Food

Good news (Or: Oliebollen sales start early this year!)

Posted on August 22, 2020 by Niki

Are you also craving some oliebollen right now? Then I have good news for you: The Hague has said that oliebollen stands would be allowed to start selling from 1 October this year instead of the usual 1 November start date (omroepwest.nl). This is because of the corona crisis; normally oliebollen is sold throughout the year at festivals and carnivals, in addition to being sold during the winter months leading up to the big oliebollen event: New Year’s Eve. This way sellers can make up some of the money they lost this year. And maybe people just want 2020 to be over already? I can’t wait to ring in 2021 myself!

Oliebollen literally means “oil balls” and is the precursor to the doughnuts Americans know. See also the oliebol page over at the English Wikipedia. Traditionally they are sold with raisins inside, but you can also purchase them without raisins. (As Marco and Roger lament, the name changed in the last few decades: oliebol used to mean an oliebol with raisins, whereas if you wanted one without raisins you needed to specify. These days oliebollen are without raisins. and if you want an oliebol with raisins you ask for krentenbol. At least around here. Usually.)

Yum yum yum. This was last year’s batch, topped with powdered sugar. My stomach is rumbling already. Speaking of which… off to make dinner. Stay safe, everyone!

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Yum yum yum (Or: Homemade ramen soup)

Posted on August 20, 2020 by Niki

Marco has outdone himself yet again. Here’s a look at our dinner tonight:

Ramen soup with Japanese noodles, super snaps, pork, carrots, fresh ginger, pickled red ginger, green onion miso, onions, seaweed and sesame seeds. Therefore, I say: yum yum yum! Go Marco!

Here’s a sign that we live in a different world now: HTM laat meer trams en bussen buiten spits rijden, tijdens spits juist wat minder from omroepwest.nl. HTM, the public transportation company of The Hague, has altered their schedule for the rest of the year. They will be offering fewer buses and trams during weekday rush hour, but more buses and trams outside of weekday rush hour. Because, really, what is rush hour these days? Sure, some people go to work, but a lot less than before the corona crisis hit. They will also review the schedule at the end of the year to see if it should be extended into 2021.

Today was a bit of a madhouse in the city centre, although I missed it due to being hard at work. Which is probably a good thing. There were more demonstrations from the group “Viruswaarheid” or “Virus truth”. The demonstrators are against the corona measures the government has created. See also this article (with videos) at nltimes.nl: Covid protestors fight with police in The Hague; 1 cop hurt. But note you do see some idiots.

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Dinner time! (Or: Beef strips and broccoli)

Posted on July 20, 2020 by Niki

One thing you may or may not know about me is I don’t cook that often – or at least, not that often out of my comfort zone. I’m more the chef’s assistent in the kitchen and that is fine with me.

In a moment of rushing around with work this morning I suggested an idea to Marco – beefs strips and broccoli. But then as it turns out, he had to work late, which meant it fell to me to start the dinner. And I did awesomely! (But thankfully he came home in the second half and gave some advice and help.)

So let’s see, in the bowl you have: beef strips, broccoli, rice, red peppers (yum!), fresh garlic, fresh ginger and 4 tablespoons of soy sauce. It was nice and spicy thanks to the peppers, especially at the end. The broccoli and rice still had a bit of crunch to it, giving it a nice texture. I’m quite proud of it.

In other news:

  • All mink farms will be culled proactively if coronavirus infections continue from nltimes.nl. I’m not sure if others countries are having trouble with mink, but here in the Netherlands we have a lot of cases of humans infecting mink. Every time that happens the entire farm is culled. (Originally the ruling was that mink farms would only be allowed until 2025 due to ethical reasons, but this new development might cause the government to buy them out sooner.)
  • Coronavirus daily infections rise, while concerns raised about accuracy of ‘dashboard’ from dutchnews.nl. Something to keep a close eye in the coming weeks – the latest relaxation of corona measures was on 1 July and there is a noticeable increase in cases since then. Now that the Dutch health ministry (RIVM) only reports cases on a weekly basis, one must look at the corona dashboard to see what the daily figures are. But there is also concern that the dashboard is not as correct as it could be.
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Courgette curry (And: A very special beer)

Posted on July 15, 2020 by Niki

Today’s dinner was a very lovely courgette curry which I stole from Albert Heijn recipe section. We’re trying to eat less meat this week, and I think this recipe different hit the mark:

And I now realize my American readers might be slightly confused: courgette is zucchini. Courgette is more often used in French and British English, while zucchini is used in American English. But since I didn’t really cook with zucchini when I lived in the States, it will forever be courgette for me.

