Scotland in Autumn

It's finally time to talk about Scotland.

My husband took me to Scotland in October as a birthday gift for my 30th birthday. It was by far the best birthday gift that anyone has ever given me. I had been less than subtle about wanting him to take me away on a trip for my birthday and I ended up planning most of it myself, but still, I love him for indulging me.

I first came to Scotland in the spring of 2011 when I took Jochem to Edinburgh for his birthday (how I love the symmatry of this). I had never been very interested in visiting Scotland, but Jochem was born there and I wanted to please him (it was his birthday, after all).

Of course I bought a guidebook and I was pleasantly surprised to read about the many things to see and do there. When I actually set foot in the city, I instantly and quite unexpectedly immediately became infatuated with it. I have been back in Edinburgh every year since then. I think that it will be difficult to keep that up in 2014 and the thought of not having been in Edinburgh at all this year makes me sad.

Edinburgh is my favorite city in the whole world. When I dream about leaving everything behind to live abroad (probably more often than most people), I do not dream about the metropolises of the world - I do not imagine a life in London, Paris, Brussels, Geneva, Buenos Aires, Hong Kong or even New York, which is where I spent most of my imaginary twenties and five actual weeks during the summer of 2008. No, I dream of Edinburgh. And sometimes I dream of Rome. Rome has a better climate and its cuisine is surely more vegetarian-friendly, but still. I prefer Edinburgh.

Why I forsake all others over Edinburgh is difficult to explain. I just feel so at home there. Sometimes I'm actually homesick for the place. I like the fact that the city is not too big. I like the wildness in the city's green spaces - what other capital has a volcanic ridge within walking distance of the city center? I like the warm, down-to-earth and happy people. I love the fact that, while the city has countless monumental sights, I will always think of it as a place where people enjoy the small things in life, like a rare sunny afternoon or a good meal.

The city makes me think of that famous Michaelangelo quote, where he states that every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it. For me, Edinburgh feels just like that - like a city perfectly cut from the volcanic rock of the Scottish outdoors by a master craftsman. Edinburgh sure seems like a wonderful place to live.

So, when we decided to spend a week in Scotland for my birthday, I could not skip Edinburgh, which would be the same as not visiting your grandmother when you are in town because you are too busy. That's right - you just don't do that. It would be wrong not to visit. And so we started our trip in Edinburgh at the same B&B that we always stay at when we are in town, Ardmor House. This place is my home-away-from-home in my home-away-from-hometown in the lively neighborhood of Leith and comes with a charming host, a mouthwatering breakfast and pet schnoodle called Vera (a schnauzer/poodle mix, which is exactly as cute as it sounds).

Since we had already worked our way through all of the sights the first time we came to Edinburgh, we were now able to spend our time at leisure. We hiked to Arthur's Seat in Holyrood Park, went to the Royal Botanic Garden twice and kept coming back to Urban Angel in New Town for their eggs benedict with vegetarian haggis. The mere memory of this breakfast can still make me drool.

Arthur's Seat, Holyrood Park

Princes Street Gardens

Royal Botanic Garden

Urban Angel, New Town

After a long weekend in the city, we packed our rental car to go on a little road trip. Or so we thought.

Our destination was the Isle of Skye, an island off the west coast of the Scottish Highlands. We bought a road map, studied it for a while, picked a route through the Trossachs National Park along Loch Lomond and figured we would be driving for six hours. Tops.

It turns out, however, that freeways in Scotland are not as fast as they are at home, since they wind themselves around the many hills, mountains and lakes in the countryside. This is part of the country's appeal, mind, it just takes a bit more planning than our laissez-faire attitude. We made it to the Isle of Skye at dusk after almost twelve hours on the road, but what a drive it had been.

Eilean Donan Castle

The Isle of Skye is every superlative adjective in the English language on one magical island. We mainly drove around it and hiked over it. The weather was typically Scottish with lots of rain and wind, but we didn't care.

Our home during those days was the Hillstone Lodge in Dunvegan, in the north west corner of the island. This wonderful B&B is relatively modern, but still fits perfectly into its surroundings. It only has three rooms that are extremely comfortable and tastefully decorated. The couple who runs the place made us a vegetarian breakfast every day from a Yotam Ottolenghi cookbook and gave us a homemade brochure every morning with that day's weather forecast.

What I also loved is that the Isle of Skye has villages that are so small, that there are no street names; hence, 12 Colbost simply means that this is the 12th house in the town of Colbost. I hope to be able to return to this B&B sometime soon, if only to have another Red Cuillin, which is the best beer that I have ever had and of which we did not bring a sixpack back to the mainland. Regrets have since been expressed.

