Another great thing is that the recipes are so easy to follow – “cook for 3:00 minutes at 90 degrees at speed 4″. The instructions read like a science protocol, but have so far been far more forgiving in my hands than a Western Blot. My aim is to have a healthy meal on the table 30 minutes after I’ve first stepped into the kitchen. At the moment I make dinner most nights with the use of pre-cut veggies and pre-made sauces. With the Thermomix, I hope to improve on old favourites (like spaghetti bolognaise with home-made sauce) as well as utilise this machine to expand my repertoire (like risotto).

For my first meal, I was looking for something simple and easy that would also take full advantage of all the capabilities of the machine. I decided on “Bangers and Mash” from Full Little Tummies. While the onion/garlic/mushroom gravy is being blended and heated in the mixing bowl, the steam from the process cooks the potatoes in the rice basket, and the (vegetarian) sausages and vegetables in the steamer Varoma unit on top. It was great to hear little Thermie working diligently away in the kitchen while I was able to chat with Adrian and play with Hayden. The instructions were so precise and easy to follow – never has it been easier to add exactly 50 grams of butter and cook at exactly 100 degrees, and the meal came our tasting delicious. The potatoes were especially nice – for the first time I produced perfectly steamed tots bursting with flavour. I think next time I would thicken up the sauce with a little more corn flour, but I think this dish will enter our weekly rotation.

For dessert I made custard from scratch (milk, egg, flour, sugar, vanilla) in seven minutes. It was even easier than using custard powder. So far, Thermie is two for two.

Snow falling by our apartment in Leuven, February 2009

In February 2009 we migrated to Belgium, the heart of Europe. We spent the first six months in Leuven in a central semi-furnished apartment. Adrian was able to enjoy a short commute to work, but we found the weekends a little too quiet in this student town. I obtained permanent residency and started my new job as an epidemiologist in April. We bought our first apartment together in July, and became Brusselaars / Bruxellois. In August 2009, PepperMint expanded our family from two to four. Our son was born in Brussels in July 2011.

We still love living here. Brussels continues to feel exotic and romantic. We both enjoy our jobs, and we have met some really great people. Belgium offers a great base to explore countries from Azerbaijan to Iceland to Wales.

My biggest frustration continues to be with the language. I had assumed that after three years of living here I would be fluent in French. I have taken group lessons, I have taken one-on-one lessons, I have participated in language exchange meetings, I have listened to podcasts, I have watched movies, I have listened to radio, I have completed verb text books, I have talked to neighbours, shopkeepers, strangers. Every hour that I spend learning French feels like a horrid struggle. I do not enjoy learning another language. I assumed that once I got to a certain level, I would start having fun. I have not yet reached that level. I am constantly in awe of everyone else around me who is effortlessly multilingual, when I can’t even understand my neighbour in the elevator. This is the one thing that really makes me feel apart from everyone else I see on the street, I am not a true resident of this quarter. It also makes it almost impossible to call up anyone from the electricity company to the local government. I am dreading the process of enrolling Hayden in kindergarten in September.

Happily, two of the aspects of Belgium that I complained about last year - the lack of government and the smoking in pubs – have now been rectified. Plus they even opened the shops on Sundays during the January and July sales.

On 30 May 2011, Adrian’s brother Russell had an accident and passed away on the first day of his holiday in North America. Such a shock, a such great loss, such a gap left in the world by this energetic and generous man. We last saw Russell in 2009 when he joined us for a trip through the UK.

On 30 July 2011, baby Hayden was born. The first four months were tough, but now he has matured into a delightful little guy. He is full of smiles and always talking, so snugly and cute. I have watched Adrian become a great daddy, and I am at my happiest when the whole family is together.

Adrian and I also celebrated publications, promotions, grants, bonuses, and awards, travelled to Cyprus and Malta for our babymoon, and showed baby Hayden the countries of Norway, the Netherlands, England, Australia, Singapore and Indonesia.

The events of last year remind me to treasure every moment that I have with my family. After so many years of effort and struggle – finishing a PhD, completing a post-doc, moving to a new country, purchasing an apartment, acquiring a MPH, attaining a permanent position, and achieving a successful pregnancy, I think it is time to slow down. 2012 will be a year of resting on my laurels.

