the giggly pig.

Sausage sandwiches from The Giggly Pig and basbousa at Alexandra Palace farmers' market. Parliament Hill @ Hampstead Heath. A pint at The Wrestlers in Highgate afterwards, a nice pub.

I'm actually dying of hunger at the moment b/c I took the day off from eating (though I did taste some samples of the sausage: merguez, classic, and something called wow wow, all good). Cauliflower risotto from Jamie Oliver's Italy cookbook is on the menu for dinner, cooked by Kenny, which promises to be a good thing.

bung hole.

Sierra Nevada Torpedo at The Rake @ Borough Market. A great, great guitar shop called Music Ground on Denmark St. in Soho. Please don't let me go back there. A Krispy Kreme somewhere on High Holborn Street. I didn't try one. A ukulele battle at a pub on Charing Cross Road. The one guy has a pink ukulele and the other guy is drinking a strawberry beer. A pub called The Bung Hole.

Still running around pretty non-stop, I'll do a post using complete sentences when I get a second.

londontown.

Boat. Borough Market. A photo of Kappacasein, "the cheese sandwich guy" next to the cathedral, which is actually two or three girls. Regardless, along with Brindisa's chorizo sandwich, this is supposed to be one of the "must-try" things at the market. Of course, I didn't try one. Bhel Puri.

+++

um...

This looks and sounds like a mess, but this was really fkn good. This is a "mini" hotdog, in the interest of being able to eat more than one. I pretty much left her recipe alone, although I didn't add any oil to the salsa because, well...in this house, anything called "salsa" in the Mexican sense just doesn't have oil in it. And I cheated on the mayo by just adding pureed chipotle to store-bought mayo. But other than that, dingety-bam: right on.

I'm pretty sure that the combo of the salsa and the mayo would be great on anything: fish tacos and pork tenderloin spring to mind.

+++

蘿蔔燉肉.

That Chinese up there says something like "turnip stew". But the recipe that this title preceded contained no turnip, only daikon. Explain that.

Whatever, it's what I'm making, forget hot dogs. I'm doing this because daikon was on sale at the Turk/Maroc the other day and I bought one the size of a baseball bat. It's supposed to be good for you! Cleansing, they say. If only I could club that lazy, embarrassing drummer from last night with it a few times, now that would be cleansing.

+++

adventures in reklame.

I was very happy to see zeeuws spek in the Reklame bin last night. This is basically an unsmoked, rindless bacon originally from the province of Zeeland in the southwestern part of the Netherlands, and what's distinctive about it is that it's been marinated in a mix of (at least the modern version is something like this): mustard powder, pepper, paprika, soy sauce, onion powder, and garlic powder.

I bet if you made this yourself at home with non-powdered ingredients, it would be great. But what you normally get in the store tastes something like a barbecue-flavored potato chip without the smoke. Sounds kind of nasty, but wait.

I tasted this for the first time on New Year's Eve, and even though it had just been served naked, in thick slices, it was good. I mean, of course it is, it's bacon. But that industrial marinade needed something.

And that something is? Frying. Once you crisp this stuff up in a pan, you're all "industriwha???" Chomp chomp chomp. Although it still pretty much tastes like a potato chip flavor. But I like potato chips.

+++

Speaking of our noble (I almost typed nubile) friends in pink, I've got to try one other thing before my vegetarian holiday: Homesick Texan's Mexican hot dog with pineapple salsa and chipotle mayonnaise. No, I'm not high.

+++

on the cheep.

Well, The Editorial We is real darn sad that there will be no fraternizing or maternizing or paternizing or scimmieizing with the clan. It was going to be fun, everybody. Or if it wasn't, we were going to make it fun. Big beaky kisses from the VDuck.

UPDATE: Although planes are flying again, they are mostly not. Everyone I know who was stuck is still stuck.

+++

And now we must look ahead. Good news: I'm visiting fantastic old friends in London. Bad news: I have zero money, and London is expensive enough to make Amsterdam look like Bangkok (or something similar and more accurate).

And yet, my principles prevent me from traveling to another city, a city much bigger than mine, and not doing a little culinary explorificationizing. So here is a messy, poorly-formatted, yet handy (for me) list of what I'm thinking about doing with my mouth. It will be added to probably up until I leave.

