Stage 2 was hilly with a punchy finish, featuring lots of action in the final stretch of the race. As for the dish, a foolproof breakfast of waffles and bacon, perfect for a Sunday brunch.

The Stage

Today was the longest stage of this year’s Tour, winding 209 km northwest towards the English Channel. The first half of the stage featured extremely wet conditions, but towards the second half the rain let up. Today’s hilly stage had four categorized climbs (two cat 3 and two cat 4 climbs) and 2,000 meters of climbing across the course. However, most notable were the two punchy climbs within 10 km of the finish line.

There was a 4-rider breakaway that was never given more than a couple of minutes breathing room. They were caught in the intermediate sprint point for the Green Jersey at about 55 km to go.

The final 10 km were explosive. Lots of riders attacked but never quite got the runway to make the difference. In the end, Matthieu van der Poel of Alpecin-Deceuninck won stage 2 in an uphill sprint finish against Tadej Pogaçar. Van der Poel also got the yellow jersey for tomorrow – a strong start altogether for the Alpecin team.

The Dish

It’s day two of the Tour and I am making another dish that might seem Belgian but is actually French – waffles! I found an old used book at a secondhand book shop about regional French cooking. So that has been one of the main tools I’ve used to source my recipes for this Tour. One recipe I found was for “flemish waffles.” They’re a common street-food and have roots going back to medieval times in Northern France. Apparently these are typically made heart-shaped in France, but I do not have a heart-shaped waffle maker so we went with the normal circle shape.

The recipe was a yeasted waffle so after making the batter I had to wait an hour or two while the batter rose before making them. But once the batter was ready they were easy to make in the waffle maker.

I topped the waffles with blueberries and powdered sugar and had a side of bacon to go with it. 10/10.

Reflections

Oftentimes, I cook these dishes and I have no idea what it is going to be like. Sometimes I think it will taste really good and it comes up short, or I doubt it will be good and it comes out surprisingly tasty. Today I was pretty confident that these would be yummy. I’ve made waffles before so it felt pretty foolproof as far as meals go. And they were really yummy and satisfying!

As for the stage, it was an exciting watch, especially the final 10 km. The riders are still on relatively flat terrain for the next week, so there’s the definite sense that the real action is yet to come.

And if you’re new, catch up on past posts or get a preview of what’s to come in my Tour de France preview.

A bientôt!