Burns Supper

Burns Supper....

Thank god for Belgian beer, I get up late but with no hangover... So much to do. The flat hasn't been tidied in about 2 months, so everything needs to be done before I can peel potatoes and turnips. I crank up my playlist and get mopping.

Eventually The Kiwi surfaces and I head off for the Tatties while he mops. I head off to Albert Heijn with a big rucksack and get the Tatties and various other bits and pieces I forgot Yesterday. The Bulgarian Bride is coming over early to help peel and cook, so I bought a bottle of white wine to drink while cooking.... while packing the bag it smashes near the bottom. There's little else I can do but strap it onto my back and walk the half mile home with white wine dripping down my leg.

Uggggg.....

I get back, and the flat is the cleanest it's ever been. The Kiwi heads off to pump some iron, and I get stuck in to whipping cream for the Cranachan.

Before long, everything is in hand and Family Bulgaria arrives. Obi Wan Kenobov is in fine form and sporting a newly shorn head... We set in about the tatties and I start boiling the turnips which I've already peeled and sliced. This is really tough for some reason, Neeps, which I never liked anyway seem to be tougher, more tasteless and take longer to boil in this country. Coupled with the fact that they are hard to find in the supermarket, they are my least favourite vegetables, so I have dealt with them before Obi Wan is around to hear my swearing and cursing.

Once everything is done, we relax with a bowl of Scotch Broth:

As we do this, the other guests arrive in dribs and drabs. We have an Englishman, The Kiwi, a Kiwi girl who is the significant other of the Englishman and another bulgarian couple. He is a regular at the Gollem and appreciates most forms of alcohol to a connoisseur level, and she is an intellectual who appreciates most types of prose to a connoisseur level. She has brought me a book of Burns in Bulgarian. She has been doing some background reading, and it turns out that the Bulgarian's all know more Burns than they first suspected. I even get a book of Burns in Bulgarian as a gift:


Everyone settles with a drink. It turns out that The Kiwi girl was a regular in the bar that I met the Bulgarian bride. We both drank there in 2002, but neither of use remember each other - I blame it on the Jaegermeister.

With the Bulgarian book, and me prompted with the correct guitar chords and rhythm we perform a Bulgarian rendition of a Burns song while dancing and drinking...

Rabbie would have been proud.

Once everyone has had a little bit of food and a few drink, I rattle off Tam O'Shanter; a poem by Burns:

"When chapman billies leave the street,
And drouthy neibors, neibors, meet;

It's a long poem but has so much rhythm and pace that I think most folk manage to enjoy it. It tells the story of a drunken scottish blellum, who despite his wife's best advice, stays for one too many in the pub and ends up having to ride home through a storm. When he passes a ruined church which is holding a party for witches and warlocks he gets himself into more trouble than he bargained for.

The poem rings home for we drougthy cronies who prop up the bar at the gollem before cycling home well mounted on the modern version of our grey mair meg through Amsterdam's mosses, waters, slaps and stiles that lie between us and our hame whiles crooning o'er some auld seattle grunge sonnet:





After this, I give the poetry a break and serve up some Haggis. Almost everyone enjoys it.

By this point everyone is fou and unco happy.. everyone has broken off into little groups... We have people discussing Burns Poetry in Bulgarian, others discussing burns poetry in lallans scots, people appreciating a good whisky(laphroig), pickers finding new combinations of cheese and mustard to put on oatcakes, a Spike Milligan poetry book churning out such hilarity as:

Said Hamlet to Ophelia,
I'll draw a sketch of thee,
What kind of pencil shall I use?
2B or not 2B?




It's generally a very good Burns night/Scottish Night/ General get-to-gether.....

Obi wan is setting up Star Wars Monopoly:



This provides a good end to the night, all the boys are enjoying living out the fantasy of being Han Solo and all the women are living out the fantasy of being with him...

Once the Bulgarians have headed off home, we pull out some good Scottish Comedy DVD's before heading off to bed:







Paris Tomorrow.......Good Night.......

