Luxembourg

On Friday Asa was not feeling well, so he swapped a work from home day for next week. Basically he has yet another sinus infection, so he has a note to work from home and won't be swapping at all, but anyway, the story is that he was unexpectedly home. And of course I tried to throw in a country by the seat of my pants. Enter the tiny little country of Luxembourg. Sitting at the crossroad of Belgium, Germany, and France. (As a result they speak German, French and Luxembourgish) 

Luxembourg is about 2/3 the size of Rhode Island, but it's Europe's 7th smallest country. It's a country where the history of the grand old duke, fairy tale castles and picturesque forests meets modern architecture, business and banking. 

It's also known for it's wine, though not internationally. It's the neighboring country's who flock to the Route Du Vin Wine Trail to enjoy Luxembourg's 50 wineries and nine main grape varieties. Riesling is their most prized wine, but Pinot Gris is the most popular. 

Another great landmark is the Vianden Castle. It was built between the 11th and 14th centuries, but fell into ruin in the 1800's. It has been painstakingly restored, and the country is very proud of the impressive castle.  

It's also an expensive country to visit. With a successful steel, finance and technology industry, Luxembourg's residents enjoy a very high standard of living. It's often voted one of the safest, if not THE safest country in the world. In 2015 it was the labeled as the second richest, behind only Qatar. 

The tiny county in the heart of western Europe is a leading financial center for the world, with over 150 banks spread over the 998 square miles of the country. 

About 68% of the residents of Luxembourg are Roman Catholic. Every year they throw a parade, dancing in the streets in honor of St. Willibrord, the monk who founded the Echternach Abbey. Over 9,000 performers hop from side to side while waving a white handkerchief. 

The country is a unitary parliamentary constitutional monarchy, the only grand duchy in the world (country ruled by a grand duke).  However, you might have heard a bit about Luxembourg's Prime Minister, Xavier Battel. Or really, you might have heard about his husband, First Gentleman Gauthier Destenay. Prime Minister Battel was at the time, the only openly gay leader in the entire world, and the White House omitted his husband's name from a picture recently. It caused quite the stir. 

The boys made their Luxembourg postcards. 

Calib's noted the Prime Minister and his husband, along with lots of banks and money. 

Peyton focused on the castles. 

And Hayden put a whole pile of gold on the right of his postcard. 

Most people in Luxembourg actually have rather expensive tastes, and they tend to learn more towards French food than their other neighbors. I had this French Onion Tart in the freezer, which we had forgotten about back when we did France day. I knew we'd be doing a some of those little neighboring countries and I could use it again, so I had been saving it. 

As for food unique to Luxembourg, it's basically pork and potatoes. There's the national dish of Jud Mat Gaardenbounen, which is basically smoked collar of pork. But it is really, really hard to find a recipe for it, especially in English (which is why that link goes to Wikipedia and not an actual recipe) . Since Luxembourg is wine country, this thing is slow cooked in white wine with leeks, onions, celery and carrots. Throw is some thyme, bay leaf and cloves. 

Now, I had to improvise a bit here. We had a pork roast in the freezer, so we used that. I also didn't just have celery and leeks laying around, so we omitted those. And instead of boiling it on the stove, we put it in the slow cooker. It's usually served with broad beans, which are basically served with some of the juice from the pork, bacon, butter, flower, white onions, bay leaf, clove and some cream fresh. We used cannelloni, because that's what we had in the pantry. But it worked. Usually it's served with peeled, boiled, white potatoes- we had those little baby mixed potatoes on hand so we just through those in the slow cooker with the pork and veggies. 

We also had the onion tart (which did not crisp up like the picture on the box, sadly), and I still had a few of those Belgian Waffle desserts, so I toasted one up and cut those up as a nod to another Luxembourg neighbor. For our fruit, we had strawberries. 

This dinner earned five spoons up. 

So, it wasn't exactly Jud mat Gaardebounen, but it was as best of take as I could do on short notice. Everyone cleared their plates, except for the onion tart. So authentic or not, I call it a success. 

You can hardly see it there, but Luxembourg is a small blue dot just below yellow Belgium in between dark green France and light green Germany. 

That is 96 down, 97 to go. Which means the next country up is our halfway point. 

Next Up: Ghana