Home cooking from Holland

Early on, one of the biggest struggles to adapting to life here, was the grocery store. I had to get used to all the new foods, the absence of the familiar foods I knew, and the inability to tell if the foods I needed were there because I didn't know the Dutch names of them. I would spend many a moment in the aisles, tearing up because I had no idea what to get. There was a few times I can home to Dan in tears, empty-handed because I just needed to get out of that store.

However my friends, those times are now in the past. I can whip into the store with my cloth bag (you should bring your own bag or pay .20 for one) and go immediately to where I need to go. I can ask for bread that is just coming out of the oven. I now know the name of things in Dutch so I don't get many weird looks from the stockboys when I ask for something. When I get low on vanilla, I can use the vanilla suiker substitute and not freak out.

Most days I do my entire transaction at the check out in Dutch. It doesn't involve a whole lot more than me saying "yes", "Nee" ,"bedankt" (thanks) or "Tot Ziens!" (see you later). But I can understand most of what the cashier is saying. Occasionally, they will say something I don't understand and I'll stare at them like a deer in the headlights until they switch into English.

Being more confident in the grocery store allows me to be more experimental in my cooking. This weekend we bought a new dish--that I absolutely love! It's a clay casserole dish, covered with a ceramic glaze. It's dishwasher and microwave safe...not that we have either of those but maybe one day...:) Here is a picture of it

Note the beautiful turquoise color and the pretty scalloped edges. :) It's French.  The French know something about cooking, right? So I made my first meal in it tonight. I tried another Holland traditional dessert. It's basically an apple turnover or appelflap. They also turned out pretty well for the first time.

So, the food situation here is coming along nicely. Maybe by the time I come home, I can have my own cooking show, "Home cooking from Holland-where we make the brownies 'special' " . :)