Chocolate!
Marco bought these for me – they are the size of drink coasters (onderzetters, in Dutch) and the theme is chocolate (droooool):
The four sayings are:
Yum.
This year we are celebrating New Year’s Eve at Roger’s. One of the most important parts of that (besides hanging out with friends, of course!) is “gourmetten”. Below is a picture of all of the gourmetten foods Roger purchased for the evening, although we already know we won’t be able to eat everything.
“Gourmetten” is a Dutch tradition of frying meats and (to a lesser extent) vegetables on a small grill on the dinner table. You can see pictures of the gourmet grill in the 2015 New Year’s Eve blog post I made. Roger purchased a new grill for 2016, so I will try and take some photos of that in action. I can’t wait!
Roger made a chocolate mousse with Bailey’s liquor for Marco and I last week. It was actually a trial run for this weekend, when he will be making the dessert for his family:
Yum!
Last year’s Christmas dessert was a tiramisu dessert in a wine glass.
Marco made some pizza last night:
But this pizza wasn’t what it seemed. This pizza is actually a dessert! The pizza dough is white cake, while the cheese is a yellow cream (it was already yellow, but yellow food dye was added to make it an even brighter yellow). The pepperoni is actually strawberries, though in this case it was preserved strawberries out of a can because they tend to be darker in color. There is a bit of pineapple to look like onions, as well as a bit of mandarin to look like orange peppers. The “spices” on top of the cheese is actually shaved chocolate.
I never would have thought pizza would go so well with coffee! Here’s a look at his other creation, a dessert “hamburger and fries”.
Yesterday Marco and I visited Roger and were treated to gevulde speculaas. This translates to “filled speculaas” – the speculaas is filled with almond paste and the speculaas cookie is softer. I liked the homemade version Roger made – it was a lot less sweet than what you find in the stores. It’s mostly made around the the time St. Nicholas visits the Netherlands (5 December, Sinterklaas in Dutch).
Here is a look at the entire piece, before it was cut:
Almond paste inside, almonds on top…
And a look at a slice of it, where you can more clearly see the almond paste inside:
Delicious!
Last Saturday (Nov 19), Marco, Roger and I went to a rock concert in Tilburg. We saw two bands – Killswitch Engage and Bullet for My Valentine. It was a lot of fun, even if Tilburg really is not that close by. It is about an hour to an hour and a half depending on what train you can get. Luckily it was on a Saturday night, since we got home closer to 1:30AM.
But before we went there, we stopped by a small Thai restaurant for dinner. We had a 4:30PM reservation so we wouldn’t be late to the arena, but that meant we were the first ones there – even before the cook! We could see someone inside, so we decided to wait outside and see what happened. Long story short, they soon took pity on us and let us in.
This is my blog, so I can decide to start with the dessert picture. Check this one out!
Spekkoek and coffee
If you don’t know what spekkoek is, check out the Wikipedia article.
Although it definitely was not the best lighting, I took a picture of the darkening sky from inside the restaurant:
The decorations here are just a silhouette against the sky.
This was also a nice decoration, in the corner of the restaurant.
Appetizers to share – spring rolls and Thai (chicken) sate
A look at my food – chicken and veggies in a green curry, with a side of white rice.
My meal was a bit spicier than I expected, but Marco offered to finish off the spiciest part, the soup!
If you’re in the neighbourhood and you like Thai food, I do recommend checking this one out. It’s a bit small, though, so reserve in advance. They have a lot of takeout traffic as well.
And: good dinner choice, Roger!
Halloween themed cookies, made by Marco. Pumpkins, ghosts and skulls. And the skulls were spicy! A bit of haberno powder, while the pumpkins were made of marzipan.
Marco and I celebrated our 10 year anniversary on Wednesday. This was the anniversary of us meeting (October 19, 2006). We actually met each other after Marco went to a hockey game — Nashville Predators vs New Jersey Devils — in which the Predators won 4-3. It makes the date rather easy to remember, as you just need to look up the hockey game if you forget.
Marco surprised me with this on Wednesday night:
Trust me, this gesture was sweeter than you think.
Hamburger and fries, right? Wrong.
The fries on the left are actually pieces of waffle and cake. The lower right is strawberry, kiwi and mango with yellow sauce made to look like mustard. And the hamburger itself is made of two donuts for buns and with chocolate “mug cake” posing as the hamburger patty and strawberry sauce as ketchup.
What a creative surprise! 🙂
Over the weekend Roger made stroopwafel cake. Yum!
Here’s a closeup of one of the slices:
And, for randomness, here is a look at the fall mural for Eat Company, drawn by Sophia den Breems:
Yesterday Marco, Roger and I saw Suicide Squad at the local IMAX movie theatre (Pathé Spuimarkt). Afterwards we visited the Rrrollend Food truck festival by Malieveld, close to Centraal Station.
And what delicious food! Here’s a look at some of the photos I took. First, a look at my Asian Chicken bowl from Roll or Bowl:
Life in the Hague 