Everyday purchases

It must be after Sinterklaas (Or: Lots and lots of oliebollen mix)

Posted on December 10, 2022 by Niki

I was recently at Albert Heijn doing some grocery shopping. I swear, you almost don’t need a calendar when you walk in there — you can easily tell it is after 5 December (Sinterklaas) because the first ingredients for making oliebollen (a donut-like treat frequently eaten on New Year’s Eve) have started to appear.

At the top of the display you have powdered sugar in the blue and white cans, oliebollen mix in the middle in the yellow and orange boxes, and whipped cream on the far right. Although they haven’t quite set up the tower of sugary goodness that they had last year. Yet.

I am also happy to report that my favorite Christmas cookies are back at Albert Heijn. I picked up a pack for home and a pack for my coworkers the first day they were stocked. It’s a nice large Christmas cookie (in the shape of a wreath) dipped in dark chocolate and covered in red and green sprinkles.

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Hema’s smoked sausage flavored beer (Or: Would you try it?)

Posted on December 1, 2022 by Niki

One thing Hema is famous for is their smoked sausage (rookworst). When we eat stamppot (English Wikipedia) we always pair it with sausage from Hema. It is tasty! We eat stamppot once a year; Marco’s mom always makes us a batch around February or March when the weather outside is nice and cold.

But now Hema has come out with rookworst flavored beer (5.3% alcohol). Would you want to try it?

It’s definitely an interesting concept, and a bit easier to understand than their tompouce flavored beer last year. Tompouce is a Dutch pastry – see also this English Wikipedia page if you need a refresher.

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That is one sweet boat (Or: Sinterklaas display by Hema)

Posted on November 7, 2022 by Niki

By the Hema in The Hague’s city centre there is a display for the upcoming Sinterklaas holiday (5 December):

The display is a boat, a reference to the boat Sinterklaas uses to travel from Spain to the Netherlands every year in November (English Wikipedia). The actual contents of this boat are kruidnoten, small cookies which are a staple for the Sinterklaas holiday.

In other news:

  • Megastores helemaal gesloopt voor nieuwe woontorens from omroepwest.nl (article in Dutch). Megastores is a shopping mall on the other side of The Hague’s Holland Spoor train station. However most of the stores sell furniture or home goods, so the number of shoppers has been dwindling over the years. The article talks about how the entire shopping mall will be demolished in phases starting in 2024, to be replaced by about 2,000 apartments in residential towers.
  • The Zeldzaam mooi markt will be at the Lange Voorhout in The Hague on Sunday, 27 November. The name translates to something like “Rare, beautiful market”. They will be selling retro, vintage and reuse items like jewelry, clothes, home goods, etc.
  • You can donate Sinterklaas presents for kids at The Hague’s Central Library from 14-18 November (indebuurt.nl, in Dutch). The toy drive is sponsored by Sintvoorieder1.
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Oliebollen time! (Or: It must be November)

Posted on November 2, 2022 by Niki

You know it is (almost) November when you see the oliebollen (English Wikipedia) stand pop up in the last few days of October, a sign of yummy things to come. Oliebollen are a donut-like treat that is popular this time of year. They are eaten en masse on New Year’s Eve. Marco and I usually make oliebollen every year. These days the stands are allowed to open from 1 November until the end of January.

As you can see they still have their preferred spot at the end of the Grote Markt street. They used to be closer to city hall but moved to this spot when construction for the Amare cultural centre started some years ago. Speaking of Amare–apparently the building will be getting a Spar grocery store (indebuurt.nl, in Dutch).

In other news:

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Don’t forget to drink your Ovaltine… (Or: Ovomaltine?)

Posted on October 17, 2022 by Niki

Ovaltine, I mean. Don’t forget to drink your Ovaltine is a line from A Christmas Story (1983), a film which was popularized by the the American TV channel TNT’s 24 hour marathons every Christmas Day. It was definitely always on tv every year at my house growing up.

Spotted at the local Asian store, and the inspiration for this blog post:

Apparently it is a “milk flavoring product” according to Wikipedia. Its original name was indeed ovomaltine, but it will always be Ovaltine to me. You can also get it at the local grocery store under the name ovomaltine (ah.nl in Dutch).

Speaking of A Christmas Story, there is a sequel coming out on HBO Max next month: A Christmas Story Christmas (tvline.com). Ralphie, the main character in the first movie, returns to his childhood home to give his kids a Christmas like he had growing up. We will need to wait and see how the film fares. Usually sequels like this don’t do well in the box office (Christmas Vacation 2: Cousin Eddie’s Island Adventure, anyone?) but one can hope.

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A long way from home (Or: Anyone looking for a shopping cart?)

Posted on October 11, 2022 by Niki

In September I went to The Hague’s Albert Heijn XL grocery store. As you might guess from the “XL” in the name, it’s a bigger version of the normal Albert Heijns. It still sells 95% of the same items that a normal Albert Heijn would, just more variety. The XL stores are a lot larger, closer to the size of an American grocery store like Shoprite, Jewel-Osco or Kroger.

