )

Eat love Tastings is located at Ghent’s Onderbergen and you really cannot miss the entrance. Check the below picture and you’ll see why

When entering you walk through the hallway which has for me one of THE most beautiful floors ever (for a hallway) Just like their other restaurant, Eat Love Tastings has a beautiful interior  (a mix from old, newish and natural furniture) that makes you immediately feel like home. Top that with very friendly staff and great food and you have a hit!

As the name might already suggest, the concept of this restaurant is tasting food, therefore they work with ‘tapas’ kind of dishes which give you the opportunity to taste a bit of everything on the menu (which I like as sometimes I don’t know what to pick). You can obviously choose ‘à la carte’ or you can take the 6 or 9 tastings menu consisting of different dishes from on the menu that gets picked by the chef (unless you really have something you want to taste). We decided to go for the 6 tastings and because I really feel to share it all, feast your eyes on the pictures below

As you can see, they also pay a lot of attention to the way how they present their dishes (mission accomplished). In case you were wondering what all these dishes were: Stracciata di burrata, salami ventricina, lardo di colonnata, pumpkin and broad beans as bar bites. These dishes were followed by Haddock with celeriac puree, wheat risotto and Simmental entrecote. Last but not least we had a Clementine and speculoos dessert. All very tasty dishes!

On the wine card you find a wide variety of wines from Italy to France to South Africa and even 1 Indian wine. I could also see for a fact that who has picked the wines is a lover from the Veneto and Friuli wine region as all the Italian wines they had were from these regions. I’m personally also a lover from these regions!

Anyway, I can only suggest to try it yourself and feel the love while you’re eating

Restaurant Eat Love Tastings:

Website: http://www.eatlove.be/

Address: Onderbergen 25, 9000 Gent, Belgium

Phone n°: +32 (0) 486 800 100

Pop up event in a tent with a touch of class

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If you have never had a Michelin star dinner in a luxury tent, you are very lucky! As on 21, 22 and 23 November you’ll have your chance as ‘Taste the seasons’ presents ‘Into the wild’. A culinary event good for networking. What makes this unique is first of all that they have asked the Michelin awarded chef Wouter Keersmaekers (schone van boskoop) to cook  a special autumn menu and Sommelier Steve Bette to forsee some Top wines perfectly matching for this occasion, there will be a 5 star Tent aka Le Quatre Bras and a unique location somewhere in the wild. This time they location is right in the middle of the ‘Brialmontforten’ in Mortsel that were build around 1859. So basically there is even a piece of history included in the package 🙂

It is true that I think this event is more for business people to do some networking with customers or prospects, but honestly I could also see myself eating there with a couple of friends (only tables as of 6 persons available) and who knows maybe I will ;-). I really see this combination work and I’m sure the food will be wonderful, as Wouter has never disappointed me so far …. (and it is hunting season, so prepare youself for some wiiiild dishes)

For reservations or questions about this fabulous event please contact:

Website: www.tastetheseasons.be

E-mail: vip@tastetheseasons.be

Tel: +32(0)486/94.60.51

Reservations with a discount

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I didn’t try it myself yet, but I’m sure it won’t be long anymore. A few friends told me about a website named “tafel 3”. This website is used to make reservations at restaurants. Nothing special you might think… This would also be my opinion, if it wasn’t for the fact that if you book via “tafel 3” you get a discount between 20 – 30% at the restaurant. The purpose of this website is actually to make the life of us people easier if you want to make a last minute reservation. When you surf to the website you’ll find a list of restaurants that still have available tables for that same night, you can also make reservations for a later date if you would want to do this (but that’s less interesting I think). So basically “tafel 3” creates a win win situation for both the restaurant (as it helps to fill all the empty tables) and the guests (as they get a discount). Also there are some real good restaurants you’ll find on “tafel 3” (in whole Flanders).

Let me know if you have already tried this?

Enjoy your meal 🙂