April 09, 2007
Pasqua 2007: Firenze
This Easter weekend, Robert and I ran away to Firenze. Unfortunately, Robert was feeling poorly and by Friday evening, when we arrived at the Alberghino, he'd developed a fever.
After spending a delirious Friday night in bed, Robert felt somewhat better on Saturday morning to go on a relaxed walkabout. It was perhaps a blessing in disguise, because it we ended up taking things easy and discovered the quieter, untouristy parts of Firenze.
Firenze
I think Firenze should be renamed to "Little America" or "Little Britain" during Easter weekend. Il centro storico was full of domestic and foreign tourists. On Easter Sunday, you can clearly differentiate the Italians from the tourists: the Italians were dressed impeccably in their immaculate Sunday best. The tourists were all either L.L Bean catalogue variety or MTV Springbreak special; unfortunately, not all dependent on age.
It's a lovely city, but it's way too touristy. Just as I hated London during the summer tourist season, and why I prefer Rotterdam over Amsterdam, I didn't like Firenze for precisely this reason. Milano can get quite touristy but I've never had shopkeepers in Milano greet me in English. Hummm, maybe I'm developing this Milano-vs-other-Italian-cities complex...
We gave the main sights a miss and headed to Giardino Boboli. First tip of the day: queues to Palazzo Pitti and the main entrance of Giardino Boboli can get extremely long. If you go up Corso San Giorgio to where Giardino Boboli and Bardini neighbour one another, there is another entrance with a biglietteria and hardly anyone queues there.
Robert and I lay on the grassy hill overlooking Palazzo Pitti and Firenze. It was wonderful and we fell asleep in the sun like lazy house cats. The park started to fill up around lunchtime, so we left and went to Giardino Bardini, which was smaller and quieter and had an equally stunning view of Firenze.
Sunday morning, we went to the Duomo to see the Scoppio del Carro, an Easter ritual of blowing up an elaborate wagon decorated just for this purpose. Loud bangs, lots of smoke and sparks of fireworks ensues. It was all fun and good to watch, as the crowd gets really enthusiastic. This is followed by a procession around the city center.
After a heavy Sunday lunch, Robert and I hiked up to Villa Strozzi. We found the lovely gardens and again spent some time lazing in the sun. There were families on their Sunday afternoon walks and I noticed people were a lot friendlier and interactive; there were eye contact and cheerful greetings of "Buona Pasqua" and "Buona sera".
We then walked through the hills and olive groves in the dying Sunday sun, with breathtaking views. It was such a lovely Sunday stroll that I felt better about not renting bikes and cycling through the countryside as I had originally planned.
The food
We received a lot of recommendations from friends (thank you Tango, thank you James). We did find all of those places in town, but in the end we didn't eat there. We'll save those places for our next (more) museum-oriented visit, in the fall.
Too bad Robert was still sick so he could hardly taste and smell any of the food he ate! That's torture of the worst kind (for me).
We ate wonderful Tuscan dishes: faraona all'uva con crema di patate (guinea fowl stewed in grapes on creamy potatoes), polenta con al ragu di cinghiale (polenta with ragu of wildboar), ravioli di zucca con amaretti (pumpkin ravioli with amaretti), sformato caldo di patate con ragù di carni bianche o pomodoro (a molded potato flan with a tomato and meat ragu), bistecca alla fiorentina (yay for extra-rare beef!)... Everything was SO good, I was very happy...
Back in Milano
We're still glowing from the weekend we just had... April will be a busy month with Salone del Mobile Milano and plenty of our designer friends flying in and crashing at our place... I love having friends visit...
I'm looking for our next little holiday at the end of April: we're going to Riomaggiore in Cinque Terre for 4 days! Yippeeee....
Posted by Yasmina at 09:35 PM | Comments (5)
March 23, 2007
sementes
I found this on Flickr whilst looking for papaya images. See sometimes, when I'm hit with a certain memory, I have to quickly get a visual reference and savour the emotion.
In this particular case, I was IMing with a friend in Indonesia, talking about fruit and I remember the breakfasts my father would make for me.
My father would slice papayas into blocks in a bowl. Sprinkle a little bit of sugar and squeeze fresh lime over it. Sometimes he does this before I even wake up, so he chills it in the fridge. Sometimes the bowl of papaya is already waiting for me on the dining table, but nothing really beats this feeling of opening the fridge and discovering there is this delicious bowl of papaya specially made by my father for me.
Oh man, I'm really homesick right now.
