Guus Bosman

Dutch cuisine is strongly influenced by the Indonesian kitchen and around here it's hard to find some of the ingredients that I used on a daily basis in Holland.

I didn't quite realize it in the beginning, but condiments like sambal manis or ketjap manis, or things like nasi aren't for sale in regular supermarkets. Thai cuisine is more popular here, so there are similar curry pastes to sambal available but there is much less variety. I really like sambal manis, a sweet mild sambal.

A couple of months ago I ordered some Dutch ingredients by mail order, including mixes for babi pangang and foo yong hai and seroendeng, roasted coconut with spices. I almost finished the sambals so I was very happy when Petra told me about a store in Chapel Hill where they carry Indonesian condiments: A Southern Season. A wonderful store!

Tonight I had dinner with Klaas, Petra and Ron. I met them online through AllesAmerika.com and it was great to finally meet them in real life.

Klaas, "Blips" on this website, lives in Minnesota but was in Durham for business so the four of us decided to meet up and we had a very nice evening. Ron and Petra moved from the Netherlands to North Carolina about two years ago.

When I arrived in the restaurant the waiter came and asked me if I'm "with a party of 3". I said yes and he said he had recognized my accent so he brought me to the right table.

It's been a while since I had spoken with Dutch people face-to-face and we had a lot of experiences and stories to share.

It was great to meet you all.

Today is the meetup in the Netherlands of AllesAmerika.com, a forum I frequently read.

Although I couldn't attend the meet up somebody brought a webcam.

I've created a YouTube video (my first) of the MSN stream -- the quality of the connection wasn't very good but it was nice to get an impression.

A wonderful movie on Youtube.com: Give us back New York.

I like the quote in the beginning of the movie:

"What is your biggest fear? What are we be becoming?

My biggest fear is that we become Holland, all right, that we are the Netherlands."

There's a website for this movie: giveusbacknewyork.com which seems to be associated with an (online) advertising agency.

(through AllesAmerika.com).

A friend sent me this interesting article: Dutch are the world's tallest people.

From the article:

"With their protein-rich diet and a national health service that pampers infants, the Dutch are standing taller than ever. The average Dutchman stands just over six feet, while women average nearly 5-foot-7."

"The Dutch were not noted for their height until recently. It was only in the 1950s that they passed the Americans, who stood tallest for most of the last 200 years, said John Komlos, a leading expert on the subject who is professor of economic history at the University of Munich in Germany. He said the United States has now fallen behind Denmark."

For the record -- I am 6"2 or 6"3.

The supermarket here sells a Droste, a Dutch cocoa brand.

Until 2004 the original Droste factory, in Haarlem, was still in use. Interestingly, the American packaging doesn't have the typical "mirror" effect that gives the name to the "Droste effect" in Dutch.

When we were in the World Bank a while back we saw a painting by Piet Mondrian in a hallway.

The World Bank has a large collection of art in its building from both new, unknown artists and some well-known names.

A nice sight -- Grolsch is on sale in Wholefoods.

I know I've posted quite some pictures of this beer before, but it's just nice to see it.

When we went out with Bella and Ramiro last Saturday we saw a familiar sign in an unexpected place.

In Adam's Morgan we saw a falafel place called "Falafel Amsterdam". A sign on the door indicates that this was indeed an establishment with Dutch owners.

Yesterday we went with out with Ramiro and Bella. We met in the early evening at the Cleveland Park metro station to go to the Dutch embassy. It was nice to see each other again, it had been a while.

We went to the embassy for the haring en paling evening: eel and herring were brought over from Holland for a get-together of the DC Dutch society.

It's was a busy evening, it's quite a popular event, of people of all ages. There were a lot of Dutch things to eat and drink. Of course herring and eel, but also Dutch wafers, gevulde koeken and there was Dutch music playing. I bought two packages of Dutch chocolate sprinkles (hagelslag).
At the party I met Petra in real life. She lives in Vienna and I visit her website regularly and we've been in contact for about a year. It was very nice to meet her in person.

We left the party around 20:30 o'clock and we drove to Adams Morgan, where we visited a small exhibition by three painters. We looked at the paitings for a while. The place was very crowded, it was a party and exhibition at the same time. We didn't stay very long but went to nearby Cuban bar, where we stayed long and had margarita's and mojito's. We danced on Latin music and had a good time. It was a very pleasant evening.