If this looks like a lot for me to accomplish in one week, that's b/c I have no plans to do all of it...I'll probably do two or three things. I just like to have good options. Like I know I want to go to Brixton to wander around, but I have no specific plans. But I want to have two possible eating options and a pub picked out so that when I get hungry or thirsty I'm not all, "Duh...(sticks finger in nose)...that place looks good". Cause it almost never is.

+++

1a) Bhel Puri and South Indian Food.

I've casually mentioned my infatuation with this dish elsewhere on this blog, and I regularly lament Amsterdam's lack of a South Indian restaurant anything like what we were used to in Atlanta. London does not have this problem, so I can imagine that there will be several bhel puri stops in my future. Maybe that's all I'll eat.

• Diwana Bhel Poori House. 121-123 Drummond Street, Euston Square or Warren Street tube/Euston tube/rail.
  Don't know how I can not go to a place that calls itself a Bhel Poori house. This is kind of northwest of Soho, and should be my Saturday lunch before I go secondhand book shopping and guitar browsing. BYOB. Noon-11 daily.
• Sagar. Multiple central locations.
  This seems like a good fallback plan. Noon-11 daily.
• Ganapati. 38 Holly Grove, Peckham Rye Station.
  Sit-down South Indian restaurant in Brixton that gets great reviews. Tue-Fri lunch and dinner, Sat-Sun all day from noon.
  
  and then these are for another trip maybe...
  
  
• Chennai Dosa. Multiple inconvenient locations.
  Probably won't get here. Looks great, though: huge menu of mostly unfamiliar things, the majority of which is under £3.00 (except for the 6-foot Family Dosa pictured above).
• Quilon. 41 Buckingham Gate, St. James Park tube.
  Not for this trip, but supposedly the best Keralan place in London. Only go for prix fixe lunch. (Time Out review, another review).
• Thattukada. 241B High Street North, East Ham. East Ham is supposedly a very Indian neighborhood. Chowhound thread.

1b) Other Indian/Pakistani.

• Lahore Kebab House. 2-4 Umberston Street, Whitechapel tube.
  Cheap and dirty, but supposedly the best at what it does. 11:30-1am every day.

2) Non-Cantonese Chinese Food.

Also something we're missing here in Amsterdam. Will need to book one of these soon.

• No. 10 Chinese Restaurant. Kensington, Earl's Court tube.
  The best Sichuan food in the city, apparently, and affordable. No idea when they're open. Possibly 7 days a week, noon-midnight, but that sounds too good to be true. Remember to order off the white board that's all in Chinese (asking the waitress for help of course). Aim for cumin beef, twice-cooked pork, or anything whitefish-related from the specials board. Chowhound thread. London Eater review.
• Silk Road. Camberwell, Denmark Hill tube (? I've also heard there's no convenient tube).
  Rare chance to taste Xinjiang cuisine (next to Mongolia). Chowhound thread. Lots of good pictures here. Another review.

3) Jamaican.

• Destiny Caribbean. 350-372 Streatham High Road, Streatham Common.
  Doubt I'll make it here. Let's have a round of applause for Google Maps Street View. Remember what it used to be like to plan your travel adventures? Well it used to be much shittier. You'd make a note of some place that was a little far away, but sounded pretty good. "I can walk that," you'd think. But then you'd be walking it, and you'd find yourself in the most depressing, uninspired, strip mall surroundings imaginable. For 30 minutes. And then finally you'd end up at your Dream Destination and it would look like this:

4) Markets.

• Borough Market.
  Barring travel snarls, this will probably be my Saturday morning breakfast. Not sure how much there is to find here though, the eGullet thread is not gushing with enthusiasm. The Chowhound thread is slightly less pessimistic. Sounds like in any case I should try to be gone from here by 10am. Things that sounded good: grilled venison sausage with caramelized onions and cranberry sauce @ Westcountry; aubergine kibbeh at Arabica; and everyone talks about the toasted cheese on sourdough sandwich from the guy next to the catherdral. Brindisi tapas sounds like it could be good. But whatever it is, this is just supposed to be one bite of food to tide me over until BHEL PURI.
• Brick Lane Market. 91 Brick Lane, Shoreditch tube.
  Looks like there's an Upmarket that is Sundays only and a Backyard Market that is Saturdays too (Sat 11-6 Sun 10-5). Chowhound thread.

