Nathalie Bouffe

Can it be?

Well, what a difference a day makes.  Perhaps springtime is finally, finally on its way.  The crocuses that the gardener’s nephew at Blenheim Palace slipped into my pocket are spiking out green and tentative from the nubbly pot of soil in the corner of my bedroom.  The nail I brutally smashed in the dairy’s office door at closing time on Christmas Eve after three too many Irish coffees has almost fallen off, with a suspicion of strange, pinkish, mother-of-pearl baby nail growing warpedly underneath.  And in Belgium this weekend I got a bad dye job and an even worse haircut, a typical sign of spring for me.  Amélie, Eléna and I even briefly renewed acquaintance wtih the sun, until the cloud morass looming above swallowed it up and spat out hailstones the size and weight of marbles, pelting us relentlessly until we adjourned to the nearest café for a mid-day festin of fil américain and carafes of cheap white wine.   

Of course, by writing this, I’ve probably jinxed myself.  What was that, Punxsutawney Phil?   Six more bloody weeks of winter? 

Mama So Proud

by Stephen Beaumont and Janet Forman for The Globe and Mail

BRUSSELS -- Although rarely heralded as such, Belgians are as gastronomic a breed as their neighbours in France and Italy, possibly more so. It is said the people of Belgium spend their mornings deciding what to have for lunch, their afternoons pondering dinner, and their evenings reflecting on the day's dishes and anticipating the morrow's.

Read on: More than Beer and Bureaucrats

I'm tellin' you--Swiss food is next!

Belle Belgique

For a place I’ve never really lived in, Belgium does an unexpectedly good job of making me feel like I’ve come home. Having relatives there helps; the landscape feels familiar; and I’m unnecessarily offended when someone speaks ill of Brussels, which is NOT BORING. Marie had made frites with dinner, Amélie and I afterwards went to Tournai for a few beers, and the five-domed cathedral loomed comfortably over us as we spinned tipsily over narrow cobblestone roads. Once home we flipped through the onionskin pages of old photo albums and pissed our pants laughing over my red glasses and buck teeth and Amélie’s frizzy side ponytail and leggings and Caroline looking like a boy for, like, ten years. Really, people, it’s not funny to dress kids up like puppets. 

The next day Amélie and I spent an absurd amount of time constructing centerpieces for the table out of leaves gathered from the garden and chestnuts and autumnal gourds. We took a walk in the dewy, dripping countryside, the haze daubing everything green in silver. In the evening my parents and grandparents and godmother and everyone else came to Tournai and we ate ourselves into oblivion: Marie’s green-bean salad and Thai curry and my British and French cheeses and Isabelle’s tartes. Mainly it was the feeling of family that sated, though. We were all full.

Le Mariage de Marie et Eric

Eric Van Keerberghen and his children Aline, Julie and Guillaume have been a part of the family for years.  They come to An necy every summer.  They spend every Christmas with us.  And they don’t hesitate to criticize, prod, encourage, and hug the way any other Dalcq feels entitled to.  So it was only natural that Eric married my aunt Marie last weekend.

I came in from Eng land on Friday night after a ridiculously weighted workweek and a failed attempt to attend Hen ley to watch Bears row.  Amélie picked me up and on Saturday morning we festooned ourselves with all our feathered finery and headed for Tournai’s town hall, where the mayor’s representative married the happy couple.  Champagne corks spouted and bubbly flowed; rice was tossed, cheeks kissed, photos snapped, acquaintances renewed…all the happy snappies that happen at a wedding.

In Which I Reveal Some Traits That May Or May Not Reflect Upon Me

dalcq women

I come from a line of extremely fastidious women. When I was ten my cousins and I collaborated on a drawing of my grandmother. We titled it “Post-It-O-Saurus” and it was a picture of a Post-It-wielding dinosaur that was supposed to represent her.

We have ample evidence to back this allegation. Any drawer you open in this house; any cupboard door, any machine you pick up and look under—guaranteed there's a Post-It stuck to it detailing how it works, where it came from, and from whom. (Her children recently got her a red leather ‘Post-It wallet’ from Delvaux, with a miniature pen attached—she was thrilled.

Books on the Shelf in the Guest Room of my Grandparents' House

My Mother, My Mirror
Living your Anger
Helping Yourself
Nervous Depression and the Body
Unblock Your Emotions
Stop being Nice, Be Real
Intimate Death
The Art of Dying
God?
Albert?
Neither Marx Nor Jesus
All Gods are Not Equal
Poor People’s Problems

Christmas: A Record of the Past Few Days

christmas

I set my alarm for 0400 Christmas Eve. I had to be at work by five, and wanted to make sure I’d have enough time to finish packing and assure the cleanliness of Alisha’s kitchen floor, which I’d found carpeted by soapsuds the evening before after I put hand soap in the dishwasher following a fruitless search for pellets.

