Hamburger Haven

For the past few months, the barrista at our café downstairs has been asking me every time I come in how I am feeling and if I am having any strong pregnancy cravings.  I understand why she asks me how I'm doing; I complain constantly about my sloth-like activity levels these days.  It's the question about the cravings that has me a little confused.  Isn't that stuff all a myth, the pickles and ice cream stuff? Actually, here the it's not pickles and ice cream, it's herring and whipped cream.  Whatever turn of phrase you'd like to use for pregnant women's eating habits, I hadn't noticed any significant changes in my food cravings...until a few weeks ago when I couldn't stop thinking about meat.  It's seriously become an almost out of control issue for me.  My sensible dinner menus based heavily around grains and vegetables have given way to crazy last-minute trips to the grocery store for a steak, simply because the thought of eating whole-wheat pasta suddenly becomes abhorrent to me.  I've made all my best recipes involving black beans or lentils, but even that hasn't helped.  There are days I feel like Mia Farrow in Rosemary's Baby when she tears into her steak prepared bleu while creepy music plays in the background.  It's been like that around here, except that my steak isn't raw, we don't play music with screeching violins on our stereo, and as far as I know the fetus doesn't share any DNA with the devil.   

All of this to say in my very roundabout way that on Friday evening during our run, I turned to Niek and said I really felt like a hamburger.  Actually, maybe he suggested it first, but I definitely thought that a hamburger was a great idea.  Problem: Dutch people do not appreciate good burgers or know how to make them.  Since there is no Hamburger Habit equivalent anywhere nearby, Niek and I decided to make burgers at home...without a grill...seriously, without a grill.

Armed with my trusty Cook's Illustrated America's Best Recipes (which is looking pretty well-used these days), I tried to do this institution of American cooking justice.  CI offers pages and pages of commentary on creating the best grilled burgers and throws in a recipe for cooking burgers in a pan for the "high-rise dwellers" at the end of the section, but you can feel the pity oozing from the page.  Yes, poor me and the regulations that don't permit an open flame on my balcony.  Also, grills here are expensive!

My favorite part of the evening came when Niek and I were standing in the supermarket.  He picked up the pre-made burgers, and I balked at the price.  Why should I pay more per kilo for meat cut with filler when I can make a patty myself in about thirty seconds?  Salt, pepper, shape patty and you are finished.  I think it never occurred to him to make his own.  As far as I can tell, it doesn't occur to most Dutch people to make their own burgers.  I've been to a few backyard barbecues here, and I've only ever seen the pre-packaged patties.

After seven minutes in my fabulous cast iron pan (3 1/2 minutes per side as per the CI directions), we set to work making our double cheeseburgers.  No hamburger buns here, but the ciabatta rolls from the store were a decent substitute.  We may have gone a little crazy stacking them:

According to Heston Blumenthal, crazy British chef that he is, hamburgers shouldn't be more than two fingers high.  As you can see, we failed that test by a rather large margin.  Still, it satisfied my craving for a hamburger.  We watched Heston Blumenthals' In Search of Perfection hamburger episode and laughed at his hoity-toity burger.  Um, if I were going to use American cheese slices, I wouldn't make them myself with a pound of comté and a bottle of expensive wine.  This is the Netherlands, so we opted for the simple solution of Gouda.  It was a good burger.  I'm afraid we're going to be eating them a little more often in the coming weeks. 

Taco Salads

The summer weather can be hit or miss here; some days we have sun and warm temps and other days, well…all I can say is that it’s the Netherlands.  I knew I wasn’t signing on for weeks of heat and humidity in the summer when I moved here, but every once in a while I have a craving for a sticky day.  I read this post, and it just brought back memories of taking my dog out to the breeder's property a few evenings a week in the summer to train him to hunt.  I loved those evenings in St. Louis when the heat of the day (although not the humidity) suddenly seemed to ease up.  Once I got home from training, I would pour myself a big glass of lemonade and be thankful my apartment had air-conditioning.

Oh, lemonade, just one of the things I can’t get here.  Also, no one believes in ice cubes.  For the most part, I don’t whine about the foods I can’t get here.  Wait, do I?  Maybe I whine here on the blog more than I do in real life.  During my first year in Amsterdam, I would get deeply upset about the unavailability of certain products—the hunt for cake flour was a particularly difficult moment.  As all ex-pats must learn, and as I've said before, you either learn to roll with the unavailability of certain goods, or you decide to fight against the “system.”  If you choose the latter, you will live in a constant state of misery and never truly learn to appreciate all the great things about living in a foreign country.  I might add that learning to love Dutch food—I’m not so sure that I would go so far as to say I love it—does not stop me from bringing back a suitcase full of the comforts of home every time I go to the U.S.  I already have a list for our trip to California in August, and you had better believe it includes such necessities as King Arthur flour, vanilla extract, and chocolate chips.

