Turning firewater into holiday gold.

For the last twenty-five years Amsterdam has hosted a major art, antiques and design fair: PAN.

This year's collection is particularly strong.  (The torsos above are actually carved into the wood.) The fair manages to be inclusive and exclusive at the same time, with contemporary pieces shoulder to shoulder with antiquities.

In the ever-growing list of things I should have done but didn't: I didn't take note of the artists.  But you can enjoy these snaps anyway, right?  Don't judge me, I had two (increasingly impatient) kids with me...

This artist's name I did get, however:  Zhuang Hong Yi makes gorgeous, often ambitiously large-scale pieces using Chinese newspapers, rice paper and other traditional materials to create heavily worked, airy looking pieces that somehow manage to bridge the creative divide between his native China and the West, as he has lived in Holland for many years.

If you come to Amsterdam, I do suggest you check out his and other artists' work at Galerie Katwijk, in the heart of the canals and on the periphery of the antiques district.

I miss our chickens.  Can you tell?

I do wish you could have been there, to better appreciate the scale and detail in these works. The painting below is taller than me.  Which isn't saying that much, but still.  The faces are very intriguingly rendered.

Alongside these works were more classically rendered pieces.

Like this affecting portrait, with the wonderfully worked white space all around, and the neat signature dead center at the top.

A bit on the traditional side for me, but some gorgeous silver.  For your dining room, perhaps?

This is the first painting by Corneille (a founding member of the COBRA postwar art movement) that I actually really like.  And I have no idea why.  But you can see more of his work and many others at the COBRA museum, also here in Amsterdam.

These porcelain bugs were over a foot long each.  There had to be over a hundred, and each one was unique.  Cool in a odd way, right?

But I love owls most of all, especially stylized ones like this Art Nouveau one.  No idea where I would put it, but I'd definitely find a worthy spot.

This painting made me laugh out loud for its chutzpah and humor.  It is the real'er than real depiction of a kroket in a coin-operated automat.  What is a kroket you ask?  It's bastion of the crappy-but-alarmingly-addictive-late-night-snack kingdom.  It is gravy, rolled in breading and deep-fried, in the flavor of your choice.  Well, if your choice is a meat, or maybe shrimp.

There are absolutely scrumptious up-scale versions of the kroket, believe it or not.  Only they don't come out of a machine.  Like most nearly anything edible, they do taste better when they aren't made on an industrial scale.  (I don't know whether they still offer it, but the McDonald's here used to offer a McKroket Burger.  You know, to fit in with the locals.)

After visiting this giant show, I needed nothing more than to settle down, out of the cold weather.  And make something myself.

This time of year, a fire just feels right.  All the better to plan out the Thanksgiving menu.

I will spare you the hemming and hawing over the choices, the browsing through cookbooks and online, and cut to the fantastic ending: this sumptuous Bundt cake.  Oh, please do make this cake this winter, for the holidays, for me. Take apples, a bunch of booze (bourbon, whiskey, rum, take your pick, it'll work), well-toasted pecans, a big handul of candied ginger, and an indecent amount of sour cream.  You will get awful close to the best Bundt cake ever.

Thank you so much, Melissa Clark.  I have fallen in love with my Bundt pan again.  Of course, if you peek at the recipe below, you'll see you don't have to have a Bundt pan to make this.

The New York Times' Apple Bourbon Cake

Serves fourteen.

2 sticks unsalted butter (226 grams), at room temperature, plus more to grease pan
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (315 grams), plus more to dust the pan
3 tablespoons (30 grams) plus 1/2 cup (80 grams) bourbon or rye whiskey
1/2 cup (90 grams) candied ginger, chopped
1 3/4 cup (330 grams) light brown sugar
4 large eggs, at room temperature
2 teaspoons (8 grams) baking powder
1 teaspoon (5 grams) baking soda
1 teaspoon (2 grams) ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon (1 gram) ground cardamom
1 teaspoon (5 grams) fine sea salt
1/2 teaspoon grated nutmeg
1 cup (227 grams) sour cream
1 tablespoon (15 grams) vanilla extract
1 1/2 teaspoon (5 grams) finely grated lemon zest
2 medium tart apples (454 grams), peeled, cored, and coarsely grated
1 cup (120 grams) finely chopped, toasted pecans
1/2 cup (100 grams) granulated sugar
Juice of 1/2 lemon (20 grams)

Heat the oven to 165C/325F. Grease and flour a 12-cup bundt pan. If you don't have one, you can use two (nine inch) loaf pans instead, or even two (eight-inch) round pans; keep in mind the baking times will need to be reduced accordingly.  In a small bowl, combine 3 tablespoons bourbon and the chopped, candied ginger and set aside.

