by Ellen Bannink -

Tompouce – a Dutch treat!

Next week I will experience my first ever 4th of July, how exciting is that! Of course, in Europe we know about the fireworks, the picnics, the barbecues and spending time with your family on Independence Day. But to actually be here on the 4th of July is different.

Tompouce p

 

In the Netherlands we also celebrate some national holidays but they don’t include fireworks or parades. The biggest national holiday would be Queens Day where everybody gets a day off and people go out on the streets, dressed in anything that they can find in orange, to sell their old junk and drink beer. And eat orange ‘tompoucen‘, normally the tompoucen have a pink icing but for Queens Day they get an orange icing.

Tompouce l3

by Ellen Bannink -

Chinese Chicken Skewers

Summer has begun and we bought a barbecue grill last weekend. I’m the cook at home, P once said he can prepare food but he can’t cook. That’s exactly how it is! But when it comes to grilling, he’s my man!

Three years ago -when P & I just met- I invited some friends over for a barbecue party at my roof terrace. I would practically be away the whole summer so this would be a nice thing to do before I had to miss all the fun that summer. And of course I already figured out this was a nice opportunity to see P again, I already had a small crush on him 😉

Chinese chicken skewers p

Luckily he showed up, bringing some shrimps in a fantastic marinade. ‘Wow, a man who can cook!’ I thought, and I liked him even more.

by Ellen Bannink -

French toast

Growing up in the Netherlands meant an open sandwich for breakfast. And for lunch. My mom made us eat a whole wheat sandwich first, with something ‘healthy’ on top. Healthy was slices of cheese or meat. After the ‘brown’ sandwich we could have a ‘white’ one, topped with something sweet.

Peanut butter, jam, ‘hagelslag’ (the famous Dutch chocolate sprinkles), hazelnut spread or ‘appelstroop’. We all had our own favorites. One of my sisters still can’t live without appelstroop. You can compare it with molasses, only slightly firmer and it’s made of apples so it tastes sweet and sour.

Wentelteefjes p

After the white sandwich we had to have a brown one again and so on. If we could decides ourselves what to eat we would only eat white sandwiches with sweet toppings.
We could also be creative with combining the toppings.

by Ellen Bannink -

Salmon sushi salad

Don’t you just love going out for some sushi? But be honest, how many times is it a disapointment? The rice is tasteless, the roll isn’t firm enough so it falls apart halfway to your mouth leaving soy sauce stains on your white shirt, or the salmon taste like water.

Salmon sushi salad p

Personally I like the salmon sushi rolls the most. With fresh salmon that is, without the cream cheese. Typically American, who made that up?! That’s not a very Japanese combination, isn’t it?

Did you ever tried to make sushi yourself? Well I did and it’s a hell of a job and leaves you with enormous amounts of sushi.

by Ellen Bannink -

Overnight oats

I like to start my day with soy yogurt, fresh fruit (strawberries and banana are my favorite), granola and raisins.
But somehow I’m not able to find soy yogurt in LA anymore. What happened to it?! It was already hard to find: Trader Joe’s sold 24 oz containers so I bought one in the first week after our arrival. And at Wholefoods in Venice I bought small 6 oz containers of WholeSoy Yogurt. The Key Lime soy yogurt was the most delicious one.

Overnight oats p

I couldn’t find the WholeSoy Yogurt at the other Wholefoods locations closer to our home. So yesterday I returned to the Wholefoods in Venice to buy this yogurt but then… I found out they don’t sell it anymore! 🙁

by Ellen Bannink -

Noodle salad with peanuts

Moving to another country is not the easiest thing to do. You have to leave everyone and everything you know behind to start a new life. So now in LA we have to discover everything: where do I need to go for some good pizza? How do I know which groceries can be ‘trusted’? Where do I have to buy underwear (or better: what will be my favorite underwear)? Who can I trust to cut my hair? Oh and I can go on with this list for -let’s say- forever!

Noodle salad p

One of the things I have to miss in Amsterdam is good dim sum. I regularly went to a really good dim sum place where the weekends were packed with Chinese customers. So then you know it’s good! 😉