Eating my way across Europe: Rotterdam

Now don't laugh. But I love Dutch food and I love going to the Netherlands for work.

My love for Dutch food goes beyond the famous fries in a paper cone served with mayo. My love of Dutch cuisine is a deep love of fusion food...and great service, since the Dutch are the kings (and queens) of trade which seems to have carried through into their service-oriented ways.

Last week, I went to Rotterdam with three things in mind: cheese, pie and rijstafel. I guess I also had some professional stuff mixed in there, but it was definitely secondary.

When we got there, we had lunch at Café Sijf, a nice little café in the center of the city. The sandwich was nice, the bar was very cool and the pie was decent.

After our meeting the second day, I dragged my co-worker to Café Dudok for the best apple pie in the world (my husband calls it the kick ass apple pie). I promise to share my recipe for it in my new food blog (coming soon!).
Anyway, the restaurant has a cool industrial style and the most amazing pie. And don't forget the slagroom (whipped cream).

I then dragged him to Indonesia Restaurant for rijstafel, the original fusion food and my absolute favorite thing to eat. EVER. We had an assortment of 23 dishes, a mix of Dutch and Indonesian. It was delicious, spicy and just plain amazing.

We rolled ourselves back to the Hotel Emma (decent, central and good breakfast).

After our meeting the next day, we hit the cheese shop. The French are too proud of their cheese to admit that their northern neighbors also have an amazing cheese tradition. I brought back a chunk of goat cheese with nettles and aged cheese with cumin. Normally, I would have bought more, but I already had some italian and english cheese in my fridge...a girl has to be reasonable sometimes!

Before boarding the train, I managed to grab a few packs of stroopwafels and hagelslaag (which the Dutch put on their buttered toast in the morning) for the kids.

The one thing I didn't manage to escape was the bad lunch replete with skimpy sandwiches and the traditional glass of buttermilk. I can tell you that when you're having that kind of lunch at an international meeting - English, Irish, French, etc - every one is a bit shocked and concerned by the pitcher of milk placed in the center of the table.

And here I am, sitting in the snow back in Lille looking forward to a big steak with stinky cheese for lunch. Yum.

Eating hamburgers in Lille à l'américaine

I ate a hamburger with a fork and knife. I feel so dirty, so unAmerican, so French. Now don't go saying Reb said the French are dirty because I didn't...

There are a plethora of hamburger joints popping up all over Lille. From the American diner which opened at the swanky shopping center to Bun's Bazaar in the Vieux Lille to Speed Burger - the home delivery burger...the place my husband and I went is a brasserie called chez Max. And to their credit, it wasn't called a hamburger. It was called a "Max et toast" so it wasn't as wrong as it sounds. It's not like I went to McDonald's and brought my own silverware or anything. It was good, but it wasn't a burger.

Call me a burger snob, but there's always something wrong with the ones I eat in France. I was so happy when real burgers (compared to fake McDo burgers) starting popping up. When I first went to Bun's Bazaar in Vieux Lille, I thought, "ok not bad". But when I went back a second time and asked for my burger without sauce, they told me it wasn't possible. I was with my co-workers and thought, "well maybe the waiter didn't understand me". So I tried to explain that I wanted plain bread so I could add my own ketchup. So I asked again. And one of my coworkers had to tell me to chill out and just accept that this place toasts the buns WITH THE KETCHUP ON!!!??? So I haven't gone back there.

So when my co-workers started talking about Le Cut in the center of Lille I thought, "yeah yeah another French burger joint". But you know, it was good! The bread was nice, the meat was nice, the cheddar was nice and they could hold the sauce! My only criticism is that there are no pickles AND the burger is slightly too small for the bun. But it filled the void. I almost felt American as I held my dripping burger to my mouth. And as I did so, I looked around me and saw that everyone was eating with a fork and knife. I looked across the table at my husband who was thankfully eating with his hands, after cutting the burger in half with a knife, just a small concension to his Frenchness.

I asked him if I was being gauche by eating with my hands. He said probably yes because burgers are sort of considered fancy food these days to which I responded "McDonald's". He told me that doesn't count.

As I sat there with my husband,  I felt good like I have made the world a little better by making one more French person eat with their hands. And I was also happy to finally have a satisfying (albeit expensive) hamburger in Lille.

So I'll have to go back to Le Cut again very soon to cleanse myself of the fork-and-knife hamburger experience...because it was just a little too French for my taste.

New Year, new projects: BCE (best cookies ever)

The French have a severe distaste for peanut butter, and that's putting it mildly. Peanut butter is to Americans what nutella is a to the French. Yet, I have grown to dislike nutella and peanut butter over the years, probably more to do with memories of back packing through Europe with a pb jar in my bag (the ingenious idea of my then boyfriend) than my own frenchization. This has not, however, prevented me from indoctrinating my children into loving peanut butter...

So when I saw a recipe for flourless peanut butter cookies in the December issue of Real Simple, I figured I'd try the cookies since the recipe was, well, real simple. But I wasn't going to like them. But you know what? They may actually be the best cookies I've ever made. No, seriously. The best...And I've made lots of cookies, especially recently as we've been avoiding gluten in the house.

And while I'm at it, I'm currently working on a new project which has gone from an embryo but less than a baby (not pregnant, just trying to find a metaphor).  Keep your eyes peeled for more on my new project in the new year.

So without further ado, here is my adaptation of the scrumptious, delicious, and highly caloric, sugar-reduced, lazy girl version of the cookie dedicated to Travelling Amber who could use a little scrumptious right now.

2 cups creamy preferably unsweetened peanut butter (can be purchased at organic stores or supermarkets next to the nutella)
3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1 1/2 cups rolled oats
1/2 cup chocolate chips

Mix together pb, sugars, eggs, baking soda, salt and eggs until smooth. Add oatmeal and chocolate chips. Using a soup spoon, place round blobs of dough on a cookie sheet, leaving about 2 inches between cookies. Bake on 350° F (150°C) for 10 minutes. Cookies will puff up a lot, but will deflate as they cool. Let them cool on the sheet for a couple minutes before removing them or they will break and you will have to eat tons of them. Makes about 3 dozen.

Variations : you can make these cookies without the oats and chips. You can also substitute dried cranberries for the chips.

Enjoy!

Food for thought

A long long while ago, I wrote about the French babyfood exception. Obviously French babies do not eat like their culinary inferiors in the rest of the world. Yes, they eat mush. Yes, it is often unidentifiable. Yes, it is made by huge multinationals. But, apparently, the unidentifiable mush is actually much more sophisticated than simple carrots and peas (although what I tasted was vile).

And don't think that it stops when the kids leave the nest! Every afternoon since Suzanne started school, I've asked her what she ate for lunch. She usually chooses not to remember so I have to guess by spots on her clothes or clumps in her hair. Or, once in a while, she'll tell me it was purét (her englishization of purée which is mashed taters) or just meat or fish.

So today I finally decided to look at the menu. Earlier in the week, my child ate pasta with brocoli. Today she will be lunching on veal marengo, fresh fruit and cheese soufflé. And tomorrow she will be having seafood paella. This is a long way from the soggy pizza and chocolate milk you see at American school cafeterias (although Monday was steack haché aka hamburger without the bun).

Food for thought... literally.