It was still dark, and the bus was late, but by 0500 I was at the dairy brewing instant coffee the strength and approximate taste of rocket fuel. Bleary-eyed and stumbling, still smelling last night’s cigarettes and beer in my hair, I went upstairs, scrubbed my wellies, snapped on my sexy hairnet, and set to sorting out the bread deliveries. Even at god-awful hours of the morning the smell of fresh bread puts me in a good mood; sometimes the Puglieses, the spelt Sultanas, and the Poilânes are still warm, which makes life even better.  After an hour of organizing bread, Roy helped me haul two dozen oozing Stiltons onto a shelf outside for people who didn’t want to join the half-hour queue to enter the store. Stilton defies the rules of marketing. It reeks, seeps a vile, putrid liquid—it’s just ugly, all around. But at Christmas in London, it sells by the truckload.

Bloody Boudin Blanc

butcher

Had a flash of feeling really American in Bohan-sur-Semois the other day. I was on my way to a butcher’s whose address was “Rue de l’Eglise 44,” or 44 Church Street, and all the streets in the village were unmarked, or seemed to be. In front of a church I rolled to a stop beside a woman carrying a shopping bag and a little boy. “Excuse me,” I asked, “but do you know where I could find the Rue de l’Eglise?” “I’m not from here,” she said, “but there’s a church right there, so we must be near it.” I’d seen the church, of course. But it hadn’t occurred to me that Church Street would naturally be close at hand. How often in the States is any Miller Lane near a mill? When are Cypress Streets ever lined with cypresses? Maybe in other parts of the US—but certainly not in Miami.

Anyway, the butcher was right in front of the church. And when I walked in, the girl behind the counter, who was waiting on someone, took one look at me and called to an open door behind her, “Dad, she’s here.”

These meetings are always awkward at first. The artisans, I think, are somewhat cowed by the fact that an American has showed up to follow them around. Isa, the daughter, confided later, “We wondered what you’d be like. Would you speak French? Would you be nice? What were your motivations for coming?” I’ve learned to look at people’s hands before I stick mine out for a shake, because if theirs is covered with flour or blood or butter we both feel like idiots. Praising the landscape, which is no-lie beautiful, always breaks the ice. Telling them straightaway who I am and what I’ve come to do puts them at ease too, as does thanking them for having me. Hearing that my mother’s Belgian greases the wheels. And when I pull the chocolates out of my bag, then we’re really best friends and I can sit down and have some coffee. The only thing that I still haven’t totally figured out is the vous/tu (formal/informal tense). I always speak to the artisans formally, to be on the safe side, but often they’ll start ‘vous’ with me and then switch to ‘tu,’ and I’m never sure how to reciprocate or at which point to switch. Everyone notices nuances like these, but no one ever talks about them.

Milky Teats

Mr. Raymond Sizaire has the most mesmerizing face I’ve seen in weeks. His forehead is scored with two deep grill marks, as if he’d been smacked twice with a red-hot shovel. Later he tells me they’re from the birthing forceps. “I weighed six kilos when I was born,” he says. “Now I’m a little more, but it’s all muscle.” He pats his belly. “Except for here!” His shoulders shake, and bellows of mirth quake the house to its rafters. Through fat lips I can see tobacco-stained teeth spaced wide enough apart to stick coins through, but it’s a solid, candid smile. Eyebrows the size of my thumbs, grizzly and renegade. And one eye is blue and kind, but the other one, well, it’s shrunken, and entirely white. No iris whatsoever, and the eyelid shrivels in on itself. He looks a little like James Beard after losing a fight with a pirate.

Jacqueline et Roger: History made Personal

Since my most recent investigations have taken me into deep, deep Belgium, I’m spending the night at my great-aunt Jacqueline and great-uncle Roger’s country house in Chassepierre, because if Amélie’s car has to drive one kilometer more than it has to its wheels will fall off. Roger and Jacqueline’s house is an old farm on the border with  France, near where Voltaire’s revolution-era  tracts were published (to avoid royal scrutiny he had to be close to a border). They’re here right now with a three of their six grandkids because it’s La Toussaint, or All Saints’, a weeklong holiday in Belgium (every November 1st, families meet at the cemetery to clean and flower their ancestors’ graves, with lunch and drinking afterwards). We had raclette and then sat by the fire, talking about the past. I thought it was fascinating, so I’ve transcribed what I remember. Warning: it’s late as hell and I had too much wine with dinner. But if oral history interests you like it does me, read on.