There is a “front door rule” that means that the position of the front door determines whether a house is classified as being in Belgium or the Netherlands. The nationality of the home is also indicated by a flag next to the house number. We visited the house in which the border goes straight through the middle of the door, and thus has two addresses (and two doorbells):

Loveren 2
2387 Baarle-Hertog
Belgium

and

Loveren 19
5111 Baarle-Nassau
The Netherlands

There was even a divisive border across my lunch, separating the savoury cheese and potato pancake from the sweet cherry crepe. I ate each in isolation and they were delicious.

Plus, JT hand-delivered to us a delicious Black & White cookie, all the way from New York City. Hayden is still too little, so I ate it for him.

Then I went back to work and he went off to creche. For the first time in his life he saw more of Adrian than he did of me. Adrian was the one dressing him, feeding him, changing him, and playing with him on the long commute to and from work. Often Hayden and Adrian would have dinner together in Leuven before heading home. This was a great relief, as I had so much on my plate already as I was trying to figure out how to balance my new busy life.

I’m not sure if it’s just maturation, or the beneficial influence of the Flemish creche, or a combination of the two, but Hayden is now a much happier and calmer baby. A lot of the time he is quite happy to entertain himself by playing with his hands – watching in fascination as they furl and unfurl, or trying to interlace the two together.

He is now a joy to be with (most of the time). Adrian and I both feel a lot more attached to him, with his big toothless smiles that greet us everytime we pick him up. Measuring 67 cm and 7.5 kg, he is growing quickly and now wearing 6-12 month old clothing.

He is holding his head up and will turn onto his side by holding his legs in the pike position and then flopping over. He is also babbling constantly and wants to join in with all our conversations.

Roast turkey breast
Netted turkey breast
3 tablespoons minced garlic
tbs olive oil
1 tbs chopped fresh thyme
1/4 tsp chopped fresh rosemary
1 tbs chopped fresh parsley
2 tsp chopped fresh sage or 1/4 tsp dry sage
Salt

Preheat oven to 180 C
Chop garlic and herbs, mix with olive oil
Cover turkey with herb mix, squeeze some inside
Lift string netting and shift position on roast to make removal easier after cooking
Place carrots and celery on tray as a stand
Add ½ cup white wine to bottom of pan
Cover
Cook for 2 hours
Stand for 10 minutes still covered in foil
Slice

Orange-Cranberry sauce
Whisk together 2 cups cranberry juice, 2 teaspoons cornstarch and 1/4 cup brown sugar in a medium saucepan; bring to a simmer over med. low heat; cook for five minutes, whisking occasionally, until mixture is reduced by one third. Stir in 1 1/2 cups dried cranberries, 1 cup orange marmalade, 1/4 teaspoon grated fresh ginger, pinch of allspice.

Reduce heat to low and continue cooking for another 8-10 minutes or until cranberries are slightly rehydrated. Stir in one cup of fresh orange sections, pith removed (don’t use mandarin oranges) and remove from heat. Chill before serving.

Stuffing
1 loaf of day old French bread, cut into 3/4-inch cubes (about 10-12 cups)
2 cups each, chopped onion and celery
6 Tbsp butter
1 green apple, peeled, cored, chopped
3/4 cup of raisins
2 cups vegetable stock
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
1 teaspoon sage
Salt and freshly ground pepper (to taste)

Heat a large sauté pan on medium heat. Melt 3 Tbsp butter in the pan, add the bread cubes, and stir to coat the bread pieces with the melted butter. Then let them toast; only turn them when they have become a little browned on a side.

In a large pot, sauté chopped onions and celery on medium high heat with the remaining 3 Tbsp butter until cooked through, about 5-10 minutes. Add the bread. Add chopped green apple, raisins, parsley. Add one cup of the stock. Add sage, salt & pepper.

Cover. Turn heat to low. Cook for an hour or until the apples are cooked through. Check every ten minutes or so and add water or stock as needed while cooking to keep the stuffing moist and keep it from sticking to the bottom of the pan.

Though we did venture out to the winter markets with Hayden bundled up deep inside Adrian’s jacket. It feels like winter has arrived, with a cold wind gusting through the bare trees and now with all the buildings lit up for the holidays.

