Sunday, August 23, 2009

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



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)!




6 comments:

Emily said...
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Emily said...

We really NEED to be neighbors! How else are my kids supposed to learn how real people cook? I'd travel the world with you anytime.

Tiffany said...

The whole thing is really, really, ridiculously AMAZING! I hope it takes my kids several weeks before they read this post, or they will be disappointed (again) that you are not their mom. (The girls spent a few weeks mourning the fact that I [1] never threw them a Fancy Nancy party [2] or any party nearly as cool. This whole camp will send them over the envy edge.) The recipes made my mouth water just reading them... and made me sad that there is no way my kids would ever even TRY them! *sigh* Your kids are so freakin' LUCKY!!!:-)

Joseph and Mary + Seven said...

You are quite possibly the most awesome mom around! Can you adopt me?! No?? I'll just have to settle for livivg vicariously through you!

Anonymous said...

Wow! That all sounds very delicious! I will have to try a tour to atleast one of those places soon! Thanks for the great ideas and recipes!

Dacia said...

Next time I want to go on the world tour with you! Maybe I'll have to steal the idea and copy you. My kids would love that! You're such a creative mom!

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