Category Archives: Invite a friends for dinner

cooking at home, Dining out, Eating in Holland, Haarlem, Invite a friends for dinner, Leisurely cursing, restaurant

Should we dine out tonight?? Well, jeez, maybe…maybe…NOT?!

As an Italian who lives in Haarlem and has a serious passion for food I always feel embarrassed when friends come over and would like to have a little dining out in the town. The food scene in this city is inversely related to its beauty: “appalling” is the word which comes to my mind. And I believe it has to do with the customers: as long as they’ll keep cherishing the “all-you-can-eat” over “it’s food, it goes inside me, it turns into me! I’d better select what I’m going to let into my mouth” the restaurants here will be as follow:

-“Fried air&decor”, like the “Het Diner” by Herman Koch explains very well: much ado about nothing, pretentiousness at its best, hungry belly while leaving the premise not to mention quite lighter wallet and a head full of question marks: “did i truly have a “culinary epiphany”?”, “was it truly an “unforgettable experience”? Most (but not all) of the michelin-starred restaurant of the area belong to this category: m&l, cheval blanc, chapeau, de bokkedorns, de vrienden van jacob, etc etc most of these truly charge a lot for very little, quite skillfully presented and quite pretentiously put forward. Not for me, if I’d like a “caprese salad” (mozzarella and tomatoes sliced together, dressed with olive oil and basilico) I’ll make it myself at home, thank you very much, I will not pay 18 euros to be served one.

-“Decent cooking mismatched for top-of-the-pop”: here you have the various Lambermont, Willendorf, Truffles, etc. Good food, decent ingredients, correct cooking, but nothing else! No fanciness, no inventiveness, no nothing, nada. Again, the bill tend to be a bit on the high side for something I can also cook at home, with a bit of effort! Which goes most in being able to find the right ingredients, for those who don’t know about that (counting the millions, still) the meat they serve you is not from AH, and it tastes better, doesn’t it? But it’s not purchased in Brasil and air-freighted during the night, try the Lindenhoff in Abcoude! One note for you, Truffles people: nobody wants to wait 40 minutes between “gewoon” dishes, and if you’re going to serve me chantilly creme with strawberry for dessert after an endless night of waiting for my food, do expect me to be pissed off.

-to be continued-

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cooking at home, Eating in Holland, Haarlem Jazz Fest, Invite a friends for dinner

Haarlem Jazz Fest! All but Jazz!

So once a year this town goes banana and hosts the “largest free jazz fest”, nice, isn’t it?

There’s just a liiiittle problem with that: the jazz. None. Nowhere to be seen, there’s funky, rock, soul, beat, pop, bluegrass, caribbean, ska, , hummerofgod POLKA, younameit. But as soon as someone starts an Aeolian scale: people leave, in a hurry, even. And they do leave, oh boy if they leave. Oppe-te oppe-ta, as the locals smartly say! So what to do for a jazz lover like myself?

The answer seems to be only one: invite a friend you can’t say “no” to (yes, that kind of friends, yes, with long beautiful hair, and, yes, with BIG beautiful eyes, no wonder-bra needed for those mammasantissimas) who wants to go there, wants really wants please please please, and, oh well, what am I supposed to do??!

Cook a wonderful dinner, spend a few bucks on wine (hint: a bottle worth less than 12 euros is basically a soft-drink with a fancy label) and happily dance the polka! Just don’t call it jazz, c’est tout!

So, temptative menu for this zaterdag recites as follow: baked ravioli with aubergine, pesto and mozzarella with “PINK” Tapon Rosé, rabbit “alla cacciatora” matched with Lachryma Christi from the Vesuvio area, risotto with coulis of crustacean, accompanied by a suave Austrian Pinot Noir and papa-made amaretto tiramisu, with 25 years old white port, and fuck it! Let’s dance this bloody polka! I’m GOOD at this polka thing, tja!

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