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It must have been somewhere around November or so that I was contacted by Sabina Posthumus who asked if I wanted to help in making her cookbook. She explained the concept of the book and I was immediately enthusiastic. You see, one of my favorite markets in the Netherlands is the Beverwijk Bazaar and then [...]
I know it is technically not the season for figs but you can always save this recipe for future use and hey, it might be fig season anywhere else in the world right? Plus it is ALWAYS gorgonzola season as far as I am concerned… More then that this delicious tart is just about perfect [...]
I feel like it’s been way too long since I posted a proper recipe here… So time for something summery and truly delicious. Strawberry tiramisu..! So far summer or spring rather has been erratic. Warm days mixed with cold and rainy. Unfortunately at the moment we are at the latter of the two, with today [...]
I am late…. Very, very late… in posting the winner of the Spring challenge! That doesn’t mean we are loving this gorgeous image by Soma any less though.. This image breaths Spring season for me. Lovely strawberries and the human element in this image really makes it special for me. And apparently also for the [...]
I gotta be honest here…. I know (I knew!) virtually nothing about port wines so when I got the invitation from Oscar Quevedo to join a group of select wine bloggers for a tour of Porto, the Douro valley and their wineries I send him a note first asking if he was sure he had [...]
Just before we were all going live with our Virtual baby shower we got the news that the baby is already born! A beautiful baby boy with the name of Adam, who wasn’t due until a few days later but as happens with babies, planning is a little tricky! So congratulations for Zita and her [...]
I don’t know about you guys but ever since the economic crisis hit in full force (and Tom lost his job) we are trying to look at ways to reduce the costs. Budget shopping is not my strongest point but there are other things you can do to reduce the amount of money spend on [...]
I’m feeling slightly stuffed sitting behind my desk right now typing these words… Stuffed because I have eaten too much and I should be moving around, burning off some of the just consumed excess calories but instead I cannot move… I just have to tell you about the most delicious French toast I have ever, [...]
I can still vividly remember the very first international workshop I attended in 2011, not even that long ago. Sure I had gone to other workshops before, as I like to talk to like minded people and I feel I always come back from those workshops with new energy and bursting with ideas. People tend [...]
I can’t believe it’s already more then a month ago since we came back from Laos and Cambodia… I still haven’t even edited most of the photos. Guess I’ve been a little swamped with other things since coming back! One thing I do want to share with you today is a beautiful new book by [...]
Sorry, sorry, sorry… I’m a little late with posting this months challenge, but as you might have guessed from the previous post I was juggling too many ideas and couldn’t decide which one would be best for April. Thanks for everyone’s great suggestions here, on facebook and on twitter! I’m pretty sure I’ve stocked up [...]
I need your help people.. My mind is going in all directions when it comes to a new theme for the photography and styling challenge, so I figured who better to ask for a new theme or topic then those who are likely to participate? So…. we’ve had a couple of themes already since I [...]
Was it a challenging subject for last months photography challenge.. ? Judging by the smaller number of entries it might have been. Still, I’ve seen a couple of really cool entries and then ofcourse the winning image from Cathy who runs the blog She Paused for Thought which I hadn’t seen before, but go on [...]
They say it is the coldest Easter we had in the last 30 years… As we speak ( one day before Easter) snow is falling out of the sky… Snow…. On one of the last days of March! And I know, I know… Enough has been said about the f… weather but I cannot help [...]
I sure hope that dishes like this soon fail to look appealing to me, but as the weather is still close to freezing point here, making a stew is almost the natural thing to do right? In our black box Tom had included pork stew meat (which is most likely called entirely different but for [...]
When Wendy Heyer from the blog Foodie Moods suggested we should all do a sort of virtual blog swap the response was positive and immediate by a lot of foodbloggers and hey… you know me.. I’m always in for something fun and new. The idea behind the blogswap is not to actually take over someone [...]
What is it that makes baking so much fun? Is it the precise measurements that you need to follow? Is it the tempting smell when it is baking in the oven? Or is it the sweet taste of success once you open the oven door and take out the golden deliciousness…. I honestly don’t really [...]
