François Payard is a top pastry chef, a long-standing innovator in New York’s dessert scene and winner of a James Beard award in 1995. Which is why it’s incredibly jarring when he’s looking at you from 10 feet away, asking what’s in egg whites. “Yes you, I’m looking at YOU in the second row,” he says. “Uh,” you stammer, “it can’t be lecithin because that’s in yolks…so albumin?”
Clockwise: ducks and swans swim through the canals of Bruges; a hot air balloon rises above the city; the Grote Markt belfry dominates the skyline; old advertisement for Trappist-made beef chocolate using raw meat, designed to fight fatigue
Bruges is a quaint little town located in West Flanders, in a Flemish-speaking section of Belgium. The Gothic architecture of the old city center is recognized as a UNESCO Heritage site, and the town is often nicknamed the “Venice of the North,” due to the network of canals traversing the city. Like the center of Brussels, Bruges features a stunning central public square named Grote Markt, which includes the Belfort tower housing a 47-bell carillon. You can climb the 366 steps to reach the top of the 83 m tower for an aerial view of the city. It seems that the carilloneur’s repertoire is as diverse as that of Cornell chimesmasters; all afternoon, the air was filled with the tinkling of baroque and Billy Joel.
You can get a classic moules-frites dinner with mussels, fries and a beer for about €13 in Brussels; Grand Place/Grote Markt is the central square of Brussels and recognized by UNESCO
Several weeks ago, Professor Peter Scholliers of Vrije Universiteit in Brussels stopped by to give our class some lectures on Belgian and European food history of the 19th and 20th centuries. Soon afterwards, one of my roommates noticed that Ryanair flights from Torino to Brussels were quite inexpensive, and there was a four-day weekend coming up, so we made a spontaneous decision to treat ourselves to a weekend in Belgium. After all, isn’t the point of living in Europe that you can fly off at a moment’s notice to another country? I’d like to think we were inspired by class, so this was really a didactic experience anyway.
The view out the window from Aula 2, where we spend 6 hours a day in class
Classes at UNISG are held from 9 am to 4 pm, with an hour long lunch break at noon. Without too much self-incrimination, I will simply say that it has been a long time since I have had to focus so intensely, without the distraction of of the internets, on one subject for that length of time. This will require some adjustment.