5) Pubs.

• Harringay Arms. 153 Crouch Hill, Crouch End.
  One of Time Out's Top 50 Pubs in London, located in the nabe where I'm shacked up. Seems obvious.
• French House. 49 Dean Street, Soho.
  Another Time Out Top 50. Somewhere hopefully non-douchey and civilised to chill during a Soho visit.
• Rake. 14 Winchester Walk, London Bridge tube/rail.
  Yet another Top 50, this one having the benefit of being near the Tate Modern and Borough Market. And they serve hundreds of beers. And they're open Mon-Fri noon-11, Saturday 10am-11pm.
• The Florence. 133 Dulwich Road, Herne Hill rail.
  This will have to be my Southern pub, another Top 50. They brew their own beer called Weasel, need I say more.
• Green & Red. 51 Bethnal Green Road, Shoreditch, Liverpool St. tube/rail.
  A Top 50 that serves Jaliscan food, near Brick Lane Market.
• The Charles Lamb. 16 Elia Street, Islington, Angel tube.
  Nice-looking gastropub in Islington. I'm hoping that I try the pointless and amazingly ambitious three-mile walk from Islington to Crouch End, and if so, I'd like to have my options covered on either end.

6) Non-Food.

• Quinto Book Shop. 72 Charing Cross Road, Leicester Square.
  Huge secondhand bookstore.
  
• Wunjo Guitars. 20 Denmark St, Soho. Tottenham Court tube.
  Where Alfredo buys all his shit.
• Barnardo’s. 414 Brixton Road. Charity shop.

+++

the towel, thrown in.

It's official: I'm not going to America right now, for a host of reasons. The biggest conglomerate reason being that, after losing almost two weeks to bureaucracy and volcanos, it just doesn't make sense anymore in terms of time, complexity, money, and the situation itself.

Yes, we are all hugely disappointed. Lower lips: out.

If there's one thing I'm happy about, it's a slight lessening of pressure in Atlanta, or a slight uptick in optimism, or both. Go team!

If there are two things I'm happy about, it's that I can finally: unpack my suitcase; buy more than one days' worth of groceries; conceivably start any project which will take more than 24 hours to complete. Exit Limbo.

+++

One remaining problem: a housesitter who has really been counting on staying at our place, and definitely needs somewhere to sleep next week. So, Mara and I tried to come up with a road trip adventure for me that would cost almost nothing.

And? I'm going to London for a week, staying with Jen & Ken, you remember them, right? Am I counting on being able to fly there? Psh. I'm taking a boat.

+++

consolation prize.

So, Sunday, I woke up at 5am or something similar, and after a couple hours of trying, realized that I wasn't going back to sleep. The sun was blazing (at least visually) by 8am. Before I could talk myself out of it, I packed a bag and headed to Central Station and the beach. I mean it's not like I was going to be flying anywhere.

+++

No one believed me when I later told them that the beach had been practically empty except for fishermen and dogwalkers. I wouldn't have believed me either: sunny Sundays are normally pretty hideous. But this picture was taken when it was 1) early and 2) not exactly warm.

For lunch, fried sardines: four pretty hefty specimens for just under a euro each, served with lemon and pickles. Great salty, greasy, caveman beach food, and a surprisingly good value (they were big fish).

Then I came back to Amsterdam to meet la Zora, but my schedule was a bit ahead of hers, so I walked around a bit. I ran into Karin and Vatcher, and they recommended I try Captein & Co. for a non-mob scene terrace.

And they were totally right. The clientèle was unusually heavy on the Belgians (my assumption based on the fact that the couples spoke French to each other and Dutch to the waitstaff), and this is normally a good sign from an eating perspective. The food, basic eetcafe stuff, looked and smelled good. Two possible cons, depending on your needs: the service is indeed very slow and the opposite of proactive, and the sun is gone by 16:00 or so.

So, walking south from Nieuwmarkt past our old apartment, this used to be our number-one terrace when we lived around the corner from it: De Engelbewaarder. Good beers, good sun, and it's kind of the longtime default hangout for the Amsterdam jazz scene. It's just a great bar.

