Cote De Boeff

Today has been a very very long day of meeting. My energy levels are low, and i´m chomping on cough drops throughout meetings to stop myslef coughing. The only benefit in the day is when we take all the project partners out to Bistro Bonjour where I sample the Delights of French onion sounp, wine, Cote de Boeff, wine, Desert, espresso, wine wine wine. It´s a great night and everyone seems pretty chuffed.

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.

Multi Cultural Dinner

I've kind of woken up and it's Wednesday. Monday and Tuesday were a bit of a blur. I had lots of work todo and was living quietly to try to sweat, all the caffeine, alcohol red bull espresso and crazy Scottish women out my system, but tonight I'm rested enough that I'm out for dinner at a friends house.

My German friend is off for a Holiday in Japan and New Zealand later in the year, and since The Kiwi is ...well... a kiwi and he lived in Japan for a year, he's the perfect man for travel advice, so we are round for dinner and conversation.

I turn up late cos I had a deadline to meet at work. Everyone already has a glass of rose in their hand, but I'm sure I can catch up. Our tabel for dinner consists of our German and Argentinean hosts, me The Kiwi, a French/Dutch/Polish girl, and a girl from Honduras.













Honduras is new to me. I don't think I've ever met a Hondurian before. For a second I think it may be the capital of Hawaii, but now I know that it is the most central of the central American countries.

We have a nice dinner of conversation. Our Argentinian host tells me that she is going to Scotland for a few weeks to visit her sister. Her sister lives in Aberdeen and she was torn between a holiday in Aberdeen or one in Buenos Aires .

Aberdeen:


Buenos Aires



What a choice!!!! Luckily she is completely insane so has chosen Aberdeen. As soon as I hear this my travelling bug is out in force. How can one of my friends see Scotland without me telling them what everything is. She likes climbing moutnains in Scotland so I can't resist planning a weekend to get over and at least see a Munro or two, even though I need to be in Copenhagen and Bulgaria before the end of the month, I'm determined to fit it in. We'll see.

Anyway - Dinner is a vegetarian curry. Pretty tasty. I look forward to returning the favour, as I've been Guinea pigging my sister on veggie curries for years.

It's an early night -which is probably for the best given that I'm not convinced I've recovered from Nina.

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.