Aubergine

bounty

Bounty from the garden.  Four kinds of tomatoes and two peppers of a variety I can no longer remember.

Bounty from the market.  Lilies, artichokes, sweet onion, chard, late season pluots and peaches, persimmons, figs (in the bag), olive oil, cheeses and pate, bread and pastries, coffee (already drunk), concord grapes, wheat grass (fo the cats) and heirloom tomatoes.  Can you believe I bought more tomatoes?

And yet more from the farm earlier this week:  pears and radishes and carrots and eggplants and more peppers and dry-farmed tomatoes and green beans and cauliflower and more concord grapes.

I'm grateful that I live in a place where there is such a variety of small-scale agriculture, and that I have the desire and income to support it.

Now, who's coming over so I can feed them?

on a roll

I had a pretty slow weekend.  I'm having trouble kicking a cold I brought home with me from my travels last week, and I think I'm still dealing with the tail end of jet lag, so my energy level is zapped.  We have a friend  staying with us for the Sentinel Triathalon yesterday and a few days this week visiting friends in town.  But for the most part I didn't do much of anything this weekend.  I did clean and organize the kitchen and dining room areas on Saturday afternoon, because I was sick of looking at the piles of clutter.  In the process I found a brownie recipe I wanted to try, but I didn't actually get the motivation to do that until fairly late on Sunday afternoon.  But then I got on a roll.

Ideally, when cooking, I like to have some music on, a glass of wine nearby, a good block of time, and someone at the kitchen counter to talk with me.  I had all of that yesterday afternoon, and it was wonderful.

I started with the brownies, a rich, eggy, low-flour recipe from a cookbook I bought while we were on our honeymoon but had not yet actually used.  It makes a huge batch - two 13x9 pans - and while they smelled divine and Lisa and Jennine say they taste great, they aren't quite the gooey fudgy texture I was expecting.  I think I overcooked them a little bit.  They weren't picturesque, either, so no photos.

 

And then I started in on the "using up" of fresh ingredients we have around from the garden, our farm and the market.  I bought a big bag of mission figs at the market Saturday morning, to make a fig compote from a recipe shared over a glass of wine recently by my friend Arch.  His version uses balsamic vinegar, and I wanted to try it with red wine, but I wasn't so impressed with the results of this batch.  It was good on fresh bread with goat cheese, but didn't have the *bam* of Arch's version.  Different wine next time, maybe.  It didn't actually use that many figs, so I have plenty more to try again.  If I don't eat them all straight out of the bag first.  Maybe one more week of figs from this farmer this season, then I'll have to wait for next year.  I'm also curious about using caramelized or sweet onions instead of shallots.  Apricots instead of figs.  I think this recipe has legs.  The compote doesn't actually have garlic in it, as this photo might make you think.  I was starting to prep for the next recipe.

We had two bunches of basil from the farm that was starting to wilt, so pesto, of course.  Because I'm still feeling sickly, I doubled the garlic.  Actually, that's not true, I always double the garlic in pesto.  I used a local olive oil from Frog Hollow Farms that is light and slightly nutty.  Yum.

And, of course, more tomato soup, because the tomatos are ripening as fast as we eat them up.  I'm honing my recipe: I realized this time that it needs more garlic in the base, a little bit more broth, and I added a good amount of sweet paprika at the end and blended it smoother.  Next time I'm going to roast the red peppers, too.  I forgot the lemon zest, and used a dollop of the garlicy pesto instead of fresh basil.  Good stuff.

All that garlic still didn't cure my cold, though.

Happy Fall

I love this season.  Knitting, pumpkins, the first rains, boots, turning leaves, chrysanthemums,  jackets and scarves, baking, spicy chai.

Even if it means the days are getting short.

recipe sketches

When reading the wonderful 101 Cookbooks blog this morning, I realized that  recipes do not spring from the forehead of cooks fully formed like I always imagined they did.  Instead, a good cook draws on his or her years of experience with flavors and ingredients, and will try different things, making the dish a little bit differently over and over until it is "right."  Like I sketch.  I try the lines again and again, until they are right.  Finished recipes are the result of sketching in the kitchen.

When I was in Amsterdam last week, I had an amazing tomato soup on a drizzly day, sitting across the table from meriko at Cafe de Jaren, which was about the midpoint between our two hotels.  Today, I'm back in California again, working at home with the tail end of a cold, and wishing I were still in Amsterdam.  It is blustery outside, not quite fall, but getting there.  Our tomato plants were groaning under the weight of ripe tomatos when we got back, and now baskets of that bounty are all over the kitchen counter.  Must. Use. Tomatos.  Hey, I could make tomato soup for lunch!

So I hunted around a bit for some ideas: a little bit from Lobstersquad and a little bit from 101 Cookbooks, a little bit more from Lobstersquad.  And then I went in the kitchen to sketch.  So this is the result: my riff on the tomato soup at Cafe de Jaren.  It amuses me a bit that I'm actually writing this down, as I usually can't  manage to follow a recipe exactly as printed to start with, so keeping track of what I was doing while I was doing it was sort of strange.  And I always spice by taste, not by measure, so you're on your own with proportions there.  But it was really good, and I used almost half the tomatos and have plenty of soup left over for lunch tomorrow.

