Monday, November 29, 2010

In the US we eat nothing but pb&j

This Sunday Rotary has a planned activity for the exchange students in Belgium (we are about 200), for those interested - make a dish typical of your country and serve it to your fellow exchange students and their families. I was stuck for a while on what was American food - hamburgers seemed much too boring. Eventually, with a bit of help, I decided on meatloaf. I made it Saturday and arrived Sunday mid-morning with a meatloaf that I was actually rather proud of, and settled in to see what other Americans decided was typically American food. Not surprisingly, there were a couple dishes of stuffing, some turkey, a few cranberry sauces - Thanksgiving leftovers! What had me cracking up, though, were the mountains - literally, stacks upon stacks - of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I think at least 5 or 6 people decided to bring that as their meals, and as each person was supposed to bring enough to be 10... we were brimming to the eyeballs with peanut butter and jelly.
My family came to the lunch, and while we were there my brother, Mathias, lost his tooth. My host mom warned him to keep the tooth for the mouse! The tooth fairy doesn't visit Belgians. Nope, here a little mouse comes, takes your tooth, and leaves you a coin...