Posted by Yasmina at 02:54 PM | Comments (1)
March 14, 2007
La Dolce Vita
Life was certainly sweet last weekend when we went to Torino/Turin for the annual La Grande Festa di Cioccolato, which this year ran during March 2-11. Our friends, K&D, came down from Germany for a long weekend since it was K's birthday weekend. K's birthday coincides with our wedding anniversary (2 years this year, wooo!), so we celebrated together.
Piazza Vittorio Veneto was where the whole festival was based. A bit of historical fact: this piazza is one of the biggest in Europe and Torino has the most streets named after an Italian royal family member than any other Italian city. The buildings in the historical center have portico sidewalks, where in the past, the King and Queen could walk through in the rain without needing an umbrella (or so Giovanni told me). And, unlike Milan, Torino was built like most US-cities, in square blocks, so no wonder my Torino friends (namely, Giovanni) always complain of disorientation when they come to visit Milan.
There were the big names: Caffarel, Lindt, Droste, Streglio, Venchi, Peyrano, but also plenty of the local names. I had a delicious hot cup of cioccolato alla canela. Hot chocolate here is really different from hot chocolate drinks you'll find in other countries; it's literally melted chocolate, it's so thick (think of chocolate in a bain-marie/banho-maria and it's that kind of consistency) and can be infused with mint, oranges, cinnamon and lots of other complimenting flavours. It can be quite heavy and rarely can you drink more than one cup.
We decided against buying a Chocopass, which, for €10 is valid for 24-hours and allows 10 chocolate tastings around participating cafes around Torino. There was also one for €15, valid for 48-hours and 15 chocolate tastings. The thing is, they were not valid for the festival stands in the square, only in participating cafes in centro historico and we didn't want to be walking around the other parts of town while there was this great feast going on here.
Torino has a series of historical cafes, really really beautiful 18th and 19th century style interior, with dainty pastries and cakes, robust coffee, and traditional cioccolato con panna. I don't see these cafes in Milan. This is a tourist attraction in itself, I think, so no wonder they were aiming the Chocopass around the historical cafe experience. We had a peek into some of these cafes, since they were always really packed with people and we preferred somewhere more quiet and intimate.
I think seeing all the chocolates and food on display, as well as having the smell of chocolate permeating the air into our skin, just made our cerebellum fuse and we walked around in a frenzy of chocolate binging. We didn't know where to start! There were chocolate tablets, tasting squares, chocolate liquor, chocolate paste, chocolate gelato, chocolate spaghetti (would be lovely with some custard and strawberries), chocolate tea, and we were given a spoonful of this gooey chocolate stuff (kind of like a cross between zabaione and custard) at one of the stands that had chefs doing cooking demonstrations. We thought it was gelato, so were a bit disappointed at the flavour. It had a good cocoa flavour but way too sweet. I think it's because Kathya and myself prefer the taste of dark bitter chocolate.
Torino is well-known for its Gianduiotto, which is a blend of cocoa and roasted hazelnuts. Gianduia gelato is a derivation of that flavour and you must simply try it, especially if you're in Torino with gelaterias like GROM and Fiorio and Mondello, which coincidentally, was where we had breakfast on Sunday. Gelateria Mondello is known for its Sicilian gelato and they've won the Slow Food prize a couple of times, so yes, it was a delicious Sunday breakfast. We even had cannoli siciliani. Little did we know that K&D were also having a Sicilian breakfast with Paolo and Alessandra.
We managed to get gelato from GROM in the evening; during the day, the queues wind up along the street and you end up queuing for 20-30 minutes. Flavour of the month was matcha, te verde, and it was good. They must have used really good green tea stock; the other flavour I had was torroncino.
K&D were staying with Paolo and Alessandra in the Vanchiglia district, just 300 metres from the piazza, lucky them! They probably woke up to the smell of chocolate. They were also nearby the studio where I occasionally work and the wonderfully delicious GROM gelateria. The handsome-and-talented husband and I had a loft in Aprile, in the equally cool district of Quadrilatero Romano, just off Via Garibaldi with its many walking sidestreets.
Sunday was more relaxed. Waking up late. Quiet breakfast at the gelateria. Donatella joined us in the afternoon, for another walkabout the choco fest. We had cafe pinguino, which is a cup lined with cioccolato fondente, a shot of hot coffee poured in, then a dollop of panna (whipped cream) on top and sprinkled with some nuts. I also had a banana dipped in dark chocolate and nuts; the banana kind of eased my guilt trip about not eating fruit and veg that weekend.
Later on, we had apperitivo at Talmone, just in front of Torino Porta Nuova Station. It's a really good place for apperitivo because the food selection is massive! Half the cafe was platters of food arranged on tables: penne con pesto, artichoke hearts, various cheeses and cold cuts, pomodoro secchi, salads, onion rings, fritto misto, and lots of sandwich triangles with various toppings like salmon and cream cheese, anchovy-and-tomato, ham-and-cheese, prawns-lettuce-and-mayo. I keep drinking americanos and I think it's M's fault.
