Details, details....

recently i wrote that you always have to lock your bike to something immovable, and in addition, you always have to lock your front wheel to the frame. here you can see what happens when you forgot that little detail; they take your bike without the front wheel.... all the other bikes are locked properly, as you see. unfortunately, you see this rather often. of course it is sad that you have to lock your bike with at least 2 locks in the first place, but thats just another detail....

tim has some days off since he worked crazy hours during the weekend. so that was nice... we went to 2 photography museums today, both on the same canal. the above we saw while walking from one museum to the other. the exhibits in both museums were a bit disappointing, but so were my own pictures...

this is one for theme day! to see the other participants, go here!

Some pink!

this man was posing for photos with anyone who was interested... only the back of his gilet was black..... and his heels were quite high!! this was on the gay parade in amsterdam, beginning of august. and now its september already.... days are starter to be shorter again, and since yesterday it became noticeably colder... it might be that summer is really over now... buuuhhh!

today is theme day, and the theme is... pink! at first i wanted to show our living room (again; we made quite some changes), but looking at the photos it all looks still too messy, we really first need to tidy it (at least) a bit. 

for the other pink participants, go here!

Artisan? Creative?

finally, i try to join theme day! somehow i always forget. either we are away, or suddenly its the third already.... theme day reminds me that time is going so fast, too fast. while at other times it goes so slow....

this month the theme is "creative artisan". artisan is a funny word. i guess i have mentioned it before, but here in the us i noticed its on a lot of expensive products in the supermarket. fancy breads, cheese, etc. often accompanied by the words "old world", "european", "according to ancient recipe", etc etc. it always makes me laugh.... i tend to avoid foods with those words..... as i posted before, i started baking my own bread about a year ago, and we havent bought any bread from the store ever since (except when on holidays). and am i glad! most of the american bread is horrible in taste (what taste..?), or crazy expensive (and still not that tasty...). at least around boston; recently we had some real good bread on the west coast during our road trip!

but... i dont feel like an "artisan" when baking bread. i also dont think its science, although many people seem to approach it like that. ooh, when baking bread you have to be super precise, you have to weigh everything carefully, the dough has to be at the exact temperature, and only then you will get a good, tasty loaf of bread. thats just funny... people have been baking breads long, long before there were scales or thermometers.... oddly enough, i do feel sort of an artisan, and even a creative one when i make soup. while so much easier than making bread, the process of making soup seems artisan to me. throwing some herbs in, some vegetables, some spices perhaps, letting it cook slowly for hours, adding some more (while its actually just all the stuff you want to get rid of!!). and guess what? i actually dont really like soup. i just like the process of making soup (and the immersion blender afterwards!!). so, above some homemade real dutch split pea soup (its real because the spoon can stand in the soup, meaning its very thick, as this type of soup should be), together with my favorite sourdough seed-bread, fresh from the oven.... isnt it old-world? artisan... ? ;)

(i have been taking pictures of my food the past weeks, since tim was away for 3,5 weeks. every now and then i would post them to his facebook-wall, to show that i was indeed still eating healthy while he was away (and ofcourse, to show him what he was missing....). this was one of them).

here you can find all theme day participants!

Dutch baby!

it is theme day again, and this time its "bakeries". this evening we spent quite some time making bread.... tomorrow we will bake it, so no picture of that.. anyways, as i wrote before, im not that good at taking pictures of food..

above a dutch baby we now sometimes make during weekends. its so good! i had never heard of a dutch baby before, and it has nothing to do with the netherlands, as far as i know. there is a wikipedia-entry about it (here), if you would like to read more about its origin; apparently it was introduced during the first half of the 1900s somewhere in seatlle. wikipedia also says that its similar to the dutch "poffertje", but its not!!

how to make one? preheat the oven to 400F. then mix 3 eggs, 2T sugar, 2/3 cup milk (buttermilk is ok-ish too, if you dont have milk, but it wont puff up as much), 1/2 cup + 2T flour, 1/4t vanilla, 1/4t salt and 1/2t cinnamon. while doing that, also put an ovensafe dish into the oven (like a round pyrexdish) with 1 to 2T butter. the dish should get hot and the butter melted, then spread it evenly over the pan. dump in above mixture and put it back into the oven until it puffs up. it really puffs up, thats so funny to see! then sprinkle some lemonjuice onto it and some powdered sugar and enjoy!! (i like to add a lot of lemonjuice, it tastes soooo good with the pancake and the sugar). above we went a little crazy, and added sliced strawberries. we got 3 entire boxes for only 5 dollars, but their taste was not the best. to get it better, i incubated them for a while with some liquor (like rum, or whatever you like), sugar and lemonjuice. when the dutch baby was done, we put the strawberries on and put it back in the oven just until the strawberries were nicely warm. hmmmmmm......!! the recipe i got from here, i just reduced the butter as it is far too much and upped the cinnamon... now i just hope our bread tomorrow morning will turn out good...

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Dancing dragon

last sunday we went to chinatown, as they were celebrating the chinese new year (year 4710), which started jan 23rd. the year of the rabbit giving way to the year of the dragon.... (once every 12 years, as there are 12 animals)  i was reading a bit, and did not realize this; in western culture/literature the dragon is a mean, scary beast that needs to be defeated by heroes and so on. on the other hand, in eastern culture the dragon is a symbol of good fortune and intense power.... this could be a good year... ! :) people born under this sign are regarded as innovative, passionate people who are colorful, confident and fearless. 

the dancing dragons were going from door to door in chinatown, seemingly tireless, throwing around lettuce and oranges (this was what they were feeding the dragons). as they were going up each stairs leading to the shops and restaurants, firecrackers were going off. of course, there had to be a policeman guarding this all, but he looked rather bored... (maybe it was too noisy for him).

the theme day for this month at citydailyphoto is animals, so that was a good opportunity to show this pic! :)

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Poor tree

last week we were walking around at the apartment complex when we saw this funny shaped tree. then we realized it is because of the fence! but it got over it and survived the fence......

theme day this month is fences; but nature won!

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Mystery object

i cannot sleep and thus turned my computer on again.... then i realized its theme day! above my picture, do you know what this mystery object is?

its 1.30 now, at 4.30 the alarm will go off and we will have to get up.... to catch the bus to new york! yesss... we are going to NY for the weekend! is that why i cant sleep? i wish it was.... :) (and i hope i can make up for it in the 4-hour bus trip). very much looking forward to it, and to taking, hopefully, a lot of crazy pictures. hope there wont be too much rain, although here its raining like crazy since a little while.

and the mystery object? its a rather old photo, taken january 2008, to be exact. i was at home, in utrecht, looking up, and took a picture of my lamp!!

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Theme day!

i am a member of citydailyphoto for a little while now! but so far i havent had the time to really do something with that and always missed the theme days etc.... i am not entirely sure i understood how it works, but i believe its still valid to participate in april's theme day (or can you post it only at the first day of the month? the theme is "edges". and above the picture i choose.... i have had it in my "perhaps for my blog picture folder" for a while now... i took it on thanksgiving, last november, when we were in provincetown. of course we went exploring this small town a little, and found this side street that seemed quite abandoned. i guess nature will take over entirely soon (or has done so already..)!

(hmmm... i think i am already too late to participate in april's theme day...)