Rotary Beijing in November

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

Kempinski Hotel

Rotary Beijing in November started with a lunch in Kempinski Hotel, it was a special lunch for members only. Our Rotarian Daniel joined the meeting online from his quarantine in Shenyang. He briefed the members about the latest issues for our club.

Oil rigs

Definition: a structure above an oil well on land or in the sea that has special equipment attached to it for drilling and removing oil from the ground.

It was the word of the evening on 10 November 2020 when Tony told us about his 46 years on offshore oil rigs, his passion for it, anecdotes and special experiences (human and professional) in the many fascinating countries he worked in. Tony worked in so many countries I cannot remember… Indonesia, Vietnam, Egypt, North Sea, and many more.

His talk and our dinner were in Morel’s Restaurant, attended by members of the Rotary Club of Beijing and guests. Great talk that opened up a world few of us are familiar with.

Witloof or chicon or endive

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

The confusion about witloof/chicon

The vegetable that we call witloof or chicon or endive is mostly translated in English as “endive”. The translation is misleading. In Belgium we call it witloof in Dutch and chicon in French.

The correct defintion:
A variety of the common chicory (Cichorium intybus var. foliosum) cultivated to produce a narrow, pointed, blanched cluster of leaves used in salads.
Chicon is the name given to a type of endive. Bitter-tasting and white with yellow edges, this type of chicory can be eaten raw or cooked.
Also called Belgian endive, witloof, witlof, chicon, witloof chicory, Brussels witloof.

For me the signature dish of Morel’s Restaurant is this one:

Simply de-li-cious. But better be hungry to finish it!
Called “chicon au gratin” it is in fact “witloof in hespenrolletjes” (https://www.lekkervanbijons.be/recepten/witloofrolletjes-met-gekookte-ham) – a very popular and traditional Flemish dish – is also called endive and ham gratin, endive with ham and cheese sauce or chicon gratin.

And another description:
Chicons au gratin is a Belgian national dish consisting of braised Belgian endives  (aka chicons) wrapped in slices of baked ham and covered with a Mornay sauce and some grated cheese.  Steaming hot with a creamy cheesy sauce, chicons au gratin is comfort food par excellence.  The bitter Belgian endives mixed with the sweet baked ham also make a winning combination.

andijvie (endive lettuce)

In Belgium and Holland we do have a vegetable that we call “andijvie”; it is a a plant (Cichorium endivia) in the composite family, of South Asian origin, having curled or ruffled leaves with a bitter flavor, cultivated as a salad green. It is closely related to “witloof”.
It is used as a salad or cooked in a few local dishes, or mixed raw in Dutch potato dishes (“stamppot”).

See here the explanation in Dutch and different recipes to prepare “andijvie”, more on the original website:
https://dejuistekooktijd.nl/groente/andijvie-koken-en-bereiden/

Andijvie is een typisch Nederlandse bladgroente met een licht bittere smaak. De groente is nauw verwant aan witloof en wordt in de Hollandse keuken vaak gebruikt in stamppotten. Je kan echter nog veel meer kanten met deze groente op. Zo is andijvie ook populair in verschillende diëten. Dit komt vooral doordat er zeer weinig calorieën in de groente zitten, maar wel zeer veel vitaminen en mineralen.

Je kan andijvie bereiden door deze te koken, in de oven klaar te maken, te roerbakken / wokken en nog tal van andere manieren. De groente kan je naast bereiden ook perfect rauw eten. Andijvie is dan ook heerlijk om te gebruiken in een mooie ovenschotel, salade, andijviesoep of in de stamppot (rauw of gekookt).
Zoals gezegd hoef je andijvie niet per se te bereiden, je kan de groente ook perfect rauw eten. De groente is dan ook ideaal om een snelle salade mee te maken of een stamppot rauw andijvie.

Decoration in Morel’s Restaurant

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

Flower shop?

