“Acide” - Sour
Before I was a wine guy, I was a beer guy. I bartended for a while at a brewery. I read books. Some friends and I started brewing our own, getting pretty serious about it. Beer is wine’s lighthearted younger brother, the “fun uncle.” In France, the main beer is called 1667, or “seize” (“sixteen”). But right next door is Belgium. If wine is a religion in France, Belgium worships beer. (Indeed, trappist monks are known for being incredible brewers inside their monasteries, making “abbey styles” of dubbels, tripels, and quadrupels, among others.) In my beer days, I read a book called Great Beers of Belgium by Michael Jackson (no, obviously not that one and there’s no relation). I told myself that, eventually, I would make it there and visit some of these great breweries. I’m not the beer geek I once was, having navigated more into the world of wine. But we’re in France, and Belgium is right over there, and there is one brewery I’ve adored for a long time which has been on my bucket list.
In Belgium, there’s a style of beer called a lambic. It’s spontaneously fermented, which means the brewers don’t add commercial yeast to it in order to create alcohol, as is done in every commercial style you might drink. Instead, they rely on yeast and bacteria in the air to convert all the sugar to booze. Traditionally, the wort (that is, pre-beer liquid) is transferred to something called a “coolship.” Think of it like a room-sized shallow pan that’s usually near the top of the brewery. Windows are left open so that the wort can cool naturally overnight and while that’s happening, all kinds of yeast and bacteria naturally fall into the liquid. The cooled wort is then transferred to an oak barrel, where it ferments for as little as one year and usually as many as three. The result is a complex and lightly acidic (read: sour) beer that acts as a base for other beers: a gueze, which is a blend of old and young lambics and is then refermented in the bottle for carbonation (like champagne); a kriek, which is aged on cherries; a framboise, which is aged on raspberries; or many other fruit beers.
Brasserie Cantillon is the oldest lambic brewer in Brussels, founded in 1900. Though a scant 126 years isn’t much in the history of Belgian brewing, it has become the brewer associated with traditional, old-school lambic. Bottles in the US used to be exceptionally hard to come by, though I think stock has picked up in the last 10 years.
These beers are probably the closest thing you’ll find to wine. They’re occasionally called “the champagne of beer,” at least they were before Miller High Life picked that line up. They age well in a bottle, and because there’s wild yeast, there’s less concern about exposure to oxygen which for most other traditional beer styles is a death knell.
There are a lot of American breweries that try to mimic the lambic. Not many of them are terribly successful, in my opinion. They turn too quickly into battery acid—you can feel them eat at the enamel on your teeth. The heartburn is immediate. Belgian lambic is subtle. There’s funk, no question, but the blending can shape something you’ve almost certainly never tasted before.
I compare it to wine, but it’s not wine, and wine is not lambic. At least not traditionally speaking. There’s been a movement in the wine world in the last decade or so, a push towards what is called “natural wine.” This is wine that, like lambic, doesn’t rely on vintner’s yeast to ferment the juice. Only the yeast that naturally exists on the grapes’ skins are allowed to stay. It results in wines that are funky, sour, and sometimes exhibit a flavor one can only describe as “wet horse.” While I’ve enjoyed lambic for a long time, I do not enjoy natural wine, and have learned to actively avoid it since being in France. I’m actually surprised at the number of times I’ve been served natural wine when I thought I was ordering a traditional Burgundy. This is not just Paris, either, mind you, but in Beaune at a restaurant that touted its wine list. f an otherwise decent restaurant only has a natural wine list, we’ll consider somewhere else first. If we’ve already sat, I’ll order a Seize. France has a long history of really great wine—even the less-than-great wine on the grocery store shelves is still pretty damn good. Which makes the number of great restaurants that serve natural wine a little strange to me, but so it is.
We tried to plan a trip for the three of us to Belgium—to Brussels, Ghent, and Brugge. But between money and train schedules, we just couldn’t swing it. Katy suggested I take the cheap trains (nearly four hours each way, as opposed to the more expensive hour-and-a-half train) and day-trip it. So I did.
I moved fast from the train to Cantillon, where I took a tour. I got to see the equipment they’ve brewed on for nearly a hundred years, looked in at the coolship where beer I’ve drank cooled in the attic, and walked the barrel room where liters and liters of future beer sat fermenting. It was fun, if a little anticlimactic. I missed my family even though I’m not sure either would have enjoyed it—especially not Auggie.
After the tour I sat in the bar and had a glass of lambic aged on apricot, then a small bottle of lambic aged on blueberries and raspberries. Both were good, things I’d heard of and wanted to try for a long time. But at this point—maybe my age, maybe something else—was catching up to me. I didn’t like sitting in the brewery’s bar by myself. The beer, light and beautiful as it was, was eating at my teeth. The little poorly decorated space, the weird music, the acid…it wasn’t my scene anymore. With that, I duly checked off the brewery from my bucket list, and moved on to see more of Brussels.
