eG Foodblog: Chufi - Birthday Cakes & Royal Celebrations

[Chufi]

Here are the rats.

This is what they looked like when I was blogging February 2005:

they grew up! Here's Mimi chewing away on one of her favorite vegetables, belgian endive:

and Foufou grabbing a treat:

They have weird tastes. They love cucumber, tomatoes, endive and lettuce. They hate carrots. Carrots will just rot away in the cage without being touched by them. They adore frozen peas, but won't eat green beans. They love banana and avocado, but will eat apple only if I leave it in the cage long enough - "okay, we get it, you're not giving us anything else!"

They love all things starchy, especially when hard and chewy: raw pasta (the sound of them nibbling raw pasta will go through 2 doors and keep you awake at night..) raw rice, and raw oats. Oh, and they are great pets, and I love them ...

Enough about pets and their eating habits... Here's dinner, or at least the ingredients for dinner:

and here's most of it chopped up:

Then it got really hectic with stirfrying and lots of pans going on at the same time..

I fried the baby squid with ginger, garlic, chili, lemongrass, red peppers and red onions. Let them cool and mixed them with coriander and mint, with some fish sauce and limejuice mixed in. It made a tasty salad:

I recently discovered the unbelievably good flavorcombo of duck and hoisinsauce.

I fry the duckbreast until some of the fat is rendered out. Then slice it up and warm through in a mixture of hoisinsauce and sambal badjak (a rather mild, fried sambal) and some water to thin it.

The paksoi was fried with ginger, garlic and chili, and tossed with the noodles. Duck on top:

I should have ironed my placemats before this blog started

Edited April 25, 2006 by Chufi (log)

[Chufi]

So, I did some balcony gardening and then enjoyed the last bit of sun with a glass of South-African rose and some borrelnootjes.. (don't know if they exist elsewhere.. peanuts with a kind of starchy crunchy coating.. very popular cocktail snack over here..)

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i think these peanuts are very popular in asian cultures as well. sometimes they have some seaweed strips outside on the crunchy coating, some are seasoned with hot peppers and some are "seafood" flavored...shrimp or squid...very asian. but of course there are plain ones as well.

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I know what you mean, we get those here as well, but the ones I had today are not the same .. Maybe they really are uniquely Dutch? not that they are a thng to be particularly proud of

Edited April 25, 2006 by Chufi (log)

[racheld]

Oh, Klary, you have RATS!!!

My very favorite pets of all time. We had a small apartment when we first moved here, and Chris knew I missed all our Down-South menagerie. We were strolling Wal-Mart one day, went our separate ways, and he reappeared with a little Animal-Crackers box containing a little white girl rat.

She was a little delight, named Penelope, but christened (the operative word) "PeePee" by DD#2 on whom she tinkled the first time she picked her up.

We had a succession of seven PeePees over the years, getting a wee one when the elder seemed to be getting on in days. After we took in two unwanted, mistreated ferrets, the last PeePee was distressed anywhere in the house, so after she passed on, we haven't had another little girl rat, but you've inspired me to go get another one soon.

PS I just noticed their names---what is it about their diminutive cuteness that inspires double naming?

Edited April 25, 2006 by racheld (log)

[little ms foodie]

good to see you blogging Chufi!

so are stroopwafels to Amsterdam as crepes would be to Paris?

Your plants on your balcony look fantastic. Might inspire me to get some pots done!

[Priscilla]

Good to get a rat update! They are so cute. Beautiful fur.

Klary, your food always has such a refined aspect, it's an inspiring pleasure to see and read about.

I too believe in week-long b.d. celebrations--yours seems to be hustling along very nicely. Blog on!

[SuzySushi]

I took this picture for you Michelle in the supermarket: an entire display of ginger and spicecakes.

They are called ontbijtkoek (breakfast cake), because a slice of this was traditionally eaten for breakfast or with an early morning cup of coffee.

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Happy Birthday Klary!!! I can see I'll become addicted to this blog!

I love these cakes, which occasionally are available in Hawaii. The brand they sell here lists rye flour as its primary ingredient. Do you hae such a recipe?