And then later, a terrace I never ever considered, but one that turned out to be a perfect way to end the day (credit to KK): Het Ketelhuis. The sun only shows up after 5pm or so. But when it does, you're suddenly in a peaceful, unmobbed little oasis of calm and beer. Do not tell anyone else.

+++

nice ash.

Clouding minds left and right. Last night the cook had a couple of absent-minded moments. I would show you the picture of the burned pine nuts if I could get it off my camera.

I forgot my to put my SD card in my camera last night, so the photos were recorded to "built-in memory", which is a very, very safe place to keep things, because you need an unusual proprietary USB cable to get them off the camera. Annoying even when you can find the cable, and I can't find my cable.

And where are my Szechwan peppercorns??? These things don't just get up and walk off, as people's parents used to say.

Damn you, ASH CLOUD (drops to knees and raises fists to the sky)!!!

+++

smoked ma po tofu.

200gr smoked tofu, cubed

100gr ground pork

2 tbsp scallions

2 tbsp ginger

2 tbsp garlic

1/2 cup beer or wine

1/2 cup water

2 tbsp chili bean stuff

1/4 cup of some small dried red chilies if you're into pain

more scallions

missing Szechuan peppercorns

+++

band on the run.

8:08am, Saturday, I'm spending some time with the New York Times, which I don't do so much anymore, but a couple of things caught my eye.

This item about how the ash cloud is affecting musicians: Europe's Cloud of Ash Casts Pall Over World of Music. Sounds like a bit much, but we even felt the "pall" last night at Andy's CD release show when they had to play first b/c the opener was still en route due to travel snarls.

And this bit by Harold McGee about some of my favorite people: Cilantro Haters, It's Not Your Fault.

+++

Photo above borrowed from Het Parool...for non-Amsterdammers, it's a picture of Schiphol, our airport, specifically the ticket counter for rail service. There should not be this many people there.

An interesting item in the Parool mentioned also that after they stopped letting flights leave, they also closed the duty-free liquor stores. How smart was that? Extremely.

Something else I didn't think about: for some people, leaving Schiphol is not an option because they don't have visas for the Netherlands. Chinese travelers, for example. If Amsterdam was a connecting flight for them, they're stuck in the terminal section of the airport because they can't make it through Passport Control. I'm not even sure they can go outside to breathe fresh air...and can you imagine three days of airport food, especially if you're used to eating in China?

back and forth.

))<>((

Me And You And Everyone We Know (2005), Roger Ebert's 5th Best Movie of the Decade.

+++

Um, I'm still like on a Cameo intravenous drip, they're keeping me afloat. In this thematically-connected episode, we see Former Guitar Teacher in an even scarier outfit (w/hair extensions???). He makes a couple of brief appearances throughout, but really enters the scene at 3:10, just after Miles Davis disappears (it's actually Miles Davis, and if you'd read that interview with Pat I posted, you'd know why, wouldn't you).

It's a terrible radio edit of the actual guitar solo, I'd be totally pissed. In fact, he looks totally pissed. Wu-Tang people will already know "Back and Forth" as the sample from "Gravel Pit".

wide awake in america.

Vera Pavlova's If There Is Something To Desire. Found it on Knopf Doubleday's Poem-A-Day. I was looking for an MP3 of someone reading something abstract in a calming, sonorous murmur, hoping that it would send me back to Dreamland, I didn't find it.

This is kind of a relaxing poem for me, though, I wish I could loop it. I do fear that if we Venn diagrammed the thing we might run into some trouble in terms of material or logical implication. That sounds pretty sleep-inducing in itself.

+++

pregrounding.

I was in an amazing mood today when I woke up, and went to the park for awhile and sat in the sun. Then I went to Pacific Parc for a beer. Shortly thereafter, my mood headed in a less amazing direction when I found out that I wasn't actually flying out after all, passport or no passport. But, as they say on the street..."It's all good."

+++

Well, of course it's not all good. Some things are not. Volcanic ash, for example. Also, the service at Pacific Parc is not good. I would say it's ridiculously, laughably bad, and the food at Pacific Parc is just as bad, I'm afraid.

And yet...I continue to like going there, truly. Why would I go there instead of the Westergasterras? I don't know. Maybe it's the monkeys?

