Before:
Little gems Before
After:
Little gems, After
Makes you wonder… maybe the raw food movement is not such a strange one after all.
But then again, I haven’t quite got my new camera completely under control, and the candle-lit (romantic, yes) settings under which we savoured our grilled little gems might give a bit of a skewed view compared to the kitchen-lit greenness of the Before picture…
To which I’d like to add that they tasted delightful, those little crops of lettuce, shortly grilled and served with some homemade lemon-thyme dressing and some flakes of parmesan. Yum.
Of course I could start again by telling you how ashamed I am. For not having posted anything new in I don’t even know how many months… But I won’t. I’m not ashamed. No, no, I’m not. I think I’ve got perfectly fine reasons for having disappeared for a while…
Today I received my business cards! I’m working, I’m an interaction designer and usability expert, I’m really enjoying my job and my colleagues (can I put it like that: enjoying my colleagues? Sounds a bit strange…), I’m learning a lot and traveling a lot, which is why I haven’t been up to writing something in a while. But today I am, I am up for it, so let’s see what I can offer you….
Today will bring you…. the HERFSTTOETJESTEST!
Mr. E and I sat together tonight, to test blindly and objectively (or subjectively, it’s all a matter of taste :) which apple-cinnamon vla currently at your supermarket is the tastiest. And lo and behold, I can be short about this one, the outcome is unanimous! Self-declared non-taster (Mr. E) and Mr.E-declared super-taster (me) both alike, we chose the cheapest to be the nicest. A modest hooray for Albert H.!*
Albert Hein’s huismerk Seizoensvla appel-kaneel won the test, being fruity and soft, containing juicy pieces of apple and being less ‘chemical’ than the rest. Campina came second and Friesche Vlag definitely tasted worst, with pieces of apple that had the structure of apple cores, an unattractive cardboard color and an accompanying fake taste.
I personally would recommend to ignore these vla’s altogether, just put an apple with some cinnamon and raisins in the oven for a while, or even better, caramelize ‘m and bake ‘m with dough on top to end up with a tarte tatin, but that’s a whole different story and a whole different blog. For now, all you vla lovers out there, you can take this to your advantage. Grietje approves.
The set-up
The outcome
Final approval of an objective super-taster
* In this test were only three kinds of apple-cinnamon vla, as we only visited one (unfortunately omni-present) supermarket. There might be more.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Foood!, Grietje!, kattebelletje, Mr. E, Niceness, test
Hi peeps!
I know, I know, I have been neglecting you terribly… But don’t worry, I’ve learned that this is normal blogger behaviour. Just come back once in a while and before you know it, I’ll be back on track!
Soon I will post June’s cooking adventure, we’ll just let May pass this time. There will be a May next year again. I’ll put some pictures up to show you that I’m still experiencing stuff: I made a lovely basil-strawberry cheesecake for Mr.E’s birthday (yes, I was proud of it myself), we did a lime-yoghurtdrink test (of which i might post the result some day), I drank a variety of drinks (one of which was a toxic green mint granita), I had my feet in the sea again (oh, how I love the sea!) and I spent a whole lot of time watching Grietje enjoying alternately the sun and shadow. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a job interview to prepare… See you in a bit!
And because I have this job interview, I’m not paying attention to the lay-out of this selection of pictures. I’m letting it go. It’s okay that WordPress doesn’t help me display this nicely. I’m accepting it. I’m not putting more time in this small post. I’m not. Really. Surely, you will understand. Right? Right.
Leaf-Ins
Anyway, if you like and want to support my latest user-system interaction activity, go to redesignme.com and click on the ‘yes’! Yes! Wheehaa!
Because I love, love, love this short movie that I stumbled upon, another little clip for you today.
Without any exception, this cat, who has his own fanbase I think, always makes me laugh out loud, very loud. For that fact alone already, he deserves a post on my weblog.
If you want to see more of him, go clicketeeclick!
On CuteOverload
On Youtube: A box, I need to be in a box!, walking around with a bag over his head, and a plastic cup, why not?
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Foood!, friends, garden, Love, Niceness, Yeey!
Yeeeey! It took a while, but today I found the time to draw the straws! And the winner is…
The winning page!
Page 124!! Enniemaikie, that’s you!