Thank-you to Dr J and Dr L for their fun and beautiful baby gifts that Hayden was able to model today. He might not be rolling over yet, but I bet other babies don’t know the building blocks of DNA.

Adrian stood up and presented the figures to what was to become his first research paper, accepted and published in the best immunology journal in the world, Nature Immunology. I was impressed and intimidated. Even as a PhD student, Adrian seemed to be in his element. He would join the lab head and senior post-docs in asking probing questions during lab meetings, and would deliver scathing analyses of other papers during journal club. Even back then, he was an excellent mentor, improving thesis drafts or demonstrating the scientific method to undergraduate students, completing a Graduate Certificate in Higher Education to improve his teaching skills.

It was only later when I came to know him on a personal level that I learned how hard he had worked to reach this level. He had sacrificed every summer in his undergraduate degree to work in a research laboratory, running experiments and producing figures that would be published in peer reviewed publications even before he finished his Bachelor of Science.

He chose his PhD lab very carefully, interviewing at numerous institutions before finally finding one with the best opportunities. Here he worked every weekend, every night, designing experiments, talking to other scientists, and thoroughly reading the literature until he could keep up with the experts in his field. He made some great friends during that time, as he was always willing to talk over scientific or personal problems over a beer or two.

He knew that an excellent publication record was essential to succeed in academia. Every experiment was a figure in a paper. If he had to wait for some lab work to come to completion, he spent his time writing reviews and book chapters. At the beginning, Adrian never turned down an invitation to write a review – even if it was only a foreign print-only publication, he would still write a new and insightful manuscript on one of his areas of interest.

He continued in this manner through his post-doc, which meant that he was impressive enough to be awarded a start-up grant to create his own lab here in Belgium. I remember the first day he walked into the building – just an empty room – no furniture, no equipment, no staff. For the past three years he has worked tirelessly. He applied for every grant for which he was eligible, meanwhile recruiting staff and students, and setting up national and international collaborations. Knowing how stressful it can be to complete a PhD, he ensures that his students have every opportunity for success and fulfillment. They all have the opportunity to write their own reviews, and to have their own primary research paper as soon as possible. Plus he bought them a Nespresso coffee machine.

Today he received a letter stating that his latest research has again been accepted into Nature Immunology. However this time, nine years later, he is now the senior author on the paper. He has now been recognised as a leader of a world-class research laboratory conducting novel and cutting-edge investigations. I am so proud of him. Congratulations, Adrian.

So then for the washing machine, I bought the powerball clothes-washing tablets, with Calgon. The box even had a picture of a clothes washer on the front. After a while, I noticed that my clothes were not getting very clean, but were all turning quite grey. I sat down to finally translate the box, and found at the the tablets contained no detergent at all, just zeolite and polycarboxylate. The joys of living in a non-English country, where the instructions are clearly written in at least two languages, and I still can’t manage to figure them out.

4:49 AM: Hayden wakes up after 6 hours 35 minutes. I feed him and change him.
5:24 AM: Hayden goes back to sleep in the nursery without a fuss, I also go immediately back to sleep in our bedroom.
7:00 AM: Up time. Adrian fetches Hayden from the nursery and brings him into bed. We play and talk, and Hayden joins in with loud cooing “aaaah ooooh yoooo uuuuub”. He is becoming a lot more aware an interactive. It is fun. Pepper and Mint join us too, and I am happy that we have the whole family on the bed together.
7:30 AM: I pick out his outfit for the day and get him dressed and feed him again. I fill out his sleeping and eating notebook for the creche while Adrian gets himself ready and packs Hayden’s milk.
7:45 AM: I say goodbye to my two little guys and get ready for work.

8:00 AM: On the metro, I read through my work schedule on my Blackberry and work my way through the emails from have arrived from the US overnight.
8:30 AM: I boot up my laptop, and file all my emails out of my Inbox and into my @action folder, into subfolders. A subfolder that starts with 0 has to be done today, a subfolder that starts with 1 has to be addressed this week, etc.
9:00 AM: No meetings this morning, so I have time to get stuck into my projects. I compile a list of future data sources for 2012, give my comments on a systematic literature review protocol, read through the epidemiology section of a disease area review, and create a slide-deck that will be presented next week to the global team. Adrian sends me a photo of Hayden asleep in his pram.

