Hiatus over?

Honestly, it's just really time for the blog hiatus to be over.  I think I would feel better if I just got back into some form of writing at least once a week.  Are you allowed to come back to a blog after a six-month break?  Would it help if I said that I have been suuuuper busy, even if that has not always been true?

Here is the long and the short of it, which explains why I didn't write a word for so long.  I quit grad school and didn't want to talk about it any more than I already had.  I was then an unemployed, grad school drop-out and feeling kind of crappy about the whole thing even though I was so much happier than when I was in I-don't-want-to-write-my-dissertation-hell, and I didn't really want to discuss it on the interwebs.  I was suffering from some chronic injuries leaving me unable to run or exercise at all, making me sad and feeling gross, which I absolutely did not want to talk about.  All this blahness didn't really put me in the mood to cook creatively or make witty observations about life abroad, which is kind of a problem when those were the mainstays of the blog.

At the start of fall everything finally started coming together, it would seem almost effortlessly, but that would be a lie; there was a lot of effort involved. Still, it was amazing to see all the pieces falling into place.  I have a tentative job offer that I am truly excited about.  (Hello, full-time employment, I'm so excited to be reacquainted with you!)  My injuries, although still present and accounted for, are settling down and giving me a few good, albeit short--so horribly short--runs every week.  And, obviously, fall cooking is in full swing.  My favorite time of year to cook has come once again.  It's a good thing my toddler girl likes roasted vegetables is all I'm saying on the subject right now.

Anyway, time to get back to a bit of cooking and a bit of blogging.

Stress...just stress

A much more competent and organized person than I would be able to handle a few writing deadlines while maintaining a tiny blog.  How I wish I were one of those people.  I promise that Potatoes and Yams will again fill your blog reader with all sorts of wonderful tidbits about food and life abroad in the near future, as soon as I can stop stressing so much and Regan is fully recovered from her malaria scare.  For right now, though, all my writing energy is going into a horribly overdue chapter and a paper I am presenting at a conference in June that a bunch of respected Dutch historians will also be attending--nothing like heaping a little pressure on top of that stress--oh and also a writing project Sea Legs Girl is working on (my chapter is coming, I promise!).  So until I get a grip on myself, you can go check out her blog.  :)
I will leave you with a few lovely pictures of Koninginnedag, Queen's Day.  Every April 30, the streets become awash in a sea of orange-clad, drunk, Dutch people celebrating the glory of the monarchy. 
I took these pictures last year during my first Queen's Day experience.  I could only handle the large crowd for a few hours before escaping to the countryside for a little bike ride.  The lambs in the field were much more entertaining than the masses strolling around Amsterdam.  This past Friday, Niek and I skipped it altogether and escaped to a deserted beach with the dog.  It was awesome.

Scones and Work

Do you ever feel like you are just going to die if you don't get something as soon as possible that is sugary, breadlike and goes well with an afternoon coffee?  No?  Well, good for you, although I don't understand you at all.  I get those urges a lot, and Niek's suggestion to go eat a piece of fruit to stifle that craving is insulting.  Firstly, gross, fruit and lattés don't go together at all.  Secondly, I have tried that trick before and no matter what nutritionists say, an apple does not make my desire for cake go away.  If anything it leaves me irritated, because I feel full from that stupid piece of fruit but completely unfulfilled.

I'm trying to get myself into a bit of a re-writing frenzy (when am I not doing this?) so I can finish a chapter and send it to my advisor.  This means spending a lot of time at home willing myself to be productive and taking lots of "breaks" with housework and yes, occasionally baking.  There's nothing particularly Dutch about the scones I made for myself during one of these said breaks.  Regan could even make these in Nigeria if she could her hands on some chilled butter.  Fortunately the Dutch are plagued/blessed with a surplus of dairy cattle, so that's not a problem for me.

In fact, the price of milk and butter is shockingly low here, probably because they've been conditioned to consume dairy in large quantities.  It's the only place I've ever been where it is standard practice to serve milk and buttermilk as drink options during a conference lunch.  I've been to a few history conferences here, and it's always the same lunch: lunch meat sandwiches and cheese sandwiches (but never meat and cheese together) and your choice of milk or buttermilk.  You should have seen the look the caterer gave me when I practically had to beg for a glass of water instead.

So when I found myself needing a snack to go with my coffee, I went for quick and easy.  A few turns of the food processor and fifteen minutes in the oven later, I had dense scone topped with some sugar and cinnamon to complement the coffee and work.  So much more satisfying than an apple.

Coffee and cake...and then more coffee

I have to make this quick, because I have been kind of swamped with my writing schedule.  I have a chapter due on Friday and am nowhere near where I should be right now, so I am feeling a bit stressed about getting it done. 
Let me take a nice, relaxing moment to reminisce about the latté and apple pie I had just a week ago.  The pie, known as appeltaart here, is really kind of a cross between a cake and a pie.  There's a thin crust on the bottom, but the filling has enough flour in it to keep the apple slices from falling all over the place.  There are about a billion places in Amsterdam to get this national treasure, and I knew a Canadian ex-pat in one of my Dutch classes determined to try them all.  Her knowledge of appeltaart haunts was astounding and kind of scary.  This is the piece I shared with a friend in a cafe on a sleepy street in the center of Amsterdam. 

And just for comparison's sake, here is a picture of the appeltaart Regan and I split this past summer when she came for a visit:

That one had a thicker top crust and came with cinnamon ice cream, which was pretty awesome on a hot, August day.  I've never attempted to make it myself at home, mostly because the ones I order in the cafés are so good.  Maybe I should try a recipe, you know, with all that free time I've got on my hands.

And just a quick note on the beverage, the one I love probably too much.  Americans call it a latté, but the Dutch call it a koffie verkeerd.  You can also order a latté here, but you have to say [láh tuh] and not [lah tey] or the waitress will instantly know you are American and switch the conversation into English even if every other word you have said has been in grammatically correct and perfectly pronounced Dutch.  Just a heads up.  I usually say koffie verkeerd, because it means "messed-up" coffee, and I think it's a cute description.  A regular coffee is black and the "incorrect" one has a bunch of milk in it. 

So now I'm going to go make myself a coffee and get to my work writing.  As much fun as writing a blog post can be, I can't send it to my advisor as part of a chapter section.