Really, somehow it works for me. You just shouldn't expect to eat anything, not even a tosti (last time I was there with KK she declared her tosti "the worst tosti ever", and tostis are a difficult thing to fuck up).

Also, you should sidestep the table service and get your own drinks at the bar, and then just enjoy the sunny terrace and/or the elaborate decor inside. Music's not terrible either.

web 4.0

Oh, what a crazy, mixed-up world we live(d) in. Don't worry your pretty heads: while the website is 100% real, my membership is only research for an upcoming dance/theater/death extravaganza (you have to click on the image to get what I'm talking about).

+++

you're not going to believe this.

Hey! My passport finally arrived this morning!

+++

random jimmy moment.

San Francisco, 2005.

save me.

Jamie Oliver would not be happy about this.

My field correspondent just sent these in. This is what I'm walking/flying into tomorrow. I tend to mentally roll my eyes when bloggers/commenters cheerily lament, "OMG! I gained five pounds just looking at these pictures!!!" I mean, call me a shitty person or whatever, but that sentence seriously diminishes the likelihood of me reading any more of what you're writing ("OMG! You are a shitty person!!!").

That said...OMG! ect ect ect. The real southern tuna noodle casserole is at its barely-functioning heart a technological marvel: take the above items, crash them together in a casserole dish, bake for oh I don't know how long, and you get this:

Not the strawberry pie, of course. That would really be a marvel of technology.

But that's not all!

To give some context, this next dish was created specifically for a family member who finds tuna noodle casserole too adventurous.

Not having been at the scene, I'm a tiny bit confused about what's going on here, specifically what the white stuff is. It just might be cream cheese, which hardly seems reasonable, but...we'll find out for sure when my field correpondent checks back in.

Ah, right, the recipe. I believe this is called "Layered Beef and Cheese Dip". Take the below items:

And melt/brown in the oven. Serve with Tostitos brand tortilla chips if I'm not mistaken.

OMG! My crown fell off just looking at this picture. LOL.

+++

expiration race.

My first question is, is there any way to make me stop posting? I think the problem is that I literally don't have anything else to do except wait for my passport. And obsess about things I might be forgetting. And about things in general.

But really: the apartment is ready for our houseguest. Our webstore is shut down. The fridges are cleanish. I'm packed for my flight. My tooth is stable (fingers crossed). Mentally, I left a couple of days ago. The only thing that is making me unclench are Cameo videos. And online Scrabble. This is no way to live.

+++

My second question is: when does sauerkraut really go bad? And what are the ramifications? Today I felt like chomping on something sort of healthy yet kind of manly, and as I was mentally searching the kitchen for Things That Needed Using, my mind lit upon an old bag of sauerkraut. Unfortunately, my mind didn't look at the expiration date before it and the rest of my body went to the store and bought some salmon to go along with the kraut. Not really a springtime dish, but...Things Needed Using.

I returned home with my fish. Looked at the kraut. It expired a month ago. Bah. I opened it, it stunk, as expected, but...that's what sauerkraut does, no? I rinsed it, no obvious out-of-place smells. I tasted it, tasted like sauerkraut, still firm, not, I don't know...gross and/or mushy? I don't know, what would the warning signs be? Etc etc etc. So I used it.

And! I'm pretty sure this was the best version of this I've ever put together, I was totally caught off-guard by its nonchalant delivery of complete satisfaction. And, know what else? I didn't use the Bayona recipe that started this whole thing.

I don't feel like writing a recipe right now though. So here are some hints to myself about what I did: of course always rinse your sauerkraut; slow cooking of onions and kraut; beer instead of wine; lots of black pepper, in fact, lots of caraway, thyme, and black pepper, and a little juniper; after onions and kraut done, saute salmon in not a little butter, salt, and black pepper; drizzle/smear two drops of high-quality liquid hickory smoke over each filet as a Bacon Emulator, place on top of kraut and onion mixture in the skillet, put in 200C oven for 10 minutes or however long is right. So much for not writing a recipe.

+++

off the rails.

Does anyone else worry about repeating post titles? I'm striving for a certain fauxbliqueness with mine that is basically drawn from maybe 400 or so little catchphrases that are bouncing off of each other in my increasingly empty head. We're bound to get some repeats soon if we haven't already.

