"Shauna enjoy Italy _ it's magical." - Frank Bruni

back from a wonderful week that started last thursday for a night out in milan then a weekend in holland and a 5 day study trip with the university all around belgium ending the last day of the week in the champagne area of france and then a long bus ride through luxembourg and the swiss countryside finally back in solidly-stiff-still-sweaty-summer Colorno air....more about the trip later...i'm checking my emails and have one from my mum who said she went to listen to frank bruni talk about his new book in new york city (she writes "after the Q&A i told frank you mentioned him in your blog today and got him to sign a book for you!!" i was thinking frank? frank our neighbor frank?) ha but pretty cool, way to go mum, i can't wait to see it and read it. so...as i go onto nytimes.com/dining to find an article he had written that my mum had thought i'd find interesting, i came across this article about SPEKULOOS which i was just introduced to last week in belgium! it's a belgium gingerbread cookie that tastes like christmas. seriously. really. we had it the first night crumbled and layered between creamy vanilla mousse. it was tasty, but reminded me too much of christmas to enjoy on a warm summer's night - maybe with a layer of wild berries in between...

then, staying at jules' house in the country, along with the assortment of delicious cheeses we had for breakfast every morning, he had spekuloos spread - cookies in a jar! genius-ly addicting on slices of crisp apple.

breakfast:

between holland, belgium and france in one week, i've never eaten so much cheese. 

no complaints.  

and we also got to munch on the real spekuloos cracker at the Westvleteren Brewery in between sips of the monk's three beers - Blonde,  8° and 12°. the 12° has apparently been voted the world's best beer by various american sites. pretty darn tasty. no, you cannot buy the beer anywhere else except for in the abbey and yes, i did buy 6 for you to try dad when you come visit me in italy.

do you  know what happens if you drink 3 of these?

now, go try some at Wafels & Dinges while i go off to find that other article...