The beer… ah, yes, the beer. That is a gift from a coworker. It’s a beer from a brewery here in The Hague. Eiber is another word for stork, which is also featured in The Hague’s crest of arms. This beer was brewed in honor of the beer makers’ daughter, born in March. See a photo of her at indebuurt.nl. And it is tasty! Marco and I were thrilled with this gift.

In other news:

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Food halls (Or: Haagse Bluf in The Hague)

Posted on July 7, 2020 by Niki

Food halls have only recently become a “thing” in The Netherlands, lets say the last five years. A few examples I have been to include the Markthal in Rotterdam and MingleMush in The Hague. Apparently MingleMush re-opened today! I’ll have to schedule a (safe) visit, as it has been too long… It looks like they are open Tuesday through Saturday, 12:00-21:00.

Another food hall Marco and I still need to visit is the food hall in the Haagse Bluf, an upscale shopping area in the centre of The Hague:

It’s a great place to walk through, with very photogenic areas. Just click the tag “Haagse Bluf” at the bottom of this post to see more. My favorite photo was of the red scooter, but the photo of the iced chai tea at the end of this post serves as a great memory for me. We only had it a few times before Kaldi stopped selling it. It was delicious!

In other news:

  • It’s official: Amsterdam to London direct train without Brussels stopover now ready from nltimes.nl. Now it only takes 3 1/2 hours to get into London by train (from Rotterdam)! Considering how long you’re waiting around in an airport, that’s pretty good.
  • The Netherlands now reports deaths and hospital intakes on a weekly basis on Tuesdays. RIVM reported 19 Covid-19 deaths and 9 hospitalizations in the last week (from nltimes.nl), although due to delayed reporting not all of those were in the last week. They can say that 5 deaths occurred between June 28 and July 5, and two of the hospital admissions occurred after June 30. There were also 432 positive cases reported.
  • ICU intakes are (for the moment) still reported every day at lcps.nu. There are currently 24 Covid-19 patients in the ICU, with a low of 18 last week.
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The taste of durian (Or: Spotted at the local Asian store)

Posted on July 6, 2020 by Niki

The inspiration for this blog post: last month I mentioned a news article from The Guardian about a durian fruit causing the evacuation of a German post office. Apparently it is a very divisive fruit. You know how I know that? I wanted to check my spelling of “divisive” so I typed in “divisive fruit” into Google, and durian was the top result. Hmm.

Are you in the camp that thinks it tastes like rotten eggs or gym socks? Or do you find it tastes of almonds, a bit creamy? (If you have ever had it, that is. Apparently it can be hard to find if you’re not in Asia.)

I didn’t realize it might be at the local Asian store until I saw sweets on the shelves:

That doesn’t look too bad, does it? Or these cakes:

But the fruit itself is indeed available at the local Asian store, as long as you are willing to try the deep freeze version. (I know, deep freeze is never as good as fresh.) Amusingly the page only describes it as having a “pungent odor”, which sounds… more bearable than it probably is in reality. Or you have another version which might be easy to break open.

I’m not sure I’m up for buying the deep freeze versions to start with, but maybe I can purchase a snack or two first and see how it goes…

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Coconut cookies and books (Or: A visit to Lebkov)

Posted on July 5, 2020 by Niki

This afternoon I spent a few hours at Lebkov in The Hague, something I hadn’t done for a while. I have had takeout coffee from Lebkov over the last few months but this was one my first time sitting down. Well, there was one exception: I did meet a coworker there shortly after the rules were relaxed to allow customers to dine-in again. It was strange. We did not stay that long.

I purchased a coconut cookie, which was tasty, soft and slightly sticky on the inside. I also brought a book along, Night Train to Lisbon, although I ended up fiddling with Affinity Designer on my tablet instead. While I just started the novel last week I am enjoying it. It’s a bit dense (in a good way) so I’m glad I am reading the English translation and not the Dutch one. These days my reading habits seem to be me alternating Dutch and English with every book, which is fine.

