Waffles & Beer & Snails, oh yum!

Because I am the slowest person ever to post photos I will be posting food photos of our Europe trip for years to come! The other day I was really craving a Belgium waffle. Not the kind you eat for breakfast with strawberries and whipped cream, powdered sugar and maple syrup but a real one. The kind you buy from a window or street vendor in Belgium where you get just powdered sugar on if anything because the sticky bread is already super sweet with a slight carmelized crunch on the outside, and it is still warm from being cooked in the iron....mmmm. I had 3 waffles throughout our Belgium stay, this one was the second best and was bought from a window stand in a French-Belgium city south of Brussels. After we went on a hike through the French-Belgium countryside, got lost in a cow paster, and passed a group of high school aged kids on a field trip (the only other people we saw on the trails) we were thirsty. Enter Belgium beer. Believe me, this was not our first beers in Belgium, maybe more like our 10th or 12th. I just find it interesting that each beer has its own glass it is served in. It seems like it is considered a sin if you don't serve it in its designated glass. Each bar or restaurant must have a whole special room just to store all of the different types of glasses for each beer they serve. We returned to Paris a little earlier than we expected which gave us a great opportunity to go back to the last restaurant we ate at in Paris on our way out at the beginning of the month. We loved the lunch there so much we had to go for dinner. I went adventurous and ordered the escargot. I have tried it in the past but never ordered my own. I was very glad I did!

Sitting on the Can

Cooking the same thing the same way all the time gets boring. Sure, you can change up the main ingredient but you really only have baked chicken, baked fish, baked lamb or grilled chicken, grilled steak, grilled pork chops or sauteed chicken, sauteed vegetables, sauteed ground beef. Sometimes you have to mix it up a bit, sometimes you have to be different, sometime you gotta be crazy. What about cooking it on a beer can? Beer can chicken has become quite popular. I even saw Target carrying a wire device that held the beer can and helped steady the chicken on the BBQ. Normally beer can chicken is prepared on a covered BBQ with a whole chicken on a 40 ounce can of beer. Ed decided to go crazy on an already crazy idea. He made beer can game hens. Cornish game hens were placed on normal sized beer cans and cooked in the oven (so yes, they were baked). As funny looking as they were they tasted great! The beer cans should be only about half full of liquid when the hen is placed on top making some pleasurable work for the chef before hand. The left over liquid is then absorbed into the chicken (or the hen) during cooking making the meat tender and moist!
Good weather means its grilling season! Get out there and make some beer can poultry of your own.

Philly Food Part II

A couple of days into the convention I spotted a window of time I could escape. Armed with a map, my cell phone and notebook of information in case anything was urgently needed (which it was, of course but fixed in minutes with a couple of calls) I scampered off towards the Liberty Bell to do some sight seeing.

I was lucky enough to catch the Liberty Bell with very few people around. While I was slowly making my way through the museum a big group of school kids entered the hall. I ran down to the Bell and got a few photos with it before the big group came. (strangers are not the best photographer. The bad thing about sight seeing alone) I lingered to hear the park ranger give his speech about the bell to the school group.

After seeing the bell I set off in the direction of the river. I can now say I've seen New Jersey but I've never been there. Walking down the historic looking Chestnut street a brewery caught my eye. I had some extra time and I figured I could use a quick rest. I sat myself at the bar of the Triumph Brewery and ordered a pint of seasonal ale brewed on site. A bizarrely named beer intruiged me. The bartender gave me a taste of their crazy concoction. It was particularly strong but very good, I would have rather drank a pint of that, oh well.

Philadelphia provided me with many good meals some of which where fancy gourmet entrees but it were the inexpensive unexpected meal that were the best. The first night that several other people arrived for the leadership meeting I grabbed some dinner with a couple of them. We wandered away from the hotel with a specific cantina in mind. When the wait turned out to be over an hour the pizza place we passed on the way sounded great! I ordered two enormous slices, the second only because it sounded crazy and I had to try it; potato and egg pizza. It tasted like breakfast. The food was good. The restaurant even offered several pasta dishes which, according to my dinner mate, were pretty good. And it always helps that everything was very inexpensive with no tip required.

My last full day in Philadelphia was spent in an all day leadership meeting at our Courtyard Mariott Hotel. We got a quick break for lunch. Unfortunately it wasn't long enough to go anywher other than the hotel restaurant. I ordered a crabcake sandwich with high hopes. I was disappointed with a soggy pile of crab mush. I picked at it and then excused myself from the group exercise that I wasn't really apart of. The outdoors were calling me and I had to get some fresh air.

The next morning I woke up early to squeeze in anymore sightseeing I could do before we left for the airport at 11:30am. I arrived at Independence Mall just before everything opened and asked a park ranger where I could grab a bite for breakfast. She suggested a buffet place inside the Bourse Building. I expected something expensive with tons of food. Tons of food yes but you only paid (by weight) for what you put on your plate. Some eggs, a few pieces of french toast and syrup cost me $3 and change. I gobbled the affordable food and ran off to see the US Mint, Ben Franklin's grave and the US Treasury.

Yummy trip to Philly!