Garden Tomato Soup (a la Cafe de Jaren)

1/2 onion, chopped small (I used red because it was all I had, but a sweet onion would probably be good)
2 small sweet peppers, chopped small
1/4 c olive oil
1/2 t salt
4 cloves garlic, minced
3-4 cups mixed fresh tomatos, diced
1 1/2 c chicken broth (or bullion + water, if that's what you have)
1/3 c cream or half and half.
6-7 fresh basil leaves, chopped
zest of half a lemon
seasonings to taste: salt, pepper, cumin, corriander, sweet paprika, a bit of sugar

In a large sauce pan, saute the onion and pepper in oil and salt until soft.  Add the garlic and saute another minute or so.  Add diced tomatos (I diced and tossed in the pan as I went, so I had some tomatos cooked way down, some more firm - pre-dicing the tomatos would give you a more even texture in the finished soup.  If your tomatos have thick skin, you might want to skin them before dicing).  Simmer until the tomatos have lost their shape - 5-7 minutes.  Add broth, basil, zest and spices. Use an immersion blender to blend the soup until smooth or desired consistency.  Stir in cream.  Adjust spices to taste.

Serve with a dollop of creme fraiche, ribbons of fresh basil, and a big hunk of good bread.  Good for what ailes ya.

I was using Early Girl and Juliet tomatos in this soup, because that's what we grew this year, but I bet that using some stronger-flavored heirloom tomatos would send this soup off into a whole other realm of yumminess.  For the record, the taste wasn't really so much like the Jaren soup, but the texture was very close, and I enjoyed it just as much.  Although meriko is still on a plane somewhere, not quite home yet, and I was eating alone in my kitchen, so the company wasn't quite as good.

Amsterdam journal, Part 2

September 12
Lisa's plane touches down just after 8 in the morning, and the plan is for her to take the train to Centraal Station and meet me at our hotel in Jordaan, after I check out of where I've been staying and walk over.  I get her SMS that she's landed and I get my stuff together and start walking.  Probably I should have taken a cab.  My bag is heavy, even on rollers, and I'm hot and sweaty and more than a little irritated by the time I arrive.  But I make it, we check in, she cleans up and has a little bit of rest.  We're renting a room from some guys who run an antique store and have several rooms around Jordaan.  Our space is a downstairs room near the corner of Singelgracht and a cute little canal called Blauwburgwal.  A private entrance, a tiny patio, a little fridge.  Perfect.

Next, food, though it is halfway between lunch and dinnertime.  I had some Jordaan restaurant recommendations from Samir, so I walk us over to Cafe t' Small, a few blocks from our room.  There is a floating platform on the canal edge, across the cobbled path from the restaurant, and we settle in.  They serve "toasti" sandwiches and salads, and Lisa orders a salad with goat cheese and toasted nuts.  When it comes, we are surprised at how good it is.  The food and time to talk help us both to feel much better.

Today is mostly about Lisa getting her bearings and adjusting to the time zone.  We walk around Jordaan a bit, locate a couple of our haunts from our last visit.  We find more graffiti by the same artist whose words I found outside of Marius.  We go to the grocery store, get some water and something for breakfast.  We wander through the shopping area back in the middle of Centrum. 

We've planned to meet up with Samir and his family for dinner, and we meet them in Spui (pronounced "spow" which I have the hardest time remembering) to eat at the Indonesian restaurant that was originally recommended for my first night in Amsterdam, but was pooh-poohed by the concierge at my hotel.  I want to try it anyway.  It is called Kantjiel an de Tiger (The Antelope and the Tiger).  It is larger, more modern and less Indonesian-looking, and the service is faster and more casual.  The food is actually quite good, though, and the faster service is good for little Reyhan, who isn't so interested in sitting still for long.

Lisa's exhausted after dinner, and we go to bed early, but I've adjusted to the time already and have been in the habit of staying out late.  I lay in bed for hours and read, finishing my book that deals with the sad consequences of endless longings, and then cry myself to sleep in the early hours of the morning.  I'm such a sap.

September 13
A slow start this morning, after my late night.  Also, the pillow on the bed is down and musty, and I wake with a full-on allergy attack.  We want to go to Haarlem today to hear the old pipe organ in the Grote Kirk, and finally motivate out of the room around noon.  We visited the Grote Kirk on the first day of our first trip to Amsterdam - our first trip to Europe ever - 4 years ago.  It is a beautiful place.  Haarlem is only about 15 minutes by train from Amsterdam, and the trains run often, so it is an easy enough hop.  I remembered there being really cute little garden areas between the train station and the church, and I want to take pictures this time.  I am so much more skilled with my camera now than I was then, and I'm excited to photograph the place differently than I did before.  But although we wander in a zig zag pattern, we can't find the pretty little alleys I remember from before. 

Can't miss the church, though, and we enter just as the organist is starting a piece of Beethoven that I recognize.  We sit and listen, wander and explore. Although the organ is beautiful, and really is huge, the church is equally expansive, and the notes seem to get lost in the rafters.  I want the music to feel like a thunderstorm, but it doesn't.  Beautiful, but not overwhelming.  Is this the difference between the Calvin and the Catholic experience?  My impression of Italian and French churches, even the little ones, is that they are the home of GOD, and don't you dare forget it.  This is more like a place god visits, on polite invitation, but it is much more human-centric.

This church is plain, compared to those Latin-infused churches.  Even the stained glass is fairly plain.  I do love the austerity of this church, the beauty in the lines of the arches and the geometry of the roof.

 

And yet, if you look close enough, you can still see the storytelling in the carving and the decorations, intented to teach religion and morality to the illiterate masses.  Just not quite as overtly as you might find at Notre Dame or St. Peter's.

In the back of the church there are a series of paintings on display - illustrations of psalms done in a slightly abstracted style that draws me in.  I can't tell if they are oil paint or encuastic, or a mixture, and I spend a long time studying them.  Thy are brightly colored, an incongruous contrast from the simplicy of the rest of the building.

When we finally emerge from the church the sky is darkening with clouds, which makes for some moody photographic opportunities.  We've missed lunch, but it isn't dinner time yet, so we find some frites and eat in the square in the shadow of this big church and people-watch before heading back to the train and Amsterdam.  Now that my photographer's eye is on, I find that even the train station is beautiful.

