Guus Bosman

software executive and technologist

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foodanddrinks

A simple pizza

Thu, 02/07/2008 - 10:26pm

Pizza.We had pizza tonight from the dough I prepared last Sunday. I placed the dough in the fridge and now, 4 days later, it still worked.

The pizza wasn't anything fancy: just olives with the left over Fontina cheese and a bit of mozzarella. It came out nicely -- I used fresh olives instead of canned ones and it makes a big difference. I underestimated the time it takes to make the pizza so we had dinner pretty late.

For the regular reader it no surprise if I say that I like cooking. Like father, like son: Jaap is experimenting with making camembert cheese. A very interesting experiment -- good luck!

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politicsnews

Super Tuesday

Tue, 02/05/2008 - 10:44pm

Super Tuesday.Ah, another great night for political junkies -- the Super Tuesday results.

I had a meeting until 8.30 pm today but I received the first projections on my cell phone. During the evening we watched the results coming in. I had to look up the locations of some of the states (Idaho, Missouri) and it was interesting to see the differences between various parts of the countries.

Lots of states were still being counted as of midnight, but it looks like Ms. Clinton and Mr. Obama are going head to head, with a slight edge for Clinton. Pretty amazing, compared to the polls only two months ago when Clinton was ahead it every state on the ballot this week. The contest on the Democratic side will go on for many more weeks, something that I believe is in Obama's favor.

The results on the Republic side were quite interesting. My prediction that Mr. Romney would win the nomination looks pretty shaky right now as became clear in the last week. Mr. Huckabee is doing surprisingly well -- better than Romney even. The only thing that caused the crowd to loudly cheer in Mitt Romney's headquarters was when he said: "...and we're going to end illegal immigration". Neither McCains nor Clinton's speeches were very inspiring but all candidates must be extremely tired by now. At the same time: Mr. Obama's speech was again very well delivered -- what a gifted speaker.

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foodanddrinks

Four cheese calzone

Mon, 02/04/2008 - 8:49am

Calzones.Yesterday afternoon I cooked a recipe from La Bela Vita, a book with recipes from Tuscany, Italy. It has a beautiful picture of their four cheese calzones so that recipe was the first one I tried.

It took a lot of work to make the dough and the stuffing but there is something very satisfying about making dough and baking. The recipe called for chopped thyme in the dough, that was a nice touch.

The main part of the stuffing was a mixture of different cheeses. I used Bulgarian feta cheese, a little bit of Fontina and Parmigiano-Regiano and mozzarella. In addition, I put fresh oregan, parsley and basil, chopped roasted peppers and meat from an Italian sausage. Lots of chopping!

The end result was very delicious. I don't have a picture of the inside of the calzone but there is a nice empty space in them, with a layer of the stuffing which looks white from the cheeses, and green from the fresh herbs.

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dailylife

Lots of TV

Sun, 02/03/2008 - 3:58pm

This afternoon there are two major TV events, and I'm watching neither. In the US there's the Superbowl, and in Holland there's a special report on the Holloway case where a reporter claims to have solved the case of her disappearance in Aruba.

After a nice, long run this morning I'm getting ready for baking the Italian dish, with a beer and the Democratic debate in the background.

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dailylife

Baked potatoes

Sat, 02/02/2008 - 10:21pm

I spent two hours shopping this afternoon for ingredients for an Italian dish I had planned, but at 8.00 pm I still hadn't started cooking.

Since the recipe involves making dough and baking it and it is at least two hours of work I decided to leave it for tomorrow and made something else. Inspired by a very enjoyable dinner yesterday night I grilled steaks and served them with baked potatoes and broccoli.

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foodanddrinks

Boerenkoolstamppot

Tue, 01/22/2008 - 10:47pm

BoerenkoolstamppotTonight we had boerenkoolstamppot for dinner. Don't you love those long Dutch words? I received the excellent advice to cook it with some bacon which worked out really well.

