Foodie postage stamps, or the lack thereof

Take one large glass jar full of Dutch postage stamps, ranging from the contemporary (the latest royal princesses) to the very, very old (the queen before the queen before the king). What with the average stamp topic reflecting popular culture, you'd say there would be some food related stamps there, right?

Wrong.

There are, of course, countless ones with queens or future queens on them. Then there are famous painters, scientists (why? It's not like anyone gives a toss) and, for some reason, starving children. Big leap forward, and there are stamps adorned with cute illustrations. Now I am all for cute illustrations, but somehow there seems to be a wide gap. One the one hand, highbrow charity and long dead writers, on the other, cute colourful birds and Bambi like deer.

This says all you need to know about Dutch food culture, I think. In the eyes of the masses, no such thing exists.

There was one stamp I did find with food on it: a head of lettuce, a tomato, and what seems like airport tarmac. Slightly random, but nevertheless: double whoop!

Ferrero Rocher, deconstructed

Last week we got a family sized tray of Ferrero Rocher from our elderly neighbours. It was a thank you for trying (and failing) to help them when they'd locked themselves out of their flat. Despite our best efforts it was our neighbour himself who, with his (at least) 75 years of age, fiddled with a bicycle spoke until he was blue in the face and the door miraculously sprung open.

Anyway. Ferrero Rocher. After eating my twelfth golden bonbon, something inside my sluggish brain finally clicked and I remembered! As a kid, I would eat them deconstructed. This is how it went, in ten steps:

1) Lift the golden ball out of its paper casing, being careful not to rip the foil (didn't work today)

2) Picking the glue off the paper casing, rolling it into a ball and flicking it away with my finger

3) Either rolling the foil into a gold ball or smoothing it out nicely for use as a table cloth in my Barbie doll house

4) Cracking the chocolatey nutty exterior and eating it WITHOUT damaging the crispy ball inside

5) Opening the crispy ball at the seam, splitting it in two

6) Eating the nut

7) Licking out the Nutella filling

8) Sucking on the crispy ball, now empty, until it had gone soggy in my mouth

9) Eating the soggy remains

10) Sneaking into the cupboard to see if I could nick another one without anybody noticing

Ah, the joy. 

Good thing is, we have another 4 Ferrero Rochers waiting to be eaten. I wonder if anyone will notice if I have another one...

The Kitchen Diaries

It's two days before I am interviewing Nigel Slater about the book he once described as his favourite, The Kitchen Diaries. The book, of course, has been out for yonks, but the Dutch were a bit slow to catch on and are only publishing a translated edition now. Lucky them - there's a whole world of marvelous recipes to be discovered.

I still remember my first Nigel Slater concoction, it was his afternoon tea cake, full of fruit and nuts, crumbly and dry enough to fool anyone into thinking it is bread more than cake and thus justifying slathering on a thick layer of butter.

I have been in total awe ever since. I won't be saying that to him though, as I imagine it must be well annoying to be interviewed by a 'fan'. No, I'll be playing it cool on Thursday. Oh dear, am I nervous.

The Kitchen Diaries are about 365 days of cooking and eating with the seasons. (They're also about shopping, about ingredients and about - hurray! - the weather.) Reading it, I grew a massive ball of jealousy in my stomach. If only I had the time to Just Think About Food all day long.

Oddly enough this is also the week that I found out there are scores of people doing a '365' project, setting themselves a nice little goal to accomplish each day and documenting it online somewhere. In a blog, on instagram, wherever.

There is a lady who does a daily self-portrait, a girl who photographs her daily 'nourishment' and a woman (they're all women, it seems, apart from a Japanese guy) who designs a new pattern (doodle style) every day.

A dim sum inspired pattern by Ann Kilzer

Nigel Slater, I'm now thinking, was the original 365-er.

I'm tempted to follow suit and make a 365-style kitchen diary of my own. Focusing on one ingredient every day, maybe. That way I am allowed to think about food every day, at least for a bit, and deal with that big ball of jealousy. I also reckon it's great for tricking myself into thinking I have accomplished something, even when all I have done is hang out with the twins and snapping a picture of a lemon. It's perfect.

You can check the lovely 365-project people out here:

makesomething365.com

The self-portraits: afaceaday2013.blogspot.com

The nourishment pics: nourish365project.com

The patterns: 365daysofpattern.blogspot.com