Horn of Plenty

Who would have thought that I’d be sitting in Amsterdam (Amstelveen technically) eating a mango, persimmon, and pear fruit salad for dessert, a sip of Jameson to warm it up, while watching fireworks out of my living room window?

I love that all of those fruits are available here. The only things that I haven’t been able to find in the “grows out of the ground” category so far are tomatillos for my salsa. But it’s still pretty eatable with out them. No such thing so far as egg whites sold on their own. Probably not a bad thing to get the real deal, it just makes me spend a little more time. I finally managed to found cottage cheese a few days ago at the Albert Heijn. It’s not a food I eat every day, but when you get a hankering for something, and when you just can’t find it, those are the times you get a little home sick. Most of the time it’s a matter of figuring out what it’s called in Dutch. Schmierkase. That’s Cottage cheese. Schmeirkase. Animal bits are tougher to come across. I just today found turkey fillet’s for the first time, at the bio market in the town square. When I asked the butcher if he carried any ground turkey he gave me a look coupled with an “enh” kind of noise that made it seem more likely that I’d be able to find ground reindeer, or possibly unicorn. He said he would look into it for me, and in the mean time I ordered a few pounds of ground chicken and pork, separately, to be picked up next week. Not eating beef, I really miss my ground turkey tacos, patties, etc. So, we’ll see what he can come up with.

We’ve been hearing and seeing random fireworks all around us for the past week. It doesn’t actually have to be New Years to make some noise around here. Matt says the guys at work have been telling him stories about New Years Day traditionally feeling similar to battle, and most of the time you feel like you’re under mortar fire attack because there aren’t enforced rules about shooting off fireworks under other people’s noses. I’m thinking we’ll watch from the 10th floor….