Guus Bosman

software engineering director


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travelling

St Martin Carnival 2009

Carnival 2009 St. Martin.On Sunday we saw the Carnival Parade in Marigot, the capitol of the French side of the island.

It was a lot of fun to watch the parade, and we saw it passing by twice. The pictures tell only part of the story -- the music was just as important. Throughout the parade, trucks were carrying huge sound installation and the soca music was very loud and made for a great party atmosphere.

Here's a video of the 2007 parade with sound.

dailylife

For sale: Nissan Micra

For sale.Ettie and Gerben bought a nice new car, so now their old one is for sale.

For sale (in the Netherlands): Nissan Micra, automatic, 3 doors. A little over 116.000 km, year: 1995, color: red. Taxes: 17 euro per month. The car uses 'benzine', which is 'gas' in the US but 'gas' in Dutch means natural gas, so don't be confused.

Please contact Ettie if you're interested.

travelling

To St Maarten

Saturday we're leaving for a few days to St. Maarten, an island in the northeast Caribbean. Half of the island is Dutch, half of the island is French.

So, we're in for a tropical island with Dutch food! It will be much like our trip to Curacao three years ago.

dailylife

Anouk Grotenbreg

Anouk.Welcome, dear Anouk!

Our good friends Kirsten and Rob were blessed with a baby on Monday, February 16.

From both of us: many, many congratulations!

northcarolina

K-Ville

K-ville.This week there was a basketball game between the University of North Carolina (UNC) and Duke University. This annual game is a hugely popular event, and some of the Duke students have been in line since December (!) to get tickets for the game.

We went for a walk over campus earlier this week and saw the tents and camping equipment in front of the sports stadium. The next day the TV news mentioned that one of the kids in the tents was treated for meningitis, but was doing relatively well. The name of the tent ville is Krzyzewskiville, or Kville, named after 'Coach K' a hugely successful coach of the Duke men's basketball team (and also of the US Olympic team in 2008).

Read more about the line policy on Kville.info.

Sadly for those enthousiastic fans, Duke lost to UNC with 87 to 101.

foodanddrinks

Nasi goreng and krupuk

Krupuk.I realize that it may sound like I do nothing but cooking these days. Having said that: tonight we cooked nasi goreng with real krupuk and it was great.

Nasi goreng is an Indonesian fried rice dish which is popular in the Netherlands.

In Grand Asia, an Asian grocery store near my work in Raleigh, I found real Indonesian krupuk; crackers made of shrimp. They are deep fried for a minute or so in the pan and expand to three times their dry size.

Last but not least I experimented with a peanut sauce from Hong Kong, and that was a very lucky choice. It was delicious, a great combination of sweet and spicy at the same time.

dutchusa

Not all that seems Dutch...

Holland View.Sunday I was a Chinese store in Durham, and noticed this can of meat, "made with pork and chicken".

The Holland name is accompanied by a windmill, so they must mean the country, but the meat itself was packed and canned in Los Angeles, CA.

foodanddrinks

Shoarma & knoflooksaus

For the first time in some 5 years I cooked shoarma tonight. The last week or so we’ve really been in a Dutch cooking mood. While shoarma originates in the Middle East, it is very popular in the Netherlands and when we lived there we cooked it quite often (shoarma is spelled shawarma in the US).

Many butcher shops and super markets in Holland sell pre-marinated ‘shoarma meat’: usually pork, sometimes lamb or chicken, with a marinade of spices. The traditional way to serve the meat is in a warm pita bun, with a generous portion of a garlic dressing (knoflooksaus). You can't find this premarinated meat or the prepared dressing in the States, but I found a number of recipes for them and we liked the result. The knoflooksaus was especially good, and very close to what I remember from the Netherlands.

Below is the recipe that I used tonight. A next time I'll change the shoarma mix -- it was good but not quite like in Holland.

foodanddrinks

Babi pangang

Yesterday I cooked babi pangang and oh boy, that was delicious. I don't think I've ever made babi pangang before, but inspired by all the Dutch things last weekend I prepare pork ribs in a marinade on Sunday night. It stayed in the fridge for 24 hours and I cooked it yesterday. It was an excellent dish and got great reviews from my audience.

I also made a small pan with sauce, but that didn't turn out very nice. The recipe called for tomato ketchup, which should have been a warning sign, and the result just wasn't delicious. Next time I'll use another recipe.

The meat in the babi pangang is pork, but there are a couple of different cuts you can use. Yesterday I tried pork ribs, another time I'll probably go for boneless meat. In Holland a great choice would be speklapjes (pork belly strips). Marinade the meat and let it stand for at least an hour, preferably over night (see ingredients below).

dutchusa

Klaverjassen evening

Klaverjassen evening.Last night I went to a klaverjassen evening in Durham and it was a great night.

It was organized by the Dutch club of the Triangle, De Wieken. It was a very friendly group of people.

Klaverjassen is a Dutch card game. There were decks of Dutch playing cards, so we played with Boer, Heer, Vrouw instead of Jack, Queen and King, which was nice. It's been at least 6 years since I played klaverjassen; we used to play it a lot in college and playing the game brought back nice memories from the Vrije Universiteit. I missed many a lecture playing kraken.

It took me a while to get back into the game but it was a lot of fun with nice people.

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