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Top chef Richard Corrigan (in between the ubiquitous swearing):

‘C’mon, out some olive oil on it, yeh? They look as dry as a hoor’s heart.’

‘This is wild (rabbit) meat. It’s… happy! Until somebody takes it…’

I had black sesame ice cream at a Japanese restaurant here in Amsterdam the other day and though it had a hint of chocolate, unlike the white sesame and the green tea ice cream in the dessert.

Mikan Moblog has some info on Japanese style choclates with a sesame filling.

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My idea of fun: watching palefaces struggle with their chopsticks and unwilling noodles. The look of frustration is very amusing.

Some give up quickly and ask for a fork. Some persevere and conquer triumphantly.

Today at lunch time, I caught a young lady sporting knitted headwear looking over at me to see ‘how it’s done’. She had been stirring the noodles for a long time, trying in vain to roll them around her sticks.

I couldn’t help showing off. Checking my mobile in one hand, sticks with slippery slice of pepper in the other, I absently described imaginary words in the air with my food.

Knitted headwear lady bravely stuck with it and eventually finished her plate.

Chopsticks are, of course, very silly things.

A propos of two posts at MeFi (and I swear I’ve seen the subject discussed there and elsewhere before) and AskMeFi, what is your favourite soft drink?

Though I prefer tea, water and juices, mine’s a (Vanilla) Coca Cola with lots of ice. Also like or liked Dr Pepper (Mr Pib when I was little) and Exota red ‘gazeuse’ (no longer available) which came in Grolsch type bottles. These days that particular branch of hypercolour & carbonated water market’s nicely filled by Fernandez.

When I was twelve for the longest time all I wanted was ginger ale.

Update: ha! Vindicated, it WAS discussed before.

I have tasted Heaven and it’s called ‘Roast pineapple with coconut icecream’, served at the Whitstable Oyster Fishery Co in Whitstable on the coast in Kent.

According to the waitress, the pineapple is sprinkled with lime and orange juice before it’s roasted. My favourite part of a meal is usually the starter (Moules Meuniere), sometimes the main course (Baked cod), but this time the pudding won.

I hope Mr Diva wasn’t too troubled this morning as a result of our spicy meal at Tempo Doeloe (“one of the two best Indonesian restaurants in Europe” — says who?) here in Amsterdam last night.

I was particularly pleased with the service – outstanding for Amsterdam standards. Flawlessly addressing the Diva in English, myself in Dutch. Some of the dishes were unbelievably hot – my tummy’s a little sorry for that. Quite taken with their … was it beef, was it pork? With aniseed, anyway.

Sorry, no photographic evidence. We were simply too busy talking.

Remember our FUN “pizzamat”? The one that promised but did not deliver?

Well, here it is. After weeks of ‘does it, does it not dispense the goods’ one of our colleagues has finally coaxed a ‘Verdura’ from the hellish machine.

The verdict: “Hmm, yeah, edible.”

{“out of service”)

We all chipped in to test the Pizzamat this afternoon and were very disappointed to find our new machine still hasn’t been switched on. Yet somehow the ‘tonno’ sold out.

Our company installed a ‘Pizzamat’: a pizza vending machine. “The machine also dispenses the product frozen.”

( … )

I don’t know how we survived without it.

Two kinds of food make Dutch people as giddy as can be: ‘Pancakes’, and ‘chips ‘n’ apple sauce’. As a student, I was appalled to find out people considered this kind of nonsense a ‘treat’.

They are treats because they are what Dutch parents offer their kids on their birthdays. I’m sure it made a welcome change from the usual fare of spuds and veg, cooked to pulp. I’m sure you remember squishy cauliflower doused in sickly ready-made white sauce. I imagine generations of flowery dressed sherry sipping Dutch mothers mumbling “Must. kill. dangerous. veg. by stewing it in pot for at least a week”

A friend of mine, a college teacher and self confessed foodie, asked his first year students what their favourite restaurant was. They unanimously answered: ‘McDonalds’. Most likely, they – in their early twenties – had never seen the inside of a proper restaurant. The horror.

I grew up in a household where mum experimented with paella, even if my dad refused to eat fowl or fish. Where dessert was a plate of French cheese. Where on the weekend, parents and child would compete to cook the sweetest dinner. Boiled potatoes, staple food in northern Europe, saw my plate but once every few weeks. We grew our own and harvested one little basket each year, enough to get us through the winter.

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