When we get back to town, I drop Lisa at a coffeeshop in Jordaan so I can explore the neighborhood in the beautiful evening light.

Once the light is used up, I introduce Lisa to Wynand Fockinck, and she's charmed, as I was.  We're killing time now, waiting out the early dinner hour so we can get a later table.  We wander through Dam Square and down Kalverstraat, people watching.  In Dam Square at twilight, a rapper with a boombox for backbeat is accompanied by someone playing a doumbek drum that echoes out across the square and off the walls of the Palaise.  We stop to listen and watch another street performer, a woman with a silver hula hoop, encorporate their music into a sinuous line of glittering light that travels up and down the movement of her body.

We arrive at an Italian place on Spuistraat at 9pm that I'd heard about from a friend, and put our names in for a table.  The place is so small we can see every table from the street where we wait, but no one is leaving.  Finally, we're seated about 9:40, along with some other folks who walked in off the street right behind us with no wait.  Next time we'll know:  late dinner shift is 9:30, not 9.  The food is good but not spectacular, and the group at the table next to us is chain smoking and my allergies are still lingering.  We reach a point where we realize we can't really taste the food any more and get anxious to leave, but it is hard to get the check in a Dutch restaurant.  I feel grateful that I live in California, where smoking is not allowed in restaruants at all.  There is less smoke here than I remember from our first visit, but still far more than I'm used to, and tonight it feels overwhelming and gross. Even my hair smells bad, and I'm grateful that it is too short to actually be in my face.

Today is meriko's birthday, and we text back and forth to settle on a plan to meet at a bar in Jordaan after she returns from her dinner at De Kas.  None of the four of us have the actual address, just the name and the street (De Kat en de Wijngaert on Lindengracht), so it is a bit of an adventure to find the place, but we finally do, and toast her with a glass of the good Dutch beer I'm growing fond of just before the bar shuts for the night.  We all head home to our respective rooms.  No late reading for me tonight  - I'm exhausted.

Sept 14
Today the first order of business is laundry.  I've been travelling long enough now that I'm out of clean clothes and even the ones that don't really need a wash still smell like smoke.  We find a laundry a few blocks over and get there early enough to do a load before we have to get to De Kas for our lunch reservation that meriko was kind enough to make for us when she was there the day before.  Doing laundry in a foreign country is always a bit of an adventure in translation of odd English, even if you are lucky enough to find signs printed in English.  Luckily the proprietess is friendly and willing to show us what to do.  We discover an excellent bakery right across the street and sit in the sun front of the laundry with fresh sausage and spinach/cheese rolls for our breakfast while our clothes get clean.

After dropping our clothes back at the room, we walk up to the train station to catch a taxi out to De Kas.  We've been to this restaurant once before, on our last trip.  That time, we went for dinner, and my youngest sister Deborah was with us.  It was one of those amazing meals that comes up in conversation pretty regularly.  "Remember that ___ we ate at De Kas?  That was so good,"  whenever we have some inferior version of that same ingredient at home.  It is really cool this time to be there in daylight.  The restaurant is built into a huge greenhouse, and set in the middle of an open park area.  All windows, filled with pretty views.  The dining room is large, and although there are a good number of other diners, we are seated in a corner away from the larger groups.  The table settings are simple and elegantly pretty.

The food this time is amazing as well, starting with possibly the best olives I've ever tasted, and continuing through veal tartare (something I'd only eat in Europe), roasted beets with lobster tail, place fish served over a simple roasted vegetable mix with mashed potatos that Lisa swears she could eat at every meal for the rest of her life.  We have the cheese course, skip dessert, but the coffee comes with sweets, so we aren't really missing anything.  Even these are spectacular - lavender merengues, fresh fruit gelles, and somthing with lemon curd and almonds that halfway between marzipan and a lemon tart.  Simple food, exquisitely prepared.  Perfection.  We eat for two and a half ours, then wander through the greenhouse to smell the variety of basils before we head out to our waiting taxi.

We ask the driver to take us to the Botanical Garden, which is next to the Jewish Quarter where I want to walk.  The sky is starting to threaten rain, though none was forcast today, and while we stand outside the Garden trying to decide if we want to go in or save this on our next trip, the rain arrives.  I'm game to tough it out, but after walking through the Jewish Quarter and back across the Amstel to centrum, it is raining hard and Lisa is skeptical of my standing under-the-eaves trick, so she talks me into ducking in to a coffee shop to wait it out.  We're not the only ones with this idea, and it is a damp but friendly place to hang out for a while.  The barkeep jokes that you get every season every day in Amsterdam, and I have to agree.  When the rain eases, we head up to Kalverstraat, where I want to pick up a pair of shoes I've been eyeing for days.  For *months* I've been looking for a pair of brown pumps for work, and not finding anything I like.  My first day here, I found three pairs in the same shop window, and I'm determined not to go home without one of them.  Today, mission acomplished. 

But it is raining again, so we head for Cafe Luna, an adorable little place I first read about on the Blop [p] blog (I love her drawings!). I'm completely enamored of their stripey walls, and the food and coffee is excellent as well.  A very nice place to sit out part of a rainy afternoon. 

We stopped for groceries on the way back to our room, both for a light dinner and to make a picnic for tomorrow.  We're planning to rent some bikes and take the ferry across to Amsterdam Noord to ride in the countryside, something we've wanted to do here since our first visit.  Despite the rain today, it is supposed to be sunny and nice tomorrow, so we have our fingers crossed.

After returning to the room and eating, we walk down to what has become our neighborhood coffeeshop to sit and play cribbage until we are ready for bed.  I spent a while trying to draw some canal houses from a photo, but got frustrated with my rendition.  I had a fantasy of spending lots of time sitting and drawing on this trip, but that hasn't really panned out.  Partly because there aren't a lot of really good places to sit and also have a good view, but also because we've been on the gogogo, and I have to be in a certain calm headspace to get into a drawing.  Oh, well.  There will be other trips.