I needed a bite to eat so I wound my way toward the city center and stopped at a friterie and ordered frites (duh) and a “Bicky burger.” This is a Belgian concoction that consists of a deep-fried hamburger patty, on a bun with pickles and fried onions, and “yellow Bicky dressing” which is apparently not mustard, “brown Bicky hot sauce” which is not hot, and “red Bicky ketchup” which I could not distinguish from any other European ketchup. And you know what? It was delicious. I was very happy to eat it.
The fries, on the other hand? A shame, after hearing for so many ages about Belgian frites. For my tastes, they were cut too thick and fried not long enough. Just enough to be a little soggy, nowhere near crispy, almost similar to English chips (which also don’t work for me).
I meandered more, making my way to the Palais Royal (the “official” palace of the Belgian royal family, where they don’t actually live opting instead for a separate palace north of Brussels). With clouds threatening and then imposing rain, I moved to the Notre Dame des Victoires au Sablon, which was built sometime in the 1400s. While at some point I do hit cathedral fatigue, where I simply can’t be astounded at the ancient architecture any longer—this was refreshing. It was clean and neat. There was also, of course, a gift shop. Hallowed be thy credit card.
With about two hours before my train home, I had two options: stop at another beer bar that had been on my list and try a few other Belgian styles, or keep meandering. I simply didn’t want another beer, let alone several, so I opted instead to walk toward the Grand Place and beyond to get a coffee and charge my ailing phone’s battery. The Grand Place is like the town square, has some of the most interesting architecture in Brussels, with the Town Hall and King’s House as two opulent examples.
After a coffee, I still had about an hour. I was very near Moeder Lambic, a well-known and maybe world-class beer bar. I walked to it, stood outside for a moment, and thought about the four-hour train ride home. After snapping a picture, I started walking to the train station. I had done what I came to do, and didn’t need to do more. I was ready to go back to Paris.
The very next morning, we had another big day planned—this time something for the whole family but mostly for Auggie. We were going to Disney Paris. Auggie doesn’t really know much Disney—he doesn’t watch a ton of TV, won’t sit long enough to watch a full movie, and we don’t spring for Disney+ here. He does, somehow, know who Mickey Mouse is, which should speak to his proliferation in our everyday lives.
Disney Paris has two parks: Parc Disneyland and Disney Adventure World. The former is your more traditional Disney park—the classics like “Small World,” Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, Dumbo, plus themes like Frontierland, Adventureland, and Discoveryland. Adventure World, on the other hand, has more contemporary favorites: The Avengers, Pixar World, Frozen, and more movie studio themed places.
We started Auggie off easy, on Small World. He took to it well, so we moved through other rides, like Casey Jr.’s train coaster. For him, the thrill of being on a boat or a train might have outdone any of the zips and splashes of the rides themselves. Katy and I did a few things solo, as well: I rode the Indiana Jones and the Temple of Peril roller coaster, and Katy took on the Avengers: Flight Force—and then insisted I go too. We did the Phantom Manor together as a family and had a great time, then outside Auggie got to meet Mickey Mouse and even gave him a hug.
Auggie got through Parc Disneyland unscathed, but within minutes of standing in line for a Cars-themed tilt-o-whirl ride in Adventure Land, he slipped off a railing I had asked him not to climb (four times) and banged his mouth into the concrete. It bled a lot. And he had a fat lip for the rest of the day. He also skipped his nap, which exacerbated the entire situation. Once the bleeding stopped, we got him an ice cream to help the swelling go down.
Places like Disney tout themselves as “magic,” and I get the appeal. The absolute immersion in the world helps take away from…well, everything else going on around us. Even the queues for the rides don’t feel just like you’re standing in line. There’s so much to look at. I found myself missing Harrison here more than I normally do. You can imagine why.
But I don’t love crowds, especially those full of people who are so immersed in something that they forget there are thousands of other people standing around them, moving about them, crossing paths with them. And we put so much pressure on ourselves to enjoy every damn minute of these theme park rides that kids often skip naps and chaos ensues. At dinner, Auggie hit us, screamed at us, and completely ignored us. After being strapped into his stroller while Katy went for one last thrill ride on the Tower of Terror, he fell asleep. We’re all trying our best, and there were so many more highs than lows. I will in no way, shape, or form ever become a Disney Adult. But when Auggie wants to go back, I’ll take him.