[MarketStEl]

Oh, my, my.

Pet rats!

Gorgeous little balconies (big enough for a grill, I hope?) on which to enjoy beautiful spring days! (I miss the courtyard of the apartment I lived in from 1983 until 2000.)

And hunky stroopwafel makers--I wanna date him!

Not to mention cool, totally pedestrian market streets.

Maybe I need to enroll in Dutch classes, although it looks to me like many words in Dutch are awfully close to their English cognates. (Edited to add: Though it also appears that Dutch is like German in forming new words by stringing several smaller ones together. I note that you do that with English phrases that are actually separate words, like "hoisinsauce," for instance.)

I have a friend (I'll be helping him move his stuff from Philly to Florida this weekend) who has promised to fly me to Amsterdam someday. I think I need to help hasten the day somehow.

So what was that supermarket like?

Edited April 25, 2006 by MarketStEl (log)

[Gigi4808]

You have further inspired me to move to Holland- it looks beautiful there.

Happy Birthyday!

[Chufi]

Final food item of the day: a little cheese platter for 2..

a bit of port salut, raw milk brie, mixed nuts and raisins.

[Chufi]

PS  I just noticed their names---what is it about their diminutive cuteness that inspires double naming?

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Foufou was actually named after a food-item - the African dish of mashed cassave.

And btw, Chufi was the name of my first rat, named after the spanish drink horchata - which was exactly her color - Chufi was a brand name of that drink we found in southern Spain.

[Chufi]

(Edited to add: Though it also appears that Dutch is like German in forming new words by stringing several smaller ones together.  I note that you do that with English phrases that are actually separate words, like "hoisinsauce," for instance.)

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actually, that's just my lazy typing

So what was that supermarket like?

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yes, well, that supermarket.

I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with the Albert Heijn supermarket chain.

They are everywhere. I mean, everywhere, on every streetcorner. This means that there are a lot of them, but neither of them big enough to have a really good selection.

They sort of monopolize the supermarket business. They have their housebrand. ..recently they came up with this thing where they print a symbol on specific foods to make the customer aware that this particulal food item is 'healthy'. Ofcourse these symbols are only printed on their own brand items. As if yoghurt from another brand would be less healthy than theirs! (but it would be cheaper).

Another thing is that whenever they expand, and stock new things, it's always in favour of convenience foods / ready made meals etc., and never in interesting fresh foods like vegetables or fruits, organic meats, a good brand of pasta, etc. So they have a huge display of Jamie Olivers spicemixes but you can't buy decent salt... all kinds of flavoured rice to cook in the microwave, but no risotto rice.. I could go on and on..

This is a picture I took today of the poultry section. If you look close (left of the very badly photoshopped arrow ) you see a pack of chicken with a green label. This was the only freerange chickenbreast available Almost that entire display is big fat watery chickenbreasts. If you're lucky you can find a whole chicken or some thighs somewhere on the bottom shelf.

That said.. I still come here often.. it's 2 minutes walk from my house and it's just so easy to stop by after work and pick up a few things. But, I am lucky that I work part-time, and have the luxury of being able to go all over town to get the groceries I want. I try to shop at other supermarkets as often as possible - better choices, and much cheaper, too.

Edited April 25, 2006 by Chufi (log)

[Chufi]

It's getting late here and I'd better get some sleep See you all tomorrow!

[saskanuck]

Happy birthday, Chufi! I've been away at our cottage and haven't had internet access for a while.

I love your blogs and your pictures. I've never had rats as pets, but they are really cute little guys.

[Shaya]

Hi Klary, thanks for welcoming us into your life and home during this celebratory week. I love your balcony, it reminds me so much of the urban European apartments I have visited over the years - compact yet totally functional.

I also love your notebook - I have one that looks just like it, great minds think alike.

[*Deborah*]

Happy Birthday!

Happy to see you blogging again.

[Megan Blocker]

yes, well, that supermarket.

I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with the Albert Heijn supermarket chain.

They are everywhere. I mean, everywhere, on every streetcorner. This means that there are a lot of them, but neither of them big enough to have a really good selection.