Sept 15
Today is bike day.  First we stop by the antique shop to settle up for our room.  I've also lost track of what day it is (vacation mission accomplished), so I confirm it is really Saturday with the nice guy we're renting from, and we have two days before checking out and needing to show up for our flight home.  The antique store guy has  been moving in to the flat above us over the last few days, so we've seen (and heard) him coming and going.  There is a large statue of a saint in the front room of his new flat, and we've been watching passers-by stop to point at it from our vantage point of our window, below his.  St. Nickelaus, he says.  We had guessed St. Patrick, since he's dressed in green, but St. Nickelaus makes more sense for Holland.  Though it isn't close to Christmas, and would you really want to have a life-size saint in your dining room all the time?  Odd.

We go to Frederic's to rent bikes - 10 Euros each for 24 hours, two locks that are demonstrated for us, and off we go.  My bike is green, "For Scotland!" the bike guy says.  He sounds like he's from Scotland.  The antique store guy is from Portugal.  Sometimes it seems like hardly anyone here is actually Dutch. 

We have packed our picnic lunch, and swing by that good bakery again to get some breakfast to discover the square is swarming with people for the Saturday market.  I wish we'd known, as it looks interesting, but we're finding the crowd hard to navigate with bikes that we aren't used to yet, and we do want to get going on our ride.  Lots of folks are leaving the market with enormous bouquets of flowers, and I marvel at how they balance their bundles and packages on their bikes.  My penchant for extravagant flowers would find me in good company here. 

We've read that there are two free ferries across to Amsterdam Noord that leave from behind Centraal Station, but when we get to the ferry docks, there are 5 or 6 ferries to choose from, and all the signs are in Dutch.  We eventually deduce which one is the right one, and push our bikes on.  The crossing only takes a couple of minutes, and it is a bit of mayhem to unload on the other side.  Pedestrians, scooters, motorcycles, and a small car are all sharing the same deck, and no one is directing traffic.  Somehow it all works out, and we're off.  We don't have a map, but Lisa has an idea where she wants to go - toward Edam - and as we ride we start to realize how to read the signs on the bike path.  It is actually pretty well marked, so I start to relax about whether we are going to be able to find our way back, and just enjoy the ride.

We've left the city behind on the other side of the Ij, and once we ride past the edge of the shipyard near the ferry, we are definitely in rural Holland.  And it is flat.  Really flat.  No mountains to be see on any horizon, which is really weird for this California girl.  It does make the bike riding easy, though.  We ride along a pretty, wide canal for a long way, admiring houseboats and cows.  We see a few other riders, but mostly we have the place to ourselves, and it is incredibly quiet and peaceful.

It is well past lunchtime when we decide to stop to eat in the village of Broek en Waterland, and ride a circle around the ancient church looking for a good picnic spot.  The church bells start pealing in celebration of a wedding and we see the groomsmen in a boat heading around the back of the church, on their way to the party.  Eventually we find a bench facing out to a wide spot in the canal, where an older couple is also enjoying their repast.  It is nice to watch the boats come and go and I'm reminded of canal traffic in Venice.  This waterway is a well-used thoroughfare, as much as the bike path we've been riding on.

After being off the bikes for a while, we have to talk ourselves back in to getting on them again, as the hard seats and cobblestones are starting to cause tender spots on our backsides.  But Lisa's determined, and I'm game, so we continue on. 

We ride as far as ****, which is a very pretty little village, with shaded canals , quiet cobbled streets, and  a large and crumbling old church, where they seem to be having some kind of modern art exhibition. I wander around taking pictures of the church while Lisa looks for an open restaurant where she can use the bathroom.

We find a big directory sign near the church with a map and realize that we've ridden almost 9 miles from the ferry docks, and Edam is another 4-5 miles away.  I'm feeling tired and bruised already, so we decide to turn back and retrace our route back toward Amsterdam.

The light here in the afternoon is magical.  The canal is so still, and the light is so pretty, and I make Lisa stop over and over to let me take pictures, though only a couple of the ones I take really capture the serenity of the place.

The bike path goes on and on - we really did ride a long way - and I'm exhausted by the time we get back to Broek en Waterland, so we stop for a cup of coffee and a rest off the bikeseats.  Coffee is often served with a small cookie, often gingerbread, a custom I've quickly grown to appreciate.  Usually the cookies are individually wrapped pre-packaged things, though quite good, but this little cafe serves handmade gingerbread cookies that are exquisite.  While Lisa lounges, I stand on the corner and draw a pretty house in my journal.  Finally, a little bit of on-site drawing!  Our waitress overhears us talking about the remaining ride back to the ferry, which we are assuring each other is very short.  She says it takes her 45 minutes on her morning commute each day along the same path.  Damn.  Our level of bike-seat discomfort is becoming comical, and we spend the rest of the ride laughing (and wincing) and trying to find the most comfortable perch.  Even my hands are bruised now, as I've been shifting my weight forward off my tailbone for miles.  I'd written in my journal when we stopped for lunch that I was going to be sore tomorrow, but I'm sore now.  I'm not going to be able to walk tomorrow.  Bike riding is good exercise.  I really should do it  more often.

Finally we arrive back at the docks and ride the ferry across (we're pros now, the crowd of bikes exiting the ferry doesn't faze us), and return to our room to rest.  Although it seems like we've been riding all day, it isn't actually that late.  We have missed Frederic's closing hour, though, so we lock the bikes up securily on our tiny patio and cross our fingers that they won't get stolen overnight.  We're probably overly cautious, but I've heard so much about bikes getting stolen here that I'm paranoid.  We guzzle water and take some Advil (traveller's best friend - I never travel without it), and Lisa heads out to do a little souvenier shopping and I collapse on the bed with a book.