Auggie has the hang of the potty now. It took maybe a week, but now he’s wearing big-boy underwear and there’s only been a couple of accidents. Turns out, bribing him with mini M&Ms (which he calls “lemonims”) did the trick. He gets two for #1, and 3 for #2. When we wash hands, he sings in his sweetest singing voice a hand-washing tune.
We don’t let Aug watch much TV. The boy loves Paw Patrol, but we’ve noticed on days he gets to watch it his stimulation is off the charts—and he usually ends up getting very angry at us for one reason or another. Katy, ingenious as she is, pivoted and let him watch Little Bear (a slow, calm, beautiful show from our childhood based on a series of books illustrated by Maurice Sendak), and we’re dabbling with The Magic Schoolbus, Clifford the Big Red Dog, and Winnie the Pooh. While watching the latter, he often asks the eternal question: “What’s that Pooh doin’?”
He’s getting to the point where he makes friends incredibly easily at the playgrounds, much less shy than he used to be and far more willing to put himself out there. He takes after his mother in that way. He recently met a four-year-old American boy named Colby, and their respective nannies set up a playdate for them. Auggie is as tall as Colby at a year younger, but they had great fun. We also suspect Colby may have taught Auggie a phrase I heard him say out of nowhere the other day: “I have to take a whiz.”
If it’s not clear, he’s regularly saying things that crack us up, but he’s also constantly communicating. It’s wild to see. He can count to ten in French (often doing so unprompted by us) and frequently defaults to saying “merci” and “bonjour” to people when he’s out. At the dinner table the other night, he told me, “I’m just thinking, Daddy.” When I asked what about, he said, “Cars. And Little Bear.”
Admittedly, the things he says aren’t always super clear. He has a new road puzzle which he got for learning to use the potty so well. As he’s been driving his cars around it, he points to his red London bus and calls it a “raygo daygo bus.” We’ve gone back and forth with him for days trying to figure out what he’s saying, but the other day, it came to me: he’s calling it his “double-decker bus.” I speak Auggie better than I speak French.
Katy and I have a “bucket list” for the things we must do before going home. It’s the places we’ve wanted to visit and haven’t and the restaurants we must eat at (perhaps again). We’re making reservations as soon as they’re available—there’s a lot of good food and a few more Michelin stars in our immediate future. We’ve booked a trip to Brittany where we will survive on nothing but oysters and the ocean breeze. That’s next weekend, so you’ll probably hear from me again then. My aunt and uncle are coming from Wisconsin to join us at the end of September for a last hurrah. I only have five cooks left in Superior Cuisine—in all of culinary school.
I’ve told you that Superior has humbled me, but if I’m being completely honest with you, it’s also left me a little dumbfounded a few times. Many of the recipes we’re cooking don’t feel “superior” to me. A lot of the plating still feels very…traditional. There’s little that feels modern or novel. Just the other day, we made a “macaroni gratin gourmand.” That’s a gourmet macaroni and cheese. Was it delicious? Of course it was. It was also hilariously easy. Why are we learning that in superior? We made homard a l’americaine (lobster, “American style”). While we went to the trouble of breaking the shell apart, we still plated the thing in its shell. And yet again, we plated the head of the thing. I haven’t been to a single restaurant that’s going to the trouble of breaking a shell apart into four or five pieces just to plate the inedible part of the protein. If you’re serving the shell, you either cut the lobster in half or serve it whole.
Recently, we made a salmon pavé with beets and mushrooms. It was a relatively simple dish, but cooking it was much more complicated than I expected. We cut discs of yellow beets and poached them, tournéed red beets and cooked them in red wine and port, poached a salmon steak in olive oil, made a cracker (?) of parsley, parmesan, and breadcrumbs (which we did not cook in any way), and made a royale (like, a custard) of mushroom, then put two little drops of a red wine reduction on the plate.
When Chef asked me how my cook was, I said, “more difficult than I expected.” He responded, “Mais oui, Chef! This was on the menu at a Michelin-starred restaurant.” Before I could hold my tongue, I said, “THIS was?” I won’t yuck anyone’s yum—the salmon was indeed delicious—but I wonder what the Michelin inspectors would have to say about this dish now.
Maybe the Le Cordon Bleu syllabus could use a refresher.
That’s not to say I’m not still learning. With two chefs in particular, every time I talk to them I’m picking up something new and useful. And those chefs are also more comfortable critiquing the things LCB has us do. It’s refreshing. Plus, I’m boning up on skills I’ve only had the chance to try once or twice. Recently, I had to debone the saddle of a rabbit again. The second time went much better than the first. Chef, when walking by, even gave me a “bien fait, Cyril.” That’s rare.
We’ve got plans to get home, now. No flights booked, but we’ll be back in very early October. That’s just over a month. Remember when I said nine months was going to be a very long time? I was wrong.