The sun over Brussels

What can I say



Thanks for everything love.

Moroccan Mint tea

Many times asked and terribly late here is the holy recipe of the most marvelous moroccan Tea, which was taught to me by a Moroccan Tea master, owner of an internet point.

So what? You think it is so easy to find a Moroccan mountain-living Hermit in the middle of Brussels?

You funny guys you.

Ingredients:

Some fresh mint

Two soup spoon of Gunpowder Tea

8/10 soup spoons of sugar (Not a joke, read on and I'll explain)

You are goint to need a metallic teapot, a wooden spoon or stick a glass and, if you like, some rose or orange water.

Execution:

- Boil a cup of water and pour it in the teapot

- Start boiling up enough water to fill the teapot and a bit more (you'll need it )

- While water boils clean the leaves and separate them from the stems.

- When water is boiling, empty the teapot and pour two full spoons of tea in the teapot.

- Pour a bit of water on the leaves rinse and pour out the Tea

This operation is needed to open the leaves and gets the tea powder out of the teapot so that your tea is clear.

Repeat two or three times

- Pour sugar.

The obscene quantity I told you has a practical reason and a personal reason.

The practical reason is that the tea will sit in the teapot all the time you're drinking it, thus getting bitter.

Sugar will cover this.

Personal reason is that this is a dessert and as such has to BE sweet.

This quantity is for about a liter water, but you will have to go for try and fail on your teapot till you find the right quantity.

- Add mint

- Pour water and let brew for 5 minutes.

- Stir with the wooden stick or spoon to break the sugar on the bottom of the teapot, then pour some Tea in a glass and back in the teapot.

- Repeat a couple of times till you're sure the sugar and Tea are well mixed together

- Pour in a glass letting it fall from high so that a soft foam forms on it.

- If you like it you can put a couple of drops of rose water or orange water in the glass before pouring the Tea

Enjoy :)

FYI

My new oven kicks some serious butt :)

Alone again...

They left this morning.

I should be used to it anyway, since I left home 18 years ago and since then this ritual of leaving and visiting repeated itself all over the years.

I should be, but I cannot get used to the night before, were time drags on and on, slow as a snail and in which you feel like you were wasting each second of it instead of doing something wonderful of it.

And I know I should be, but I cannot get used to the morning of the departure with our last breakfast together, the clock ticking and those embarassed silences that already feel like "goodbye" in which you do not know what to say at all.

And I cannot get used to that car that becomes smaller and smaller , my mother winking inside and to the final moment in which it turns around the street corner and is gone from my daily life.

And I cannot get used to going back inside and look around , seeing all the changes, as small or as large they can be, from the tiles in the kitchen and Boiler room to the decoration my mom made in the bathroom.

Or the little helper that keeps me company in the kitchen.

I cannot and I won't , because inside the sadness for the departures, already lives the joy for the next gathering we will surely have.

Thanks for coming Mamma and papà.

See you soon :)

Migration season (part two)

(continues)

What can be more beautiful than coming home after a hard day's work (solving some twit's PC problem) and finding your father that just finished building a concrete slab and awaits you to cover it with tiles?



A million different answers crosses my mind, but none of them happened, thus I went to change and started cutting.

Well, it's not a big deal...

True enough it is a small surface to cover, that said it has a higher ridge and a triangular section that made us sweat a lot ( never something easy in my kitchen, NEVER).



So we had to go around chiseling using some wielders and, finally, the stone grinder.




Height of the platform wasn't naturally standard so we had to dissect a tile in small rectangular sections to cover the raw concrete border.

Whenever (if-ever?) we start mass producing laser blades I have already a possible use for it.

Three hours later here is the result ^_^



Next stop the furniture under the stone counter...

Things are about to turn nasty...

Migration season (part one)

Few know that but July is migration season for construction workers and thus this hard working fellows decide to move north to find some cool weather and shelter from the harsh southern sun.

Strangely, they do not do that for mating reasons ( they do mate well through the year long) instead they do bring tools and keep on the work as soon they arrive.

My father did not interrupt this tradition and, after following me in Brussels he continued this curious ritual.

I was at loss of walls to build though ( I did not Yet tell him of my cellars) thus my unstoppable parent diverted his attention to the Boiler room and the kitchen floor.

Boiler room? What boiler room?

I did never talk about it ( you know, it is not that sight to behold) but between the kitchen and the bathroom there is a small boiler room in which I do usually store ( in a pretty much anarchic way I have to state) soaps, brooms and the laundry basket.

The floor was covered with the usual gray tiles and, in the middle, there was a concrete platform for the old boiler.

Being the old boiler no more and having replaced it by a wall mounted model, we looked at the sad state of the floor and decided to cover it quickly with other tiles.

As you can imagine, nonetheless that my father brought his technical cunningness, his unbreakable tools and his unending coarse language vocabulary he still needed some help.

Guess who's the winner?

Here we go...

Once we broke the platform and replaced it by a clean concrete slab, me and the cussing construction site chief started the task of cutting the tiles.

Tiles that proved immediately too much for the machine we brought, and thus we had to do with our old , noisy friend the grindstone.

Once everything was cut and adapted, here is the result.

This evening we start the kitchen, stay tuned :)

(continues)

My holidays.

Long story short...