Things the Dutch eat

If you ask the average Dutch person to describe Dutch cuisine, they most often would have a difficult time picking out something that is truly unique to the Netherlands in terms of food. But based on my own personal observations the Dutch are masters of putting various things on bread. Lunch usually consists of a variety of sweet and savory "broodjes".

Here are some uniquely Dutch examples of bread topping:

Savory
1. Smeerkaas

This is a lot like Cheese Whiz, but comes in a wide varieties of flavors, like sambal (spicy), herbed, gouda, and ham.

2. Ambachtelijk Salade

This category encompasses any "salad" constructed with the base ingredient of mayonnaise. You can get chicken curry, chicken satay, egg, cucumber, crab, tuna, salmon, probably others.

3. Filet American

Raw. Meat. Spread. Pureed cow. Salty. Gross. Apparently can be found in different flavors as well.

They also have regular deli meat, a wide selection of thinly sliced 'wurst' (sausage), and of course lots and lots of cheese.

Sweet
This category is a bit more delicious.

1. Hagel Slag

 Affectionately called a "candy sandy" by my friend Sarah, Hagel Slag is basically ice cream sprinkles for your toast. These can be dark or milk chocolate, sprinkle or shaving form, or even multi-coloured plain candy sprinkles. The key to these is to butter your toast prior to slag-ing it to make the candy stick.

2. Appelstroop

Like thick apple syrup for your bread. Often eaten with butter or even cheese.

3. Schuddebuikjes

A lot like hagel slag, but mini cinnamon cookies! Also requires butter.

4. Kokosbrood

Think flat macaroon for your toast. Quite good on its own. I've only tried the plain kind, but it can also be found with fruit flavors like banana, or with raisins.

5. Duo Penotti

Nutella-like hazelnut/chocolate spread with some vanilla creamy stuff. Yummy.

I also found this ad for Duo Penotti 'Solo'. A bit risque, no? Apparently sex also sells sandwich spread.

There are also many many other popular condiments, like some vegetable infused mayo called "sandwich spread", peanut butter with chocolate chips, curry ketchup, satay sauce (peanut-y), and lots of regular mayo. So much mayo.

Another interesting thing I have yet to try is vla, which seems a lot like pudding to me. It's everywhere and looks tempting, but quite processed and more than likely unhealthy.

Only one more week to try this stuff! Then back to good old Canadian predictability. Sigh.

xo
v

I got blogged!

Today I received a message from Gay Giordano letting me know that she included one of my pigeon paintings in a post on her blog, I Dreamed I Saw in a feature about pigeons. 

I haven't had much chance to look around the site, but it looks pretty neat from what I saw. 

So thank you Gay! I'm really flattered by this!

I also want to mention that the painting that is featured there will be available in print form in the extremely near future.

xo

v

ps I don't know what happened to the formatting of this post, but part way through it went orange and bold. I fixed the orange, but the bold seems to be sticking around. Oh well! 

pps Here's a direct link to the post

Shameless Self Promotion

In my quest to become a self sustaining artist, I've making prints of my paintings!

The first of these prints is my horse cherub.

If you are interested, it can be purchased for 25$ off my Esty page
Or by contacting me personally.

xo
v

Images 4 and update

So I had the meeting with my boss, and they do not have consistent work for me. That being said, it looks like I will be returning to Canada and seeking out work there. I am ok with this. I'm really looking forward to coming home, being with family and friends, and hitting the reset button. So my plan for now is to come to Vancouver beginning of May to run the Vancouver 1/2 marathon and enjoy the coast for a week or so, then arrive in Calgary on May 11. I'll hopefully be able to come back to the Netherlands for Dana's graduation end of June (and maybe a little trip to Berlin again as Dana really wants to go, and I would love to see our friends that live there again before they move back to Australia), but that's still up in the air for now (money-wise).

I have three weeks left here. The weather's been nice lately and I'm enjoying it, but I am really looking forward to coming home. Canada rules.

These pictures seem to have an animal theme.
What do you think?

xo
v

Lunch!

I love lunch. Almost as much as I love breakfast. But lunch has a special something about it, that nice little break through the day, and if you get to eat something special (even if it's some tasty leftovers) it gives you something to look forward to all morning.
That said, I have always had an admiration for cleverly put-together lunches, like this lady and her cute bento boxes she constructs for her kids. I mean... how awesome would it be to open a lunch box and see something new and unexpected every day?!
If/when I have kids, I totally plan on doing similarly awesome things. Maybe even for myself the next time I have a job/school where I have to take lunch everyday.

xo
v

Images 3

Woowoo! I hope you all are enjoying this. I am.
What I find interesting is that now by grouping the pictures together in groups, I am seeing similarities and connections between the pictures. And since I'm posting them chronologically, it kind of shows where my head was at (or what was attracting me) at that particular moment.

For instance, I find this group all sort of humorous. Except for the parachute one. I don't know what's up with that. I quite like it though.

xo
v