LIFEclectic Blog #2

It has been a roller coaster of a ride these past few weeks. Get an insight into by reading my latest blog for LIFEclectic, "Business Travel While Pregnant: Part I - 911 in Germany." Don't worry, Pinda and I are doing just fine.

One of those days

Thank you to all of you that read my last blog posting and went to (or tried to go to) the online magazine to read my posting about the nursing class. For reasons I do not understand, that post is no longer available. I just wanted to let everyone know that in case they try to visit that blog and can't get to it.

Moving on...yesterday was one of those days. It was a "Why do things have to be so damn difficult and disappointing" day. I am finishing Week 28 of my pregnancy and feeling, all things considered, really good. I am now also head over heels into nesting mode. For me that means cooking and baking. We bbq'd with friends last night and, for dessert, I planned to have fruit popsicles (made last weekend) and these brownies from Good Housekeeping Magazine.

The recipe looked really straight forward and expat friendly meaning I expected to easily be able to find all of the ingredients and not have to pay a small fortune to buy them at our little British/American expat grocery shop. Umm...and then we went grocery shopping. How is it that in a country neighboring Belgium and close to Switzerland, it is nearly impossible to find unsweetened chocolate? Even the corner grocery store of my childhood in a little town, population 1,800, in the Midwest sold Baker's chocolate. After searching (unsuccessfully) our nearby market (the largest in Europe nonetheless), a specialty cooking shop and our corner grocery store that has one fourth of one of its six aisles devoted to chocolate, I gave in and went to the expat grocery store prepared to pay a small fortune. Nope. Out of stock. In desperation, I finally, surprisingly found (one kind) baking chocolate in our big supermarket.

Half exhausted after walking way more than I had planned, I went home buoyed by my small victory. This recipe is so simple and yet, two hours later, I felt my knees buckle slightly as I tried to cut off the charred top while the bottom part collapsed into a steaming pudding mess. The Good Housekeeping seal of approval, yeah right! It was an unmitigated disaster. Probably seeing the tears brimming in the corners of my eyes, my husband quickly went out and bought a chocolate walnut cake (pictured) at a nearby restaurant/patisserie, Dudok. We didn't even end up trying the homemade popsicles. They were the furthest thing from my mind as I greedily devoured my slice of restaurant bought goodness.