You can see other photos of the choco fest on my Torino Flickr set.
Posted by Yasmina at 09:08 PM
February 06, 2007
Pastry-Eating Frenzy
I love the pastries they make in bakeries here... I swore off pastries for this week but then Eva came over this afternoon with a plateful... How can I resist?
Nearby our flat are a couple of really great panificio/pasticceria/bakeries, where we usually stock up on fresh bread (if the husband doesn't feel like making his own), get our focaccia for our soups and salads, catch a morning coffee with a freshly baked brioche, and getting seasonal pastries.
I love the selection of seasonal pastries, like chiaccere (sp?) which is a crispy fried dough sprinkled with powder sugar that you can find only during carnaval season. As well as pastries and pies that use seasonal fruits like mirtillo (blueberries) and fichi (figs) and lampone (raspberries).
Posted by Yasmina at 10:03 PM | Comments (1)
July 26, 2006
under the tuscan sun
edit, 060727: I'm back in Milano but only for a night, as tomorrow we are catching a 9 am flight to Amsterdam, where Robert and I will be chilling out with our friends for a week... Ciao ciao...
Wow, what a week! I'm loving it here... meeting interesting people, eating yummy food, waking up to the amazing view out of my bedroom window, even the heat is not as intense as Milano, we get cool breezes at night. We slept with the windows open and one night ended up with a bat flapping round our livingroom, poor thing...
The presentation went well, I thought. We always have to present last so on Monday I felt anxious all day, but once I slip into the presentation mode, I just get comfortable. Feedback was positive so we're happy.
Last night we went to Siena, to Piazza del Campo, where we had a refreshing apperitivo *make mine a mojito* and watched people. Dinner was absolutely amazing! I had a Tuscan specialty pasta: pici, which is like spaghetti but thick. Pici all'anatra for starters. Then I had veal with chestnuts.... Ooooohhhhh heavenly veal with chesnuts... No picture would do justice... The veal was perfect, rare and coated in a super-duper-delizioso (chestnut?) sauce, with pieces of tender chestnuts.... omg, to die for...
More news when I get back to Milano. Right now, I need to prepare for this afternoon's presentation :)
Posted by Yasmina at 01:21 PM | Comments (1)
July 16, 2006
bread porn: lazy sunday bread
Saturday afternoon is usually the time when Robert and I go round the neighborhood getting our weekly shopping done. Sure, during the week, we nip to the shops once or twice to get fresh ingredients, but Saturday is when we do the full-neighborhood tour: the greengrocers, the butcher, the supermarket, the bakery, the gelateria.
The promise of Robert's homemade bread, made us skip the bakery entirely yesterday afternoon. Whether it's raisin bread, or croissant, or plain white bread, Robert's homemade breads is always made with love and always comes out perfect...
Delicious bread porn by Robert on Flickr...
Posted by Yasmina at 02:57 PM | Comments (2)
June 12, 2006
weekend away
Last Saturday, Lili, Ana, Robert and I ran away to the Ligurian coastal town of Levanto... We spent an afternoon basking in the sun on the beach before Ana headed back to Milano. It had been a while since I'd swum in the sea and I'd forgotten about the salt drying in your hair, and the salty taste of your skin after swimming. The water was cold, fresh. It was great.
In the evening, we walked up the hill to the castelo and watched the sunset. We had a birthday dinner for Robert at Scaramouche Cave, owned by the theatrical Massimo. The food was excellent and Lili and I shared a chocolate fondue for dessert.
Sunday started out hazy but as we approached the fishing village of Corniglia, the sun stopped being shy. We sampled wine at an enoteca and I discovered the wonderful *serak-serak basah* voice of Folco Orselli, who sounds like a jazzy, slightly less-angsty, Italian version of Tom Waits, and whose CD became the official soundtrack to our trip ;-)
Being on the beach, driving through Cinque Terre and the little villages, was truly a lovely way to spend the weekend. I wish we were there for longer. Robert and I promised each other we would do one roadtrip a month, at least, while we are living in Italy. He wants to move out of Milano and live in the mountains.
Posted by Yasmina at 07:06 PM | Comments (4)
May 06, 2006
eating my way back to italy from indo
OMG, that must have been the longest journey I ever made from Asia to Europe. I left Jakarta on Friday, 12.20 Indonesian time, arriving in Singapore at 14.55. My Singapore-Amsterdam flight didn't leave until 23.45, so I went over to Thalia and Ari's place, hung out a bit before going to meet Rani and going to East Coast Park to eat some chilli crabs and other yummy crustaceans. The food was super-duper good; the crabs were perfect and tender and spicy, the prawns and squid crunchy, the kailan not too soggy, not too crunchy in their garlicky deliciousness.
