This is what really happened
For all I know, my parents never celebrated New year’s eve. They had their traditions for this one day of the year when it came to food though. Lunch consisted of a white wine soup with raisins and clouds of beat egg whites with sugar and dumplings made of wheat, yeast, milk and salt cooked […]
Do you ever think about how much things have changed in your lifetime? Things we never thought of before, but then we got them and they have become a very important part of our lives? When I was a child my family wasn’t rich, but my parents owned a house, so we were better off […]
When I was a baby girl, my grandmother had a job in a gardener’s greenhouse and I have a vague memory of walking between long planters tables and smelling the flowers. I especially remember huge bouquets of carnations and freesias, and pots with ferns. I think I was 4 or 5 years old at […]
When you leave Amsterdams Centraal Station through its main entrance and look to your left, you’ll see Het Noord-Zuid Hollandsch Koffiehuis, also called Smits Koffiehuis, a white house in pavilion style, which has been there since 1919. It used to have a large pier from which boats sailed to a little station in northern […]
Centraal Station seen from where Oosterdoksdijk once was Until 1889, when the Centraal Station was dedicated, Amsterdam had two privately owned railway companies, who each had a railway station. Haarlemmerpoort The Hollandse Spoor Company had at first its station at Haarlemmerpoort in the northwestern part of town and only later built a new station at […]
In most supermarkets vegetarians can find replacements for meat in the form of sausages, hamburgers, shawarma, minced meat, cordonbleu and many other products made from soy or milk. Meat replacements Supermarkets also have wine and beer, but if you want something stronger than that you have to go to something called a “slijterij”. Many […]
Originally I come from the northern part of Germany near the North Sea, and in the olden days, when I was a child, there were lots of small fishing boats going out to fish for shrimps, the small brown kind, near the shore. Back then you could have it as a job to take the […]
Okay, I’ve cheated, I admit it. I barely ever cook a sauce from scratch, but almost always use organic bouillon. I’ve used frozen and even canned lobster soup as a basis for a fish sauce, and I’ve more than once bought frozen pizza and only covered it up with my own fillings, but shopping for […]
Aparently this is rice in leaves of some kind and you cook it as you would cook an Uncle Bens bag of rice. 11 years ago, when I moved to Amsterdam, I had no idea about how different it would be to cook in my new country. I was 46 and was brought up by […]
One of the most sold foods on the fast food marked in Amsterdam are so called Vlaamse frieten, the Belgium version of French fries, and you can get them everywhere in town. The absolutely best fries you can get, and the best I’ve ever had, are made by an Indian lady, who sells her produce […]
My writers block 