Until that dark, dark day, I'm just going to keep posting until I can't take it anymore, which is probably right about now, but nonetheless I first wanted to share this all-too-rare example of The Onion being a little funny anymore: American Airlines Now Charging Fees to Non-Passengers. At least a few sentences' worth are funny...but did we need a page-long article (rhetorical)?

+++

I can't decide which band we should be for Halloween: Cameo or Earth, Wind, and Fire. The first 20 seconds of the Cameo video above for "Shake Your Pants" are, I think, indisputably delightful on many levels. I just had a little non-Halloween vision where we built an alarm clock in our (already quite crowded) "living room" that was essentially a life-sized replica of the first 20 seconds of this video. Maybe not the full drum kit, due to space limitations, but definitely the four main ass-wiggling guys. And that's how we'd wake up every morning. How could anyone be anything but terribly optimistic after that.

Something else to consider is that, according to Wikipedia, Cameo started out with 23 members. Could we find 23 people to dress up as Cameo in Amsterdam (I'm pretty sure the answer is yes)?

On the other hand, there are budget constraints. I think EWF might be cheaper prop-wise b/c the lead singers apparently don't need microphones (although there are other microphones on stage...weird). True, "Boogie Wonderland" is not a terribly exciting video, though The Emotions try valiantly to make it so, but there's something endearing about the general enthusiasm level, and you at least have to watch up until 1:56 for Philip Bailey's great diva face.

+++

The thing about being Cameo, though: my first real guitar teacher from early-1980's Atlanta is on the later-period Word Up! record (emphasis theirs). Kind of embarrassing what they did to him in the videos, though: imagine your average, I don't know...construction worker, plumber (sorry, Pat). Then pretend you're the makeup/hair person for this kind of flamboyant black funk band and you have to make this nondescript white dude look like he belongs in the videos. That's him on the freeze frame below. Actual guitar solo at 1:58.

+++

There's actually a pretty great interview with Guitar Teacher here. At least it's great for me because it's very much like being in his crappy apartment off of Highway 41 back in 1984, shootin' the shit and learning Allan Holdsworth solos. Good times. The interview does ramble a bit...I can't imagine you'd read the whole thing unless you were really interested in the life of a currently hot Nashville cat who's played with both Cyndi Lauper and Lynyrd Skynyrd.

wheel in the sky.

I was going to send this to Mara but then I thought heck, I'll share it with ALL OF YOU. Zora is in town and has taken some nice pictures of places I've been lately but have not myself taken pictures of.

+++

I've been informed that my passport is in fact here in Amsterdam and should be in my possession tomorrow or Thursday, and that means I am out of here on Thursday or Friday, thus ending my thoroughly useless and frustrating limbo (yay!) and restoring a little Moop back into my life (double yay!).

+++

I haven't talked about this much here because, yeah, it's kind of boring, and in general (insert 14-minute pause for self-reflection to see if this is really true, and the verdict is: not sure) I don't like to complain, but my RSI pain had not ever really gone away as expected, and in fact had gotten quite a bit worse. Which unfortunately made sense, since we continued to have gigs into March.

I mention it here because there's a lot of RSI info out there in Googleville, but not a ton for guitarists, and specifically not much at all for my situation (switching from being a life-long flatpicker to almost 100% fingerstyle over the course of a rather intense 3 months).

But lo: the constant pain and stiffness have diminished greatly over the past week, like amazingly, which is really, truly fantastic news because throughout March my sleep and thus general mood had been steadily worsening, plus I was supposed to be working out but I had zero strength or flexibility in my right arm (did I mention the constant pain?), etc etc etc.

Now the bad news: the solution seems to have been to basically stop playing guitar for three weeks. Not ideal. But, I'll take it for now.

+++

bringing it all home.

It's funny, some people would say, how things you read about in the news don't really seem 100% real until they enter your own life. And then once they've entered, they don't seem like the thing you were reading about in the news, they just seem like your life. Say, for example..."subprime mortgage crisis". Didn't really seem real until, well...it was.

What am I talking about, exactly. Well, you know how we don't like to talk too much about truly personal matters here at VDuck, but I thought maybe just this once it would be inspirational, or necessary, although also probably depressing, to document some of what is happening. I promise not to reveal too much, don't worry.

