All about | Regional Varieties | Storage | How to | Recipes All about Vanilla. Simple. Fragrant. Earthy. Fruity. Romantic…… I’m amazed. Is there anything that doesn’t have a Vanilla version? The simplest, most basic flavours: cakes, Ice-creams, yoghurts, cookies…… they all have Vanilla as standard and what a great precedent it is for the rest […]

I call it ‘Hobbemaplein’, after the area its in;  T calls it the ‘Haagse Markt’ as though it were the only market in the Hague (which it isn’t, though it is certainly the largest one) and many others  say the ‘Turkse Markt’, a tribute, I reckon to the high proportion of Turkish stall owners. Suffice […]

Leiden is 12 minutes on the bus, from where I live. It is a quaint town with a thriving centre, canals, cute little bridges and windmills.  Scattered around the city are a 101 wall poems, in different languages. Illustrated below…one poem in dutch. Its ‘logo’ is that of ‘2 crossing keys’ – said to be the  keys to the gates of […]

2010 We saw | We ate | What we brought home | All the rest We saw Rome holds a special place in my heart, which may endure forever . The city that redefined family holidays for us – no trip to MacDees or any other fast food place, not even to use the bathroom. […]

Introduction | Rice pockets| Herby Potatoes| Pasta Salad Introduction Leftover cooking can be fun. It is one of the areas where you can get creative. Take rice for instance. Plain old boiled rice. It has a life after its first meal. Assuming there’s some left over – it can be converted into a quick rice pudding, […]