Always Bring a Spare

Een Koe - Zwart en Wit

Den Haag, Nederland

I learned the perfect Dutch expression. I cannot think of an equivalent in English, at least not one that rhymes as well.

Die pleit voor een koe, 

geeft er een toe!

Figuratively it means "If you want to argue in court over a cow, bring a second." It's at the nexus of law, business and Dutch life for me. It encapsulates our life here.

Aside: That is in Old Dutch. In new modern Dutch it is: Als je wilt pleiten om een koe; men neme er er nog een toe! It still rhymes but is not as punchy.

Coffee Wrong (2/2)

The Hague, The Netherlands

The same week my mother gave me the non-information about the perils of drinking coffee from a cafettiera, we took an overnight trip to Bremerhaven, Germany. The purpose of the trip was to learn more about our German ancestors who emigrated to the United States through that historic port town. On the way there, we stopped at an Ikea for Swedish fish and meatballs (my favorite seafood and balled meat), of course.

At the customer service desk on our way out of Ikea, I noticed a mug shot of our french press. My Dutch is still under-developed but I could tell Ikea recalled it. The sign said something to the affect of "Danger! Return immediately, not only will the pot malfunction and lacerate you, it will also burn you at the same time." It was poorly designed and highly believable that it could shatter.

Last week I finally returned the fugitive coffee pot from justice. The client services people balked at the length of time that it took me to return it. Apparently only going to Ikea once every 6 months is unusual. In the end, they fully-refunded my money.

This left the quandary of how we were going to get our daily coffee fix. I borrowed a drip coffee machine from our landlord. Unfortunately, it had an overly eager auto-off switch and would turn off after the first drip and I returned the machine to him. We switched to an over-the-cup-filter.  I really like it after drinking from a press pot for so long, and we will stick with it for the rest of our time here. Although, it is a pain and not scalable at all but brews a really tasty, crisp cup.

Funny thing, coffee is not as taken as seriously here in The Netherlands.  To be sure, there are cafes galore, that serve good espresso, americano/luongos and cappuccinos but it is not a regulated, cultural thing like it is in Italy or Germany or Sweden. The service is really nice. Usually with a toll-house bar and sometimes a glass of water. You pay for it, though.

When you want a latte in The Netherlands you say "koffie verkeerd." Verkeerd literally means "wrong." A while back, some friends and I were out at an eetcafe. I finally had the nerve to ask why it is "verkeerd." The woman explained that it has something to do with the color being so lite, as opposed to zwarte "black" and that somehow makes it seem like coffee, but "wrong." Right or wrong, I am looking forward to heading back to the States and to the Northwest to find right, wrong and everything in between.

The Easy Bake Dutch Oven

We recently had some difficulty with our built-in oven. The landlord came over, we unscrewed the retaining screws, pulled out the oven, and found the oven was plugged into a power-strip along with the hood fan. Having studied electrical engineering, I am no electrician. Still, that seems very wrong, no matter what voltage you are running. Let's hope the apparent Clark-Griswold-esque installation is above board with Dutch building codes and the Europe's higher voltage makes it all okay.

Coffee Wrong (1/2)

The Hague, The Netherlands

Mothers have a special way of saying things to adult sons. When my mother visited way back, over Easter, while serving breakfast one morning she commented in a FoxNews, off-hand sort of way that "...during a conference last week a scientist from the FDA said coffee from a french press is hazardous to your health. Please pass the butter." Of course, this is where I get unsettled and my inner-monologue starts freaking out "Does my mother hate my coffee? Do I make bad coffee for Maggie? Did I miss the Surgeon General warning that we should all smash our cafeteras? Am I a good person?..." When I pressed her for details, she had none "Sorry I only heard the title. Please pass the honey" and later searches turned up nothing on the health hazards. Thanks!

Funny thing. While I was sulking doing searches did, they did turn up a lot of stuff about making good press-pot coffee. You will not be surprised to find there are entire sites dedicated to the practice. People take this stuff really seriously. They have even made (multiple) videos on Vimeo! That's right: Vimeo! Time permitting, check out some of these artful, g-rated videos on how to make coffee with a french press.

