We got away for a few days last week to Bruges in celebration of our anniversary. We had a great week and Bruges is a really lovely place to visit full of cobbled streets, canals, little bridges and chocolate shops……more about those later.
I tried as much as possible to stick to my raw food but it is difficult when you are away and not in your normal routine with access to your usual shops for produce. Add ‘eating out’ to the mix – especially in a meat eating country like Belgium where they struggle with the concept of vegetarianism – and you have a bit of a problem.
The last time we were there was about 18 years ago and I remember only too well my experiences of restaurants back then. I ordered what I thought would be a nice safe choice from the menu -‘vegetable stew’ and sat back to await the feast that I was sure would be presented to me. Imagine my horror then when the said stew arrived in front of me complete with a huge slab of ham – still on the bone – taking up much of the plate. Sure that they had got the order wrong I questioned the dish with the waiter only to receive an incredulous look from him and a rather tiresome explanation that it was indeed vegetable stew. Needless to say I just had chips that night!!!
So, this time around I was under no illusions that eating out would pose a problem for my new ‘raw vegan’ status. Even the salads all have ham in them. But I did want to eat out on our anniversary and so made the decision that I would eat cooked food that day. It wasn’t perhaps the heathiest route to take with lots of wheat and cheese being involved and my stomach did object in fairly strong terms but it would have been impossible to eat out otherwise and I didn’t want the day to be all about my food.
The following day we hit ‘Carrefour’ and stocked up on lots of salad and fruit and I was back on track again.
Oh, and the chocolate – well with 49 chocolate shops all with fantastically tempting window displays it is near on impossible to avoid it. We did share a little box of delights and very nice they were too. That and the beer made for a very enjoyable visit.