I’m not going to tell you much, but it happens to be a breakfast dish, so let me know when you will be around on a saturday or sunday. I’m all for a sunny garden brunch (we will shift the breakfast-part a bit towards the early afternoon, if it’s all right with you :)
And for the rest, this is what you will miss:
Dees: page 127, a carpaccio with fennel, nice, but I think for you I’d go for the bouillon with watercress-toast on page 126,
Atikie: page 142, a very adventurous salad of kohlrabi (do you know that?) with strawberries and coriander,
Jannekie: page 132, carrot cappuccino with orange (hmm.. and no, you really didn’t get chosen this time ;),
Marcin: page 151, a kiwi marguerita and an alcoholfree mangococktail with mint.. I’d love to make those anyway!,
AlberTinus: page 122, no asparagus, but a gratinated pineapple with hangop, also nice, right?,
Willemainie: page 125, Grilled little gem-salad with a vinaigrette of egg.. An excellent starter for an extensive meal, I’d think..,
Dreke: page 128, pappardelle with crawfish (rivierkreeftjes! Yum!)
And now, of course, I feel bad, again, that I cannot surprise you all with these dishes you chose… Well, cheer up: nieuwe ronde, nieuwe kansen (new round, new chances) in May, which is actually not that far away! (and I’m a latent rhymingtalent)
And if you feel that takes too long, just invite yourself over, I’d love to see you all soon again!
I wish I could make this work for you… I don’t need it, since I’ve got my own ‘olfactory web’ in the garden. But I’d sure like to share it!
Just an impression of the lovely day Sanne, Dees, little Benjamin and I had yesterday:
Our last culi-date was waaaayyy to long ago, and as our lives have changed a bit, it involved a bit less overabundance, but…
of course not less niceness, not less talking, not less sun and not less overall enjoyment!
Every time, it’s a little party to get together and see what to prepare with the ingredients we have at our disposal. This time it involved Spanish manchego with fresh and fruity quince jelly, lovely Greek manouri cheese served with zucchini (skillfully grilled by Dees), pasta with roasted butternut squash, onions and garlic topped with all the fresh herbs I could find in the garden, all accompanied by a nice vino bianco biodinamico!
Lovely ladies, let’s not wait that long again till the next culi-date… those local herbs from Dees’ garden in Maastricht, I think they grow in Eindhoven and Utrecht, too…
Because I wasn’t particularly happy with my new hairdo, I thought about growing an ananas pineappple. As you can see, I’m all dreamy about it. Seriously.
My newest look
Grietje thought this new look is completely de rigueur, so she decided to grow one too. Poor cat placed the seed on the wrong spot.
Grietjes newest look
Yesterday, Janneke and her man Ralph came to cash in the first cooking adventure prize…
It was a success! Look at those happy faces!
Janneke chose a dessert from page 108, crunchy banana with mango icecream, and I think she liked it :)
Because the weather was so nice, and because Jan&Raf had been working hard that day, we served them with some bbq items to complete the dinner. I myself thought the desert was not such a winner, so I clearly need more practice cooking from the book…
And what a coincidence: it happens to be April for quite some days already, so I decided it’s time to open the Adventure again for your responses! Choose any page between 122 and 152… and be ready to let Spring really begin!
Ai ai ai.. my stats tell me my old posts can’t keep you fascinated, with an all-time low of 0 (zero!) views yesterday… And that’s the whole downside of this blogging: I don’t have anything new to tell! OMG!
My life is apparently pretty boring. Or peaceful, to put it a bit more positively.
But I think y’all will understand: I’m just hanging out in the sun, experiencing the season’s first bbq, first white beer on a terrace, a lot of firsts popping their green heads out in the garden. That kind of stuff. And when I’m not, I’m working. Or doing something that comes crazily close to this:
That’s right. I’m treadmilling.
(and engaging in other activities that involve sweat, increased heart rate, increased blood flow to the facial area, muscle aches,.. I believe it’s called sporting. Yes. Sporting. That must be it.)
‘Take it out, take it out!’… ‘I already took it out!’…
Not the most reassuring words uttered by the girl who held my head in her hands. Literally.
Seconds before, the girl that had been my colorist for two days already, had asked the color specialist to come take a look at my hair. Although I lay in a massaging chair, my position was quite uncomfortable, and the only thing I could see were the enlarging eyes of the specialist in reaction to the sight of my hair. At that point, I decided I didn’t like it anymore.
