Blurry Vision

Lately it has been difficult to see clearly. Everything is a blur of impressions that I find difficult to categorize into a structure suitable for this blog. Jochem and I have been busy. We sleep in. I do yoga. We have eggs for breakfast. We watch The Amazing Race. We plan. We book. We read. We anticipate. Jochem plays video games. I read women's magazines. We cross things off of our to do list. We hike. We pick recipes. We buy groceries. We cook. We eat. We play with the cats. We have tea. We watch The Amazing Race. We sleep. This goes on and on. It has turned into a weird routine - we do the same things every day in a somewhat predictable order, but most things have been taken care of. The to do list only has a few more items on it. The backpacks are packed. The Bon Voyage Party has been given. We are playing a waiting game. Here is an impression of our time spent:

Caponata

Yesterday I prepared caponata - a Sicilian eggplant dish. Jamie Oliver describes it as a stew. My parents LOVE stew + this particular recipe uses eggplant to make the stew as opposed to meat = 2 happy parents and 1 happy vegetarian me. I served it with boiled potatoes, creme fraiche, grated cheese and chives. Sometimes people worry about serving vegetarian main dishes, but I learned from Living Vegetarian for Dummies that serving two side dishes can result in one great main dish. Try for yourself!

Source: Jamie's Italy by Jamie Oliver

Asparagus Tips

It's been a while since I've been here. I've been busy! Even though I've been unemployed for almost 2 months and have been living in Almelo since August, I've kept myself busy - visiting family and friends, doing yoga and, mostly, taking care of all those last little details before taking off on September 4. I suppose there's not a lot left to be done, but little details can take up a lot of one's time (especially when interrupted by numerous tea breaks). I've also been watching a LOT of TV, which was really getting out of hand when I stayed in Amersfoort for a couple of days and Mag and I were glued to the Investigation Discovery Channel for hours on end, but, overall, there is a lot of good stuff on TV these days! My latest thing is Discovery Channel's Amazing Race, which Jochem and I have been watching together. I suppose that it's kind of a waste of time in the grand scheme of things, but being the kind of person who loves to just be at home, I try to make the most of that right now, since in a little over 2 weeks (!!!) I won't have that for 9 months. In other news, my dad and little brother are thinking about joining us in Peru for our trek on the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu - that would be swell. Jochem and I are trying to get some hiking in because the people at Peru Treks suggest trying to hike 15 kilometers in order to determine whether you are capable of hiking for hours on end. Yesterday the sun was out so we put on our hiking boots and walked 11 kilometers through Twente's surprisingly beautiful farmland from our house in the suburbs of Almelo to my dad's store in Rijssen. This included a detour past a petting zoo and a quick trip to the grocery store and I think we did pretty well. We also came across a couple of stands from nearby farmers, where we scored some amazing produce for a few cents.

Another thing that I do every single day but haven't really been talking about at all, is cooking. Ever since I came to Almelo, I've pretty much been cooking every single day. I only cook vegetarian food and so my family has been eating a lot of vegetarian meals. They enjoy their steaks and salmon fillets, so it's been quite a challenge to keep them satisfied. But I quickly came to find that the trick to cooking good vegetarian meals is to use fresh ingredients, but then again, doesn't that count for all foods? I've made some great dishes these past few weeks: lentil salads with lemon and shallot, portobello burgers with caramelized onion and mozzarella, spicy pizza, spaghetti with pesto, string beans and potato, and tempeh Sloppy Joe's. But I didn't take any pictures because I was too busy enjoying the food with my family and friends. But look at these beautiful asparagus tips with olive oil, lemon juice and Parmesan!



Source: Jamie at Home by Jamie Oliver

Life in Almelo

It's official - our life in Utrecht is over. On Sunday we said goodbye to our apartment on the Good Street in the White Women neighborhood of Utrecht (which sounds weird in English). Jochem was being quite the sentimentalist while Bic was a downright cry baby. I was doing remarkably well, I think. It had not been fun at all to stay in that emtpy apartment, while being forced to sleep in sleeping bags on the floor left my right shoulder with quite an impressive collection of kinks that my favorite Moby look-a-like masseur in Almelo kindly massaged away for me this afternoon. It was time to go.

Although it is kind of weird to be back at my parents' house in Almelo after all these years, I've actually been enjoying the stay very much. I spend some time every day on our world trip preparations, but my main responsibility is to buy groceries and cook dinner. This means that my parents are now also eating vegetarian every day. I am still a vegetarian, but I must admit that I have been thinking about not being so hard on myself anymore. Don't expect me to buy a Bic Mac anytime soon (or ever again, for that matter, as I already imagine Jochem's face in horror because he hates fast food chains with the same passion that I hate dusting the apartment), but I might allow myself a nice steak when in Argentina. But for now, I am still eating the greens without any meat, poultry, fish or sea food whatsoever.

One of the things that I'm enjoying most about life in Almelo is the abandonment of my routines. For example, when it comes to breakfast, instead of having cereal on weekdays and eggs during the weekend, I now wake up and ask myself: what do I feel like eating? This may seem perfectly natural to you, but to me, it's quite the revolutionary change, not to mention liberating. And I'm proud to say that not only did I finally figure out how to get coffee from my parents' insane coffee maker after 5 years, I have also become quite skilled in making scrambled eggs. I've been making scrambled eggs for years, but as anyone who has ever watched Top Chef knows, making eggs is quite hard. Past experience is not a predictor of future success. But I finally figured it out: add one tablespoon of full fat milk to each scrambled egg. This is essential! Other tricks I've learned are: adding butter to the pan before it is hot, but waiting with the scrambled eggs until the pan is searing hot; using a tortilla instead of a bagel or slice of bread because it's much lighter; and warming the tortilla in the microwave and adding cheddar cheese straight after before adding the scrambled eggs so that the cheese melts a little but the tortilla can still be folded easily. I've had this meal for days now. I love it, but I must be careful - the last time that I got so hung up on scrambled eggs and cheddar cheese was at UCLA in 2004 where I added quite a few pounds that are yet to come off.