The rest does me good, and I'm ready to find some dinner by the time Lisa gets back.  Actually, I'm *starving* after so much exercise and only a fairly light breakfast and lunch.  We wander until we find Cafe de Reigel, where Samir swears he had eaten the best mussels in his life, but it is Saturday night and they are packed.  We can't even get a server's attention to ask about the wait.  We decide to go back to one of the restaurants I was familiar with along Rozengracht, and try the tapas place first, since Lisa hasn't had tapas here yet.  But they are *jammed* with people, so we wind up at the Indonesian place again, where I'd eaten my first meal here.  The service is a little faster this time, as it is later in the evening and they are motivated to get us through the meal and out so they can go home.    The food here is really quite good, but the chicken soup is phenomenal.  I need to find a recipe for Indonesian chicken soup when I get home.  Light and lemony with just the right amount of noodles to balance the broth.  There is no carousing for us tonight, as we're half asleep by the time we leave the restaurant.  We walk home and collapse.

Sept 16
Today is our last full day and I'm determined to take a bunch of pictures.  I'm glad that I've been experiencing, and not hiding behind my lens, but I find this place so pretty and I want to try to capture some of it.

I can tell the weather is going to be gorgeous, so we make a plan to walk all the way down to the museumplein so I can explore the sculpture garden at the Rijksmuseum.  But first we have to return the bikes.  We're really sore, though the advil and a good night's rest has helped somewhat.  I hope that walking today will also help loosen up our stiff muscles.  We stop by our now-favorite bakery on the way to the bike shop, but they are closed!  Drat!  There's a small Albert Hein nearby where we find an alternate breakfast, and stand on the sidewalk to eat it, while we watch the Sunday morning neighborhood foot traffic.  After dropping the bikes, we consult the map and head off across town toward the Rijks.

It is a pretty long walk, it turns out, and the Museumplein area is swarming with tourists.  I haven't been here since our first trip, and I'd forgotten how busy and plastic this area is.  I've gotten used to the quiet, pretty Jordaan neighborhoods, and the sounds of Dutch, not tourist, voices.  I marvel at the idea that many tourists only ever see this part of Amsterdam, and never see the parts I've grown to love out on the edges, away from the tourists centers.

By the time we finally locate the Rijksmuseum, our light breakfast is long since used up, and we backtrack for lunch at the Wagamama nearby.  We first found Wagamama in London, when we were there in January, where you can't throw a stone without hitting one.  It is a vaguely Japanese noodle house, designed for quick, simple meals.  Sort of the antithesis of Dutch food culture, but perfect for the middle of our day today.  And the food it healthy and tasty.  I notice they have a cookbook for sale, but I'm already worried about getting everything back in my suitcase tonight, so I decide to skip it and look for it online when I get home. 

Refreshed, we return to the Rijks, only to discover that half of the sculpture garden is locked up tight for the weekend.  I'm sure my tourbook would have told me this, but I forgot to look.  The part that is open is nice, if small, and we walk around the exterior of the huge Rijks building, most of which has been closed for renovations for years.  Someday I'll come to Amsterdam and this museum will be open, but for each of my three trips so far, only one wing has been open to visitors.  But is a gorgeous building, even in its state of mid-repair.

We wander our way back up toward Muntplein, stopping for a while to watch some guys moving furniture by rope and pulley up into an apartment on the fourth floor.  They really do use those hooks on the fronts of buildings for this purpose! 

As we walk through centrum, I carry the bittersweet sense of being about to leave a place I love and not knowing when I'm going to see it again.  I catalog the things I'll miss as we walk: this view, the familiarity of that intersection, the way the buildings lean on each other and seem to hold each other up, the harsh music of Dutch being spoken around me, the arc of this bridge, the street performers in this square, this bar.

We return to Wynand Fockinck for our evening apertif, and because we are in no particular hurry, we sit a while in the alley and talk to the regulars.  One works in the GPS industry, and travels to the Bay Area often - he visits our home as we visit his.  We have another round as the sun angles low, then decide to walk over to Cafe de Jaren, so I can have another bowl of the tomato soup I've been craving since I had it last week before Lisa arrived.

It is a pretty walk through the grounds of a university, and not far, though me stopping to take pictures every few feet slows us down a bit.  The cafe serves a more formal dinner in the evening, and we walk through the dining room to the back patio in search of a more casual meal.  The patio is on a corner where two canals meet, overlooking a small pedestrian draw bridge in one direction and a larger road bridge the other way.  We order our soup, cheese and olives, Kreik for me, mint tea for Lisa, and it would be entirely pleasant if not for the young woman chain smoking at the next table and the slight breeze blowing her smoke directly into our faces.  My irritation with her smoke in my food makes me a bit homesick for California's no-smoking laws, and reminds me that home is good, and not everything about "away" is better than home.  Just different.  I realize that I'm starting to look forward to being at home.  I miss cooking my own food, sleeping in my own bed, getting my clothes out of the closet and not a suitcase.  I miss the cats.  I miss my studio.

After dinner, we walk back to the hotel to pack up our cases for our morning departure (though I can't resist taking more pictures of crooked buildings along the way).  We end the evening back at Amnesia, over cribbage and tea, and the last gingerbread cookie of the trip.

In the morning, the alarm is set for "early" as we have to walk to the train station to catch a cab to the airport, and our flight is scheduled for 11AM.  It is raining again.  We're pretty much drenched by the time we get to the taxi stall, and we steam up the cab on the 20 minute ride out to the airport (this cabbie is not a talker - he barely says 5 words to us).  When we arrive, we are told that our flight has been delayed for a couple of hours, but my business class ticket at least gets us an invitation to a lounge where we can relax and play more cards while we wait.

