Kitchen

I am now taking suggestions for blog topics - this is one of my mom's requests.  Truthfully, I considered it a while back, but memories of my kitchen in Virginia were still too fresh.  Now they are more of a fond memory.

 This is my kitchen in Belgium.  One photo the entire kitchen.  On the right, the tall blue cupboard is the refrigerator.  The stove and oven should be pretty obvious.  The sink and dishwasher are on the left.

If I stand in the middle of the kitchen and stretch out my arms, I can almost touch both counter tops.

The bits of yellow on the far counter are mousetraps.  We don't have mice, we have a dog.  After the pyrex eating incident we have had to resort to this deterrent.

I've provided a close up of my stove top.  It is electric and has four burners.  Four pots do fit on its surface.  It gets a bit crowded to have more than two at a time, as the burners sit very close together and the pots touch.

The oven is another feature of this kitchen.  The width of the oven interior is just shy of 17 inches.  My cookie sheets and baking stone do not fit inside (well they do fit, if inserted diagonally).  Theoretically a 15 inch pan would fit, but by the time the sides slope up from the bottom and you add handles, well the result is too wide for the oven.

There is no way to make a Thanksgiving meal in this oven.  One would have to choose between turkey or casseroles (2 max).  The good news is that the school barely observes Thanksgiving (no school Thursday afternoon) so, we probably won't make it a major celebration.

To make the kitchen a bit more workable, I added a few things - a step stool so I could reach high cupboards and some storage from IKEA.  The bit of additional surface space and more drawers come in handy.

One more complaint and then I'll tell you the good thing about this kitchen.  Complaint - no garbage disposal.  I'll let you figure out what a hassle that is without describing it.

The good thing - by Belgian standards this kitchen is large.

I'm taking requests for future blog topics - let me know what you are interested in...

Garbage

As with most other things, garbage service is different here than it is in the US.

At home, we had a trash service.  They provided us with a garbage can and a recycling can.  Both cans were quite large.  Once a week they came and picked up our recycling.  Twice a week they picked up our trash.  On a quarterly basis they billed us a flat rate for this service.

In Belgium, there is a schedule for recycling.  Once every other week, there is a pick up service for our paper, plastic and metal.  The plastic and metal can be co-mingled.  Paper is separate.  There is no curb side service for glass.  Glass must be taken to some large collection bins in our community.  They are separated by clear, green and other.  As far as I know (and Kyle may correct me on this) we don't pay for recycling pick-ups.

Garbage pick-up is once a week.  We don't get a can and we don't get a bill.  Instead we buy the special garbage bags of our municipality.  They definitely cost more than Hefty bags and we don't get to choose the type we prefer - no flex, no special tie, etc.  The cost of the service is built into the bag.  As they are expensive, we don't waste them.  We are careful not to put recycling into them and we really fill the bags.

I was worried that as American consumers and wasters we would far out pace our neighbors in how many bags appeared at the end of our driveway.  Most of my neighbors have two bags and so do we.  Some of my neighbors only have one bag per week - I don't think we'll ever achieve that goal unless we are on vacation.

It is an interesting approach to waste management - pay by the amount.  It makes us think about what we are throwing away and consider if there is another way to dispose of the item.