This was a Dorie Greenspan recipe - chicken in a pot - scented with meyer lemon peel and more garlic than I’d care to count. The meal was delicious, but the dough seal around the new Staub dutch oven was a real messy disaster.

So — we avoided eating anything like that. I am not sure what Belgian was, or what the ingredients were that made it taste bad, but I too stayed away from Belgian (style) waffles until at least in my 20s.

Of course, I don’t know what a waffle tastes like in Belgium. A friend insists they are made with whipped egg whites. For me, it’s all the shape. Big holes, thicker. Yummier, in fact.

So, I recently found this post from Blogger extraordinaire, Orangette. Lots of comments. Lots of netizens who like waffles. Good people, every last one.

She suggests the following recipe as a favorite, that will work in your thin or Belgian-style waffle maker.

• ¾ cup all-purpose flour
• ¼ cup cornstarch
• ½ tsp. baking powder
• ¼ tsp. baking soda
• ½ tsp. table salt
• 1 ½ tsp. sugar
• ½ cup whole milk
• ½ cup buttermilk
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil, such as canola
• 1 large egg, lightly beaten
• ¾ tsp. vanilla extract

I would like to suggest a few changes.

First, use ¼ Buckwheat flour and only ½ cup all-purpose flour. Second, skip the white sugar. Use brown sugar. And Molly suggests splitting the milks, 50% between Buttermilk and regular (whole) milk. I’d go 75%/25% on that. Following a commenter’s suggestion, more buttermilk means more lift from the baking soda and powder.

Cornstarch was a new ingredient for me in a homemade waffle, but I think it works great for that super texture.

Waffles! Celebrate life.

The salad used a mustardy vinaigrette and simple sea salt with both heirloom greens and heirloom tomatoes. The sourdough baguette was excellent, procured from the Fresh Market.

The soup was a spur of the moment creation, made from freshly made chicken stock.

Recipe, for 2.

• Render the fat from lardons, Applewood-smoked (2 strips bacon)
• Sautée both a sweet and purple onion in the bacon fat until they take on color (15 minutes)
• Add 2 diced Yukon Gold potatoes, stir in the hot fat.
• Add 1 Tbsp. smoked paprika, stir.
• Add broth for two portions (around 5 cups)
• Cook for 20-35 minutes on a low simmer.
• Blend half of the soup in a blender, adding grated Asiago cheese and a heaping spoonful of crème fraîche. Blend, return to pot to heat and integrate until service.
• Garnish soup with bacon crisps, taste for seasoning of salt/pepper.

I had set out to make a potato/leek soup, but I couldn’t find leeks today.

There were many tasty treats. The last thing I had were these tempura-fried shiitake’s from Acacia. The whole ride home, my mouth was overwhelmed with significant mushroom flavor. While they needed salt, they flavor endured.

The red velvet cupcake from Baby Cakes was absolutely delicious and very classy looking. T-Bone’s barbequed pork ribs were so tender, but the sauce was lacking in a flavor punch.

The surrey sausage, fried crisp, atop a freshing tomato salad was divine, from Comfort. The roast beef sandwich from Kitchen 64 was tasty, with mushrooms, but it lacked drama.

What was the best thing you had? Fellow food blogger from Veronica’s Test Kitchen was selling her Parisian delights… and these were (by far) the most delicious thing we ate at Broad Appétit, 2009. Her passion fruit macaron was absolutely incredible. Depth of flavor, excellent mouth feel and chew, and ultimately impressively satisfying. Kudos Veronica!

She has a recipe for simple asparagus. After blanching it, you quickly sauté it with butter. I added one clove garlic to the butter. Then, she suggests keeping it warm in the oven until service. Until then, you hold off on covering it with freshly grated parma cheese.

I added some orange and yellow tomatoes on top. No EVOO.

Inspired from today’s episode of “Tyler’s Ultimate,” I wanted to make a veal dish, but instead of veal piccata, I made LRK’s version of veal with balsamic vinegar and basil. I served it over pasta, dressed in ultra-premium EVOO, lemon juice, and red pepper flakes, not to mention parma cheese.

It was all delicious.

And today, I picked up her book that came out this late summer, How to Eat Supper. At first glance, there are a lot of delicious-looking recipes that each look easy to make. I think I’m going to like this one.

If you’d like to help support MessyCuisine, from the restaurant reports to the home-grown recipes, consider buying Kasper’s book via the link below with Amazon.

Tonight in the MessyChef kitchens, a rustic minestrone. If it turns out to be something special, I’ll post photos.

For over a year, I’ve noticed Cuisines—located next to a Blockbuster and a BBQ place, serving weekend brunch. Finally, today, after my favorite Boychik’s Deli was overflowing with customers, I tried Cuisines.

I almost wish I hadn’t.

Cuisines is small—and cozy in some regards. It appears they have a regular lunch menu with various sandwiches. By “brunch” they mean breakfast, including pancakes, eggs, french toast, and the like. I ordered their eggs benedict and an orange juice.

The wait here was terribly slow. Inexcusibly slow. 15 minutes and all we had was coffee and orange juice. 35 minutes, same thing. After some 45 minutes of waiting, we finally saw food. And the food wasn’t worth waiting for.

The Eggs on my “Benedict” were so thoroughly cooked that the yolks were fully cooked. Some may like that, but the whole point is a runny yolk sauce. Speaking of sauce, they piled on so much of that goopy, flavorless yellow sauce that it my plate was like a pool for it.

The potatoes that came with the eggs were mushy.

My first visit to Cuisines was a major disappointment. The atmosphere was grimy, the space cramped, the service fatiguingly slow, and the food, lackluster. I can’t wait to go back to Boychik’s.