While traditionally paired with rookworst in Holland or kielbasa in countries where real rookworst is not available, tonight I served it bone-in pork chops with fresh mushrooms and thin slices of onion.

For the bacon I used North Country Smokehouse's cottage bacon that was cooked in a skillet for about 20 minutes. For the stamppot I used a recipe from a Dutch book and it called for onions. I found that a bit strange, since I don't remember that boerenkoolstamppot typically has onions in it. It worked well though: the onions made the dish more juicy and the result was delicious, especially combined with the crispy bacon.

For the Dutch readers: do you use onions in boerenkoolstamppot?

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politicsnews

Heated debate on Martin Luther King Day

Mon, 01/21/2008 - 10:59pm

Tonight's Democratic candidates debate was very heated. Possibly too heated for Ms. Clinton and Mr. Obama's good, but I thought it was very enjoyable and a good exchange of ideas. I don't think the debate changed the minds of a lot of voters, but Mr. Obama did take his chance to address some of the attacks by the Clinton campaign from last week.

It was interesting that the candidates thought that Mr. McCain is likely to be the Republican nominee. I still believe Mr. Romney will be their choice.

Today is Martin Luther King Day and I watched 15 minutes of his famous speech. As a blog put it: "it never gets old".

The program for this week: Thursday the Republican Debate on MSNBC, Saturday the Democratic primaries in South Carolina, and Sunday again a Democratic Debate, this time in Florida.

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movies

Cloverfield

Sun, 01/20/2008 - 10:05pm

Cloverfield.This afternoon I saw Cloverfield, a monster movie for which we saw previews this summer before Transformers.

The movie was entertaining and pretty convincing, as far as monster movies go. Cloverfield leaves you guessing about the background of the story and this is refreshing. At least the makers didn't try to squeeze lots of explanations in 90 minutes. I found the movie quite enjoyable with nice special effects.

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dailylife

Decisions

Sat, 01/19/2008 - 4:15pm

Road salt to prevent icing in front of our office.A day of decisions... With his convincing win in Nevada, my prediction of Mr. Romney becoming the nominee for the Republicans is increasingly likely. It's time for Mr. Thompson to give up. He's always looked like he didn't really want to be President and today's results reflect that again. Mr. Giuliani didn't even try to participate in Nevada and stayed focussed in Florida. As a reporter on CNN put it: "he's going to Disneyland every day".

We got a little bit of snow today but we're warm inside. We've been watching TV all afternoon, the first results started coming in at 2.00 pm EST.

Ms. Clinton did quite well today, if not as well as predicted a month ago. The fight between Clinton and Obama will continue. There's another Democratic debate on Monday and next week's elections in South Carolina will be very interesting.

While he may have a relative good performance in South Carolina, today's result are again bad for Mr. Edwards. He probably won't give up until next Super Tuesday, but I don't believe he has a real chance for the nomination anymore.

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politicsnews

Republican primaries

Tue, 01/15/2008 - 10:01pm

Mitt Romney.Like I said earlier, watching the primaries unfold is great. Tonight from 8.00 pm we were at the TV and watching the first results coming in from 8.30 pm. Too bad CNN had Lou "War on the Middle Class" Dobbs presenting the first part; I was glad that Larry King took over at 9.00 pm.

Let me try a little predicting for the Republican race: I think Huckabee will win in South Carolina. His organization is strong there, the polls look good and coming from Arkansas he should do well in the South. For Florida, the next primary after South Carolina on Saturday, I find it hard to make a reasonable guess. Guilliani keeps saying that Florida is 'his state' because of the people who moved there from New York but that seems to me a weak idea for an election strategy. Guilliani has done embarrassingly bad in the first few primaries even in states where he could have been expected to do well. Mitt Romney is somewhat stiff in his manners, and his opponents call him a 'flip flopper' but of all the candidates he has the best chance of winning, if not in Florida then at least on February 5th, Super Tuesday.

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