I was in my cut-off jeans shorts, sandals, linen tunic, drinking beer by the beach on Friday night. Some 13 hours later, when I arrived in Amsterdam, it was 4C outside! Eeek! It was 07.15 when I arrived, and my flight to Milano was at 19.20. I deposited my luggage in the lockers and made my way to meet Gerard.
Gerard was so sweet, picking me up at the train station and taking me to his parents' house so I could have a nice hot shower and a nap. I felt terrible for barging into their homes like that. I wish Gerard and I had more time to hang out together, but he had loads of work on, so after a while he drove me to Rotterdam, to Laszlo and Lesh's.
Laszlo and Lesh's new apartment is supercool, light and airy with skylights and the double glass doors leading to the terrace balcony. I was happy to have had the time to hang out and catch up with Laszlo because we didn't manage when I was in NL last March.
We then walked into the town center to see what celebrations were going on. The stroll through their neighbourhood was a great experience: so much to see and touch and smell. Vendors were barbecuing lamb sausages in the street, various shops selling Afros and incense and plastic multi-colored beads.
We stopped off at this Turkish sweet shop where we bought pistachio and nut-honey pastries. That shop was fab! Imagine, a shop that just sells delicious Turkish sweets. I could have bought entire trays of sweets.
In town we visited Lisa and Damian, who had a market stand selling secondhand stuff for the day. We drank beer and went on a walkabout through the secondhand market. There were some nice pieces but also a lot of junk. I ate a dodgy bratwurst sandwich in the center of town, and we are the sweets we bought earlier from the Turkish shop and they were so so so good I wish we'd bought more.
Around five I got back to the airport only to find my flight was delayed till 23.00. Buses from Bergamo to Milano don't run that late so I rescheduled to a morning flight and stayed over at my parents-in-law. I ate a lot of my mother-in-law's potato salad, which is the best potato salad, I swear, drank Hoegaarden and smoked eel sandwiches. I was sad in the delay of seeing Robert again but at least my belly was full of yummies.
Sunday morning I finally made it to Milano. Boy and girl together again :)
Posted by Yasmina at 07:28 PM
April 26, 2006
random stuff before leaving
I'll be back in Europe this weekend. Singapore stopover should be long enough for es kachang and katong laksa with Indrani, Thal+Ari and Yos.
Arriving in Amsterdam on Queen's Day of all days. I'll be sure to wear my orange Nike Waffle. If I can leave the airport, I'm either partying with Ally&co in Amsterdam centrum or I'll be hanging out with Gerard at his parents' and playing in the lake.
I want I want a Love-Hate T-shirt.
I'm going to miss my mom and dad and sister and little Xavie.
I'm all giddy from the thought of seeing Robert again :)
Posted by Yasmina at 07:15 AM | Comments (7)
January 21, 2006
friday night at mine
robert is in milan for the weekend, and we're really ecstatic to see each other. mr and mrs k together again, at least for a couple of days...
friday night, i invited a bunch of people over to my place for a spot of dinner, drinks and socialising. it's just that last week we ended up going out for drinks and this time, i thought it would be nice to stay in and socialise instead. plus, i wanted robert to meet everybody.
turned my bedroom into a "chill-out" lounge, putting cushions on the floor for people to sit on, as well as the double-bed, the coffee table laden with snacks and candles, and with the help of the nice warm glow emitted by the orange nessino table lamp from artemide, which was left in the apartment by dario and barbara :)
music was streamed from my iPod, as well as our home radio station in eindhoven, which robert set up the night before, so now i can make my own playlist from the music i have in our dutch apartment, yippeee :)
together with eva, i cooked a sausage stew with potatoes, and carrots in a creamy red-wine-and-tomato-sauce, saffron risotto, egg tagliatelle with pesto, buttered spinach, a huge salad, and trays of hors d'oeuvres with cheeses, coldcuts and seafood. everyone came over with beer and wine and a chocolate cake and we had a feast!
so the first dinner party (of many more to come) was a success! :)
tomorrow we are planning a day out to como, which hector is organising. we're catching the 08.20 train from garibaldi, omg, what an ungodly hour for a sunday. i hope we wake up in time.
