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.)

California pining

Whew!  I am back from my conference in London and starting to feel a little more relaxed.  Well, I felt relaxed this morning, and then the panic about finishing chapter rewrites before the end of the month really set in.  All the members of my panel deemed the session a success, and it was fun to meet so many scholars and hear some great papers.  There were tons and tons of Nederlanders at the event, and I think I may have spoken more Dutch in London than English.
I would write about food in London, but considering the fact that I basically lived off of Pret a Manger sandwiches and Costa coffee for three days, there's very little for me to say on the matter this time around.  Instead, I will do a fluff post made up almost entirely of pictures of my time in SoCal.  Sadly, I didn't take that many pictures in California, I think because we were just busy having a good time with our friends...and oh yeah, getting ready for the conference.  Here are just a few things that made going back to the West Coast so great and just so different from my life in Amsterdam:

Beautiful views on a bright, sunny day at the Getty.  Regan still has a reader card for the Getty Research Institute, which means we got to park there for free!  Admission to the Getty is free, but there is a $15 parking charge, and it's pretty damn hard to get up there without a car.  That is why it pays every once in a while to be a graduate student.

Primo's Doughnuts.  Regan and James are regulars there.  Mrs. Primo even came out to give a goody bag of doughnuts to Regan's sister, who was leaving for Kansas after a visit out to L.A. I love a good doughnut.

Do not tell me that you wouldn't all do the same thing.  I look forward to getting a pedi before each and every visit.  Niek said he finally felt like he was on vacation after his pedi session.  The guy who did mine made a few comments about my runner's calluses, but he assured me that he had seen worse.  His words didn't seem to match with his facial expression, and I think we was relieved when I asked for the "extra" treatment.  God forbid my toes have calluses on them.

Ice cream isn't a food I really associate with L.A.; it's more of a frozen yogurt town these days.  However, if you're going to have ice cream, it will be fancy and made in small batches by cool hipsters somewhere near downtown.  I had some mocha Bailey's concoction and a scoop of a fancier version of cookies 'n cream.  The woman behind me in line asking which ice creams were vegan made it clear I was no longer in Europe.  Like the Dutch would ever consider a non-dairy based ice cream. 

Honestly, there is really nothing more to say about this.  Huevos Rancheros is an amazing dish!  Anything that combines breakfast with guacamole is a-okay in my book.  We went here twice for breakfast.  I miss you already, corn tortillas and avocados!

Last food picture, I swear.  Regan and James wanted to take us to a place in the Art District called, Wurstküche.  I love that the name of the place is in German but on the menu the sizes for the fries are written in Dutch, you know, because they're "Belgian" fries.  They actually weren't really Belgian style fries, but they were good with the handmade Bratwurst and the five kinds of mustard.
I laughed a little when I noticed the children's birthday party winding down in the private events room next to our table.  The cool parents were leaving with their little ones just as the younger crowd was showing up for happy hour.  I guarantee I never had a birthday party at a downtown hot spot when I was growing up.  I ate a lot of Usinger's Sasuage, though.  Does that count for something?




We did plenty of other things in between all the eating: Niek and I got to run up Runyon Canyon a few times, I went to a knitting store and spent too much on fancy types of yarn, we had plenty of good coffee, the conference presentation went fairly well, and so on and so forth.  A big highlight was the hike to a waterfall in the San Gabriel Mountains.

We hiked along the path of a 1920s camping resort.  The above sign was my favorite.  Regan is determined to rent the cottage pictured below for a weekend getaway.

James found a salamander, and then we proceeded to take about a million photos of the little guy before we let him slowly (ever so slowly, it was cold that day) take off for a more secluded spot.

I'll leave you with this slightly cheesy picture of me and Niek at the waterfall.  And before you start thinking, "Whoah, Diana, maybe you did have a few too many helpings of taco salads and french fries," I promise I have come by that little belly honestly.  It's only going to get bigger this summer, and hopefully in the fall I'll have a little person to show for all this gestating I'm doing.  L.A. was so much fun, and I miss all my friends so much already.  However, it's a good feeling to be home in Amsterdam.  I've got tons to get done in the next six months, and it's hard to write in L.A. on vacation.

California birthdays and beer cake...

I'm back in L.A. now, but I don't want to forget to post something about the great birthday celebration for my friend up in Davis now almost two weeks ago.  I can't believe that my time up there has already come and gone.  I don't get to see my friends very often given the fact that an ocean and almost an entire continent lie between us.  When we get together, there really should be at least one celebration of some sort to mark the occasion.  Luckily it was my friend's birthday, and we could all celebrate the fact that she is older than I am and always will be.  I love that a universal component to celebrations is good food.  We made a collaborative effort to create a fitting dinner for the day.  That meant my friend was on drinks duty, her husband manned the grill, and I volunteered (perhaps, begged would be a better word) to make a cake.

Here is a picture of my friend making a raspberry-rose gin rickey.  I had no idea what would go into that drink, because I don't think I had ever heard of it before.  It sounds like something my grandparents would know how to make.  The cocktail coupled with the apron she's wearing had us making jokes about 1950s housewives.  In fact, while she was making it, she told me that's her style of cooking: putting herself in charge of the cocktail hour while her husband preps the grill.  I wondered if we could have placed ourselves any more strongly into strictly defined gender roles.  Maybe we're all taking this Mad Men craze a bit too seriously these days.  Honestly, it was all in good fun, and who can resist wearing a cute apron?  I know I couldn't.

I had to wear something to protect my skirt while I dealt with the intersection between beer and baked good.

Honestly, how many shots of butter can this blog take?  I promise, though, this one was completely necessary.  It's the first time I have melted butter for a recipe in beer!  My friend loves chocolate and beer equally, and when I found a cake recipe that incorporated both, there was no way I was not going to try it.  I would show you a picture of the finished product, but we were too busy having a good time, and I completely forgot.  I think that was an indicator of a great party.  You can see how much I and two of my best friends enjoyed the cocktails and also how much my friend's nephew relished the taste of stout and chocolate.

It was a wonderful summer bar-b-que, and there couldn't have been anything more enjoyable (and perhaps also nothing more American) than a summer evening out on the patio with the grill going, side dishes packed with produce from the garden, and a picnic table full of friends and family.  I've kind of missed the easy camaraderie that only seems to happen with close friends.  It felt nice to back in California with my friends for a while, but strangely enough, I'm now starting to miss the Netherlands just a bit.  If only I could find a way to transplant my friends along with a big backyard and a massive grill to Amsterdam.  Then I would be all set.