Since I started the Donna Hay challenge – that has since changed to a more generic challenge – there is one thing I couldn’t help but noticing. There are tons of people that react enthusiastically to the concept or the particular challenge but when it comes to actually participating the number of entries is not [...]
It was cold when I arrived at Central Station in Amsterdam. Cold and snowing. Yuck…. Being the middle of march and all, it could be warmer. I had decided tk take the train, since parking in Amsterdam costs a small fortune and it made sense to take the train. Even though I hate public transportation. [...]
It feels like it has been forever since we last did a Black Box, Tom and I… But we figured it was time to give it another go. Just last week Tom was told that his contract would not be renewed which means that as of April 1st he will be unemployed again. It’s the [...]
When you go to any country in Asia, everyone knows that you can eat virtually everywhere. And have a decent meal for under a dollar if you want. Going to a fancy restaurant might even be a little bit silly when you can find a foodstall with mouth watering goodies on every single corner of [...]
Waking up this morning I looked out of the window to be greeted – again – by an all white world… If you’re anything like me and live on this side of the world you’re pretty much fed up with winter and quite ready for spring. Especially after our trip to Laos and Cambodia, where [...]
In just a few months time my blog will be celebrating it’s 5th birthday! Over the next few months you might find a few retrospective posts popping up and me getting a little bit nostalgic now and then… You’ve been warned! O and this is a fairly long post too.. I’ve been blogging now for [...]
Yes, it was time for our cooking club again! I’ve been debating with myself for a long time which recipe I was gonna share here with you and as I am writing this I am still a little bit undecided as they were all good. I’m pretty sure I told you on previous occassions [...]
I always think that no matter what the missing ingredient is for a certain recipe, I can make it work with whatever I have on hand. And usually that is not such a bad way of thinking either as it generally gets the job done and has given me some surprisingly delicious new recipes in [...]
I don’t think we ever had an unanimous vote when it comes to choosing the best picture out of any challenge. And that’s probably a good thing too as all of the photos submitted have their pros for sure. This month’s winner is a wonderful lady that I met not too long ago during one [...]
As foodies we all go to markets. We all go to restaurants and we all go to any other place that has food on the agenda, right? And if you’re anything like me, you also love to take your camera with you and try and shoot the scenes as they pass before your eyes. However, [...]
Honey, I’m home!!! Still a little bit jet lagged… I woke up at 5 am this morning, couldn’t go to sleep anymore so I opted for some quality photo editing time… As it turns out that was not the best idea in the world, as I was checking all my photos at a 100% for [...]
I know I’ve been virtually silent mostly since typing a post on my iPhone ( as I’m doing right now) is not exactly very fast or straightforward. I purposefully didn’t bring my iPad with me just so I could have some off time. It’s funny too as I am starting to get real excited about [...]
Sometimes – every so often – a good meal is just a series of coincidences… I had been planning on making a salad for lunch using leftovers that I had in the fridge. Getting rid of all we still had just before heading of for three weeks… Seemed like the sensible thing to do. However, [...]
Isn’t it weird how all that snow has suddenly disappeared? From being -8 C roughly during the day to now +10 or so. All in the space of two days… Nature never fails to surprise me, that is for sure! In the meantime our healthy living routine is going along nicely. Because it’s not a [...]
Boy did I have a hard time coming up with the first challenge for this year! You probably guessed that too since I am way over the date it normally gets published. But that is not such a big deal as the bonus is that the deadline for this challenge is much later then the [...]
After having spend the entire day with my head buried in the numbers I think it is about time I wrote a little blog post instead. It’s getting dark outside and while the temperatures are way too high for the time of year (it’s roughly 10 C at the moment… Above zero..) it does feel [...]
With wildly varying favorites it was quite a difficult task this month to choose a winner for the combined photochallenge and Monthly Mingle that we had last month. Such beautiful entries too! And all of them delicious… The winner is this delicious Rocky Road recipe by The kitchen Witch. While we didn’t all agree [...]