The flight home is long, and we are seated separately in business class and sardine class.  One of the hostesses recognizes me from the flight over, which amuses me for some reason.  As usual, I only sleep a little on the first leg and feel gritty and wired when we arrive in Atlanta.  We spend forever in line at customs which leaves us with just enough time to get to the gate for the second leg.  And then, finally, home, or at least a familiar airport, familiar sights, familiar language and cadence of speech around us.  We've hired a car to take us home (a suggestion from a friend who used to travel a lot for work, and the best idea ever - we now do this when we return from any overseas trip), and our driver makes up for the quiet cabbie in Amsterdam by chatting non-stop from the baggage claim to San Mateo, and maybe further, but by then I've been lulled to sleep by the motion of the car.  Why do cars make me sleep, and planes keep me awake?

By the time we get to the house it is 10PM, and I'm glad I can go straight to bed without calculating what time my body thinks it is and how much longer I should stay up to try to adjust to the local time.  It is bed time here, and I'm going to bed.  Lisa stops to say hi to the cats and I'm asleep already by the time she crawls in next to me.  And I sleep through until morning.  Home.

Amsterdam journal, part 1

Sept 5
Lisa drove me up to SF late in the evening to stay at meriko's house, closer to the airport for our early start.  Patrick, meriko and I will be travelling together.  Neither of them are quite packed, and they are still engaged with work things. We have to get up at 5 to make our flight. I go to bed after midnight to the sounds of them still fussing around upstairs.

Sept 6
Early start today, all three of us in the back of a taxi to the airport with a storytelling driver before dawn.  He barely needs our polite filler words for motivation, and is regaling us with frightening stories of taxi-jackings and murders of both drivers and fares.  We're glad to get out at the airport.

Business class is the way to fly. I read an entire book between SF and Atlanta.

A coworker's mom met us at the Atlanta gate with a non-stop stream of friendly southern hospitality while she walked us to the business class lounge. Lisa would fit right in here. So would our cabbie.

Sept 7
When we arrive in Amsterdam early in the morning, I find that my phone has no service, despite 2 weeks of trying to get approval for a service plan for this trip.  meriko sends an SMS to Lisa to let her know we've arrived.  We all pile into another taxi, and he enters the address for m&P's hotel in his GPS, but I can see from my front seat vantage point that he's entered the wrong street.  An amusing/frustrating tour of centrum ensues, while he circles around and around looking for the right combination of street and address.  Finally he admits he's lost, turns off the meter and asks for directions.  And then asks again a few minutes later when we are obviously no closer.  I try pointing out the place on a map.  I try pointing out the place on meriko's phone with Google Maps.  Finally, we get him close enough and convince him to stop the car so they can get out and walk the last few blocks.  He's relieved when I give him the address to my hotel on Dam Square and he knows where it is without aid of the GPS.

I check in to my grand hotel (thanks, Apple!), connect to the internet, and shoot off a note to our admin, asking for emergency help with the phone.  It is really early morning back home, so I don't expect an answer right away.  Strange to go from a life where I am so digitally connected all the time to being unhooked like this.  I take a quick nap and a shower, as we've planned to meet up again at 2pm for a bite and a beer.

But then they don't show up at the meeting place.  And I can't text or call them.  And I've only had about 3 hours of sleep in the last 24, so I'm pretty discombobulated by that point.  I walk around in circles for a bit, not entirely sure I'm at the right cafe, but they are not anywhere to be seen, so I head back to my room, and send m. an email.  And then realize that I've lost my scarf.  I know I had it when I left the room, and I remember adjusting it just outside the door of the hotel, but now it is gone. It was one I really liked, too. 

Alright then.  This is a good opportunity for me to forge out and get my bearings and get comfortable - and buy another scarf because it is chilly here and I'm going to need one.  I look at a map and realize that I'm close to a  shopping street I'd visited on my last trip to Amsterdam, so I head  over there and start poking through the shops.  Wow.  I love the clothes here.  And so many boots!  I found an H&M store that had a good selection of scarves, and got a hat and a pair of gloves, too - all of them pretty inexpensive.  The hat is adorable on me (I think so, anyway). 

I found a cool antique book market near Spui, and a shop that sold frites, so I sit and have a snack, then head back towards the hotel.  It is late afternoon by this point, and the light is pretty, so I wander down a few alleys to take some pictures.  I stop in at Lush for some face wash and a new tin of Whooosh, which I forgot to pack.  At each shop, people are speaking Dutch to me!  I must be pulling off the Euro look adequately well to at least lead to the assumption I'm local - until I open my mouth.  Still, I like the feeling of blending in.

Finally back at the hotel, I check with the concierge, and someone has turned in my scarf. ("I think we will make you happy again," he said).  I get an email from meriko that they'd fallen asleep and didn't wake up in time for our meet up.  And I get an email from Adam that he's madly working to solve my phone issue back at the office.  And then, a few minutes later, one instructing me to power cycle my phone to activate the connection.  Finally.  I'm connected again.  Just in time for meriko to SMS me asking to arrange the dinner reservation for our group - her hotel isn't big enough to have a concierge, and Stephen is still at the conference center, where the show opened today.

I have an amusing/frustrating (see a pattern here?) conversation with the concierge, who doesn't want to make me a reservation at the restaraunt I've requested, because he doesn't think it is very good. He recommends another one, "More authentic."  Fine. I'm too tired to argue with him, though when I try to call him back to go ahead with the reservation, he's not answering.  I punt back to meriko to call the new restaruant. I meet up with Stephen in the lobby and we walk over to the place, which turns out to be a bit further than we thought.  Somehow, I'm the one with the map, directing us, and I'm really starting to feel the effects of not enough sleep, but we get there without too much trouble.  Then a text from m&P saying they've overshot the street on the tram, and are walking back - start without them, they'll be a while!  The service at this restaurant turns out to be painfully slow, but the beer comes fast enough, and the food, when it comes, is delicious.   

