Lekker Zomer

So far, The Hague has had a niceish summer. There’ve been gray and pouring rain days but some nice sunny times as well. Sean and I have done our third Vlaggetjesdag, or Flag Day in Scheveningen. This is the day that celebrates the new herring but we know better than to eat the ‘delicacy’. Kibbeling (fried fish pieces) are the way to go. I tried a broodje paling or eel on a roll which is quite nice if you only have one bite but a bit to fishy after a whole roll packed full of the stuff.

Kibbeling with cocktail sauce

paling

We did our second Hofvijver concert for Festival Classique. This was a ‘best of Carmen’ concert featuring the Residentie Orkest outside on a floating pontoon on the Hofvijver, the pond in front of the parliament buildings of The Hague. The pond’s ducks and their ducklings were really interested in the whole production and kept swimming back and forth in front of the stage.

Festival Classique

I’ve discovered a new vegetable. Well I didn’t discover it, but I decided to use some of the less familiar looking vegetables that I always see in the groentemarkt and Albert Heijn. I have been making salads using the Koolrabi (Kohlrabi) or German turnip. Most of the world’s koolrabi is grown in Germany but some in the Netherlands and it definitely originates from Northern Europe. I don’t think I’d seen it before I moved to the Netherlands. It’s quite ugly, crispy like a radish but sweeter, nearly as sweet as an apple. I’ve bought a couple of Dutch food and recipe magazines and I am quite adept at reading recipes in Dutch now. I like the word for ‘cut’ which is ‘hak’ and the word for ‘mix’ which is ‘meng’. A nice recipe for koolrabi involves hakking up the kohlrabi and menging it with some red apple, red onion, yoghurt, mayo and dill. Zo lekker!

Koolrabi

Koolrabi salade

We watched the Dutch lose every match in the Euro Cup, which we were quite sad about because even though soccer is not in our heritage, we love the super exciting atmosphere that springs up everywhere when the Dutch have a voetbal game on. They are orange mad!!

Orange mad Dutch Voetbal fans

In other sport, Sean caught the train to Liege in Belgium to watch the start of the Tour de France. He said it was a great atmosphere but did not get Cadel's autograph. Sean's eyes are otherwise glued to Eurosport and enjoying the British commentary of the race. Though he says the British commentators have nothing on the SBS broadcast with Phil Liggett (who is also British, but anyway).

Outdoors, it’s been warm and sunny enough to have an evening drink in the sun, like at the Not Out next door or one of the beach cafes at Scheveningen. 

We’ve also acquired some mountain bikes. I have a Cube and Sean a Boardman and we’ve done some short rides on the weekends: once north to Katwijk through the dunes and once south to the Hoek van Holland through the dunes. We’ve generally kept to the fietspad so far and not gone off-road as such but we are loving the lightness and speed of the mountain bikes, so much more fun than our clunky omafietsen (grandma bikes)!