Posted by Yasmina at 11:21 PM | Comments (6)
December 13, 2005
thomas + chocolate-chip muffins
baking chocolate chip muffins with marie and thomas. marie downloaded a really yumm muffin recipe from the internet and they came out really delicious! light and fluffy and chocolatey!
robert and i came over with bagel sandwiches to have lunch at marie's. she and david had just had a second baby, a little brother to thomas, called oliver. i should have photos of oliver but he was sleeping so i didn't take any. he was such a quiet baby, sleeping in his pram in the living room, even though we were cooking and eating together and thomas was running around the apartment hyperactive on chocolate-chip muffins.
Posted by Yasmina at 11:38 PM
December 11, 2005
'tis the season to be baking
last week i went over to visit cathrine and little ebbe and spent an afternoon baking traditional norwegian gingerbread cookies. it was fun! although we were a bit silly for forgetting to buy any cake icing to decorate the cookies with. we did have cookie cutters though, so we made different shape cookies.
the cookies came out really well, and i've been munching on them whilst enjoying my afternoon tea. it's been so cold lately outside, and homemade gingerbread cookies and herbal tea is the perfect companion for when i am curled on the couch, reading my new books: jonathan safran foer's "extremely loud & incredibly close" and banana yoshimoto's "hardboiled | hard luck".
Posted by Yasmina at 10:06 PM
November 06, 2005
wagamama, antwerp
so after walking around antwerp on saturday afternoon, we ended up in wagamama's to eat. why wagamama's, and not belgian frites, mussels and beer? well, i had mussels friday night, and i was really craving chicken katsu curry, plus robert and patray had never been to wagamama's before.
i used to go to wagamama's quite often in london. i love the chilli beef ramen and yasai gyoza and chicken katsu curry, and the fresh carrot-and-ginger juice. oh, and the yakisoba too. so yumm. the food arrives quick, which is great when you're in a hurry, and is always delicious, and the staff are always friendly and efficient.
i had the chicken katsu curry, which was soooooo good. the panko crisp, the chicken still tender inside. the amount of curry gravy was just right, that it mixed well with the rice (i can't eat plain white rice, it has to have a sauce) but not drowning the chicken cutlet. i also had the tori karaage as a side dish, although i wish i had ordered the duck gyoza instead. robert had the duck gyoza (so scrumptious) and the wagamama ramen. patray had the salmon teriyaki ramen and a side dish of fried tofu.
we went home happy, with full bellies. it was a nice day out in antwerp. :)
Posted by Yasmina at 07:39 PM | Comments (2)
October 30, 2005
saturday night with the boys
i took an evening train to amsterdam to meet robert, remco and jim. after fasting all day and torturing myself with food photos on flickr, i was in the mood for some okonomiyaki.
the boys were all okonomiyaki virgins, and i was pleased that their first time was with me in the japanese pancake world. haha! that sounds dodgy, doesn't it? like i'm harboring secret thoughts of foursomes! eek!
i had the tori karaage, the shogayaki special osaka and japanese ice-cream (macha, black sesame and white sesame flavors). it was soooooo yummmm... and green tea milkshake of course! i think i ate the most, and fastest, because i was so hungry from fasting all day.
afterwards, we ended up in de vrije vork, a few doors down from where we ate. de vrije vork specialises in organic and vegetarian dishes. there's a daily selection of freshly made dishes, which you buy by the weight (€1.80 for 100g) and they have lovely organic wines, tea and coffee.
when we came in there was a duo playing jazz/brazilian music on guitars and sax. i had a small glass of chocolate-orange liqueur, called the texel voorspoed *prosperity* and remco had the texel liefde *love*. this is where people would frown and ask, "isn't alcohol forbidden during ramadan?"
ho hum, i really had a craving for chocolate, and the texel voorspoed really did taste like a liquid terry's chocolate orange. ah well. to quench my chocolate thirst further, jim and i shared a luscious double-chocolate brownie.
we listened to the music and chatted away for a couple of hours or so. it was fun! with jim and remco being single, the conversations always veered to the subject of women, and girl-hunting. i thought it was funny!
jim and remco seem to have an attention span of 10 seconds. we're talking and i can see their concentration waver and then lose it completely when the female of the species walk past. it's so different how boys and girls look at ogle people.
with boys, you can always tell that they're looking: their heads turn, their eyes swim in their sockets, they stop mid-sentence. with girls, we just flick our eyes up for an initial gaze, and then discreetly undress the target with their eyes without losing concentration on the conversation topic at hand. or at least, that's how i do it. in their defense, jim and remco say that men can't multitask. hahaha. :)
Posted by Yasmina at 03:00 PM | Comments (1)
September 18, 2005
daily dose of fruit
Ever since Robert bought me a blender last May, it's been so easy to get our daily dose of fruit. I make a fruit smoothie most mornings, or as a healthy drink before dinner. Since it's been summer, we've had an abundance of summer fruits like strawberries, frambozen/raspberries, blackberries and I've been making lots of berry smoothies.
