Camp d'Evegnee World Tour

As summer snaps shut we've turned up the volume on Camp d'Evegnee (sounds like a new hit album--rock on!). We've taken a whirlwind world tour through four different countries, selecting the destinations that had the most foreign familial significance for us : Belgium, Ireland, Thailand, and France.

(Oh yeah. You probably could see through my little ruse. It was mostly about the food. We don't exactly have any Thai blood in our veins, but with the amount of Thai food we ingest, we should! The kids learned just as many culinary tidbits as they did facts about each country. Am I weird if my kids' ability to neatly separate eggs is as important as any geographical giftedness?)

And, of course I posted the World Tour Recipes directly following this post! We want to share the JOY!

Belgium

We adored the look of pride on the kids' faces when we showed them the town of Evegnee on the map and taught them about the linguistic reasoning behind that cute little d' in our name. Jean d'Arc ain't got nothin' on us when it comes to snobby French surnames!

Ethan had been craving his great grandma d'Evegnee's gaufrettes (waffles) for weeks, so we taught the kids Babonnes recipe, filling the house with that yeasty, sugary scent that surrounded Eric's childhood. We felt warm and watched over as we honored her culinary greatness and bit into hot waffles with large grains of crystallized sugar adorning each mouthful like the ones they serve up on the streets of Liege.

Ireland

Our tour of Ireland was absolutely Devine! The kids each painted their own green Blarney stone, but the way we have to fight to fit in a sentence at the dinner table proves they didn't really need it. We concocted green Shamrock Sugar Cookies and individual potato au gratins.

Thailand

Eric had the grand idea of transforming our dining room into an airplane so we could "fly" to our destination. (Should I be concerned by how quickly he insisted on being the flight attendant, snapping up the pink scarf and prancing off to his post to take their tickets? [Was he always this keen on the glitter and glitz of a well-planned activity or have I rubbed off on him to an unhealthy degree?])

We had a Thai feast, complete with the Mussaman Curry that is a regular member of our dinner rotation (although Ethan begged me to please make it extra spicy for the special event) along with Coconut and Ginger Soup and Shrimp Pad Thai. There was a cloud of curry infused steam hovering over our kitchen as we grinned through tingling, burning lips, letting our wet eyes flow freely.

France

We're still in a cheesy, chocolatey stupor after our Fondu Extravaganza. Bon appetit to all of us. . . again and again and again! Let them eat cake (and cookies and fruit and veggies and meat and anything that could be dunked and dipped and smeared all over our greedy faces)!