10:30 AM: Pump.
10:45 AM: The publication officer pops into my cubicle to ask me about my plans for congresses and publications next year. I would like to submit an abstract for a congress with a deadline of mid-January, but it has to go through three review and approval cycles before it can be submitted, and I don’t think we’ll have time to do that as most people are taking of most of December for vacations (myself included).
11:15 AM: One of the statistical programmers sends me an instant message. The statistical analysis plan calls for a statistical test that seems inappropriate for that particular data set. We discuss various options and decide on a better alternative. I update the statistical analysis plan to reflect that change in design.
12:00 noon: Lunch time! Normally I go for the salad bar, but I treat myself on Fridays with the fish and vegetables. Today we have sole with mushrooms, Brussels sprouts, and ratatouille. The chef corrects my pronunciation of “ratatouille”, but I can’t hear the difference between the word I says and the way that he says it. I am sure that he can, though. I talk with my colleagues about their upcoming travel plans to the Ukraine, Mexico, and Romania.

12:30 PM: The head of the department drops by my cubicle to see how I am adjusting to being back to work, and reminds me that out of all my projects that I have to manage, Hayden is my most important. He talks about his children and about how his youngest has just learnt to walk.
1:00 PM: I meet with my team members and we do a practise run-through of our presentation to the global team for Monday.
1:30 PM: Pump
1:45 PM: I reply to emails, then complete an online training course to certify that I am compliant with the new Standard Operating Procedures that have just been implemented.
3:00 PM: 9:00 AM on the West Coast. The emails start flooding in from the US office. I have a teleconference with a US vendor to check on the progress of a new database that they are delivering to us.
4:00 PM: I have a teleconference with the UK office to discuss how I can support upcoming products in the pipeline and in early clinical trials.
4:30 PM: Pump
4:45 PM: Print out materials needed for Monday morning, make sure I have completed all my necessary tasks for the week. Water my plant.
5:00 PM: I leave on the dot so that I can get to Leuven by 6. I reply to more emails on my phone on the metro and then on the train.
6:00 PM: Arrive at the restaurant in Leuven for a friend’s birthday, joined by Adrian, Hayden, and a few other friends too. They all enjoy a drink, I have a Croque Hawaienne for dinner – a toasted ham cheese and pineapple sandwich, in which the pineapple must go on top of the bread instead of inside, for cultural reasons I do not understand. I feed Hayden and play with him, giving him lots of kisses until everyone else wants to hold him too.

8:00 PM: Hayden is sleepy so we head home. In his pram, Hayden plays with his kitten mittens, looking a little confused as to how his hands have turned into animals again. On the train we sit opposite a guy who is trying to study, but Hayden wants to talk to him and babbles loudly at him the whole time. Hayden is also really stinky.
9:00 PM: We arrive home, I feed Hayden and put him to sleep in his cot in the nursery. Adrian gives treats to Pepper and Mint.
9:30 PM: We put all his bottles and pump parts into the dishwasher, tidy up the house, and go to bed.
11:00 PM: I feed and change Hayden and pop him back into his sleep sack and back into his crib. He quietly sleeps until 6:00 AM the next day.

On the weekends he will take care of Hayden while I go off to parties, and during the week he is responsible for dropping off and picking him up at crèche. Adrian already had a very long commute – walk to the train station, catch a train, then catch a bus. Now he must also trek all the way up the hill to the crèche before walking all the way back down to his lab. This means that it can take up to two hours from leaving the house to reaching his office door. He never complains about this, just commenting that it is extra quality time that he and Hayden can spend together.

Whenever I am away from the two of them, Adrian constantly sends me photos, sound files, and other updates. So I can still hear Hayden babble along and see his sleepy face, even if I’m zooming away on the metro.

I love watching the two of them together, the way that Hayden grins at Adrian during the silly games that they play. These two guys make me smile so much, and I am continuously grateful for all the numerous daily efforts that Adrian makes to make sure that his family of rascals is as happy as can be.

Policier: Central to Unit 27. Jean-Claude Van Damme’s robbing a post office. I need back-up.

I’ve seen so many things. I was born in Belgium, but I’m a citizen of the world. I’ve travelled a lot. It’s hard for me to judge people and it’s hard for them… not to judge me. Easier to blame me. Yeah, something like that.