But what about all the foods I can’t transport in my suitcase?  What about all those freshly made meals that don’t seem to be available, because the Dutch don’t appreciate/know about them?  Anyone who has been around me in the last few years knows how obsessed I am with taco salads.  I blame Los Angeles for this.  All those Mexican restaurants spread out across the city can’t help but invite you in with their colorful tablecloths and fresh salsa bars.  If you then give me an amazing combination of crisp salad, creamy guacamole, beans, and steak all warmly held together in a fried tortilla bowl, how can I not help but fall in love?  I had never had anything like it before moving to SoCal, and I do miss it here on occasion.  A few weeks ago when the warm weather hit, I started getting really intense cravings for taco salads, and I have done my very best to create my own rendition here. What I have ended up making is like the imprint of an imprint of a taco salad.  It’s absolutely not the same, but it will suffice for the time being.  We use store-bought taco shells instead of making our own taco bowls, and I am ashamed to admit that I put shredded gouda on the salad.  To be honest, I accept my version of it because the avocados have been decent lately, and any sort of salad and bean combo tastes better when smothered in guacamole.  We've eaten taco salads for dinner at least once a week for the past few weeks and sometimes we eat them twice a week.  Man, do we know how to live it up, or what?

The rest of my summer cravings will have to wait for August.  In particular, I’m looking at you pitcher of lemonade and heirloom tomato salad with a side of grilled steak.  (Before someone points it out: I know I could make lemonade myself, but it would be expensive and would not flood me with childhood memories of mixing the concentrate with water in my mom’s special pitcher.  And yes, I’m sure some fancy market here sells heirloom tomatoes, but I guarantee no one here knows how to grill steak like an American.  Well, maybe someone does, but I have yet to be invited to that house for a backyard barbeque.)

A treat

The last few weeks have been full of fun and travel.  But instead of talking about my adventures, I want to tell you all that I got to eat a Primo's donut for breakfast.

A picture with James - to record the historic moment.  A real donut in Nigeria.

Primo's, if you've never been, is the best donut shop in Los Angeles.  Mr. and Mrs. Primo have been running the place since 1956.  The coffee is no good, but the donuts are light, fresh and cakey.  So James and I spend most Saturday mornings sitting in front of Primo's with coffee from home (for James) and a carton of milk (for me), eating our cinnamon/chocolate/buttermilk donuts.  Sometimes Mr. Primo comes outside and tells us about back when the neighborhood was covered in celery fields and the opening scene of "The Grapes of Wrath" was filmed on the dirt road that is now National Blvd.

Thanks for bringing me a taste of home, James!  

(PS.  Since I should be writing about Nigeria: there are donuts here, too.  They are a lot heavier and a lot less sweet than the American variety.  Also, they are called 'puff puff,' which is extremely fun to say.)

Back to the Grind

I've been back in Nigeria for just over a week and I'm already looking back fondly on all of the delicious food I ate in the Netherlands.  Have I mentioned the sausage yet?  And I could cry thinking about all of those opportunities that I had to drink milk and I didn't . . . what was I thinking?!  Now I'm back to tinned milk, which actually isn't so bad when mixed into hot Milo (a chocolate drink beloved by children . . . and me).  But then there are the times when you can't make your nightly mug of Milo because you don't want to dump anything down the sink because the snake-lizard-thingy who moved into your kitchen and you've named Babatunde has fallen into the sink and can't get back out ---

After spending an entire day living in my sink, Tunde and I decided that our cohabitation just wasn't going to work.  So I fished him out with a bowl and a dustpan and set him free in the wilds of the backyard.  And then I made a steaming mug of Milo with tinned milk.  Yummmmm.  (It turns out that tinned milk + lizard companion > plain old milk!)

(By the way, in addition to Tunde, I have a monitor lizard, a wild cat/lynx (true identity still under discussion) and something called an owawa, which my dictionary describes as a "dog-like creation that climbs down trees head-down" living in my yard!  The security guard has informed me that any one of these creatures would taste delicious, but I am hoping NOT to blog about cooking my backyard companions anytime soon.)

While visions of Pizza dance in my head . . .

Talking, via Skype, this morning:

Regan: I have to go back to the Immigration office this afternoon to try and pick up my visa.

Diana: Did you say pizza?

Regan: No. Visa.

Diana: Oh, because pizza sounds really good.

Regan: Yeah it does.

And now I've spent the entire day dreaming about cheesy, gooey, crispy pizza. And where am I going to get that, Diana? Hmmm?!