Fourth time lucky

It took not three but four times before I found my name there: the contributors' page of Allerhande magazine. Only the second most read magazine in the Netherlands! I have been telling people, quite proudly, that I'm working for them for several years now (not a word of a lie either) but the proof was never in the pudding: my name has, until now, been missing from that final page. Making me look like a total git. And a bit of a fibber. When, really, REALLY, I'd been working for them all along.

One of the recipe cards for which I edited the recipes

But now, this Easter issue, the time has finally come: my name, though misspelt, is there in black and white. Fourth time lucky. Happy Easter!

Result

You'll find some of my favourite recipes from this issue here.

Work a lot: Roast Niyom Coffee, Chiang Mai

The area, on the studenty side of Chiang Mai, is renowned for its good coffee. And with Chiang Mai being the coffee capital of Thailand, that's saying something. But still... Driving there at noon on a sunny October day, through a labyrinth of dusty roads and smelly exhaust fumes breathed out by a thousand fellow mopeds, I couldn't quite find what I was hoping for: coffee heaven. 

(My quest reminded me of driving around Los Angeles, looking for the city centre. I couldn't quite find it then either.) I found a bakery selling the most divine, buttery milk buns. I found a little restaurant with an outdoor kitchen serving blue noodles. But a cute coffee place to linger away a few hours? Not in sight.

The milk bun factory

There were coffee places all right. Big, McDonald's style set-ups, with overhead menu's, meal deals and stark interiors. Places too empty to contemplate actually sitting down in. Who wants to drink their coffee alone, in a vast space, without a buzz or any people watching to be done?

When I was about ready to drive off again, mission unsuccessful apart from the cardboard box full of milky buns I scored, I passed it: the coffee place I was hoping to find. Along a busy road, in the parking lot of a rather awful residential building that also housed the café's toilet (a bit of a trek, admittedly) - it was hardly the ideal location. But inside I found an oasis of air con coolness, Thai quiet busy-ness and free wifi. In the middle of the café, a tree was protruding through the ceiling. 

It's bird! It's a plane! No, it's a massive tree trunk

The coffees were made to perfection, with an eye for detail that only the Asians seem to possess.

The place was filled with young people working on laptops or having informal meetings. I felt a pang of regret at not having my laptop with me nor having any work to do. This would be a wonderful office away from home. (Here I was, on holiday, wishing I was working... What was going on?) It turned out to be my favourite Chiang Mai hangout. I did the only thing I could and wiled away a few consecutive mornings there, slowly sipping my coffee to make it last. With a milky bun on the side.

Roast Niyom Coffee, Siri Mangkalajam Road, Chiang Mai, Thailand, facebook

Eat a lot: Sala da Mangiare, Neukölln

These last few weeks, glued as I have been to my daily trio of hospital ward, sofa and breast pump, I have taken to reading the papers on my ipad. And so, one morning at around 4 am, I read restaurant critic Jay Rayner's recent review in the Observer, in which he waxed lyrical about a friendly neighbourhood place. "You know the sort of thing. Just enough tables to make it work. The kind of food “real” people want to eat; dishes that are classy and intense without being up themselves. Lots of regulars. More like eating at a friend’s kitchen table than at some stuffy joint."

Sounds lovely doesn't it? In an eighties Cheers kind of way. Where everybody knows your nay-hay-hame... (If you're not singing the Cheers theme tune by now, feel very lucky. You're one of the young ones!)

Through my sleepy haze, I realised: I know one of those places. In fact, it's right around my corner and I visited it quite recently. Yet it's a lifetime ago, when I was not yet used to the daily soundtrack of saturation monitors beeping.

I had to dig quite deeply into my memory - had I really been there less than three months ago or was it all a dream? This was in no way a reflection on the memorability of the food served at Sala da Mangiare, as it was absolutely lovely. So was the minimalist setting of whitewashed walls, dark wooden furniture and exposed brickwork. And the company of Francesco; Italian taste-bud-on-legs and a brilliant guide to the city's true Italian eateries. Francesco is from the same Italian region as the owners of the restaurant, Emilia Romagna, and so eating the regional food is a trip down memory lane for him too.