April Review

Everything is born in spring: ducklings, lambs. Daffodils and tulips are opening. I am writing my thesis. It will now be on the connection between slaves, soul food and southern cuisine. Not to jinx the weather, but it is warm enough for shorts. My parents came to the Netherlands for a grand visit. We dined on splendid food, partook in antique market-adventures and encountered an invisible pickpocketer. Zoe and Tanya, two dear friends and last year's roommates, also came to visit. My friend Sarah Perry, a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar from Morgantown, studying in Scotland, ran her first international Marathon in Holland. I had the good fun of being on hand to cheer her on. Sarah trained for months, sometimes running 15 miles a day. When she completed the marathon, she looked strong. Sarah used her marathon as a fundraising tool: She collaborated with her Rotary club to donate money to help end polio. Sarah has already raised several thousand dollars. For motivation during the long, hot race, she wrote on her arm: 30,300--the number of vaccines her running will pay for.

Sarah Perry readying for the Rotterdam Marathon in Holland. She is sporting the name of her Scottish and West Virginian Rotary Club on her shirt.

Sarah's running has raised enough money for this many polio vaccines. Training in Aberdeen, Scotland is not always easy. Sarah said she had to sometimes come indoors and crank out hours and miles on a treadmill when the shouting wind and rain from the Scottish coast was vitriolic.




I realize the word 'genius' should be used sparingly, you know, for people like Einstein or Marie Curie. But my fellow Brown senior-year roommates make me want to expand the usage of the word. Here I am, sitting in Holland's most famous tulip garden with two of my former university roommates, Tanya and Zoe. My other roommate, Daniela, is with is in spirit. We joke amongst ourselves about who will be the "doctor" of the lot.Daniela and Tanya, who studied engineering as undergraduates, will probably go on to get their PhDs in this field. Daniela is on this path already. And Zoe, who comes from a line of physicians, is poised to become a doctor. Her passion is women's health and reproductive health. She has a dream of one day starting a midwifery clinic. As a side note, from what I have read, midwives are far more common in Europe than in the United States. Zoe, who is from Eastern Tennessee, won a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholarship this fall to study at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. She will be studying public health. Congratulations, Zoe! And Tanya, for getting into graduate school!

More Favorite Foods

Italy is known for its pasta, Germany for its stellar bread and cakes, Belgium for its chocolates. The Dutch have pancakes which they eat for dinner instead of breakfast and the most amazing friend fish around. Oh, and also: cheese. The thickness of the Dutch pancake falls somewhere between a puffy American pancake and a French crepe--more like a crepe. And they can be made with a seemingly infinite variety of toppings. The most popular topping is apples with raisins or a pancake with Dutch cheese cooked into the top. This brings me to another favorite food here: Cheese. Even counting the money conversion, you can buy dairy products like milk, yogurt and cheese, cheaper in Holland than in America. When an American friend visited me recently, we went to the market every few days and sampled as much cheese as we could. We probably consumed 15 varieties of hard cheese while she was here.

Pancakes for dinner

(Eaten with stroop, or syrup and powdered sugar, toppings: bananas, and apples cooked into the batter)

toppings: bacon and cheese

Rounds of cheese:

Kibbeling (fried fish):

Another Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

Today I enjoyed a bike ride along one of my favorite routes. It starts in the center city and leads two hours away. Loads of people were outside on ladders, repairing roofs and painting shutters. I snapped a few pictures of quintessential Dutch homes. I even spotted a castle! I also followed a narrow path into the woods where wildflowers peppered the shaded glens.

Lekker is How We Roll (Food part 1 of 3)

You may have picked up from other posts that "lekker" means tasty in Dutch.
This post showcases my favorite foods. First, a disclaimer: If you do not have native Dutch taste buds, avoid salty licorice and raw herring.

Two Favorites:
Indonesian Delicacies and Satay Dipping Sauce

Indonesia was once a Dutch colony. Today, Indonesian tastes can be found well-incorporated into Dutch culture. For example, one of the more popular sauces for French fries is satay sauce (peanut sauce.) This seems funny because Dutch food typically has a conservative pallet. Recently, I was treated to a full-fledged Indonesian feast by my Rotary host counselor. Dinner began with a plate of simple white rice. The long table was weighted with at least twelve hot dishes. We passed the serving dishes around, spooning toppings around our rice. Some sample foods included grilled meat. Sautéed tofu. A piping hot pot of peanut sauce. Delightful pickled relish. Boiled eggs in peanut sauce and a fruit salad with a soy-sauce-esque dressing. The pairings of tart (relish) with mild (rice) and sweet (satay sauce) was grand.

Poffertjes

I have one word for the poffertje: Scrumptious.
Last week at the Amsterdam market, I watched the poffertjes man brush the hollows of a pan with oil, then drizzle in batter from a cone. When the poffertjes had browned, he swiftly flipped them onto the other side with a mini fork. I waited three minutes. The ten pancakes were paired with a slice of butter and given a firm shake of powdered sugar before I bit into them. Poffertjes bring the soul back into soul food. I wanted to stuff them in my mouth, but nibbled daintily (like the Dutch) with a little disposable pastry fork I was given. As my friend Zoe exclaimed, "They are little pillows of heaven."