In a large bowl, beat together the brown sugar and butter on medium-high speed, until light and fluffy, at least 5 minutes. Then beat in the eggs, adding one at a time, until thoroughly incorporated. In a separate medium bowl, whisk together the remaining flour with the baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, salt and nutmeg. In another separate small bowl, whisk together the sour cream and vanilla. Add the bourbon from the ginger mixture, reserving the ginger) and stir in the lemon zest.

With the mixer on medium speed, add the dry mixture and sour cream mixture to the wet mixture in three additions, alternating between the two. Fold in the ginger, apples and pecans and combine thoroughly, and fill the prepared pan.

Bake until the cake is golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out dry, about 1 hour 10 minutes. If you made the cake in loaf pans, you'll need to start checking for doneness around 45 minutes.  If you made the cake in eight inch round pans, start checking even earlier, at around 25 minutes. Cool in the pan about 20 minutes, then run a paring knife around the sides of the pan to release the cake if necessary; allow to cool, flat side down, on a wire rack.

As the cake cools, blend the 1/2 cup granulated sugar and 1/2 cup whiskey in a small saucepan over very low heat, stirring until the sugar dissolves. Add the lemon juice and take off the heat. While the cake is still warm, flip back into the pan and make a few slits on top with a paring knife. Pour half the bourbon-sugar mixture over the cake. When the cake is fully cool, flip it and pour the rest of the glaze on the other side, then flip once again to serve.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours.

Settling in.



KLM's little ceramic houses of Amsterdam, filled with genever (gin). 

This won't be the first time I bite my tongue to keep from ranting about the weather, but the inclement, roiling skies made it that much easier to focus on making our apartment a home. 

Being back in the city means a move away from the countrified ways we'd developed (and enjoyed) over the past three years.  Now we're shifting back into a more familiar city mode.  Sometimes this meant unpacking things that had been in storage for too long.

Other times it meant shopping.  I do not like looking for clothes, but browsing my way through home goods is another enchilada entirely.  This elliptical table below is from Ikea.

I love a bit of blending of styles, too.  Here's an inherited Artifort midcentury classic paired with a French antique find.  I found that carpet a few years ago, the colors are luscious and those soft, firm nubs feel heavenly underfoot.

These fish traveled 1300 kilometers in a Mini.  They were no doubt at least as relieved to be out of the car as we were.  They went from our kitchen in the French Cevennes to our kitchen here in Amsterdam.  The chickens weren't allowed to come...

I indulged myself in the kitchen: when we first moved from Amsterdam to France, I schlepped most of my kitchen supplies down there.  This go-round, they've mostly stayed behind in France.  I am loving the lines and heavy-duty bottom of this pot I got at HEMA, the Dutch version of Target.  (Check out this clever page from their online store.  Give it a second to kick in...)

Here is a tall, asymmetrical wooden pepper grinder I got from, you guessed it, Ikea.  Ten euros--and it grinds like a charm! 

My splurge was this spoon rest.  I needed a spoon rest.  I just didn't need an Alessi spoon rest.  But aren't those curves fine on this new Alessi spoon rest?

Essential in Amsterdam: a coatrack.  Faint echoes of the Dutch Piet Mondrian don't hurt.

We have all started to find our bearings.

And we know what to do when the sun finally decides to make one of its brief appearances.

 First we double-check.  (That's my neighbor's terrace, below.  In sun.)

 Then we make a dash for it.

We do crazy, lovely things like taking off our raincoats.  Even better, we have a picnic in the backyard.  My friend Azumi was the hostess this time.

The spread was absolutely Japanese, and absolutely delicious.  She claimed it was really very basic and simple to make.  That was when I asked for the chicken recipe.  Azumi was right.  But so am I:  this version of the Japanese standard will hit the spot, whether for a casual picnic or a satisfying weeknight dinner.   

Azumi's Picnic Chicken Teriyaki

Serves four.

700g chicken thighs, cut into bite-sized pieces

3 tablespoons shoyu (Japanese soy sauce)
3 tablespoons mirin (a sweet Japanese cooking wine)
1 teaspoon extra-virgin olive oil with lemon flavour, or sesame oil
1 shallot, minced

Combine all the ingredients in a sturdy plastic bag, rubbing the marinade thoroughly into the chicken.  Let chicken rest it in the fridge at least an hour.

