Waterzooi

At an attempt to embrace the culture, I have taken 2 cooking classes here and in my own kitchen tried to duplicate what I've learned. K has been pleasantly surprised at how well the dishes have tasted (or he's just faking it to keep me happy!). The one we tried yesterday was Waterzooi which originates in a city here called Ghent (we actually visited it in December or January). Waterzooi means "watery mess" in Dutch, which if I would've known that earlier, I wouldn't have been quite as excited about learning to make it. The dish contains chicken, potatoes, carrots, leeks, onions, thyme, chicken stock, and cream.

The children struggle with trying new recipes (imagine that!), so before tasting this we all made comments Mom would love to hear about the new recipe like, "Oh, this is the best!" or "Wow! This tastes yummy!" hoping the dish would live up to these new compliments. After praying for the meal, J immediately procrastinates on taking any bites. R dives in and decides he "kind of" likes the new cuisine. (Of course you don't have to worry about the 6'7" hubby as he devours practically anything I put in front of him like there's a time limit and then I'm stealing his dish.) We wrestled with our parenting skills, discussing whether we should start allowing peanut butter sandwiches when we know a meal is not the kids' top choice. If we're having something not many children would like, we usually let the kids eat chicken nuggets or some other fool proof meal. This was edible though, and J still hadn't even tried it. After sitting in her chair for about 20 minutes while R and I finished, she finally took a bite and wouldn't you know, she liked it! Although I did not hear,"Wow! This meal is the best ever!", she ate most of it and went to bed with a full tummy.