It is not the recipe that makes the poffertjes. It is the pan. These small (about two inches across) delights are made in a cast iron pan with indentations. This makes them fluffy. I will be on the hunt for such a pan come Koninginnedag, Queen's Day, at the end of April. During this holiday, any person is allowed to ply their wares on the street. I am hoping an old lady wants to sell a pan. Nikki Giovanni, one of my favorite American poets, has an essay where she says a good cast iron pan is invaluable because it absorbs the flavors and stories of generations. I want such a pan.

Best of Times

I only have two more months in the Netherlands--this glorious country. I will miss the people here, biking and market food.

How glorious it is to ride your bike for two or three hours through sheep fields, the sun gilding your back. How glorious it is, biking along the canal, wind on your shoulders. The sights: sheep, flat verdant fields, thatch-roofed A-frame houses, a shed with a blue door, a gaggle of girls wearing pink socks biking to lacrosse practice side-by-side. An elderly man and woman bicycling on a tandem bicycle. Cats hiding in a field, and windmills. When the sun shines on your bicycle, this country can be like paradise. There is no other place I would rather be.

Classes beckon, I enjoy time with friends, and the moments I am cycling through the Dutch countryside, those are the seconds when I feel most at home. Thank you West Virginia Rotary Clubs for these moments. I look forward to a lifetime of exploration and travel. It all started here, in Holland.

Pictures of perfect Dutch moments and images


The Bakkers Winkle! (My favorite bakery, where the scones are pieces of heaven, the jam is home-cooked and the hot chocolate is steamed milk poured over pieces of milk chocolate and white chocolate.

Flowers! (They seem like a Dutch invention--Holland imports more tulips than anywhere else)

Though rain is not a perfect Dutch moment, I have grown "used" to it. And it has not rained in over a week!

Eating raisin "ice" (ice cream) with friends

The first swim of the year (in a still-chilly-in-April Dutch lake)

Beautiful windmills and sheep

Dutch savory pancakes from the Pancake House (ginger, cooked apple slices and powdered sugar on one side; cheese baked into the batter and mushrooms on the other. Lekker! (yum)

The cosmopolitan baked goods of Amsterdam

First and third generation bonding over a bicycle. Ah.

Lekker

The way to the heart is through the stomach. It is great having friends that also adore a fine meal. When my friend Zoe visited from America this week, we rolled up sleeves and cooked. The food was lekker (tasty in Dutch.)

Whenever I travel, one of the first things I think about is food. It is what I miss about home--mom's breakfast biscuits or spinach-stuffed lasagna. Food brings together new people and crystallizes relationships. Holidays are imprinted in my mind because of their epicurean delights. My Uncle Tim's oyster stuffing. Mamere's (grandmother’s) beef brisket. Her melt-on-your-tongue meringue cookies. My neighbor Rosalie's unbelievable Italian cuisine.

We put our hearts into food and recipes get passed down through generations. I am no chef. I like to experiment and never totally follow a recipe; sometimes this leads to cooking mishaps; nonetheless, I celebrate gastronomy (the art and science of good eating.)

Food is the lifeblood of society. How we prepare food and what we eat explains cultures and individuals. It indicates our health. It shows whether a society values local farmers or superstores. It shows how we treat livestock, and illumines whether we have a progressive or regressive tax structure.

America is being pulled from two directions. One direction says natural foods. And we are embracing local produce and bakeries. Another more vocal message barks, "buy pre-packaged items flown from a thousand miles away, dipped in chemicals, pre-sliced and sold in a plastic package, wrapped within a package within a package."

Living in the Netherlands has shown me another way to eat my food. There are still butcher shops and bakeries everywhere. Open-air markets abound. Ingredients may be found closer to their source.

When I return to the States I hope to continue eating healthily. I feel better when I do. If American cities had as many bike paths as Holland, and as many fresh markets, and more normal portion-sizes, I believe diabetes would diminish. And obesity would go the way of the dinosaur.


Sample Menu of things I cooked and ate this week:

Breakfast: Yogurt, cheese and crackers, most mornings

Lunch: Zoe and I dissolved sugar in crème fraiche (a soured cream)and spooned it over fresh cut fruit; served with a fresh spring salad with a balsamic vinaigrette

Dinner: (the best meal): Fresh salmon (boiled) with a marinade of cut-up orange sautéed in a pan with sugar, ladled on top; bok choy (Chinese cabbage), sauteed with garlic; brown bread; salads; another night: Haddock (white fish), sautéed with squeezed lemon on top, soy sauce-tossed, stir-fried vegetables; fresh spring rolls packed with little hand-peeled shrimp from the Utrecht market....

Dessert: Homemade lemon curd. I love this old-fashioned condiment, which seems to have vanished from U.S. pantries. It is a spectacular, sweet, tart, lemon spread, which is great on anything, from cookies to brown bread. When Zoe and I visited Amsterdam, we sampled a lemon-curd tart. It was lovely. This could easily be made by making lemon curd and spreading it over a pastry shell. Note: Curd-making is not for the inattentive (one must constantly stir it in a double-boiler so it does not burn.)Also, the ingredients are a bit decadent (loads of lemons, sugar and copious egg yolks) which is perhaps why people make jam more than curd. However, when I return to the States, I hope to make lemon curd again. The end result is worth the effort.