Fine mess you’ve gotten yourself into here…

I’m sure there are a few questions.

“Where are you going again?”

In de Wulf in Dranouter, Belgium will be our first stop. Then we head to Copenhagen, Denmark where I’ll be at AOC and Geranium for a month each. She’ll be at Kiin Kiin and Bo Bech, when it reopens. To finish we’ll spend a week or so wandering around London.

“Why Belgium and Copenhagen?”

I just like the style of food and the movement that’s going on up there. Call it New Nordic, call it new natural, call it overly-complicated and too weird. There are many labels to it– none of which I find particularly encompassing of whatever they’re doing up there. They do, however, use methods and products that are very specialized to their region, an ideal I hope to one day integrate into a restaurant of my own. (Whenever that is.) From reading menus and looking at pictures, however, it always looks like there’s an intense, complicated sort of simplicity to the food. I don’t understand it. So I’m going to go find out what the deal is.

A big thing is that they speak English up there. I felt at least it would be useful for me to be able to understand what they’re saying when they yell at me.

“How did you get these stages?”

Email does great things these days. Offering to work for free doesn’t hurt either.

“How are you going to pay for all of this? Don’t cooks make next to nothing?”

Yes cooks make next to nothing. It’s not really much of anyone’s business how we pay for this, but I will say that not having a drinking, drug, or gambling habit really helps. Plus, calling my wife frugal would be the world’s biggest understatement. Probably my only vice is eating out, and we cook a lot at home so we can spend money on meals that really count.

“How often will you update this?”

I’m not even sure I’ll have internet up there. So this may be it. Fingers crossed though.