bachelor of Arts: EUropean Studies
Maastricht University: Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, 2011 - 2014
EU Policy Cycle, EU Integration Theories, EU Institutions, European Law, Political Economy, Qualitative & Quantitative Research Methods
Erasmus Student: Institut D'Etudes Politiques de Grenoble, 2013
French taught political sciences. It is fair to say that I probably spent more time in the Rhône Valley than in class. Member of ‘Club d’Oenologie de Grenoble INP’
On the left and below one of my favorite places in Maastricht
The 13th Century Gothic Dominicanen Church which was converted into a book store in 2005. The church itself has not hosted a religious function since 1794, when it was confiscated by Napoleon’s army for military purposes. Since then, the space has been used as a town archive, warehouse and even an inglorious site for bike storage.
(Foto: Roos Aldershoff)
‘In the Classical world, Mercury, the god of merchants, was also considered the messenger of the gods and the protector of swindlers. Since then, trade has been traditionally labeled as “amoral,” a notion that gained ground during Christianity, when St. Nicholas was named the patron saint of thieves and merchants and St. Thomas Aquinas concluded that traders would be kept from entering the Kingdom of Heaven seeing that temptation figured as an integral part of their profession.
Long live the Holy Church Merchants of Books!
All fotos: Roos Aldershoff
Maastricht x Brussels
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La cuisine française ..
.. UNE FOLIE FATALE
Inbetween my Bachelor and Master I had the chance to work in Brussels for a European lobby group, promoting independent production of electricity from renewable energy sources. While this was definitely a highlight in my curriculum, exploring my studies’ background and putting it into practice, I had three months left to kill at the end of it.
And so I went with my gut feeling, incorporating my passion for cooking and wonderously slipped into a litte French five to six table restaurant called Le Coriandre. Of course, I was blatantly underqualified but the well-connected wine and food loving family of my Belgian girlfriend at the time, took a leap of faith and put me in contact with ‘un petit chouette resto à Bruxelles’.
There is something to be said though, about the Francophone’s wonderfully instinctive appreciation for wine and food, AND its inseparable infusion of listening, singing and dancing to French / Belgian chanson at the dining table.
A combination - especially when it comes to singing - seldomly flattering in ‘our’ Teutonic climes..
“And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music”
Throughout this webpage,
I recurringly refer to some kind of dance; of becoming; of thought experiments; of an amalgamation with different disciplines frequently invoking music..
If I see this clearly, it all started with Edith Piaf and Jacques Brel, merging with the nurturing qualities of cheese and vivid intoxication through Grenache and Syrah … at one of those many wonderful evenings in the Belgian countryside…
Botticelli, Annunciation, 1489
A spectrum of gentle reds only Grenache can match.
Brussels: Le Coriandre, 2014
Impressively high quality ingredients, everything made from scratch starting with daily bread making. I was gradually involved in the majority of the ongoing tasks, subordinate to the very patient Head-chef. Only later I understood how lucky I was with that work environment. It could have gone in the complete other direction, turning me away from this sector within a blink of an eye.
In hindsight, my experience at Le Coriandre marked the point of no return, paving the way to my pivotal one-year culinary adventure in 2016/17 out in the World, commencing with a stage in the kitchen of The World’s 50 Best: Asador Etxebarri.
The service at Le Coriandre was extremely calm and composed, as we had virtually perfect control through the limited amount of 14-20 diners. Well, by ‘we’ it should say: the Head-Chef. I was at best, just the sidekick; at worst, a not-so-little Chihuahua.
Jokes aside, if you are looking for a way to reify the notion of equanimity, it’s this service!
An exception which was never to be experienced again… the advantage of small family owned restaurants with the privilege to transcend life into work and not the other way round.
While it was a humbling start, it was earnest work infused with a healthy dose of honor.
An initiation of undying love… or differently expressed in À la recherche du temps perdu:
“L’amour, dans l’anxiété douloureuse comme dans le désir heureux, est l’exigence d’un tout.
Il ne naît, il ne subsiste que si une partie reste à conquérir. On n’aime que ce qu’on ne possède pas tout entier.”
—
“Love, in painful anxiety as in happy desire, is the requirement of the whole.
For love is born, it lives, only for so long as there is a part left to conquer. We love only that which we do not wholly possess”
Marcel Proust, La Prisonnière, Book 5, Chapter 1, 1923
Fotos: Guide Michelin, passiongastronomie.be, trouvetonresto.be, aliceabruxelles.com