Portree

Fairy Glen

The Old School Restaurant, Dunvegan

After our time on the Isle of Skye we made it back to the mainland of Scotland, drove past Loch Ness and then made our way into the Highlands to visit Cairngorm National Park, where feeding semi-wild reindeer from your hand is only one of many cool things to do. The Cairngorms is a heavily visited region of Scotland, mainly by the Scots themselves, it seems, but no wonder with such amazing flora and fauna just a couple of hours from Edinburgh. The weather had turned pleasantly sunny and so we hiked a lot in the area. 

Cairngorms National Park

The Cairngorm Reindeer Centre, Aviemore

Glenmore Forest Park

Then it was time to make our way back to Edinburgh to catch our flight to Amsterdam, but not before we went back to the Royal Botanic Garden for the third (!) time. I really liked it there.

Royal Botanic Garden

On November 13, 2011 Molly Wizenberg, my favorite food blogger, wrote on her blog Orangette: "I think I could live in Edinburgh. Next lifetime, maybe."

I hope I'll make it this lifetime. 

"Serves 1, happily" *

I am still here!

Despite my best intentions, I haven't written anything on this blog since October besides one post about my husband's 28th birthday. The reason for this is twofold. One explanation is that I am always busy with something. However, as I have painfully learned from Mel Robbins, this is a pathetic excuse. A more honest reason for my 8-month absence, then, is that I did not know what to write. After writing about backpacking around the world for 9 months, anything else just seems so incredibly dull. This does not explain why I haven't written anything about the three trips that I have taken to Scotland, South Africa and Iceland so, clearly, there is a fallacy in my reasoning.

I will do my utmost best to write three blogs about these three trips before our next trip to the US, Ecuador and the Galápagos Islands, which is only 61 days away. I am, indeed, counting the days to this trip because, as you probably have guessed, I am anticipating this trip with such impatience and excitement that it reminds me of being a kid again, when my parents, brother and I would pack up our small car to go camping across Spain for six weeks on end. I hope that I am not setting myself up for failure and disappointment, what with all of these great expectations, but at three weeks this will be the longest trip that I have taken since our world trip and I just can't help myself.

But, to get back to the task at hand, I would like to tell you that a lot of nice things have happened in between the travelling to one destination and the planning for the next. Perhaps I would like to remind myself, also.

The problem is that I have been such a slacker since October that there are too many stories to tell about too many people in too many settings. Best to give you just the highlights:

In October I turned 30!

I started celebrating with Jochem in Amsterdam at Le Hollandais during Vegetarian Restaurant Week, which is probably the only reason that I set foot in this French restaurant, since I am not a fan of French cuisine in general (too much foi gras, too many lobsters). The chef de cuisine, Adriaan van Raab, pleasantly surprised me with his 5-course vegetarian menu.

The big birthday party, though, was held a day later in Utrecht, where I took Jochem out to dinner at one of my favorite restaurants in the city, Deeg. Afterwards I hosted a small party in a wine cellar at my favorite wine café, Lefebvre. Jochem and I stayed in a blue room at Badhu, which is an old bath house turned restaurant and hotel in our old neighborhood, where they served homemade hummus for breakfast.

I remember feeling content about having turned 30. 

Restaurant Deeg, Utrecht

Wijncafé Lefebvre, Utrecht

In January Jochem and I took a trip to the Hoge Veluwe National Park. We visited its famous Kröller-Müller Museum, which was impressive indeed, but I especially enjoyed biking there through the national park and eating my lunch outside in the sun.

Het Nationale Park De Hoge Veluwe

  

In March Jochem and I went to Amsterdam to visit the Rijksmuseum, which had opened less than a year before after ten years of renovation. Luckily we had a guide through Jochem's job, otherwise I would not have known how to get through the enormity of the collection. After a guided walk through the city, we had dinner at Sotto. I strongly urge you to go to this pizza place, since I believe it to serve the best pizza outside of Napels. This is no small feat! Order the pizza margherita and ask for extra tomato sauce and extra mozzarella. Then report back to me.

Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

In March we also visited Rotterdam to celebrate the birthday of Jochem's grandmother. Most people I know don't like Rotterdam. While I agree that the city has a rough edge, I actually love coming there. I especially like the neighborhood called Katendrecht, which houses my favorite restaurant in the country, Kwiezien. I will fabricate any excuse to come to Rotterdam so I can eat there. In my opinion, Kwiezien has that elusive quality of being able to blend high-end cuisine with homemade cooking in perfect harmony and balance. The restaurant is small and intimate with an open kitchen. The staff are friendly and helpful. The food never disappoints. The wine is always surprising (I will never forget that glass of sparkling Chardonnay). The chef de cuisine always has a vegetarian 'bitterbal' on the menu. As far as I'm concerned, it doesn't get any better than that. So, of course we had dinner there. We stayed at the newly opened nhow hotel, with its incredible view, and enjoyed the first warm weekend of the year.

Hotel nhow, Rotterdam

Erasmusbrug, Rotterdam

Hotel New York, Rotterdam

Katendrecht, Rotterdam

Just last weekend we made a day trip to Schiermonnikoog, which is the smallest of the five Wadden Islands in the North Sea. The island has one tiny village - the rest of the island is a protected nature reserve. We rented mountain bikes and biked across the island, giddy like children, stopping here and there to enjoy the picnic that we had brought. The whole outing cost us about 30 euros per person. If you are looking for a day away from it all and the weather is nice, I would consider making a stop at this beautiful island.

Schiermonnikoog

All of our trips are stringed together by short visits to family and friends, who offer welcome distraction at their beautiful homes.

Tecklenburg

Nierswalde

Almelo

I have saved my biggest piece of news for last. When our friends Matt and Aimee, whom we had met in Malaysia during our world trip, bought a house last year, I never would have thought we would be doing the same thing so soon after. But, it's true: we have bought a house! Of course this simply means that we now owe the bank such an extravagant amount of money that it makes me dizzy, but we may call the house ours. It's an old and small house but it's in our favorite neighborhood in Utrecht and I think that after a we fix it up a little bit, it will be perfect for us. Right now we're in the process of packing our belongings and and picking out floors. Since we're in the middle of this busy (there's that word again!), exciting and scary time, you will have to wait for an update on that one.

Utrecht

The academic year is nearing its end and another tumultuous year back home is almost over. Soon I will be off on new adventures, both at home and abroad. I am still ambiguous and uncertain about a lot of things, but luckily I can always find comfort in food. During the times that I was not abroad or on a day trip, when I had gotten up at 5.30 AM and came home to an empty apartment because my husband was excelling at yet another work function, this is what I would cook for myself:

Lone Linguine Spaghetti with White Black Truffle Oil

from Kitchen: Recipes from the Heart of the Home

by Nigella Lawson

Nigella Lawson understands what a woman needs when she is home alone after a hard day at work. We disagree on a few things, though.

Nigella uses linguine here, which I like, but I prefer spaghetti. I always prefer spaghetti.

Also, she uses white pepper, but I prefer black pepper. Then again, I put black pepper on everything, including fresh strawberries, so I might not be the one to trust in a white pepper vs. black pepper debate.

She also uses white truffle oil, but I have black truffle oil, which I think goes nicely with the black pepper, so I just use that. I advise you to invest in a small bottle of real truffle oil, which you can recognize by the small pieces of actual truffle on the bottom of the bottle and by its pricy price tag. You'll only need a few drops, though, and it keeps long. Whatever you do, do not use olive oil with truffle essence or something shady like that - you're probably eating motor oil by-products, in that case. If you can't find real truffle oil, I think it's best to just do without it, because this dish is still really tasty without it.

Usually, I am not very precise when it comes to using my ingredients unless I'm baking, but I have learned the hard way that with this recipe it is essential to stick to the measurements or your dish will not come together as it should.

Before you start, put your plate in the oven at 70 degrees Celcius. If you put your pasta on a warm plate when you serve it, the pasta will stay hot longer.

For 1 person you will need:

* 125g spaghetti

* 1 teaspoon salt

* 1 egg

* 3 x 15ml tablespoons cream

* 3 x 15ml tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese

* a few drops of black truffle oil

* freshly-ground black pepper

* 1 x 15ml tablespoon / 15g butter

Boil water in a pan on your stove. When it boils, add 1 teaspoon of salt. Add the spaghetti and cook it in 8 minutes.

Meanwhile, whisk the egg, cream, cheese, truffle oil and pepper in a bowl.

After 8 minutes, use a small cup to remove some of the cooking liquid. Save it.

Drain the pasta and quickly return it to the pan that you cooked it in. Add 1 tablespoon of the cooking liquid and the butter and mix it in.

Now add the whisked mixture to the spaghetti and mix it in.

Put your spaghetti onto your warm plate and eat immediately.

I prefer to eat my spaghetti in a bowl, with extra black pepper on top, while listening to João Gilberto or Sigur Ros on my iPad Mini.

