London

One of the reasons we moved to Amsterdam was to live closer to P's family, and we recently spent a great long weekend with them in London. M enjoyed the birthday celebration they organized for him, complete with a Toy Story cake!

M loved his presents and Uncle Stephen also had fun playing with them.  Mairtin loved having his Grandma read him the new books Uncle Brian gave him.

One of the best things about staying in London is the great playground across the street from Uncle David's house.

The playground has a lot of new equipment since the last time we were there.
Mommy even got a few minutes in on the elliptical.

Daddy and Uncle David had fun at the playground, too, while a perplexed M looked on.

I'm not exactly sure how M got the idea to make a peace sign in every photo.

M also loved his trips on a double decker bus, going to and from Ealing Broadway.  On Sunday we spent the day in the country with some friends of Uncle David's who have a son about M's age.  M had a great time, "thanks to Uncle David," as he said.  

Nihola Love

 Today I rode the Nihola Family bike.  I think I'm in love.

Riding with Mairtin has been challenging.  I'm nervous, and nerves and bike riding don't mix in a fall-on-your-ass kind of way.  While the Nihola is a bit wide, and somewhat tough to wheel around urban sidewalks, riding it on roads and paths is a dream and actually strengthened my cycling skills.  It steers easily and shifts smoothly.  The shop was near Vondelpak, so I took the majority of my test ride there.  My biggest challenge riding with Mairtin has been balance--his seat is perched high on my bike and the extra 40 pounds creates something of an inverted pendulum.  Since the Nihola is a trike, balance is simply taken out of the equation.  I didn't realize this until the end of the ride when I was stopped at a light and didn't need to put my feet down.  The downside:  The pricetag.  At about $3,000, it's in the same range as a car.

Between the test ride and my errand to the British General Store (to get the black pudding M requested for his birthday dinner), and the wrong turns I took, I must have cycled about 5 miles today.  What a great way to get around.

Tomorrow is my little boy's 4th birthday. I can't wait to celebrate!

In the Kitchen

My helper

Before I left New York I knew that I needed to have something to do in Amsterdam--a major hobby.  I'm not working and I decided that I would not feed my family anything that came out of a box.  Don't get me wrong, even as a working mother with a big-deal job we were never the type of family  to rely on mac and cheese, Trader Joe's meals or takeout, but we did rely on very simple fare:  soup and sandwich, Rafetto's pasta and "snack dinner" were part of our regular menu rotation.  And, I was always fond of saying, "if it's Thursday, it's egg night."  Before we had a child we put a lot more time and effort into our meals and I wanted to get back to that.  However, a few things are standing in my way:

1. Lack of Equipment.  Growing up the child of an early adopter foodie, I'm well versed in cooking tools. I know what I need and need what I like, and simply speaking I don't have it here.  Because of the different voltage my Braun hand blender, Cuisinart and Kitchen Aid hand mixer all had to stay behind in New York. Similarly, the Le Cruset and All Clad also didn't make the cut, mostly because I didn't know how poorly equipped the kitchen would be.  I have one pot, a sort of medium-ish stainless thing with a clad bottom that's not half bad, and a couple of cheapy teflon frying pans.  To be fair, our landlord did explain that he just tossed the overused pots and pans and that we should just tell him what we wanted, but we haven't done that yet.
2. The Metric System. Growing up in the '70s, I was taught Metric with the promise that we'd all be using it.  When that didn't happen I got rusty.  Now I have to consult a conversion chart every time I want to use the oven.  And my one measuring cup is in milliliters.  And how do I know how much meat/fish to ask for at the butcher/fishmonger?
3. Lack of Time/Attention.  Until last week I was home all day with a near 4-year-old, and if I want to cook, I'm generally called away to play super hero.  Occasionally I can engage him in cooking or park him in front of TV, but only occasionally.
4. An overly complicated oven with a Dutch manual:  While most Dutch households have a small wall oven the size of a microwave, we have a Smeg 5 burner, professional looking monstrosity.  The settings have no words, just symbols, but thanks to my sister I recently decoded what they mean.  Our microwave was similarly baffling until my sister-in-law came to visit and just walked up to it, pressed some buttons and it sprang to life.
5. Lack of supermarket savvy:  Ever go to a new supermarket and not know where anything is? Try it with all the signs and labels in a different language. Last week I bought chicken bouillon, or so I thought; it was kind of like a tea bag full of spices. The other day I bought flour but wasn't completely sure I hadn't bought corn meal until I got home and opened it up.

My out-of-a-box masterpiece.

 But we have done OK.  I have bought cod at the market (albeit way too much) and a chicken and some burgers at the butcher (albeit way too expensive).  Friday was rainy so I decided to bake with M.  My original thought was frozen cookie dough because he's a little antsy for the mixing portion of the exercise, but it turns out that they don't have that here (or at least in my local supermarket).  So, I bought a cake mix and some pre-packaged icing.  This also meant buying a cake pan. Interestingly, a spring-form pan in the states is something only real bakers have.  Here it seems to be the only kind of cake pan and for under 4 Euro I got a pretty good one.  

A very happy little boy after his slice of cake.

I did my best to translate the cake mix instructions before I left the store to be sure I had what was needed.  The cake turned out pretty good, despite the fact that I mangled the top trying to test it with a fork (of course, my cake tester is in New York).  The icing was a small envelope from Dr. Oetker, a brand I've seen in the States.  I thought for sure you must add water to the hard little mess inside, but thankfully the package had French instructions as well as Dutch, so I learned that you just put the entire packet in hot water and gently squeeze it until it melts (...dans une grande quantite d'eau tres chause...).  The result was actually quite delicious--kind of like a Boston Cream Pie without the custard.  I'd definitely make it again and highly recommend the Dr. Oetker frosting if you can find it.

The kiprollade, cooked perfectly
thanks to Google Translator

Inspired, I decided to make a roast for dinner.  I was fascinated by something at the grocery store called a  kiprollade.  I figured it was some kind of chicken roast, and from my rudimentary translation of the ingredients, I figured it had stuffing in it.  I was kind of envisioning a turdukken minus the tur and duk, but what I got was more like a Tofurkey with some chicken it it. It was weirdly processed, kind of like a big chicken sausage, and although we ate it, I ended up throwing the leftovers away because it was just too gross.  Looks pretty in the picture, though, right?  Some lovely brussels sprouts and brown rice completed the meal.  M basically had brown rice and milk for dinner.

My plan to get back to cooking isn't entirely lost.  We have had some modest but strong success with the lemon chicken breasts I made from the Fanny Farmer cookbook, and Peter made some lovely Mackerel last weekend.   I feel like I'm just finding my feet here and I'm sure I'll get more creative as time goes by.