My personal favorite is a strawberry yoghurt shake: 500 grams of fresh strawberries, 1 cup vanilla yoghurt, 1 cup very cold milk, 1 tablespoon aloe vera. I get pure aloe vera extract from the health shop and it's good for your digestion and immune system.
Another favorite of mine is the mango-mint-and-aloe-vera smoothie: 1 mango, 1 handful of fresh mint leaves, 1/2 cup of yoghurt, 1/2 cup of milk, 1 tablespoon aloe vera. Yumm yumm! :)
Mangoes can get expensive if you buy them at the Albert Heijn or supermarkets, but I buy mine from the Tuesday market in the centrum, where I can get fresh mangoes and avocadoes, for 80p or €1 each. Sometimes I also get tinned mangoes from the Chinese toko and add the sweet syrup into the blender with all the other ingredients.
The Tuesday market in town is the best place to get fresh fruits. Satsumas, mandarins, avocadoes, summer berries, cherries, etc. I know I must sound really domesticated but hooray for fresh fruit smoothies! :-)
Posted by Yasmina at 09:11 PM | Comments (3)
September 10, 2005
norwegian cheese
gudbrandsdalsost. norwegian brown goat's cheese. so so good. it's mild, tangy, sweet and buttery, and just melts in your mouth. it's like caramel.
the first time i had it was in 1997. i was in manhattan visiting my norwegian relatives and this was served after dinner. so yumm!
the last few months i've been working with cathrine, who is norwegian, and last weekend she went to the norwegian shop in rotterdam and bought me some lovely lovely norwegian cheese! how nice is that?
she also only recently found out about the norwegian shop, and i'm quite curious to see it. based on her description, it sounded like a norwegian log cabin (inside a former church), in the middle of rotterdam. intriguing... well, i'm in rotterdam tomorrow so if they are open, i'll have a look.
Posted by Yasmina at 01:02 PM | Comments (7)
September 07, 2005
sushi wushi night with robert
robert needed to get some more content for his TV concept at work so we went to the sushi place in kleine berg in the hopes of getting some footage.
we're regulars at the sushi place, and the proprietor let us film them make the sushi, so we got some cool shots. :)
we ordered a california temaki roll (hand-roll sushi with avocado, tuna, mayo), oshinko maki, futomaki, and a mini sushi-combo for robert, comprising of sake+tuna+crab nigiri and kappa maki.
after that, we ate some beef teriyaki, fried rice and a bowl of ramen with thinly sliced beef. for dessert we had green tea ice cream. :)
happy happy, belly full of lovely food. toothache all forgotten, hehe.
*tapi rasanya masih ganjil kalau mengunyah dengan bagian kanan mulut, rasanya ada yang ngeganjel*
Posted by Yasmina at 11:13 PM | Comments (8)
July 09, 2005
food food food
honestly, when i look at this, this, this and this, i think there just isn't enough mealtimes in the day. i'm just so so hungry, i think i'm going to pop down to the bakery and buy bread for breakfast.
robert bought tickets for North Sea Jazz festival, only for the Sunday. so he's dragging me off to that. i don't feel much like going, probably because i'm still not feeling 100%, but maybe i'd feel worse if i didn't go with him. i still have a bit of a cold, stuffy nose, sore throat but at least my ears don't hurt any more.
at the least the weather outside looks promising, sunny and blue sky. oh, and there's a great falafel foodstand at the North Sea Jazz festival. i love falafel. hooray for falafel! oh and we're going to robert's dad's house today so i hope we can stop by the eel place and get some smoked eel sandwiches, lekker lekker lekker :)
have a great weekend everyone!
Posted by Yasmina at 10:19 AM
July 04, 2005
fourth of july weekend
we did so much this weekend i don't even know where to begin!
the story of kathya + yasmina
so kathya and i became friends when we were maybe 12, living in the washington d.c area. we liked the same music, hard rock stuff, we even went to see *gasp!* poison in concert! huahahaha, now i cringe when i think about poison and the band members' hairdo.
i moved away when i was 14 and lost contact with kathya. earlier this year kathya found me through friendster, and we discovered that we live near each other; she's about 3 hours away from me in wiesbaden, germany. how cool is that?
so thirteen years later we are back in each other's lives! kathya and her husband david came to visit us this weekend, and it was so so good to see them! it was not at all awkward or anything, just this nice rediscovery of each other, and of local food, hehe.
the eerie thing is that kathya and i grew up to be similar type of people: we're chocolate addicts, we're totally into food, we like stubble on guys *ahem, our husbands*, we pick our scabs, we sometimes walk around with our cameras permanently attached to our faces.