Friday night preperation

After work I head off to the gym. I have to prepare the scotch broth for the burns supper tomorrow, then it will be a friday night in the gollem.

I'm having a selection of mates round tomorrow to celebrate the scottish tradition of burns suppers.

Wikipedia has this to say:

A Burns Supper is a celebration of the life and poetry of the poet Robert Burns, author of the version of the Scots song Auld Lang Syne, which is generally sung at Hogmanay and other New Year celebrations around the English-speaking world. The suppers are normally held on or near the poet's birthday, January 25, sometimes known as Burns Night, although they may in principle be held at any time of the year.
Burns suppers are most common in Scotland (and also in Russia, where nationally televised Burns nights are held in the Kremlin) but they occur wherever there are Burns clubs, expatriate Scots, or indeed lovers of Burns' poetry.
The first suppers were held in Ayrshire at the end of the 18th century by his friends on the anniversary of his death, July 21, In Memoriam and, although the date has changed to the 25th of January since then, they have been a regular occurrence ever since.
They may be formal or informal but they should always be entertaining. The only items which the informal suppers have in common are haggis, whisky and perhaps a poem or two. However the formal suppers, which are often held by Burns clubs follow a standard format which is as follows.



My dad is an avid burnsian, and I have kept the tradition alive over in Amsterdam with a burns supper last year.

Earlier today I went to the library and selected some tracks for the music. I was trying to keep it scottish without relying on bagpipes, scottish country dancing or teh flower of scotland. The assorted playlist will involve the following albums on shuffle:

wet wet wet:



Proclaimers



Del amitri



Deacon Blue



Mogwai



Jesus and mary chain



Primal scream



The beta band


Franz Ferdinand


Idlewild



The waterboys



After the gym, I get all the shopping done, the menu will be as follows:

Oatcakes and cheese:






Scotch Broth:



Haggis Neeps and Tatties:



Cranachan:



Whisky:



After a few trips to the local Albert Hijn and some industrial vegetable cutting, I can head off to the gollem to join The Kiwi and the boys:



I am pretty chilled due to my two favourite chilling activities; Cooking and exercise. I have a few La Chouffe's:



After what seems like not long, we're heading off to a club called bitterzoet:



I have always hated clubs, the music, the lack of conversation and the focus on looks and clothing just isn't my scene. Luckily the Kiwi isn't in the mood either. We head off together to tackle some KFC before heading home....

Our last hilarity of the night comes when we meet some essex girls in KFC. They do wonders for their regional stereotype by telling me they have scottish friends who are from Cardiff and repeatedly asking The Kiwi to put more shrimps on the barbi....



I'd better get some sleep before the burns supper...

Back in the Kitchen: Multicultural dinner

Following on from a spring cleaning session to while away a hangover and our Sunday night sesh in Belgique, tonight I am hosting a Multicutural dinner. Present will be delegates from Scotland, Bulgaria, Moldovia and New Zealand.







The menu originally intended to reflect lots of samples of the cuisine from these nations, but I failed in an attempt cook meringues, so the New Zealand dish of Pavlova went tits up.(Let's be honest, the failure was predicated on my attempt to rush things and get a last orders beer in before bad after slaving away in the kitchen) So the menu is as follows:

Oatcakes and cheese:


Scotch Broth:


Then the main courses, was a kind of Tapas of various things:

Shopska Salata:


Moldovian Potato Salad:


Butter bean Bulgarian Hot Pot(I misread the ingredients, so it turned out to be green bean)


Bulgarian Tarator:


And of course......

Haggis:


The music for the evening is also multicultural, I've scoured the library and come up with various traditional and pop music from all the countries, this includes:

National Anthems,
Crowded House
Split Endz
O-Zone
Wikeda
The Proclaimers

By the time that lot is eaten up, no one has any room for the desert options, so we settle for an Irish Coffee:



Everyone seems to be pretty satisfied, and we arrange to show the Moldovian girl some of Amsterdam during her stay, as the Bulgarian Bride and Obi Wan are off to Sofia on Saturday.

