Sailing

At our annual sailing trip, this time also including Big-L, along with S, E and J, we usually don't care too much about dinner, since the outdoors will always make you hungry. We started the trip at friday evening and ended sunday in the afternoon. The weather was beautiful (even hot) and it was very nice and all, etc. -- but of course you're interested in the food we ate during that trip!

Well, that friday we had some fries with mayo and croquettes. Because there were Endless Amounts of Fries, we had plenty leftover. During that dinner and also afterwards, Big-L had a very influential role in halving the beer supply for the weekend. Later that evening, probably when the effects of that role had kicked in, he specifically requested for the cold fries leftovers to be served for breakfast the next morning, on a sandwich, with peanutbutter. The rest of us, not having had such an influential role, promised to remind him of that the next morning.

So, here it is, the proudly presented Cold Fries Sandwich with Peanutbutter:

Unfortunately, I cannot describe the gustatory experience this culinary curiosity has led to, but I'm sure Big-L himself will want to comment on that. We might, however, draw some conclusions from the fact that he withdrew after just a single bite and made us promise to stop him from expressing silly wishes after having had a few beers.

Ah, the joy of beer-influenced decisions.

The next day, we had macaroni and cheese, with some ketchup and diced ham.

After boiling some macaroni, we added two bags of grated cheese and a tin of diced ham, along with a tin of tomatoes. Unfortunately, the pan was too small to add another tin of diced ham (which while waiting for the macaroni to boil, started to decolor -- and the cooking only took 7 minutes). Luckily, the two bags of grated cheese did fit in. However, because of the heat of those days, the cheese had already started to melt beforehand and had formed a large lump. Because of that, it wasn't easy to make it melt and mix it evenly throughout the pasta. Big-L and S, being the hard-working sailors, were offered portions containing the most of that lump. Strangely, they didn't quite enjoy it, just chowing away on yellowy unshapely somewhat cheesy lumps which they felt was directly clogging their arteries and making their stomach ache. They made us promise to never do this again too. Well, E, J and I did enjoy our portions (which might have had something to do with us missing out on that cheesy experience). E and I promised to eachother that when we would be making a boating trip ourselves someday without people complaining about our cooking, we would gladly eat this every day!

All in all, this trip turned out to be great, however, for our next trip, we will probably have to provide for a lock on the beer supply, a cooling device and other dinner options.

I can't wait for Big-L's comments on his culinary experience!

Angry Whopper

Hurray! Today was finally the day A and me both had time to sample the temporarily available Angry Whopper, at, what other place than, the Burger King! Yay!


It was a mighty fine burger. Like your regular Whopper, it had a patty, lettuce, tomato and sauces on it. The Angry Whopper though, apparently comes with an extra Pepper Jack cheese, jalapeños, spicy Angry Sauce and Angry Onion rings, which are meant to transform this into an extraordinarily mean burger.

Apparently.

Because the only zing I got was from the jalapeños. The onion rings sure were great, but I didn't get a kick out of them; neither from the supposedly spicy angry sauce or the supposedly spicy pepper jack cheese.

Anyway, it was a decent burger all in all, alas not enough to satisfy my appetite and not really that spicy, although I think N wouldn't like the spiciness of it. However, more people seem to agree with me on the lack of spiciness.

Toast Skagen

The first two days of our stay in Sweden being quite rainy, we spent them indoors. Friday we went for a nice drive around the country and stopped in Ljungskile, somewhere on the south-west-coast of Sweden.

It had some kind of small vessel harbor, on the banks of a fjord. Next to it was a restaurant where we had lunch. N took the fish and chips, I took the Toast Skagen. My first real Scandinavian dish this holiday! Hurray.

I knew it from TV, when some Dutch chef (Rudolf) went to Stockholm to take on a Swedish chef (no, not from the Muppets) in a Toast Skagen contest. He even managed to win that by public vote. It is a shrimp salad on toast. The shrimp salad consists of shrimps (yeah really), red onion, dill, sour cream and mayonaise and is served with some red caviar. I knew I liked it, because after having seen the TV show I had made it myself and I liked it. I did find that the flavour enhances when it's left to stay for a day, so the onion gives off more flavour. However, in a restaurant where everything is prepared fresh, they can't do that naturally, so it had a less intense flavour but was still great.


N's fish was on the other hand quite tasteless. Luckily there was some yellowy sauce accompanying it which gave it some flavour.

KFC

Great was the day when the Colonel's descendants in all their wisdom bestowed upon us humble Groningers (inhabitants of Groningen, The Netherlands) our very own KFC restaurant. It truly made us wipe away a tear from our eye, we were touched in our hearts by the mere thought of being able to enjoy deep fried chicken goodness.
Well, A and me anyway. Nobody else around us seems to either care or even like it at all. N hates the fries (I guess she has a point, they tend to be more soggy). K doesn't know what's so special about it. Another K and H, whom I once took in the car back on our way home after a long day, found out several important pieces were missing from their order (like, 6 pieces of chicken or something like that). They only found out after I dropped them at the railway station. Of course we didn't ask for a receipt so there was no way of pointing out missing stuff to the KFC employees. H tried mailing the Dutch KFC headquarters, but apparently never got any response.

Well, all the more chicken for A and me! And great chicken it is. Because, let's face it, it's not the sides you're going to the KFC for. Fries? Nah. Drinks? Pepsi, no Coke. Okay, corn on the cob is a great side. But in the end, the chicken is the reason.

Today, N got home sick. I guess she has an ear infection. I made her some ramen with edamame, but then I was left with the question of what to have for dinner myself. Or, should I say, which fastfood joint I'd go to? There are two options if you're by car: McDonald's or the KFC. Since I went to the Mac the last time (see previous post) I decided to go to the KFC this time.
There are some advantages to taking your meal home, over eating at the restaurant itself: you can have your own sauces with your meal! That means, yes, having chili sauce with your chicken, and, no, not paying extra for mayonaise to go with the fries (Yes, we do that in Holland. Get over it). And, in case someone left the napkins out, you can just clean your hands (and face) anyway.

Amazingly, everything was in order this time when I ordered the Variety meal (somewhat different from the Variety box meal in the USA). It even included some napkins (which lately seem to be left out more and more). The Variety box included three hotwings, two strips and one smallish wing-thigh part thingy. There was a small pack of fries, some coleslaw and a 0.4L drink. I ate it all. It made me a happy Kurger.