At that point, I also decided I would never let a hairdresser talk me into getting white hair again, albeit only partly and albeit an art director giving me the advice, just like last saturday. My lovely and ueberhip hairdresser, formally known as the Art director, had cut my hair, something I had been looking forward to for months. Knowing my ‘in between jobs’ situation, I guess he felt for me and advised to make my hairdo extra special by kicking in some black and white accents (budget-wise not really an in between jobs advise, I must admit). Easy to convince in these cases, I gave in. Little did I know…
Not to put you through the same process I went through, I’ll spare you the details of what followed. In short (or not), I spent at least 8 hours divided over two days in front of mirrors, my hairs being fondled by all hands around the salon to form a knowledgeable color opinion, my hands massaged to get through time (quite nice actually), the rest of me also massaged by a special chair while getting countless shampoo rinses and tints as well as peroxide treatments, being offered cafe lattes, herbal teas and rosé wines (which I had to decline, lack of food to go with it), and getting blow-dried several times to assess the color result of the supposed to be white parts. A result that went from brown to rumanian yellow to lighter to even more light to smurf blue to yellow again to a final purplish white shade of pale. The smurf blue was the stage I described at the top of this blog by the way. They told me about it later… good thing I couldn’t see it.
And all the time, all the time, this was what I was thinking of*:
Result? Oh, yes, of course you want to see a result. Come on over and have a drink in our sunlit garden! I’ll even serve cafe lattes, herbal teas and rosé wines to go with it…
* I wasn’t thinking about this soup in particular, but the effect that is portrayed in its commercial. Sorry for the advertisement around it, couldn’t dug it.
- The small wonders of nature
- And it sure tastes good!
That’s it folks! I won’t bother you anymore with the progress of the next batch… Unless you’re interested in the growing process of tomatoes. I know I am…!
Today was the day… I drew straws to see who is going to sit at my table, eating a total arbitrary dish!
I let a website decide for me which page I will cook from, and the outcome is:
Page 108, chosen by Janneke! How big are the odds; Janneke was my muse for the whole idea, since a lunch I prepared for her made me remember how much I like to cook for friends, and how I want to do it more often. Well, that’s exactly what I intend to do now, so Janneke, let’s set a date soon! I won’t give away yet what you chose, but it’s a desert and I will of course choose a meal to precede it…
And for the rest of you, this is what you chose:
Dees: carrotsoup with gardencress (which I am home growing as we speak :-),
Marcin: mango with red pepper, passion fruit and lemon icecream,
Atiki: spicy vegetable burgers,
Senka: pineapplejam with lime and vanille and/or grapefruitmarmalade,
Albertine: vanillafingers (cookies!),
Enniemaikie: stamppotje of endive (andijvie) and rucola,
Griet: marinated chicken with lime and ginger,
Willemijn: a whole page filled with chinese dishes (pheew, that would have cost me at least a day!)
I hope you will all join in the adventure next time in april.. that will be spring and… soon!
Doing just fine, as you can see:
Gardencress, day 4
Gardencress, day 5
In only five days, with just a bit of water, these seeds grow out to be nice fresh green and aromatic leaves… I think I will have a very tasty sandwich tomorrow! Although I must say it feels a bit like eating your own rabbit for christmas.
Those little seeds are working hard! But will they survive? Day three’s picture does not look all that fresh and juicy…
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- Gardencress, day 2
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- Gardencress, day 3
Happy happy joy joy! Luna, who makes the best designer toys (cats AND puppets, can it get any better?) decided to post a little contest on her weblog, which I happen to check every day (yes, i have my little addictions)…
She asked for a nice picture of her readers’ cats, something that of course triggered my attention right away. And although I think Grietje has everything it takes to win any contest, I didn’t think my pictures would be nice enough, since I only have a phone(y) camera at my disposal to record Grietje in all her niceness…. But! She made it! Luna saw what mr. E and I see every day: her nice red, chubby softness relaxing the day away… Hooray!
Luna will send me a signed Flavourites book, which I’m afraid, will only get me more websites to get a little hooked on, and more webshops to order from. But hey, I have to keep on stimulating the economy, right? Thanks Luna!
Meanwhile, Grietje just walked over my keyboard engaging in some kind of victory dance. She’s a winner, and she knows it!
