Apple Pie

There are in Den Haag a plethora of little twee cafes that serve basic sandwiches and homemade sweets on mismatched china. I was at our favorite (based on quality of coffee, value, and general homeyness)* with a new friend the weekend before Christmas. We both ordered apple pie - Dutch apple pie, which is a towering mess of diced apples, dried fruit, and crumbly crust.

Our very kind waitress explained that there wasn't much pie left, and also that it wasn't very good (I did not catch why she thought it wasn't very good, but at any rate she turned out to be wrong). She offered to bring us what they had left, with some whipped cream, for half price.

She re-emerged carefully balancing a large baking sheet with a third of an apple pie and roughly a cup of whipped cream mounded next to it. "I'm sorry," she explained, "it started to fall apart when I cut into it, so I just brought you everything we had." We didn't complain.

Half an hour of chatting later, we had made a major dent in the pie, but progress had significantly slowed. That was when the thin Dutch man, with whom we were sharing a large communal table, leaned over. "Excuse me," he said with an exceedingly polite Dutch accent. "I would like you to know that if you need any help with the problem you seem to be having," he inclined his head towards the pie plate, "I would be very happy to be of whatever assistance I can." And he smiled.

It took us a moment, but then we laughed and slid the baking sheet with the ruins of the apple pie over to him. A few minutes later, he slid it back to us. "As you can see," he informed us, "I have been able to take care of the problem. I am very happy that I could be of some assistance."

Four euros for a third of an apple pie and some cross-cultural bonding? Now that's a value.

* "Appeltje Eitje" (roughly, little apples little eggs)