Can somebody please explain why the Americans celebrate Saint Patrick’s Day, which is an Irish holiday?
My sister is visiting and I explained it to her as ‘the Americans just like holidays, so they adapted this Irish holiday’.
But please tell me if I’m correct and besides that… Whát are we actually celebrating? I know about the green color, the clovers and those leprechauns. But why? And how?
Every Wednesday morning I go on a hike, that’s my main workout during the week. Up and down the Santa Monica Mountains in 1,5 hour. Bam! 1200 calories burned! Every other weekend P and I also do a hike and twice a week I do some short workout routines on YouTube.
I tried to do a walk three times a week in the neighborhood and although I liked it it was so time consuming! Since I started hiking on my own I look forward to Wednesdays. Ha yes! I’m looking forward to Hump Day 😉 I’ll bet I’m the only one!
My hike is just great, it has beautiful views over the ocean, a paved path, lots of history marks and some great wildlife. Blue Jays, rabbits, hummingbirds, woodpeckers, lizards and even pheasants!
But apparantly there is also other wildlife in the Santa Monica Mountains that I don’t see. Rattlesnakes, coyotes and even mountain lions!
Tell me, do you always bring your own bags to the store when you go grocery shopping?
If not, then why not?
I always have one or two cotton bags in my purse and I also try to keep a bigger grocery bag in the back of my car. As long as I can remember I carry the cotton bags in my purse and I not only use them for unexpected grocery shopping.
People often ask me if there is anything I miss from the Netherlands. I have to disappoint them (and you), because I don’t. Of course I’m happy when I stumble upon typical Dutch products in LA, like appelstroop, stroopwafels or beschuit. And the Christmas Stollen and bitterballen I made myself where also to die for.
But really missing those things? Nah… And you know why not?
This Asian-style coleslaw salad is one of my favorites at this moment. I eat this at least once a week for lunch.
Just mix some coleswla coleslaw with romaine and add bean sprouts for an Asian touch.
But the best of this coleswla coleslaw (argh! I keep typing it wrong!) salad is the dressing.
Last week I went to Downtown to meet Christine of Feed My Sole. I met her at the dinner at Hinoki & The Bird a few weeks ago, Christine is the organizor of the Meetup group for Los Angeles Food Bloggers.
Christine lives in an amazing loft appartment Downtown. I loved it, it has brick walls and her kitchen is great – it has a concrete counter. Beautiful! Especially for taking pictures 😉
Also that part of DTLA looked great, with hip eateries and boutiques. I have to come back for sure!
It was a great day: we cooked, made photos, ate, talked and had a nice time. All my favorites in one day!
I decided to make a salad with beans and prosciutto.
A couple of weeks ago I was sitting on the balcony, with my laptop working on a blogpost. Suddenly I heard somebody calling:
“Hello!”
“Hello!”
“Heeelllooooohooo!”
I sat still and looked around. There was nobody I could see from where I sat. So it sure wasn’t for me. I wasn’t expecting visitors and nobody could see me from down the street because we have an enclosed balcony.
So I ignored it.
But then, a week later it was the same voice:
“Hello!”
“Helloooohooo!”
“You, on the balcony!”
From where I sat I couldn’t see any other neighbors on their balconies, so maybe this person wás calling me after all? But how could he see me? Strange!
So I got up and looked down.
As you could read I had dinner at Hinoki & The Bird two weeks ago with three other foodbloggers from LA. I already raved about the great food so I won’t start over again.
Instead I got inspired by this great kale salad that I HAD to make a kale salad myself. Normally in the Netherlands kale is eaten as a ‘stamppot’: you boil potatos and let the kale steam on top of it. Then you mash it together until it looks like this. I don’t like this ‘boerenkool stamppot’ that much, but it turns out I do like raw kale!
Hinoki & The Bird served a very delicate kale salad,