Belgian Advent Calendar – Day 22 The ritual begins before the first sip—before the tea even touches the water. There’s the kettle, waiting for the right temperature. The leaves, measured carefully into the pot. The porcelain cup, chosen not for…
Belgian Advent Calendar – Day 21 The winter solstice is one of the most meaningful moments of the year for me. There’s something about this particular threshold—the longest night, the promise of returning light—that puts me deeply in tune with…
Germaine Absalon owned Café Vlissinghe in Bruges in the 1950s, and by all accounts, she ran it with the kind of warmth that made the place feel less like a business and more like an extension of her own home.…
Belgian Advent Calendar – Day 20 I’m sitting here with a cup of tea and a brand new copy of Madame Orpha ou la Sérénade de mai and I keep pausing to stare out the window at the grey December…
Belgian Advent Calendar – Day 19 After Ghent’s golden towers and Bruges’ brass bands echoing through medieval streets, after Brussels’ grand squares and melancholic songs, it was time to cross an invisible border—the one that separates Belgium’s two souls. Time…
Belgian Advent Calendar – Day 18 I’m imagining myself sitting in a Brussels brasserie with a glass of cold beer and a well-worn copy of The Marriage of Mademoiselle Beulemans, and I can’t stop smiling. Every few pages I have…
Belgian Advent Calendar – Day 17 I’m standing at the edge of the Minnewater—the Lake of Love—in Bruges, and the darkness transforms everything. What looks romantic and serene in daylight becomes something else entirely when the sun goes down. The…
Belgian Advent Calendar – Day 16 When the sun sets over Brussels in December, the city doesn’t retreat into darkness—it transforms. The cold descends, sharp and bracing, and suddenly the Grand-Place becomes something else entirely: a theatre of light, a…
Belgian Advent Calendar – Day 15 There’s a particular madness that overtakes you in Belgium when you stand before a chocolate shop window. The rows of glossy pralines, the shimmer of gold leaf, the names whispered like incantations: ganache, gianduja,…
Belgian Advent Calendar – Day 14 I’m starting today with a cup of coffee—a scented Irish Coffee blend I picked up just yesterday from Maison Bergamote, a beautiful little shop in Liège, which is coincidentally the birthplace of the author…