Videocast #2 - French Press Technique from James Hoffmann on Vimeo.	a french press method from hufort on Vimeo.
JJBean on YouTube

Here are the specifications and conditions for a decent, repeatable press-pot of coffee

item	req.	unit	note
Coffee	40	g	up to 60g
Water vol.	900	ml	900 g
Water temp.	200	F	367 Kelvin
Steep time	4	mins.	240k msec.
Shirt	Flanel	husky	wide

Here are the press-pot tips that I gleaned from all the searches and post-hipster, artful videos:

• Weigh the grounds
• Skim the grinds from the top of the beaker before plunging (use a wooden spoon)
• Use "fresh" water in the kettle for every pot. Boiling water releases the essential air.
• Pre-heat the french press with boiled water for especially lazy coffee drinking Sundays
• Use a burr grinder

Here is a list of good links on coffee that I saved from all that time wasted internet searching that day:
How to Make the Perfect Cup of Coffee (Freakanomics)
Loving Coffee Without Being a Drip (NYTimes.com)
10 Crucial Coffee Tips: And Recipes for Enjoyment (The Kitchn)
How to Use a Press Pot (CoffeeGeek)
Coffee Brewing (CoffeeResearch.org)
Just how much ground coffee do I need for x amount of coffee? (Coffee and Caffeine FAQ)

Let me know if you have tips of your own or your mother has the same talent for getting your hackles up.

Pulpo a la Gallego. Ewww!

The Hague, The Netherlands

Last night's dinner had eight legs and a beak. More like some sort of monster. First time ever cooking octopus for us. Here are the tips and recipes we used.

It turned out okay, despite not having pimenton and not blanching/brining. It was a bit chewy, I would say. The dish is probably best for a large, open-minded crowd, considering it serves, eight, get it. Haardy haar! 


Allow plenty of time to simmer/blanch/brine and try it for yourself.

A Very Dutch Branding Issue

The Hague, The Netherlands

Serbia Says Jailed Mladic Will Face War Crimes Trial

After 15 years, Ratko Mladic, the former Bosnian Serb... was captured. He will be sent to The Hague for trial...

If I had read this headline a few years ago, The Hague would not have been a place that I should like to visit, let alone live. Doesn't that sound like he was sent to jail (e.g., He was sent to Riker's Island)? (BTW - Rijkers, also named for a Dutchman) Even the BBC, the anchor said "That was John Stone AT The Hague" (Wha?! Dear Dept. of Queen's English, how can you be AT a city?) Bottom line, the Dutch have some branding issues. 

Allow me to propose some branding guidelines for anyone in the House of Orange looking to rebrand their wijk/feifdom/bosch/county/dorp/city/state/country/land:

1. Saint or San - OK; The, 't, 's - Not OK - Location names should start with New, South, Saint (San), or Old, but never "The". Oude Delfshaven, approved. 's Hertogenbosch, foul! Dam or dijk (dike) are good too because they are usually suffixes.  Plus who doesn't love to say "DAAAM!" or "DIKE!"
2. Pick a name with fair vowel to consonant ratio -  The Dutch language is difficult for gringos and non-gringos. What with its funny throat clearing noises, alternating vowel rich words (e.g. zeeëend) and consonant rich words (e.g. slechtstschrijvend) add two more degrees of difficulty. Heck, it's a challenge for us to pronounce the Dutch word "please" (alstublieft.) Paris is a great name. Milan is a great name. Paris is probably the same spelling in every Latin based language. People name cookies after Milan. Also, people name their children "Paris" for Pete's sake! (BbA does not in any way condone naming children Paris)
3. Paris => Parisian; The Hague => Haguer? Haguian? Haagse - For your rebranded town, choose a name where country-men or women will have some relation to the place (from Paris, a.k.a. Parisian. From New York, New Yorker) For the record, people who are from The Hague are Haagse. If you are from The Netherlands, you are ______ (Answer below). If you guessed Hollandaise, you are in good company with people who like rich sauces and French food. Also bad: United States. Hence, "Americans", to the justifiably chagrined 700 Million plus Latinos and some righteously indignant Canadians.
4. You say Binnenhof,  I say Buitenhof, They Say Hofijver, We all say Parliament - One of The Hague's most famous landmarks is its parliament complex. It has a pond in front and is the location of the original Count's Hedge ('s Gravenhage). The Binnenhof, what I incorrectly call the picturesque building, literally means inner courtyard, not the building as I refer to it. Hofijver is the moat in front of it. Buitenhof, the courtyard across the street. It is best to call the whole place parliament. Another bad name, The White House, see 1. above. Pick something comprehensive, that describes the whole location.

   

   The actual Binnenhof, (photo by lyzadanger)
5. Minimize the g's and therefore the growling - If I tell people I live in Amsterdam, they immediately picture where I live: windmills, canals, red lights, and non-stop dance parties. If I say 's Gravenhage, they say "Bless you!" I have a hard time with the letter "g" in the Dutch language. In most cases, it has a throat-clearing, growling sound that immediately betrays you as a non-Dutch native when attempted. When you rebrand your city, try to keep these to a minimum. An exception, Gouda, synonymous with tasty Dutch dairy products, is fun to say in English. As in "Have a Goud-a day!" Caution, in Dutch it is pronounced more like "HCCKKH-ouwt-ehh". If you say "Good-a" no one will know what you are talking about.
6. Pick a name that sounds the same in multiple languages - French for the Netherlands "Les Pays-Bas", Spanish for the Netherlands "Países Bajos" or "Holanda".  All of which connote "low lands" in their respective language. This compounds people not knowing where you are from if you say "The Netherlands." because it sounds nothing like your native language. Hence, I sometimes say Amsterdam, even as we are about 60 km from there. Better to choose a name like Caracas or Kodiak. No translation necessary.

