Why do I seem to be infected with all things Belgian? Thanksgiving was a time for gratitude indeed, when the shoppers-that-be returned from the posh market with an assortment of ales, not one of which dripped in under 9%. Pre-family bracers never went down so deliciously and effectively, and the subsequent table squabbling was more silly and less depressing.

The Trappist Café has a grand opening date, and with Christmas vacation right around that celebratory corner, how many dusky afternoons can I pretend I’m in Ghent again amidst the revelers? Does this place have a view of a 15th century church outside its windows?

Finally, Hugo Claus is considered the greatest Belgian writer of the post-war era, and while his 600-page masterpiece, The Sorrow of Belgium, sits unread and hardly beckoning from the basement shelf, I stumbled upon a shorter work of his on a street side sale cart, and for one dollar why the hell not delve into a Flemish man's take on two louts who leave the comforts of their small village pub life to make it big in Vegas. Sadly, the premise teases but the man does not deliver. This reads like a series of sketches, rather than fully realized scenes or characters, as if Claus spent a few days in LA and Vegas and was so inspired by the absurd spectacles that a novel just had to be written. Desire makes it appear that inspiration dwindled considerably when Claus returned home. We get the requisite strip bars and hookers and devastating gambling losses, but there ain’t enough there here to care about either one of our heroes, the lummox Jake, guilt-ridden for having left his long-suffering wife with their broken daughter, or Michel, a seedy underworld half-breed of indeterminate origin who plays the womanizer but who's probably gay. Subplots unfold limply back home, but without much conviction.

This one is thin, and that’s unacceptable for a Belgian, which ought always to have the fullest of bodies.