Ubuntu cola

Back again from Norway, with a stop in Sweden and a stop in Danmark, so time to pick up where I left off. By the way, G&A are married and it was a beautiful wedding! Also a great stay in Norway.

Wednesday the 29th we were in Sweden still, and we decided to make a trip to two nearby islands offshore, Tjörn and Orust, though they were both connected by bridges to the mainland. Like our travel guide mentioned, they didn't have anything special to visit, they were just nice places to drive or rest.

Now, the gas station where we refueled had these 0,5 L coke-bottles, which were named Ubuntu cola! Isn't that great? For those of you who don't know the other Ubuntu, it's quite a popular Linux distribution (computer operating system) and I guess the most renowned. It's free software. From their website:

Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'Humanity to others', or 'I am what I am because of who we all are'

Unfortunately, the coke wasn't for free. However, it tasted like it should have been :). Which is to say, it didn't actually taste like coke (no, not even like Pepsi). I guess it was part of some sort of charity project, so I guess it's good for your karma at least.


At the local bakery at one of the villages on Orust, I got this funny little bread, which wasn't really anything special. Like the picture shows, it had some lettuce, hard-boiled egg slices, tomato and cucumber. On top of it was some pieces of pickled herring. All over Scandinavia they have these kinds of pickled herring. Where the Dutch pickled herring is either very salt or very sour, the Scandinavian type is subtly sweet with a hint of sour. I like it! It went well with the other ingredients on the bread and made for a nice snack.

Asparagus

The Dutch pride themselves on their white asparagus. All over the world people seem to enjoy the green type (or sometimes even the purple type), but in Holland there’s an entire cultus-like tradition surrounding the white asparagus. Somewhere in May or June, the asparagus is ready to be harvested.

The harvesting is a meticulously timed process. The asparagus gets its white colour from growing underground. As soon as it will shoot out from the ground, it will start to go green, thus losing its delicate flavour. Harvesting the asparagus has to be done just before this shooting out. That’s usually a matter of hours. A lot of seasonal workers, commonly from Poland, are involved in getting all the asparagus out in time.

Because of its delicate flavour and the fact that the white asparagus will only be available for 2-3 months (the asparagus season), the Dutch have nicknamed it the Queen of Vegetables. Traditionally, it is served with cooked ham, boiled potatoes, hard-boiled eggs and hollandaise sauce (how appropriate). Whenever the season comes around, N prepares this seasonal meal a few times. Or, should I say, it’s one of those few times per year I let her cook :). She makes an excellent hollandaise. Usually, we save some of the asparagus stem parts for soup.

When you’re in Holland during the asparagus season, be sure to sample some! Most restaurants will serve special seasonal menus involving asparagus.

Corn Cookies

Having more than half a can of tinned corn kernels left, I decided to make some corn cookies. They're originally from Indonesia, where they are supposedly called frikandel. They ought to be made with corn, eggs, flour, a chili pepper, celery and some leeks. I didn't have all those ingredients at hand (and also N doesn't like hot food) so I left out the chili and replaced the celery by some basil leaves and the leeks by a diced onion.

For the batter, I drained off the corn. Then I mixed one egg with the corn, added two tablespoons of flour, added the diced onion and shredded basil leaves and some freshly ground salt and pepper. The batter didn't turn out to bind its constituents that well, so I added another egg which in turn made things a little too soggy - so I added some more tablespoons of flour until the batter was somewhat sticky.

I heated up a generous amount of oil (the cookies basically need to be deep fried). I scooped in three spoonfuls of batter and let them bake on both sides for three minutes each.

A first taste test revealed they were quite tasty. The batter gave 6 cookies, of which I put two in the freezer for later use and the rest in the fridge to be eaten at lunch or whenever I feel like snacking. Downside of it all was that there were these heavy, deep-fry fumes. But who cares, if you get to have these great snacks :)