Here are some trivia questions to further illustrate Dutch branding issues: 

I. Which one of these name is the original name for The Hague?

1. t' Hetogenbosch
2. Des Graven Hage
3. Haag
4. Heerhugowaard

II. True or False If you are from The Netherlands you are Dutch

III. True or False If you are from The Netherlands you are from Holland

IV. True of False If you speak Dutch, you also speak Flemish and vice versa

V. What territory used to be part of Holland?

1. Flanders
2. Wallonia
3. Zeeland
4. Zealand

So the next time you drain a part of the north sea or create you own city, why not choose something that is easy for Dutchmen and non-Dutchmen to wrap their mind around? My suggestion Flavoland (as in Flavor Flav o'land).




Answers: 
I: 2., II: True, III: True and False Holland is an easter, low-lying, sub-area of The Netherlands. Amseterdam and The Hague are in Holland. After all, people in The Netherlands living outside Holland do not like people saying they are from Holland., IV: True, Dutch and Flemish derive from the same root language, V. Flanders is the Dutch/Flemish speaking part of the dysfunctional country of Belgium.

Eurovision - Where American Idol, The Olympics, and Geopolitics Collide

The Hague, The Netherlands

If you had asked me one week ago: What is Eurovision? I would have guessed that it is the name of a television network in France that produces a steady stream of the French equivalent of Telenovelas. I would have been totally wrong. It is, in fact, a musical performance contest where 43 countries compete for 25 slots in a 3 hour performance broadcast live this past Saturday night from Dusseldorf, Germany. It has been going on for 56 years. All 43 participating countries get to vote for the winner out of that group of 25. (You might be asking: "43? Are there really that many countries in Europe?" Well, yes, there are more than that, if you throw in Israel, Russia, Vatican city, and San Marino (just kidding about Vatican City, they did not participate this year).

In case you missed it, the song contest is an entertaining evening of music, costumes, dance, and light displays. The performers are closer to N'Sync and Ke$ha than anything else, but PG-rated. There were some very good acts and some oddities. We enjoyed Bosnia Herzegovina's kitschy cold-war-folk-rock-performance, Estonia's discordant pop-song, hard rocking Georgia, and a festive Spanish performance. In a rare Eurovision moment, Lena, the comely winner from Germany last year defended her title in an enjoyable performance. We were laughing at the French's opera singing heat throb and Greece's spoken word + off key Gregorian chant/opera + ionic columns in the background (side note: honestly ionic columns! Greece should invest some of the bailout money on R&D in coming up with a new type of column). None of the bands we thought were going to do well, except for BH, placed high in the voting.

Eurovision is truly unAmerican in the sense that it runs for 3 hours on public television, without commercials, and the voting of each country is revealed live at the end, country by country. It is truly American in the sense that almost the entire show is in English, which makes it very easy to watch. Votes are 50% popular, 50% by a committee from each country. There must be a lot of criticism about the voting because the hosts defended it a few times by saying "It's how we have always done it." Also,voting is like the U.S. Senate, that is to say strange, because Andorra and San Marino has the same voting strength Germany and France. Countries tended to vote for their neighbors and conspiracies abound.  I went to bed as the votes of 43(!) countries were tallied.

Azerbaijan, The Eastern part of "Eastern Europe"

In the morning of the following day, I learned that Aizerbaijan took the title, in a surprise to rest of Europe. Bordering Iran and normally known for its "strong women's volleyball", "adept chess players", and above average "performances on Russian quiz shows", Azerbaijan's attractive duet had memorable white costumes. In fact, that's all I can remember of their performance. As the winner, Azerbaijan has the honor of hosting next year. Given the estimated cost of 30 million euros to put on such an event, Greece, Ireland, and some of the other countries were probably relieved that they did not win.

There is a lot of geopolitical analysis, naval-gazing, and tea leaf reading that goes into the contest. Just do a search  on Google and you'll see headlines like "Ireland pins bailout hopes on Eurovision" or "The Netherlands did not make the finals for the third year in a row, Parliament investigates", etc. All the self-examination is probably the most strange and least enjoyable bit of the extravaganza.

Bottom line, Eurovision probably does do more to help countries cooperate than foster, counter-productive, nationalistic sentiments. Like the Olympics, it probably does little net good or, at worst, little harm to have the contest for a region that has had countless wars over the past thousand years. I'll certainly be paying more attention next year to see how Azerbaijan puts on the show and looking forward to the zany costumes and back drops!