They sort of monopolize the supermarket business. They have their housebrand. ..recently they came up with this thing where they print a symbol on specific foods to make the customer aware that this particulal food item is 'healthy'. Ofcourse these symbols are only printed on their own brand items. As if yoghurt from another brand would be less healthy than theirs! (but it would be cheaper).

Another thing is that whenever they expand, and stock new things, it's always in favour of convenience foods / ready made meals etc., and never in interesting fresh foods like vegetables or fruits, organic meats, a good brand of pasta, etc. So they have a huge display of Jamie Olivers spicemixes but you can't buy decent salt... all kinds of flavoured rice to cook in the microwave, but no risotto rice.. I could go on and on..

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This is a problem here in NYC, too - we have markets on every corner (I exaggerate, but you get the point ), but many of them are just plain awful. I, too, am glad that I have the time and inclination to stray a little further from home and visit a few more places to get the good stuff.

Klary, an excellent day - can't wait to see what you get up to tomorrow! Will you be visiting any of those lovely spots you've highlighted on your Food Lover's Guide to Amsterdam? We've already seen the tea house...how about a tavern? I wouldn't mind a beer.

[Kevin72]

Damn, I just saw you were the foodblog for the week.

I'll try and catch up, but for now, Happy (belated) Birthday Klary!

[johnder]

Happy Birthday!

Great blog, looking forward to the next week! I used to work for a company that had an office in Amsterdam and the offices were right across from the Heineken factory. Talk about convienent!

John

[ghostrider]

My ancestry is 1/4 Dutch, yet I haven't visited Holland since 1962, alas, so it's really nice to have these "inside" views of Amsterdam! Thanks.

The bag of "Balangoda OP" couldn't help but catch my eye.

.. and after that, a stop at the coffee & tea shop for some tea. Dennis, my husband, does not drink coffee but is a bit of a tea-freak. I think we usually have about 15 different teas in the house. We were running low on green tea, his favorite, so I went to pick some up. He asked for Sencha, so I got that, and another green one and also some orange pekoe:

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I was unfamiliar with the name but a quick google led me here, where I learned that this is a Ceylon tea that I have yet to try.

The naming convention has me curious though. Most US tea merchants would label this variety as "Ceylon Balangoda," as it is on the linked site. Has Orange Pekoe come to denote Ceylon teas in Amsterdam? Or am I just being misled by one merchant's peculiar way of labelling tea?

[mizducky]

What a delightful blog this is already!

Somehow I have managed to do very little travel in Europe in my life so far, and none yet in the Netherlands, but if/when I get it together to correct that, I suspect that Amsterdam will rank near or at the top of the list of cities I'd want to visit. So I'm really looking forward to a full week's worth of insider's views of the city.

I'm happily anticipating anything you care to show us during this week. I know so little about everyday Dutch culture, it's all fascinating to me.

I must confess, though, that I wouldn't mind it a bit if your rounds happened to give us a little glimpse of one of those coffeeshops whose herbal offerings go beyond Ceylon tea, if you catch my drift ...

Happy birthday, and blog on!

[Rebecca263]

Happy Birthday, Klary! You always write about the most interesting things, I can't wait! I DO have a question for you. Is the mayonnaise you get over there on your fried potatoes different than the mayonnaise we make at home here? Every time I see those fries in a cone, with immense dollops of mayonnaise atop them, I can't help but wonder.

[Jason Perlow]

Man I really want a stroopwaffel but I know there's not a damn place I can get one.

[Susan in FL]

What a wonderful way to come home and unwind . . . reading your foodblog!

And, three pages into it already. Welcome back to foodblog land! I am thrilled. Thanks for sharing such a special time with us, and happy birthday week.

[Pam R]

Happy Birthday Klary! I think it's lovely that you turn your birthday into a week-long celebration - thanks so much for sharing with us. Are all of your birthday meals/plans things you will be preparing yourself or do you get to sit back and let somebody else cook for you at some point?

This looks heavenly... what is the filling? Caramel? Syrup?

[Abra]

Oh dear, sorry to be late for such an important date. Happy Birthday, Klary! I too like to make my birthday last forever, and I can't wait to share yours with you.