Heat the pan with a bit of olive oil.  Pour all the ingredients into the pan. Cook the chicken over high heat, until nearly all the liquid has evaporated. Lower the heat and continue to cook until it until the sauced chicken is nicely browned.

Going to the sea.

Heading to Cassis seems to have turned into an annual tradition of sorts.  There are worse things. 

This time, I avoided all the highways.  It took most of the day to get there, but it was magical.  We went through the tiniest Provencal villages, through big cities (Nimes and Marseille), and above all through the rolling, endlessly changing countryside. 

The fruit and vegetable stands, with their hand-lettered signs, were up and running nearly everywhere.  The cigales were screeching away; we knew this because the top stayed down the entire trip. 

We stopped for lunch and a wander in Salon-de-Provence, made memorable by its remarkable fontaine moussue. 

 

The fountain dates from the sixteenth century, and the lime deposits from the water have made over time a natural sculpture covered in moss and fairy-light, fern-like vegetation.  Underneath the mushroom-shaped limestone, water drips constantly.  It is hypnotic, a cave in the making, in the bright light of day.

The animation of the cities has become a bit unfamiliar and exciting for us, so it was also a pleasure to drive through them.  But I had a specific idea in mind: I was willing to risk hitting Friday evening rush hour in Marseille for the sake of D559.   Also known as La route de la Gineste, D559 runs from Marseille to Cassis, above the deep, rocky coastal inlets, and across the windswept limestone clifftops and plateau.  It is not to be missed. 

See the tiny houses in that valley?  Breath-taking terrain, every inch of the way, and then, after the nth hairpin turn, Cassis and its golden rockface swerve into view. 

This was the view from our room, taken by my five year old while I was having a well-earned shower.

I have written about Cassis before, here and here and here, so the basics about this charmingly low-key port have been covered.  But there are always lovely spots in Cassis to admire--and photograph.

To better see some of the detail of this gorgeous Ferris Wheel, you can click on the image.  My son's in the St. Exupery/Le Petit Prince airplane...

In the center of the photo below, two men are sea jousting (you might have to click on the image again to better see).  Each standing on a fast-moving boat, the opponents are trying to knock one another into the cold water using lances.  Sea jousting dates from Ancient Greece and Rome, and has been played in port and river towns across France since the time of the Romans.  Provencal sea jousting (joute nautique) is considered the most aggressive of the various versions.  These days, even women have begun to joust, according to the national federation.

I watched from the balcony, and decided I'd rather stroll around looking at boats rather than falling off them.

Once back from Cassis, my kids spent the day at our neighbor's place.  Building a hut in their dry riverbed was the main order of the day, but the children also collected pinecones.  Arriving on the tail end of their foraging session, I was able to grab a couple of cones. 



These cones are from a very large, mature umbrella pine, and you can see the seed pods are tucked back in between the scales.  While this wasn't the greatest year for pine nuts, there is still nothing finer than to dislodge the seed pods, and, using a small stone, crack open the seed pods and eat the creamy colored pine nut within.  Fresh pine nuts have a slightly resinous, almost eucalyptic flavor, far more intense than anything found in a store.  They taste simply spectacular, which perhaps explains why I have never been able to get anyone to collect them for anything other than their own immediate consumption.  If you are lucky enough to get your hands on some fresh pine nuts, or you choose to go the storebought route, I have just the recipe.  I found it in Real Simple magazine years ago, a simple riff on Italian biscotti ai pinoli, which I slightly tweaked; it is devoured by kids and adults alike.  I haven't made it lately (hence the lack of a photo).  Let me know what you think.  I'd love to post a photo of your cookies, so do send me one if you try the recipe.

Biscuits au pin de pignon (Pine Nut Drops)

Makes about 40 cookies.

2 sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup packed dark brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 tablespoons agave or corn syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 large egg
2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
2 1/2 cups raw pine nuts

Preheat oven 190C/375F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Beat the butter, brown and granulated sugars, corn syrup, and vanilla for two minutes using an electric mixer. Add egg and beat until combined. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, baking soda and spices. Reduce mixer speed to low and gradually add the flour mixture to the egg mixture.

Shape the dough into tablespoon-size balls. Spread the pine nuts in a low dish. Roll each ball in the pine nuts, pressing so the nuts adhere. Place the balls two inches apart on the prepared baking sheets. Bake until just lightly browned at the edges, about 12 minutes. Cool on the baking sheets for five minutes. Transfer the cookies to wire racks and cool completely.