"To Market, To Market...'

One of my faithful readers asked if they celebrate the 4th of July in Belgium. Actually, they don't.  They go directly from the 3rd to the 5th, so I did not blog on the 4th.  However, yesterday was market day (Friday). We went to the Oude Markt to visit this oversized farmers' market. It is a combination farmers' market and flee market all in one - very common in Europe, very rare in the USA. 
Following is a photo of the coolest food truck. It sells ready-made quiche.

I'm going to see if I could purchase it. It can be my new career after retirement. 
We wanted to purchase some lamb for dinner, so we went to a butcher stall. It was located as a large food trailer with wonderful meats on display. The Kwaliteitsslagerij Penninckx (Quality Butcher Penninckx) was staffed by two very engaging and english-speaking butchers. The brothers Penninckx were very excited to talk about the World Cup (Belgium plays Saturday evening) and to give kudos to Tim Howard, goalie of the USA team. My sister-in-law Mary Hellwig (in the future referred to as Mary) needed to practice her Dutch so she made the purchase with Kris observing. See photo below:

The brothers travel to markets all around Leuven and sell meats raised on their parent's farm. This is the best of locally sourced meats. By the way, the rack of lamb we had for dinner, prepared by Mary, was buitengewoon (extraordinary). 
We finished our excursion with a lunch at a restaurant right in the market called Pepperocini.  Here we shared some white wine and had a plate of mussels. 

This was one of my goals. Now I've had Belgian beer (lots), fresh waffles from a street vendor, french fries (Pom frites with mayo) and mussels. I will wait until we get to Brussels to sample the many chocolate shops.