boekie woekie
this is my favorite bookshop after fnac chiado in lisbon, and foyles on london's charing cross road. boekie woekie, on amsterdam's beerenstraat, stocks limited edition, one-off books from artists and photographers. i love their stuff.
i took kathya and david here, after we'd walked round the other bits of negen straatjes. my ritual is to get a newspaper, have brunch at nielsen's across the street and when i'm done, i go into boekie woekie and see what new things they have in stock. i love the little delicate illustrations on the books; you're buying art, not books. i love the pocketbooks and reading them on the train on my way home.
this time i bought two small photo books of someone's journey to china. i love picture books.
food, glorious food
where do i begin? to tell the sweet love story that is older than the sea, the simple truth about the love he* brings to me, where do i start?
* = food, not robert, huahahaha
kathya and i are so so passionate about food. i think if i wasn't doing design, i would be cooking, cooking and cooking. i was joking with kathya that she should move to amsterdam and we'd get ourselves a brownstone house on one of the grachts, have a cafe/bar downstairs and a design studio on top. so if i got hungry i could run downstairs and kathya would feed me, hehe.
this weekend we consumed the following:
1. tom ka soup that i prepared
2. poffertjes with ice cream (i had mine only with butter and powder sugar)
3. david had strawberry tarts after the poffertjes
4. a box of chocolate from the boulangerie
5. lots of white beer with a slice of lemon, i love you hoegaarden...
6. bulgogi salad with naan bread (me)
7. roast lamb salad (david)
8. some sort of seafood in a cream sauce (kathya)
9. 'death by chocolate' chocolate cake (kathya)
10. pistachio parfait (me)
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11. breakfast of fresh croissant, banana smoothies, mon chou cream cheese spread, orange juice, tea, coffee
12. osaka-style okonomiyaki with marinated beef, onions and spinach (me)
13. osaka-style okonomiyaki deluxe with everything (kathya)
14. hiroshima-style okonomiyaki with salami and cheese (david)
15. green tea milkshake (kathya & david)
16. cocktail of vodka, calpis and 7up (me)
17. more white beer with slices of lemons
18. tiramisu
19. rendang
20. gado-gado
21. ayam goreng pazri nanas
22. sate kambing
23. nasi putih + garnish (srundeng, acar, sambal goreng kentang, kerupuk udang)
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24. breakfast of fresh croissant, banana smoothies, fresh strawberries with cream cheese, tea and coffee
25. tahu isi dengan saus tausi (stuffed to fu with tausi sauce)
26. ayam bungkus rebung (chicken wrapped in bamboo shoots)
27. jellyfish with duck and cucumber salad
28. nasi goreng
29. ho fun (kwetiau) with cha siu and roast duck
30. chow fan (cakwe dibungkus pake bahan mie trus disiram kecap asin)
31. prawns and mango wrapped in pastry, with a mayonaise sauce
32. deep-fried prawn balls (in indo: udang mayones)
33. turnip cakes with chinese sausages
34. fried salted squid with chili
35. ...
hey kath, did i get everything or did i miss something?
for food pictures, check out kathya's flickr page
we went to amsterdam specially for the okonomiyaki. we went to this place, which is run by joachim, a german guy from ulm, and his japanese wife (who greeted us in bahasa indonesia, what a pleasant surprise!). joachim gave a great thorough explanation on the history of okonomiyaki whilst we watched him cook our food, as well as talking about our personal backgrounds. it was such a great experience, this is one place you should not miss when you are in amsterdam. :)
anyway, kathya and david have left me now, and i was sad to see them go. we didn't manage to get all the food spots i wanted to take them to. i hope next month they return to NL for a longer time, hehe...
have a good week everyone!
Posted by Yasmina at 10:32 PM | Comments (2)
January 08, 2005
seafood day and soy sauce packets
fu ho and i went for a late lunch today at ons. ons is a cafe-bar-restaurant which serves modern/fusion asian food. i had the pad thai with salmon and prawns, fu ho had the fish in yellow curry with pandan rice. the portions were huge, and were both satisfactorily tasty. we were really really stuffed. hence the late dinner at 10 pm.
for dinner, fu ho wanted something light. so i made a big bowl of salad, and went to the store to buy ingredients for a cold seafood platter: smoked scottish salmon, harring fillets, sushi moriawase --> mixed sushi. i baked fresh bread rolls, and a garlic baguette.
the sushi came with a packet of wasabi, pickled ginger and soy sauce. the soy sauce was in a little plastic container shaped like fish, with a red cap as its mouth. it reminded of when i was working as a waitress in a japanese restaurant in london.
one of my tasks was to fill the soy sauce bottles on the tables, as well as the little soy sauce packets for the take-away orders. sometimes when it wasn't busy, and i was really bored, i would do about 100 of those packets at a time, sitting there all night behind the sushi bar, squeezing soy sauce from the big plastic bottle with the syringe-like tip into the small take-away packets.
we were supposed to give each customer 1 packet for every 4-5 sushi pieces and then charged 50p for every additional ones, but i used to chuck the extra packets in there for free.
so there's my little soy sauce story. i'm going to play grand theft auto san andreas on the ps2 now, with fu ho and robert.