Beef stewed in Red wine and Mustard mash.

Unbeknownst to me - I apparently offered to cook dinner tonight, so I'm given a wonderful excuse no to go to Kick Boxing training with the Kiwi. I'm told that it's a great hangover cure, but running round a gym and then kicking and punching a bag for 2 hours sounds far less appealing that watching the antics of Walford's finest in the Eastenders omnibus:



Sunday's are terrible in Amsterdam. None of the shops are open. I need to go to one of the few supermarkets that are open which means that it is so busy you have to queue to get in:



Queuing to get into Albert Heijn pains me to my core. I hate being in the place so much, yet I have to queue to get into one. Yuck!!! It's lucky that in this sea of people my anger and frustration can be mopped up by the iPod. I am listening to the Fragile by Nine inch Nails:



I love the slow building textures and the energy it gives you. It really blocks out the horror of Sunday shoppers which surrounds me.

I'm cooking for The Kiwi, Miss Germany, one of the Pool Twins and a friend from Peru. I've decided that Nick Nairn's coming to the rescue again. I make good Sunday comfort food; Beef stew and mash. The beef stew is in red wine, making it that wee bit tastier and the mash has got Arran Mustard through it:



As a starter I make a Carrot soup with heather honey and ginger. Since it's sunday and it's comfort food, we sit in front of the telly with it. Feels pretty good. Very family dinner like. Everybody seems to be pretty impressed, so I think it'll be popular if we do it again.

It's a good end to a pretty wild weekend. The travelling starts again on Friday(Glasgow->Copenhagen->Amsterdam->Bulgaria), so I have to get through a lot of work this week, and memories of good parties being so close helps you get through it.

Back in the Dam: And back in the Kitchen

Tonight I wanted to do something a little different as some friends were coming round for dinner, and to see my travel photos. We had one German, one Argentinean and The Kiwi would be joining later. Both Argentina and Germany have had Haggis before, so while I wanted to do something Scottish, I couldn't rely on Haggis. Nick Nairn to the rescue:



I decided to opt for a fish dish. I never cook fish and anything with a non exotic fish can be considered Scottish. I settle on a dish which has Hake on a bed of Celariac Puree topped with deep fried parma ham and a red wine fish sauce. It's surprisingly easy, but the white fish, deep red sauce and parma ham make it look good.

At lunch time I have to go out and get the fish, on the way I run into a friend who is out getting food for his wedding on Thursday, so I end up coming to help do some lifting and ending up with a higher quality and quantity of fish than I had envisioned.

Once home, it's a case of running around to get everything done, but in the nick of time, my guests arrive and I serve up everything. We start with some oatcakes and cheese, which get snaffled pretty quickly - people are hungry and always underestimate how good cheddar cheese, arran mustard and oatcakes tastes:







A light summery Pea and mint soup followed this - hunks of fresh bread dipped into the soup and the conversation.

The red wine is flowing, the food is appreciated and I am showing off my photos of Scotland, Poland, Italy etc. It feels good to be back in Amsterdam - especially if I can keep getting people to join in on nights like this.

Now I deep fry the parma ham(New trick for me), and serve the main meal. I should have taken a photo, but with the cooking and the lack of time, I'd forgotten about the blogging. It just means I'll have to cook it again. At this point The Kiwi arrives and gets given a plateful. He's an asset to the conversation, as he has experience of both Japan and New Zealand and my German friend is about to go travelling there.

Washed down with a good bottle of red, it goes down a treat. I am the only one who has space to polish off a glass cranachan afterwards:



We don't really have that many deserts in Scotland, but Cranachan is one of them - layers of cream, berries and oats topped off with Whisky and honey makes it a pretty heavy dish - but it is very tasty. Ironically, it took me longer to prepare than anything else and no one eats it. Next time I'll give them an Irn Bru and bring the cheese board out again.