"What I Cooked Today" Day 64

The weather has changed from a comforting warmth into a hot and sticky blanket that always embraces you, pressing down, wherever you go. I am reminded of how unsuited my apartment is for summer, a fact which I always tend to forget, as I drag around the fan with the same emotional mixture of necessity and repressed irritation as when I drag around the heater in winter. My cats are considerably affected by the heat. For the first time, ever, since they joined my little family neither Bicho nor Manchego finishes their nighttime serving of cat food, not even after their second try. This is unual for a pair of cats who will eat raw tofu and broccoli from your dirty kitchen floor while you attempt to prepare a decent meal. I often find Bicho on the floor, panting like a dog. Jochem went to the Hague to attend a bbq. I stayed in Utrecht in my oven of an apartment. Sitting behind my computer I remember the 9 days I spent behind it last year when I rewrote my master's thesis - my fingers are thick, I feel sweat trickling in places where I didn't know sweat could trickle, like at the back of my knees, and I can actually smell it too. The frat boys down the street have parked their seventh-hand couches on the street in order to watch soccer in the sun while drinking lots of beer - a recipe for guaranteed sunburn and hangover if you ask me. The Netherlands plays Slovakia tonight. I head over to Bic's for cool food. I bring a favorite dish with me: the asparagus quiche with potatoes and cheese (Source: Jamie at Home by Jamie Oliver). I also bring a new dish: a watermelon salad with cucumber, mint, goat cheese, pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds (Source: Jamie's America by Jamie Oliver). I bring 6 scoops of ice cream from Roberto Gelato, the best ice cream parlor in Utrecht run by a family with Italian roots. I am late for the game, but luckily we're not really watching. We drink cold water and leftover champagne without bubbles. We eat our food and discuss Dutch politics. After watching a documentary about the Taj Mahal and an episode of Air Crash Investigation, I return home to do the dishes. The sun hits my back with surprising intensity at 8 'o clock in the evening. I have the fan a mere centimeters from the left side of my body and hope that it won't accidentally fall into the dirty dishwater. I would forever be reminded as the dead grad student who got herself eloctrocuted in the midst of her dirty pans. Only 26 - so young. When I was walking towards Bic's apartment, just a couple of blocks from my street, and I felt the sugary water from the watermelon drip onto my calves and new favorite dress, I felt rushed and sweaty, but sublimely happy to be carrying good food to a good friend. The Netherlands beat Slovakia 2 to 1.