* quote from Kitchen: Recipes from the Heart of the Home by Nigella Lawson

A Pièce de Résistance

Yesterday my husband turned 28.

Those of you who count him as a friend will surely agree with me that he is wonderful. He is by far my favorite person in the whole world.

I wanted to make this birthday special. I had to think for a while about how to do this, because during the previous three years his birthdays had been quite special already - last year we were picking up my wedding dress and visiting relatives in Spain, in 2012 we celebrated his birthday in a whimsical castle on the shores of Lake Titicaca in Copacabana, Bolivia and in 2011 I took him to Edinburgh, Scotland for his birthday.

Unfortunately, we did not celebrate his birthday abroad this year, but luckily it does not take much to make my husband happy (unlike his restless wife, perhaps).

In the end, then, I decided to go with what I knew would work: I was going to shower him with plate after plate of homemade food (not literally, of course).

This is why I woke up at 4 AM yesterday morning to make my husband breakfast. The reason why I set my alarm at such an ungodly hour is because my husband leaves for work at 6 AM to beat the traffic between Amersfoort and Amsterdam. I had also chosen a recipe from Yotam Ottolenghi's book Plenty: Vibrant Vegetable Recipes from London's Ottolenghi, whose recipes take me a little bit longer to prepare than the average recipe, plus, my inferior knife skills probably do not help matters much.

With my pajamas still on I prepared a couple of very special omelettes.

I started by cooking some potatoes, spinach and saffron in a little bit of boiling water before adding lemon juice and raw garlic. The original recipe calls for chard but I could not find it so I used spinach instead, which seemed to work just fine.

I added fresh tarragon, dill, parsley and chives to the omelettes and made them super thin.

I then spread crème fraîche on one half of the omelet, added some of the potato and spinach mixture and then folded the omelet twice to get a fan-like shape. I did the same with the other omelet, put both omelets in an ovenproof dish and let them heat up in the oven at 165 degrees Celcius for 8 minutes.

The result was a very rich omelet with lots of flavor and different textures. Jochem enjoyed it a lot and told me later that it had kept him satisfied until lunch time.

So far so good.

One of many great things about my husband is that he makes my lunch every day when I go to work. For his birthday I wanted to return the favor and so I made a secret lunch box for him with panzanella in it.

Panzanella is an Italian bread and tomato salad and one of our favorite dishes because it is easy to make, looks amazing and will taste better with time, although it can be challenging not to dive straight into it.

I made this dish one day before his actual birthday because the bread needs to sit in the olive oil and tomato juice overnight. It probably does not sound very appealing to eat day-old, soaked bread for lunch, as it did not to me either when I first read about panzanella, but you have got to trust me on this.

Alternatively, trust Nigella Lawon's judgement, because it is her recipe. Although panzanella is an Italian dish I prefer Nigella Lawson's take on it in her cookbook Kitchen: Recipes from the Heart of the Home since classic Italian recipes call for at least twice the amount of ingredients and time, while her version tastes amazing without this extra effort.

The dish looks bright and colorful and tastes even better - after a night in the fridge all the flavors have melded into a perfect harmonious whole.

During the evening we had dinner with Jochem's family at De Aubergerie.

This small restaurant on the edge of the city center in Amersfoort offers inventive seasonal dishes in its beatifully restored dining room.

Perhaps the menu is a little bit too oriented on French cuisine and a little bit too 'chef-y' (for lack of a better word) for my personal taste, but their beurre blanc was to die for. I think I might have licked the plate had we not been in such a formal setting.

At the restaurant I was finally able to give Jochem his birthday gift. I gave him a two-in-one blue Le Creuset pan that I hope he will enjoy cooking with.

But we are not quite done yet, because what is a special birthday for a special person without a special birthday cake? I needed something else - a pièce de résistance.

After the four-course dinner at De Aubergerie we were not unwilling but definitely unable to taste this birthday cake, but luckily for us it is a cheesecake and cheesecakes need to chill overnight in the fridge, says Nigella Lawson, and I tend to believe her in all baking matters.

We have made this chocolate peanut butter cheesecake many times already, but I knew it was the only worthy choice for my husband, who loves cheesecake, who loves peanut butter, and who, in general, prefers the boldest of flavors: strong black coffee, aged Scottish whiskey and caramelized ginger to name a few.

This recipe can also be found in Nigella Lawson's superb cookbook Kitchen: Recipes from the Heart of the Home. I did not change a thing about it because, let's face it: Nigella Lawson does not need to be disputed when it comes to baked goods - she knows her stuff.