Posted by Yasmina at 11:19 PM
December 02, 2004
a really good sandwich
last month when joão was here, he was talking about a really good sandwich at de bijenkorf. naturally i thought he was just wack, because joao, like me, is not a big sandwich eater. he told me he went back several times that week at lunchtime just to consume this sandwich. this love affair with the sandwich didn't last long however, as de bijenkorf change their menus on a weekly basis.
so earlier this week, i ended up at trattoria mangiare on kleine berg. i don't usually eat sandwiches for lunch; unless it's summer, when i tend to eat more salads and sandwiches. when it's winter and cold like this, i go for bowls of ramen noodles, or soups and hot bread.
anyway, they had their new autumn/winter menu up so i got the pastrami sandwich and omg, it is so so good. it's an italian roll, with pastrami, capers, fresh salad, a mascarpone dressing, and "krullen eendenlever", translated to "shavings of duck liver". there's the slight smoky flavor and tenderness of the pastrami, the tangy capers, crunchy salad, and creamy duckliver, which just melts in your mouth. yummm.
perhaps sandwiches are not a bad thing after all. my mouth is just watering thinking and writing about the flavors. omg, sooooo good, i tell you. think i'm gonna go and have that for lunch again today. :)
Posted by Yasmina at 12:00 PM | Comments (2)
October 24, 2004
things monica taught me
this weekend, amongst other things we did, monica taught me how to make coffee without a cafetiére...
dear dad, if you are reading this, i still have the cafetiéres you bought me (both the and the french press), don't worry, my cafetiéres are fine, we were doing this at monica's house where there was no cafetiére...
dear monica's dad, if you are reading this, i am wondering why monica gave you this url, and does that mean you are going to send her a new cafetiére?
1. secure cloth around beaker with a piece of twine
2. pour the required amount of ground coffee beans into cloth
3. pour hot water over the coffee
4. let the water drip down to the beaker
5. tadaa! all done!
6. enjoy your coffee (this is why i am still up at 1.30 am on a sunday morning)
Posted by Yasmina at 12:29 AM | Comments (2)
October 18, 2004
ramadhan cravings
this is not going well. i have been craving british food like mad, since ramadhan started. i didn't make it to jenny's home store, which sells british food, before they shut for the weekend, and i don't think they are open on mondays either.
this weekend i had to satisfy myself by looking for british food online, which is just as well, cos i am not sure how i can resist the temptation if they were on the kitchen shelves.
i especially crave ambrosia custard, creamed rice and creamed macaroni puddings, walker's shortbread, and some yorkshire pudding soaked in gravy with a bit of on the side. yummmm...
it also doesn't help that i hadn't received anything for my yayhooray food swap, where i had been secretly wishing that i would get someone in UK as my secret sender.
humm, maybe i need to nip back to england for a food run.
Posted by Yasmina at 12:48 AM
August 14, 2004
dinner for four
<b>who:</b> yasmina and robert, robert brans and karin
<b>what:</b> just dinner and catching up
<b>when:</b> last night (friday night)
<b>where:</b> our flat
<b>the menu:</b>
garlic bread
mango salad
happy chicken on brown rice
apple pie with vanilla custard and dark chocolate shavings (robert's invention)
<b>happy chicken</b>
heat 3 tablespoons of olive oil in a pan, and add 2 medium red onions (diced). when the onions are done, add 4 chicken breast fillets, also diced. add salt, pepper, and stir on high heat. when the chicken is about half cooked, add some fresh herbs: rosemary, thyme, oregano. also add a splash of (single) cream and creme fraiche (sour cream). stir fry until chicken is done.
then add 6 large mushrooms, thinly sliced. stir together with chicken, gradually adding more cream and sour cream to make a sauce. the amount of cream you add depends on how creamy and saucy you want your dish to be. when everything is swimming in sauce (or evenly coated in sauce), add the pear and peach slices. i usually use 2 pears and 2 peaches.
happy chicken is called happy chicken because it makes us happy to eat it, especially when we cook it for friends. :)
*you can also add crispy bacon bits to the dish but i don't eat pork so i don't cook it*
Posted by Yasmina at 10:33 PM