We walk by an Apple store on the way back, and I've had enough beer to be talked into posing for silly pictures.  Which then quickly get emailed to anyone who is anyone back home.  I'm really glad to get back to my hotel and into bed.

Sept 8
I planned to get to the show floor early today, on Stephen's suggestion ("The Europeans don't show up until after 11 - come early before it gets crowded.") so I set my alarm for 7:30, but can't manage to wake up until 9.  and I'm moving really slowly.  Shower, get dressed, read through the show magazine to form a plan of attack, a brisk walk over to the Albert Hein grocery store for breakfast foods to keep in my room, then locate the tram stop and ride out south of town to the RAI conference center.  I finally arrive at 1pm.  So very European I am.

The show is huge, overwhelming, loud, and crowded.  It takes me forever to find the Apple booth, even with a map of the center.  This is far harder than finding a restaurant in the maze of old Amsterdam streets.  This is more like finding a restaurant in a maze of Venetian streets.  I sit in on some demos at the Adobe booth, then meet up with another co-worker, Samir, to wander around the halls a bit, mostly just getting my bearings.  Finally, we both admit exhaustion and head back to town for a cup of coffee before the Apple party at Rembrantplein that evening.  A couple hours of quiet is good for us, and we are revived when we meet up with the rest of our group at the party, though we still resort to sitting in a clump in the corner, and not mixing like we should be.  I'm fighting, and losing, the sense that I'm just not earning my keep on this trip.  I'm out of my element.

We've planned dinner at an authentic tapas place in the Jordaan, so we gather our group and leave the party early.  La Plancha is a bit hard to find, but the walk is nice, and Jordaan is pretty, and the bar was open at the party, so we're in no particular hurry.  meriko is guiding us with the map on her phone, but some of us get the sense we are headed the wrong way.  We have a showdown in the street with a paper map vs.  iPhone, and this time the paper map wins.  We find a street party, live music and a big crowd in the middle of an otherwise quiet street, and unanimously declare that we love this place.  We declare it again later in the evening when our server settles himself at the bar with a guitar and starts playing Andalusian folk music and singing with one of the regulars.  We toast him with glasses of the best sangria we've ever tasted before closing out our tab with shots of a liquer called "43," rich with vanilla and cloves.  Really, we love this place.

Although it is late now, we're not ready to sleep.  The group splits up, and several of us walk back across the center of town to a coffee shop that is a favorite of an ex-co-worker who isn't with us.  We send him a text message, though, telling him where we are and that we miss him. The group splits again, and meriko leads us off in search of "A good bar, I'll know it when I see it," and Patrick and I are happy to follow in her wake.  We wind up back in Jordaan, and settle in with beer on a patio, facing a canal.  I don't usually like beer, but I like it here.  Is it the beer or the environment?  A group of Dutch guys sit at the tables next to us, and after a while a couple of them start chatting with us.  The conversation starts with their disappointment in our president, and we agree with them heartily.  "I never meet Americans who admit to voting for him," they guy next to me says.  "How did he win the election?"  Then he wants to know who we support for the next president, out of the current candidates.  We launch into a conversation about Hillary vs. Obama and whether a woman or a black man has a better chance with our voters, and how it is less about their politics, and more about the chances of actually winning.  I love that I can sit next to a random person here and he is informed about our goverment.  This doesn't happen in the states.  Random people at home often don't even know about their own government.  From politics we veer into religion, and we teach him a new English word: "agnostic." 

I love this place.

Sept 9
Finally make it out of bed at a reasonable hour, and head out to the show for a few hours mid day.  After several failed attempts, I connect with a sales guy I helped with a bug a few years ago.  He wants to tell me how much getting that issue fixed meant - the success of that particular event has allowed him to close deals with a bunch of other big companies.  I had no idea.  I explain he just happened to catch me on a good day, the first back from a vacation when I didn't have a lot to do.  Just luck.  He's very grateful nonetheless, and introduces me to his boss as "The one that saved the World Cup."  The boss seems grateful, too.  Maybe I am earning my keep.

I could live here.  It is a big city, but spread out enough not to feel really crowded.  Neighborhoods, like San Francisco.  It does feel a lot like San Francisco, culturally, too, underneath the European veneer.  Less cars than SF, though, and cleaner.  And canals.  San Francisco has beaches and bridges, but they don't beat the canals.  Nor the beautiful canal houses that all seem to lean on each other for support.  I'm really enjoying having some time on my own here, walking around, getting to know the place.  I'm gawking at the women.  The women here have something - a confidence - that I crave.  Of course, everyone seems in such good shape, healthy and strong.  Lean, but not skinny skinny.  Powerful, though.  I want some of what they've got.  I want to learn how to be that present in my self, that sure.  I recognize the feeling as something I have felt in my own skin - I have moments of it, but it is still fleeting for me.  I want to have it all the time.

Supperclub for dinner tonight, just meriko, Patrick and I.  This place is an experience, less about the food than the whole event of the evening, though the food is really really good, too. The dining room is a bit like a dance club - open and clean, with deep cushions along both long walls and more seating in a loft above.  One short end is open to a huge kitchen where we can watch the food being prepared and plated.  The "tables" are just set on the cushions, and diners lounge around them, plates on laps or on pillows.  We share three bottles of wine between the three of us, and are languid agaist the cushions by the end of the appetizer course. The music is loud, and the servers are plenty of entertainment.  There is a sort of unchoreagraphed dance in their movements.  They take turns standing on the counter to hand up plates to the diners above, forming an assembly line between the cook, the floor, and the loft.  There is a pretty blonde waitress in the center of the line for a while, in a simple black knit dress, just enough pregnant to show a round curve of belly.  There's a waiter above and below her, and their big hands pass and receive the plates from her small ones, reaching up and down to meet her. She's not quite tall enough to reach the loft window, so she stretches up with each plate from her toes to her fingertips, with a look of such concentration that I imagine each plate could be an infant in her hands. I could watch her all night.  meriko hands me her journal and I sketch the shape of her in just a few lines. 

