Thread: New Belgian on the block

Nice and Welcome. One of our Southern Neighbours. Hope everything works out well for you. I'd take Bruno up on his offer of honing. Better yet...I'd say meet up with him if you get the chance. Meeting and talking in person does a lot more good than e-messaging all over the place.

I'd offer my services as well but Bruno's a lot closer and you might not trust one of the "kaaskoppen" (cheeseheads).

Good luck on it all.

already settled!!

Yup. Next wednesday is the day.

Originally Posted by LX_Emergency

I'd offer my services as well but Bruno's a lot closer and you might not trust one of the "kaaskoppen" (cheeseheads).

Good luck on it all.

I always fondly remember my Dutch experiences to involve Pannekoekenkoppen instead! (OK, OK, I made the word up. But damn those pancakes were good! )

Yeah, we've got some good pannenkoeken houses (restaurants) around here. Which reminds me to go out sometime next week and eat at one. I haven't been out for those in AGES.

Originally Posted by LX_Emergency

Yeah, we've got some good pannenkoeken houses (restaurants) around here. Which reminds me to go out sometime next week and eat at one. I haven't been out for those in AGES.

Hmmmmm.... Paaaan caaaakes....
Yes they are good, though to be fair: Belgian pancakes aren't bad either, though it is rare to find a pancake house here.
We are generally more partial to wafels (waffles), possibly with slagroom (whipped cream) and ijs (icecream).

My favorite pancakes are either with powdered sugar and then rolled up into a sausage, or with icecream and whipped cream.
My favorite waffles are luikse wafels, which are fairly heavy, and contain large grains of sugar. Straight out of the iron and piping hot they are divine.

Ok I think we are going .
If we want to discuss the merits of dutch pancakes and belgian waffles further, maybe we should move to the OT section of this forum.

Welcome, Chief

Very generous offer, Bruno! I mean to meet and teach, even with your new baby
(but please stop discussing nice foods I can't get here)

Cheers
Ivo

What? are you guys trying to break me? I'm going to have to take a trip to Belgium now!(My wallet is empty as it is.)

Welcome to the forum Chief!

So last night Chief showed up at my place with a brand new Solingen 6/8 round point razor, still covered in its factory oil.

First I explained the honing process (norton then coticule) and then honed his razor. That took a bit of time because the factory edge was very bad, and it was very hard steel. There also was a very slight warp in the blade which was not problematic, but slowed things down a bit.

Then I used the testshave to demonstrate lathering, stropping and the actual shaving technique that I use.

Chief didn't have a strop yet so I sold him my #1 honeybrown heirloom strop at a discount . I only used it a couple of times. I always kept using my practise strop and I did feel bad about leaving such a high quality strop unused. This way someone will appreciate it.

I also advised him to buy a small coticule from howard to regularly touch up his razor. We all know that beginners mistakes can easily dull a blade, and if you wait until it is really dull, making it sharp again is much harder, whereas 10 laps every couple of shaves should keep a decent edge on the blade even if you make mistakes in the beginning.

Anyway, the whole thing went really well, though my 2 year old daughter kept on asking questions during the honing process, interrupting my explanation every 2nd sentence

thanx again Bruno, it was a learnful experience!
And if you're newly born grows up to be anything like her older sister (funny kid!), you're bound to have a nice chitchatting duo under your roof in a couple of years!