So...as soon as my new passport shows up, I'll see you in America. Any minute now.

+++

To lighten this post, I've included photos of Calico Squeezy Peep and the To3n Crier. Expect lots of animal photos over the next few weeks.

I also just noticed that in the picture of Calico Squeezy Peep you can see the grossness that is what's left of my right big toe after not breaking it with that hammer that one time. I mean, that's what it looks like now. Good thing I'm not a foot model.

spooky tooth.

It's been an exciting couple of days. I discovered a new way to break your tooth (tortilla chip splitting molar in two: fast, effective). To counteract this, I had another positive dental experience at TandartsJordaan (that makes about 14 of them in a row now).

SUDDEN UPDATE: If you know me, of course you know what had to happen like an hour after I typed that last sentence. My fucking temporary crown came off, nearly killing me in the process. And that's why we (everyone say it together now)...Never Underestimate The Great Magnet.

+++

Before nearly choking to death on my own newly-minted artificial tooth, I also spent some quality time with the Reklame bin at De Avondmarkt. For you non-locals, the Reklame bin is quite like the Clearance rack in concept, except that most of the things in the Reklame bin were never for sale at non-Reklame prices...they start out there. I don't know if that makes sense to you or not.

The Reklame bin is one of my favorite things about De Avondmarkt (a store about which I love many things), because you never know exactly what's going to be in there, and sometimes it's very interesting and/or good.

Also often German, for some reason. Pictured above is a small piece of, yes, horse sausage. Made from horses. In the Clearance bin. Below, duck liver mousse. Just a small piece. Good thing I had this around, I needed some soft food this morning.

green machine.

I made these pakoras a few weeks back and thought they were the shit. Until I made these pakoras tonight.

+++

guarajat-style cabbage pakoras.

1/2 cup grated coconut
1 cup chick-pea flour

1 cup hot water

2 cups firmly packed finely chopped or shredded green cabbage
1 cup sauteed onion, chopped

1 tsp fresh grated ginger
2 tbsp "tandoori spice" (I explain later, but this is primarily paprika, cumin, coriander and garam masala)

1 tsp salt

3 tbsp peanut oil
1 tsp sesame seeds

Sift your cup of besan into a bowl. Add coconut. Add the hot water in stages to the besan and coconut mixture, whisking after each addition to avoid lumps. Add cabbage, onion, ginger, and spices and stir to fully coat the vegetables with the batter. At this point the batter can be left along for a really long time. I think my last batch waited 3 days for me to cook it. Heat oil in a skillet and fry patties for 2-3 minutes per side, flattening them with a spatula (you need to make sure the besan is cooking). Serve with chutneys. Makes 8-10 pakoras.

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mint-cilantro chutney.

The proportions in this recipe really depend on the quality/taste of your fresh herbs. I find that using a little more cilantro than mint seems to work, but only if your cilantro tastes good (duh!). Also, I've had varying degrees of success with different yogurts, my favorite so far is Turkish or Greek. Lastly? This recipe tastes better 3 or 4 hours after you make it, but it will start to look kind of gross and crusty. Just clean off the sides of the container with a rubber spatula and give it a good stir.

250 gr yoghurt

1 cup fresh mint leaves (no stems)

1.5 cups fresh cilantro leaves (stems OK)

1/2 fresh green chile

a little salt

1/2 tsp sugar if needed

10-20 nigella seeds if you're feeling Indian (optional)

Blend. Adjust salt/sugar. Makes a little more than 1 cup.

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sunbugs.

Sun! Walking! Sitting! Drinking! Below is Cafe Bouwman, one of the few places on the Utrechtsestraat that gets nice sun in the afternoon. They also have a broodje halfom on the menu, but today we got post-beer haring and kibbeling from the fish stand across the street instead.

Above is the Herenstraat, the current state of which I'll explain imminently.

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debt.

A Lego man on a torta Pasqualina. Some as-yet-unnamed pasta shape (turns out it's calamarata, with tomatoes, basil, and butter, really good). Pata negra. We owe so many people dinners at the moment.

And we laughed so motherflippin' hard last night that I broke down in tears at least once and my stomach actually hurts today...when was the last time that happened? But then how often do we get to see Andy's rope-sliding face. Remind me to tell you the story sometime.

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