I lived in Belgium for five months many moons ago and immediately fell madly in love with hot Belgian waffles sold from street vendors–each bite tasted so fresh, fattening and fantastic. After many years, I finally made some for the first time last week and I also whipped up another batch last night.  (Oops! I did it again.)

Since I took my husband on vacation last year to Gent, Brugge and Brussels, Belgium, and introduced him to the legendary buttery, sugary, addicting Lego-looking delicacies, and saw how he went from “Waffles? What ever.  I like waffles, but they’re no big deal,”  to finally understanding what a real Belgian waffle tastes like,  I will be making them again and again, but need to space it out more than weekly since they have a bajillion calories. (I realize that I talk about calories a lot! I try to log ’em.)

This second time of waffle baking was less stressful.  I had somehow escalated how difficult I assumed they would be to prepare. They are actually fairly easy although I am still experimenting and attempting to perfect or replicate the waffles I was accustomed to in Belgium way back when.  

My goal is to eventually be offering pointers on the art of recreating this long, lost love. In the meantime, I had the house to myself, the music pumped up loudly, and delighted in decorating my dining table for Flag Day and plating my waffle (dinner for one last night) atop a brilliant red Kate Spade salad plate on a cotton, denim tablecloth.

As I was contemplating about what these colors represent to me as an American, I couldn’t help but think of how they also remind me of the Thailand flag (where my oldest son currently lives) and also The Netherlands and Taiwan flags, where I had spent about a year of my life in each of those countries as well.  I feel immeasurable gratitude for the United States of America and the freedom I have enjoyed to be able to live in three other countries in my lifetime thus far including Belgium, The Netherlands and Taiwan. I value the opportunities I’ve had to get to know people in other parts of the world.   Nobody can ever take that away from me.

But will someone pretty please take away these Belgian waffles for now, “alstublieft?”