You will need a 23-cm springform tin to hold the cheesecake and clingfilm to cover it with when you chill it in the fridge overnight.

A food processor is not a requirement, but will make your life a lot easier (not just when making this particular recipe, but for all your future cooking adventures).

Make sure that all of your ingredients have been assembled and are at room temperature when you start.

Begin by preheating the oven to 170 degrees Celcius.

You start with the base, for which you need:
* 200g digestive biscuits
* 50g salted peanuts
* 100g dark chocolate
* 50g unsalted butter

Put the ingredients into your food processor and press play. First smell the mixture, which is divine, and then pour it in your springform tin. Press it into the bottom and a little up the sides and then put it in the fridge.

Continue with the filling, for which you need:
* 500g cream cheese
* 3 eggs
* 3 egg yolks
* 200g caster sugar
* 125ml sour cream
* 250g smooth peanut butter

Repeat the steps that you took with the base: put in food processor, press play, then smell. Pour this filling into the chilled springform tin and cook for 1 hour in the oven. When the cheesecake is done the top should be set and dry, but underneath it may wiggle a little.

Take the cheesecake out of the oven so it can cool slightly while you make the topping, for which you need:
* 250ml sour cream
* 100g milk chocolate
* 30g soft brown sugar

Warm the ingredients in a small saucepan over a low heat until the chocolate has melted and you are left with a smooth chocolate mixture. Carefully pour the topping over the cheesecake and place it back in the oven for another 10 minutes. When it is done, take it out of the oven, let it cool, cover with clingfilm and let it chill in the fridge overnight. If you can.

Nigella Lawson also mentions that when you are finally ready to eat the cheesecake, you should not let it get too warm, because that will make it difficult to slice.

This statement of a cheesecake can be kept in your fridge for four days and you will want to take your time with it. Nigella Lawson warns that this cheesecake is "not for the faint-hearted" and I could not agree more - you really need to be an advanced cheesecake eater to appreciate this one in its "unashamed indulgence," as she calls it. In this last image I held up the cheesecake to take the picture and it was HEAVY.

Enjoy!

Sentimentality

It is October 4 - World Animal Day.

Of course this makes me think of my own animal, our pet cat Manchego, who has been a member of our little family since 2009.



But it makes me think of other things, too.

A couple of weeks ago Dutch researchers presented the first lab-grown hamburger to the world. For years I have been pessimistic, or even downright depressed, about the way we deal with animals as a source of food, but this left me hopeful. Like it or not, this appears to be where we are heading and I, for one, welcome it with great enthusiasm. Moreover, I do not appear to be alone in this - Andras Forgacs agrees with me. When I showed this to my students, though, they could not have been more repulsed by the idea. I guess there is still a long way to go.

I have been a vegetarian for more than two years now, so I no longer crave meat or fish. Last week Jochem and I were in The Hague to have dinner at Bacco Perbacco to cash in my birthday gift to Jochem from April and we made a quick stop at The Vegetarian Butcher to spend a small fortune on fake animal products. It turns out that we find their fish salads too 'fishy'. I guess we've turned into 'those people'.

Darcy Cosper once wrote that "principles don't mean anything if you abandon them when they become inconvenient or uncomfortable". Truth is, though, that while I do not miss meat or fish, it can be tiring to be a person of principle all the time. Why travel to Morocco if there is nothing to eat there but lamb? But then I remember one of my favorite excerpts from Jonathan Safran Foer's Eating Animals about sentimentality:

"The valuing of emotions over reality. Sentimentality is widely considered out of touch, weak. Very often, those who express concern about (or even an interest in) the conditions in which farmed animals are raised are disregarded as sentimentalists. But it's worth taking a step back to ask who is the sentimentalist and who is the realist.

Is caring to know about the treatment of farmed animals a confrontation with the facts about the animals and ourselves or an avoidance of them? Is arguing that a sentiment of compassion should be given greater value than a cheaper burger (or having a burger at all) an expression of emotion and impulse or an engagement with reality and our moral intuitions?

Two friends are ordering lunch. One says, 'I'm in the mood for a burger,' and orders it. The other says, 'I'm in the mood for a burger,' but remembers that there are things more important to him than what he is in the mood for at any given moment, and order something else.

Who is the sentimentalist?"

Manchego and I will be home alone today, since Jochem is going out with some old colleagues. For myself I am making a Roman pasta dish for dinner called cacio e pepe - spaghetti with two of my all-time favorite ingredients: Italian cheeses and lots of crushed black pepper. Manchego will be having white fish for dinner. He is a cat, after all.

I wish you a Happy World Animal Day!