I knew I was almost in the neighborhood of this Albert Heijn when I saw shopping carts in the neighborhood:

You could say that people are being nice by putting the carts together and stacking the smaller hand baskets on top, so if an Albert Heijn employee wanted to come get them it would only be one trip. Although this wasn’t the only place I spotted them in the neighborhood.

In other news:

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Disappointment at the expat store (Or: Now and Later candy)

Posted on June 13, 2022 by Niki

As a kid I was always eating Now and Later candy (English Wikipedia). Or Spree candy, the chewy version. The best part about Now and Later candy is that it is hard now and chewy later, hence the name.

I have thought about these candies now and then over the years, but it was never a big enough craving to buy a bag while I was in the States. I usually think about the candy whenever I see Marco put a peppermint in his mouth and bite it immediately. He can never wait, not even a few seconds. I told him before “well if you had a Now and Later candy you wouldn’t be able to do that!” because the candy starts off so hard it is impossible to safely bite through at the beginning.

I was pleasantly surprised to see that the local expat store, Kelly’s, started selling the Now and later candies last month. I immediately planned a trip to the store and dragged Marco along. Later that night I unwrapped a candy, inspecting it. It looked hard like the original candy, but perhaps quite like I remembered. I took a bite, and felt the familiar disappointment of an expat set in. By which I mainly mean the disappointment of moving away and things change while you are gone. It was still tasty, mind you. Just not quite the same as it used to be. It isn’t as hard anymore–maybe people sued over their broken teeth–which was unfortunate considering the name.

It’s still fun to things drifting over from the States, though. I think two of the most important things are Frank’s original red hot sauce (for me) and Frank’s red hot buffalo wing sauce (for Marco). You can even get it at the local grocery store, Albert Heijn. No extra trip to the expat store needed. So it isn’t all disappointment!

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Dutch typos (Or: Watch out for beers)

Posted on June 6, 2022 by Niki

In Dutch a bear is a beer (plural: beren).

Here is something I spotted at a local gift shop which I will not name:

Hmmm. You almost wonder if it is on purpose, but I don’t think so!

In other news:

Bioscopen draaien beste dag sinds begin coronacrisis from nos.nl (=Movie theatre has best day since the start of the corona crisis). Movie theatres were hit hard here. Even when they were not forced to completely close they still had to adhere to social distancing and have open seats between each group, or they weren’t allowed to sell refreshments, or they had to deal with a night curfew. But now since the new Jurassic World and Top Gun films have come out, and since Dr. Strange is still being shown in the theaters, the number of people going to the movie theatre is starting to (slowly) rise again.

HTM-chauffeurs staken volgende week opnieuw als ze geen toezeggingen krijgen from omroepwest.nl (=HTM drivers will strike again next week if they don’t get what they asked for). The article is actually from last Thursday, the day of the previous strike. HTM workers say they will go on strike again this Friday, June 10 if negotiations don’t go well before then.

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Prime location (Or: MediaMarkt is really in the city centre now)

Posted on June 2, 2022 by Niki

Last week MediaMarkt moved about 300 meters. Still on Grote Marktstraat, but now it is even closer to the city centre action. MediaMarkt is like a Dutch Best Buy, for my American readers. The new location is in the building which used to house the V&D clothing store (1969-2015) and the Canadian store Hudson’s Bay (2017-2019). Hopefully MediaMarkt has more luck than those two stores did…

It is definitely a prime location, even better than the previous one which was near the end of the Grote Markstraat shopping area. And what picture isn’t accentuated with someone cycling past?

This image is kind of funny – I hadn’t realized the girl in the middle was basically filming herself with MediaMarkt in the background. Maybe she was streaming it to YouTube? Especially with how she is holding her free hand by her face.

I definitely won’t miss the old MediaMarkt location, with its old grimy carpet and horrible stairs. It was either take the horrible stairs or wait for the slowww elevator. Either way, you lost. There’s no carpet in this new location and there are escalators if you want to go to the upper floor. That alone makes it a win in my book.

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Weird purchases (Or: Who wants flaming hot Mac’n cheese?)

Posted on February 21, 2022 by Niki

Here are some photos of possible weird things to purchase here in The Hague:

Above: Flaming hot Cheetos Mac’n Cheese from Kelly’s expat shopping. I have heard of combinations, but this might take the cake. It is interesting that it has a different pasta shape than mac’n cheese normally does (more fusilli-like). I am sure this version will stain your lips red…

Not quite an energy drink. They are so full of sugar they will probably make you crash right away. These “candy drinks” were spotted at the local Action not far from The Hague Central Station. They are apparently popular, as there weren’t many left.

Okay, a bag of Oreo crumbs could be very useful indeed (make a bit of vanilla bean ice cream, mix these in–yummm). Perhaps one doesn’t need a 300g/10.5oz bag of crumbs but saying that sounds a bit like heresy…

Random news of the day: Dutch-themed ‘Holland Park’ to open in Spring near Berlin from brusselstimes.com. I don’t get the impression that this park will be a hit with Germans, but who knows.

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