Going even more nuts

Yesterday night a package was delivered. I was confused because I couldn't remember ordering something. This was inside:

Looks like somebody read my blog... Danke, Papa! :-)

At Marle's and her mother's

If there is any reason for bad mood, take a walk in the Wooldrikpark. There you will discover

1. a small zoo with goats, sheep, small deer and birds that you are allowed to enter for free to feed the animals with leaves and grass and to pet them (if they let you!),
2. a playground with an awesome swing and
3. a tea house, 'theetuin' ( = tea garden) in the former coach house. And this is not just 'a' tea house. It is my happy place if you know what I mean. 

At 'Ik en mijn mouder' (me and my mother) they will serve you an excellent choice of tea and coffee drinks together with delicious cakes, home made toffee or savoury sandwiches. You can order a high tea one day in advance, and a lovingly arranged table will await you with an étagère filled with deliciousness.

The house is placed in a magic garden which is even in winter giving the teethuin the feeling of a nest.

All furniture is painted in happy colours and there is a puzzle waiting at every table.

The tea service contains of at least 200 different collections and the walls are each an art gallery by its own. There are at least two cats who will not stop to beg you to stroke them and which are extremely fluffy.

As I said - if you are in a bad mood, just go to the Wooldrikpark...

www.ikenmijnmoeder.nl

WooldrikparkW

Wooldrikpark

At least, I failed.

Of course I didn't want to hide the outcome of the baking activity in GVP castle (Gronausevoetpad):




The process contained the crushing of nuts into different sizes with different tools.

Using my Swedish grinding device or a hatchet.

I assume that you know the 'At least you failed' at imgur? Like this one for example. 

The recipe for the Napoleon's hats suggested that they would turn out like this:

Picture attached to recipe (www.freundin.de).

My interpretation.

Mine now look 'a little bit' different due to a physical process which took place in the oven and which is also known as the melting of butter.

I also very much like my interpretation of 'Napoleon lost his hat and got sunburned, ate too much chocolate and had to throw up":

The typical Southgerman 'Plätzchenteller' enjoyed some popularity during yesterday's Sinterklaas celebration.

We watched 'The secret life of cats', a documentary about what cats actually do when they are not watched by their owners (but carry a GPS sender and a camera on a collar), played with the 'Geschichten-Würfel' which means inventing a story according to the symbols on the nine dice in front of us, ate a nice dinner including 'The Imam faints' (Turkish-style filled eggplants) and apples from the oven with vanilla ice cream and watched the cute anime 'My neighbour Totoro'.

About men in funny clothes

A year ago, a dispute started. It was set off by Mrs. Shepherd from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. In Netherlands, it is a long and much-loved tradition to get visited by Sinterklaas and his assistant, the Zwarte Piet. Sinterklaas is also known as Santa Claus or Hl. Nikolaus in other countries, and his assistant is depicted and represented by a person with black make-up in its face and funny, clown-style clothes. Since the Zwarte Piet is the one who is traditionally responsible for "punishing" the children (although I was confirmed that this is no longer the case and that the Zwarte Piet is as much loved as Sinterklaas himself) and looks rather funnily, Mrs. Shepherd recognised possible racism and demanded the elimination of this character in future Sinterklaas events.
The Dutch were across-the-board confused and for sure very willing to not hurt anybodies feelings or being racist. But what to do?

 All attempts to find a compromise slurred.

Last Sunday, days before the actual Sinterklaas event (December, 5th) I watched a nice Sinterklaas parade with live brass band in the inner city. Later I discovered the group of about 30 Zwarte Piets dancing with children and distributing pepernoten (ginger-bread style mini-cookies) when passing the Atak! music centre on my running route. I cannot see anything bad about the tradition and obviously it would be a loss for the young ones and also for the old generation which has many nice memories from these festivities in their childhood when most Dutchmen and -women actually believe that Sinterklaas is the one who brings nice presents to them and who watched them throughout the year.

http://www.sintkleurtdestad.nl

Baking Christmas Cookies in NL

I am now living in the Netherlands. Not yet officially, this will take place in two days. But I moved here with all my stuff (and when I say all my stuff, I mean 6 cubic meters of boxes filled with clothes, mountaineering (why?) and kitchen equipment) and am by now pretty much done with unpacking it. My bf is very much enjoying that I am obsessed with cooking at the moment; I serve him at least one nice meal a day and have some fun discovering the Albert Heijn supermarket in the city centre.

To complete my abilities as a housewife (how much more time will it take until I am completely bored by that?), as a Southgerman girl, I have the aspiration of being able to offer a selection of at least four different kinds of home made "Plätzchen" (small Christmas cookies) to every potential visitor. As it turns out, this kind of cookies is not well-known in Holland. Next to the obvious ones, one of the main ingredients are ground nuts. Mainly almonds (yes, I know, almonds are no nuts...) and hazelnuts. I have the idea that  - like most people - the inhabitants of the kingdom of the Netherlands like to snack roasted nuts. Finding raw nuts is already a challenge. But finding raw nuts which are less than 16 Euros per kilogramme is impossible! And forget about nut powder...

I went to a well-sorted store for kitchen equipment and bought this nice tool:

The lady in the shop was very friendly and even German-speaking, but she had no idea how to help me until I spotted the mill myself and ensured her that my Grandmother ("Oma") has almost the same.

After an odyssey through various supermarkets I ended up in a discounter and bought 1.2 kg of "notenmelange", i.e. a mix of almonds, hazelnuts, Brazil nuts (btw, who likes Brazil nuts?!?) and walnuts. I spend one episode of "Weeds" sorting them, Cinderella-Style ("The good ones go into the pot, the other ones also go into other pots").

 Tomorrow, the baking may begin! I will make Lebkuchen (gingerbread), Vanillekipferl (mini croissants made from short pastry), Anis-Blätter (experimental, anise leaves) and Napoleon's hats (technically sophisticated).
I want to be finished by Sunday, when our Sinterklaas festivities will reach a climax...