Wow… I haven’t written anything new here since mid December I just noticed.. Did you miss me? I decided to take a break of blogging and social media over Christmas and New Year. I’ve been so busy before that it almost became a chore instead of the fun it is supposed to be. So it [...]
I never really make cookies. I don’t know why or well, maybe just to prevent myself from eating the entire stack. That is a very good reason not to make them. Growing up – as you might know by now – my mom hated cooking and trying to dig through my memory I don’t think [...]
I feel like I am a bit in a photography rut at the moment. It’s not going the way I want; I have no inspiration and it just looks to me like I am simply repeating the same setup time and time again. I need to be inspired again! I want to burst with ideas [...]
I sometimes feel that time is slipping away from me. I cannot believe we’re in December already and I cannot believe it is almost Christmas! I haven’t even given any thought yet to what we’re gonna make for Christmas, let alone started our traditional Christmas taste testing, which I really love, but needs some free [...]
I’m sitting behind my computer and feel that I am staring at the screen. Staring without actually seeing anything. I’m soooo sleepy… Should I take a nap? Just pretend I don’t have to do anything else? But then, I know that naps and me, don’t go very well together. I tend to wake up feeling [...]
Ofcourse for our december photo and styling challenge it was pretty obvious to me what the theme should be… December is THE month for anything festive and sparkly! As coincidence would have it I am also hosting the December Monthly Mingle too and to avoid too many things running at the same time it seemed [...]
The first moment I laid eyes on the gorgeous image from Raul from El Oso Con Botas, I just knew this was one of my favorites. It is absolutely perfect in showing of the drink (Mulled wine) and the lighting is drop dead gorgeous. My fellow judge Jenn totally agreed on this so it was [...]
Yes, we’re back! Our start of our weekend in Rome was a little weird. Originally we were supposed to go Friday morning but due to Tom’s grandpa’s funeral we had to rearrange flights and everything to leave later on Fridaynight. So after the funeral we changed clothes at a gasstation and drove on to the [...]
When we were kids autumn was always an exciting time. We would go on foraging trips to find acorns, chestnuts and beech nuts. We would use the acorns and chestnuts to make little stick animals where we would use toothpicks to stick into the nuts to create arms and legs or whatever other weird creation [...]
It was time again for our third challenge where Peter and Mary would be giving us a ‘Masterchef Australia‘ challenge to deal with. Our first one was a lot of fun, the second challenge was more of themed one (Vietnamese) and for this challenge we got both a mystery box AND a pressure test. Part [...]
Sometimes you come up with a combination that is just so good! This fabulous salad with pomegranate and beetroot is one such thing. I had bought a couple of pomegranates at the market earlier that week and while they do keep for a while they seem to shrink fairly rapidly I find and I didn’t [...]
It’s been a weird week. With Gizmo no longer with us, I still find that I expect to see her at every corner. You know how that is. Everyone has those little habits that are hard to break! To give an example; when we go to bed we always used to check where Gizmo was, [...]
I can’t believe how long ago our last cooking session was! Time sure flies and I missed one session because I was in Germany and then we had one cancelled due to unexpected events happening… We have still met most of our cooking crew members at some point or other separately or in little groups, [...]
Twenty years ago I walked into the door of my friend Jacqueline’s house and was greeted by two little kittens. One entirely black one and one little grey furrball…. I was a little shocked as there weren’t supposed to be any kittens left, except the black one since they would keep one. Jacqueline’s cat Poekie [...]
It was roughly a few days before the actual event date that I received a tweet from Karin from Yum and Moore if I maybe had time to go to Umbria for a fun foodie weekend. Well hello… I will make the time! So with some hasty shuffling of appointments and a swift booking of [...]
It took me a while to come up with the theme for the November challenge. After the first two fabulous responses by everyone it had to be a good one. I got December figured out long ago but November is just one of those ‘in between’ months so coming up with something suitable seemed like [...]