In other news:

  • The Amsterdam zoo posted a video on YouTube of their newest baby elephant enjoying its first bath.
  • Would you like to see a pink limousine stuck on a Delft canal bridge? Then check out this Reddit thread.(And really. Who wouldn’t want to see that?)
  • You can also follow the Twitter account of Winston bureaukat (@Winston_topkat) for adorable photos of a local police station’s cat.
(“Look at me being so cute! You’ll just need to overlook the fact that I’ve destroyed half the station!”)
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Beer and chicken (Or: Zwarte Ruiter in The Hague)

Posted on June 26, 2020 by Niki

Today Marco and I went to the Zwarte Ruiter in The Hague. It is one of the bar/restaurants on the Grote Markt. Since I took a vacation day today we were able to go a bit earlier in the day when it wasn’t too busy yet.

My beer (the Blurred lines on the left) was definitely fruity! It had citrus, passion fruit, peach, pineapple and mango.

In other news:

  • Do you remember the country-wide issue with the emergency number 112 last year? They released a report this week about what happened and the unique set of circumstances that made it even worse. You can read about it in English at nltimes.nl or in Dutch at nos.nl. One of the worst mistakes? They sent an NL-Alert to everyone which said the police were contactable on WhatsApp via <phone_number>. That phone number was incorrect; it was actually a number for the tip line by De Telegraaf, a Dutch newspaper. Yikes!
  • Van der Sar: play big Eredivisie games in second half of season from dutchnews.nl. It’s a good article if you’re into football/soccer – it talks about moving the big matches to after the winter break to adjust for a lack of home advantage, since stadiums will not have fans right away.
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Pork ramen (Or: Another Marco creation)

Posted on June 18, 2020 by Niki

Is anyone interested in some pork ramen? Here’s the dish that Marco made for dinner tonight:

There is no way that I could remember all of the ingredients but some of the highlights are: pork, buckwheat noodles, red ginger shavings, sea weed sheets, baby corn, spring onions, black and white sesame seeds and a soy-marinated egg (the egg being the one ingredient I skipped). He created the broth basis last night, expanding on it tonight. There’s even a bit of lime in it, to give the broth a slight sourness (yum). My favorite was the red ginger shavings.

In other news:

  • Public broadcaster apologises for ‘k**wijf’ comment from rattled subtitler from dutchnews.nl. Opps! This was a live interview that was simultaneously subtitled “on the fly”. Apparently the speaker was a bit rattled and spoke too fast, which caused the subtitler a lot of issues. So the subtitler decided to call her the term you see above. While the link describes it as “stupid cow”, I would say it’s closer to b****. So yeah… opps?
  • Fewest Covid-19 patients in ICU since March 12 from nltimes.nl. There was a small increase last week that lasted about 3 or 4 days, but luckily it didn’t last long and the numbers started to decrease again.
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Anne and Max café in The Hague (Or: Sitting pretty on the terrace)

Posted on June 2, 2020 by Niki

Yesterday Marco and I took a long walk, skirting around the city centre to avoid crowds of people. We walked along the Zuidwal, which is both a street and a neighborhood within the larger Centrum neighborhood. For the most part it was easy to avoid others and it was a pretty walk along the canal. We did see a few boats drive past as well.

Near the end found ourselves near the Grote Kerk and spotted a café by the name of Anne and Max. I’ve seen it a lot although we’ve never gone to it. And yesterday was 1 June, the day restaurants and cafés were allowed to open again. After some pondering we did sit down at the terrace. None of the tables on our side were taken so it seemed safe enough. Still, it did feel weird as it was most likely our first terrace visit of the year due to the weather only being warm enough the last few weeks.

Above is a look at the menu with a closed one on the left and an open menu on the right. The light green insert on the left was added to talk about the changes in this new “corona time”. For instance, payment would be done at the table so you didn’t have to get up, and that walking paths had been made. Slightly surprising: the toilets were open, and with them promising they are disinfected every hour.

Marco ordered a Zindering (no idea how to translate that – if you know, leave a comment), which is an ice cold chai latte with an extra shot espresso. I had a ginger-lemongrass soda and we shared a slice of apple pie with whipped cream. Somehow we always end up ordering apple pie at new places. This apple pie was pretty good, although it was different than what I expected – I expected the top crumb to be a bit more crunchy. Still good, though.

Otherwise things seemed pretty normal. I wouldn’t say the waiter kept 1.5 meters distance perfectly, but a) that’s almost impossible b) the moments were limited to handing out the menus, receiving the food and paying.

The only thing that would have made the visit better would have been more sun. When you are moving around it isn’t too cold but sitting down meant it was easier to feel the wind every minute or so. Brr! I think businesses would have preferred more sun, but perhaps it was for the best as it meant that most places weren’t overflowing with guests. There was enough room in most places to take a seat right away and enjoy the goodies.

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