Sept 10:
I wake at 8 with good intentions to attend the show early today, then roll over and sleep until 1pm.  I decide today's my day off.  I catch up on some email, write in my journal, then head over to meet meriko at Cafe de Jaren, midpoint between our two hotels.  It is raining, and I walk through the grounds of a quiet university on the way to the cafe.  We sit quietly, each with our journals, and I eat an amazing bowl of tomato soup.  Just right on a rainy, cold day. 

I make plans to meet up with Samir, whose wife and little boy are also here, so he hasn't been able to join the rest of us for our late dinners.  I walk over to the apartment they are renting, on the far side of Jordaan, and we chat about travel and food, share restaurant recommendations, and discuss how little Reyhan is adjusting to the jetlag (staying up until midnight, sleeping until noon - mama is loving it).  I like this little family, and want to know them better.  It is good to spend time with them on my own.  We've all had a late lunch, and so we don't head out for dinner until 9 or so, and it has started to rain again.  We wander down Rozengracht and find another tapas place that is cozy and warm, and not too smoky for the baby.  I had no idea tapas were such a big thing here, but it seems these places are everywhere.  It is a nice, cozy meal, and afterwards we walk back to the apartment where Arushi trys to put the baby to sleep, but how he's over-tired and won't settle.  It is raining again, hard, and I realize I have a long walk back to my hotel, and it is getting late.  Samir is shocked that I'm not taking the tram or a bus, but I point out the trams run the long way, and walking straight across the middle is shorter.  I don't think he believes me that I'm really going to walk it, and once out the door my bravado does falter a bit.  I mean, it is midnight, and raining, and I'm a woman walking alone.  Not safe.  But I walk fast, I know where I'm going, and I notice a few other women walking alone, too, so I mimic their body language and forge on.  They walk with one hand on their bag, one swinging at their side - it looks like they are skating.  I try it, and find it is a comfortable, energy efficient way to walk fast for a long distance.

After a few blocks of cursing myself for forgetting my umbrella at the hotel, I notice what the locals do: when it starts to rain, step under an eave and wait it out.  The rain comes in squalls, and the drizzle in between is light.  I try it, and laugh in delight when I emerge from an overhang to a suddenly busier street when the rain lets up.  I send Samir an SMS when I'm back in my hotel, as he'd requested.  "I'm home," I say.

Sept 11
Today is the last day of the show, and I feel like I have some catching up to do.  I plot out my plan of attack, mark up my map with the booths I want to visit, and head over.  I make good progress, see a bunch of stuff, collect a bunch of paperwork to read over later, and take a bunch of notes.  I meet up with meriko partway through the show, and show her a few things I've found that have very little to do with our work, but are fascinating nontheless: a super slow motion camera that can take millions of frames per second; a motion-activated controller that is showing how you can turn the volume up or down on your ipod by shaking it; a device that senses your tone of voice and colors a grouping of lights based on the emotion detected (calm, joy, sad, excited).  We play smart girl/dumb girl at a couple of booths, and then stand in the corner and compare notes on the information we gathered as a result.  Finally we declare we are donedonedone and must eat.  There's an Italian deli near RAI that Stephen had recommended a few days ago, so we head over there for a snack.  Across the street is Venetie Ys, a gelato place that I'd read about before the trip.  Apparently it is run by an Italian family who moved to Amsterdam 3 generations ago, and the gelato is the best outside of Italy.  So of course, I have to try it.  It's pretty good.  Not nearly the selection that you'd find in an Italian gelateria, but the hazelnut gelato is certainly better than what I've had in the states.  An older British gentleman tells me that the stripey slacks I'm wearing are "lovely trousers," and I leave the shop grinning.

We split up for a while to clean up and change for dinner.  My head is still spinning from the show, and I realize how much I miss my friend Vince on this trip, who I spent a lot of time with at the last conference I attended.  He has many more years of experience in this field, and we fell in the habit of talking over the day and what we'd seen at that show.  I miss the context those conversations gave me to fit all of this information into.

We meet up for drinks before dinner at Wynand Fockink, possibly my favorite place in Amsterdam so far.  This tiny little bar has been open in this same location since 1679, a fact that boggles my mind every time I think about it.  They make their own brandywine (in 40-odd flavors), are only open a few hours each evening, and the same guy is behind the counter every single night.  It is a local's bar, and the barkeep knows everyone.  He also speaks four languages, so if he doesn't know you when you walk in, he gets to know you soon enough.  The locals drink a small glass of brandywine and a beer, often drifting out to the alleyway to sit and drink and smoke.  There's only enough room for a handful of people inside at a time.  These people are on their way home from work, or on their way to dinner. This place is just part of the fabric of their day.  As it has been for Amsterdammers for over 300 years.

Dinner tonight is at Marius, a small restaruant that is a favorite of the foodies in my department.  It is a bit out of town, and we take a cab out. A co-worker who attended this conference last year was insistent that I make plans to eat here on this trip.  Very insistent.  And now I see why.  The Dutch have a word, gezellig, that isn't easily translateable.  It means that feeling of cozy, nice, comfortable, comforting.  Brown cafes, unobtrusive service, being served warm soup on a rainy day, all gezellig.  Marius is the epitome of my understanding of gezellig.  I'm not even going to try to describe it.  If you are in Amsterdam, go there, see for yourself.  It was amazing.  I'll be back.  As we left the restaurant, we found some interesting grafitti which somehow was a perfect cap to the evening.

Tonight is my last night on my own - Lisa arrives in the morning.