Our Susan has a weakness for beautiful flowers and she uses her skills for the artful decoration in Morel’s Restaurant with a wide array of fresh flowers; all the arrangements are done by herself and no plastic flowers! All fresh!
See some of her bouquets and arrangements. One flower that stands out is the orange pincushion flower – I had to Google it to learn about it. Pretty expensive…

And she invented a vase with fake ice cubes – they look like it but it is done by … plastic bags in water. Clever!
Ladies also receive a special flower gift (if they are nice). Or, as I do, take it home for the wife who loves it!

Halloween came to Morel’s

Like every year Susan also puts up the decoration for Halloween, attracting the curiosity of Chinese onlookers who take pictures. Susan is part-time artist…

I contributed with the two big pumpkins, first serving as decoration and later for a delicious pumpkin soup!
This year nobody came painted as ghosts, I guess we already look scary enough without makeup. To be on the safe side and keep ghosts away I had a great red wine. Works.

Binzhou City sightseeing

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

Donkey meat

As mentioned on my other website (https://blog.strategy4china.com/2020/11/binzhou-advanced-technology-high-school/), we had another visit to Binzhou with our team of UWEE, we also were doing some Binzhou City sightseeing, the food and more.
In the evening of 1 September 2020 we drove to Huimin County. Our local friends wanted us to taste again donkey meat.

The donkey meat restaurant was in Weiji town, Weifu road (Huimin County under Binzhou City), named “SiheYuan Xian Lv Yan”

It is close to Wei’s Manor, built in the late Qing Dynasty, looks like a large castle. We visited it in September 2018 during a previous stay, along with our other foreign expert, Harvey, and we had dinner in the same restaurant.

See the variety of dishes. We also bought some donkey meat to take home to Beijing.
See also the other posts about the food in Binzhou:

Lamb dinner: https://blog.strategy4china.com/2020/11/schools-in-shandong-binzhou/
A sumptuous banquet: https://blog.strategy4china.com/2020/11/trip-to-shandong-binzhou/

Binzhou by night

Returning from our donkey adventure we stopped in a popular spot in the city.
Dasha and others wanted to taste the typical desert that was served by a street vendor, called “baobing”, made of shaved ice. The topping is made from fruit and condensed milk. Traditionally, you’ll find fruit like mango, strawberry, lychee, and coconut on baobing, as well as sweet red beans. Many vendors will lay out a huge spread of toppings, so customers can choose whatever they like, see the picture.
The degustation then was a bit disturbed when the chengguan came and all the tricycles had to flee the scene.

People were watching close by some impromptu performances by groups of singers and many were taking pictures with the city lights as the background.

Beijing Rotary in 2020 (part 2)

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

Board meeting 10 July 2020

This final part 2 of Beijing Rotary in 2020, other reports were published earlier.
The Rotary Club of Beijing held a board meeting in Kitty & Daniel’s Grill and Bar, near The Place. An interesting decoration as you can see in the pictures, I guess they spent tons of money on it. I personally found the food good, some of my friends were less happy.

This time no zoom, all present!
I gave the impression eating most because … I love cleaning bones…

Some more Morel’s lunches

We had other lunches in Morel’s Restaurant on 2 and 9 June 2020.

Rotaract Sanlitun had a social in Legend Beer (RIP…) on 15 June.

Major donor

I was honored to receive the crystal and pin as Major Donor (level 1) to the Paul Harris Rotary Foundation Fund.

See: https://www.rotary.org/en/donate/recognition

Rotary dinner 13 October 2020

A nice dinner again in Morel’s Restaurant, well attended by Rotarians and guests. The speaker was Dr. Paul Rochon and the topic attracted many people who were not disappointed.
Paul talked to us about how to turn sleep in something to empower… dreams coming true?  hidden side of dreams? Maybe, but surely all about sleep as Paul with 2 masters and a Ph.D is a specialist in biopsychology and expert in everything related to sleep.

He focused on “sleep chronotypes”, see: https://engineeringsleep.com/chronotypes/
His website: http://engineeringsleep.com/
I actually did the tests he mentions, also contacted him about it.

I also gave the membership certificates to two of our new members.