Utrecht Journal: Learning to Travel Solo

This is a story about making myself proud.  

I was convinced, after pathetic days spent alone in London and Amsterdam pre-law school, that I do not travel well by myself.  This has cramped my traveling style in the years since, and also made me feel bad about myself.  But after the partial success of my Morocco challenges, I decided it was time to try again.  My self-imposed challenge: a day-trip to Utrecht, solo.

Sunday, June 26, 2011

8:58 a.m., Utrecht Central Station: Half-hour train ride passed too quickly in whirl of anxiety, both general and specific.  Stumbling onto train platform amidst flow of passengers, uncertain what to do first - go straight to the museum? Find a cafe for second breakfast?  On escalator up to the station hall, notice the lights above create a cool effect in the escalator shaft. Hesitate as escalator comes to an end.  Step back onto down-escalator while digging camera from backpack.  Spend 10 minutes riding escalator back and forth, taking pointless pictures of the light.

Note the yellow train, which I heart.

9:22 a.m., Utrecht Central Station (still): Pointless escalator picture-taking is oddly liberating.  Understand that I should head straight to the city center to find an atmospheric cafe full of university students.  Thinking what I really want is a "misto" at the Starbucks in the unremarkable train station.  Realize the power of choice is entirely in my hands.  

Touring the Netherlands: The Golden Oldies

We've hit peak tourist season in the Netherlands (late spring is an excellent time to travel here), and Jeff and I are just racking up the Dutch Golden Oldies. Keeping in mind that I live a G-rated life, what do you think of when I say "Holland"? Yup, we've pretty much done it.

Exhibit 1: Tulips

For about three weeks at the end of April, the fields from Leiden to Amsterdam were strips of bright color, so fragrant you could smell them through train windows (especially the hyacinths). Along the roadsides, impotent field owners' signs pleaded unsuccessfully with the hordes of tourists, "PLEASE Do Not Walk in the Flower Beds."

Sixty years ago, the mayor of a small town and the major bulb exporters in the region had the brilliant idea of distilling the beauty of the bulb fields into a major garden exposition: draw tourists, market products, spread a little flower love. Thus the Keukenhof was born.

Recipe Week #4: My Italian Soul

While I greatly appreciate the Dutch mentality (e.g., bicycling, frugality, worship of sunlight, and excellent English skills), I think my soul might be Italian. I loved Rome more than any other trip we've made this year (and not just because Jeff proposed to me there), and I could eat pasta every day for eternity (damn the consequences). Something about Italian sunshine, Italian coffee bars, Italian hand gestures, and the beauty of certain Italian cities makes me extraordinarily happy. And then there's tiramisu.

My acculturation to all things Italian is significantly furthered, of course, by the fact that I am surrounded by Italians. I work for Italians, I work with Italians; we have an Italian neighbor, we have Italian friends. Sometimes I catch myself using hand gestures and I don't even know what they mean (which is dangerous, since most hand gestures - in Italian - mean something rather crass). If only more international organizations were based in Rome...

But for now, I will settle for learning to cook decent Italian food (or, as Jeff will be quick to point out, for encouraging Jeff to learn to cook decent Italian food). Luckily, a good friend of Jeff's from northern Italy once gave him a collection of her family recipes. Here's one we made recently - though fair warning, second helpings can induce instantaneous arterial hardening.

SALSA DI GORGONZOLA – BLUE CHEESE SAUCE

4 tablespoon Butter

½ cup Flour

2 cups Milk

½ cup crumbled blue cheese

Salt

Pepper

Nutmeg

Warm up the milk, but be careful not to boil it.

Melt the butter in sauce pan. As soon as it is completely melted, add the flour. Stir continuously with a whisk until you smell something like cookies.

Add the milk very slowly and continue to mix with a whisk until the sauce is smooth, with no lumps. Add salt, pepper, nutmeg and the cheese.

Bring to a (gentle) boil and cook for about 2-3 minutes.

Use with pasta and top (if you wish) with walnuts and parsley.

Warning: This makes a lot. You might consider cutting the recipe in half unless you have a family of 10.

Recipe Week #2: When in Holland...

Last winter, I had the bright idea that we should learn how to cook like the Dutch cook, just so we could make use of all that kale and rootworst and cabbage and endives we were seeing in the store. This lasted for about two meals, after which Jeff and I decided there was a reason why (1) the Dutch have a growing obesity problem and (2) most of the restaurants around town are Italian and Indonesian.

But during my short-lived enthusiasm for learning Dutch "cuisine", I did find a few helpful websites with collections of traditional recipes. Of the handful of recipes we tried, we actually really liked a couple of them - we just decided they were a little too heavy for everyday use.

Prei stamppot met rookworst

This dish combines almost all the favorite Dutch food groups: smoked sausage, leeks, mashed potatoes, and cheese. It's also an example of the standard "stamppot" approach to Dutch cooking (that vegetables always taste better when mixed into mashed potatoes). I presume there is a significant ethnographic link between Dutch dishes like this and the casseroles of the American Midwest.

Rode kool op z'n Twents

Who says cabbage can't be bad for you? Note that the "bacon" used by the Dutch is the thick slab kind that you cut into cubes (but regular American bacon should work fine). I would cut back significantly on the amount of jam the recipe calls for; otherwise, this dish can taste like candy.

You'll notice these recipes - like most of the recipes we encounter over here - measure amounts not by volume but by weight. At first this caused us some consternation, but then we bought a cheap kitchen scale at Ikea, and Jeff now swears by the greater precision that comes from weighing ingredients.