Fritta è buona anche una ciabatta. It’s what Laurens always says whenever I debate frying something. His great-great grandmother used to say it and the saying went down many generations. It’s an old Tuscan saying which translates to ‘even a slipper is tasty when it’s fried’. (Ciabatta, the bread, is named after slippers, so no, the saying doesn’t talk about fried bread. Not that frying bread would necessarily be a bad thing.)
I went to Barista for lunch. It was awesome.
That sentence I just wrote, should really be enough. It was that wonderful. Barista has been nominated as one of my 4 new restaurants I need to try out this year. I went there for lunch, and I’ll definitely go back for dinner.
Barista is a small, very small, Italian restaurant near my office. I’d read about them having great coffee and then found out they served food too. I went there for lunch with a co-worker and we ordered panini’s and cappuccino. Nothing that special, you’d think, however when the bread, ham and mozzarella are either incredibly fresh and home-made or directly imported from Italy, even panini’s become something special.
I chose the panini with prosciutto San Daniele (pretty much the best cured ham available in the world), mozzarella di bufala (fresh mozzarella made from water-buffalo-milk, officially the only product that can be named mozzarella, but since the rest of the world accepts inferior stuff with the same name as well, nowadays Italians will specify it’s ‘di bufala’) and fresh arugula. The fresh, thick sliced white bread was toasted to perfection, so that not only the bread had a nice crunch, but the mozzarella had just melted and the ham was just warm.
Heaven in a sandwich.
My co-worker ordered a panini with artichocke and salami and was very happy with hers as well.
Since it was a work lunch, I didn’t have a camera on me, so I picked up these pictures online. (If you own them, let me know so I can credit you!) Next time, when we go there for dinner, I’ll be sure to take my own pictures and show you more!
Tomorrow, Dutch parliament will vote on a new law regarding cookies. Internet -cookies, not food cookies. I wish they would talk about food-cookies, they’re so much more interesting.
The amendment that’s proposed is insane. It required websites to explicitly ask permission for every cookie used on the site, with explaining what they’re used for.
Ad-programs won’t work anymore (or will be willing to pay lots and lots less.) Statistics programs, like Google Analytics will become illegal. Visitors of the blog will likely have to click ‘ok’ 5 times before they’re allowed to watch a Youtube video embedded on a site.
Despite the fact that you might dislike ads, a lot of websites depend on them. All those news-sites you use employ journalists, who need to get paid. Your ads pay for them. Blogs like mine won’t change that much. Though a lot of the blogs will stop as well – if you can’t even see how many people visit your blog and your specific posts, it’ll take part of the fun of blogging away.
Since it’ll be a Dutch law – not worldwide – people will move their web servers to other countries, taking a lot of employment away with them. Slowly the Netherlands will move (back) into the dark ages of the internet – or rather, the stupid little neighbor kid who can’t seem to get his act together and flunks his life everything.
All in all, this cookie law that’s likely to pass hopefully not passing tomorrow, is completely insane. If you can read Dutch (or trust google translate) you should read good explanations about it in Laurens’ blog. (part 1, part 2)
(And since this is a food blog and I prefer food-cookies, I included some pictures of various cookies I baked this year. Let’s hope my blog can keep these as well as the other ones, so I can keep up my little nook on the internet!)
I’ve written about my first ever attempt at making and eating cheesecake. How it was a huge success and I suddenly realized I like cheesecake. Well, I’ve done it again.
Now I realize that making cheesecake a second time isn’t really an accomplishment worth tooting your own horn about, however, I improved my recipe.
I’ve improved it so much, that it would be mean not to share it.
Continue reading »
One of the cooking-forums I frequent does a regular recipe exchange. The theme this time was breakfast foods. The recipe I received was for cake batter pancakes. As a kid I used to love pancakes, and requested them all the time. Now I hardly eat them anymore, and if I do, I usually go for (at least partially) whole wheat pancakes made from home-made biscuit mix (with lard instead of shortening!) These were very different from what I usually eat.
The cake batter pancakes were very easy to make and did have a distinct cake mix flavor. They were a little dryer than my usual pancakes. The recipe stated to make them with sprinkles. And I bet adding the sprinkles would make a huge difference – in flavor, texture and overall festiveness. I however forgot to buy sprinkles, so I had to do without. To make up for it I placed a pat of butter in between pancakes and poured some real maple syrup over them. I halved the recipe, which was more than enough for the two of us.
All in all I can say that if you like pancakes and box-mix-cakes, these pancakes are perfect for you!
Cake Batter Pancakes (recipe by Ommynoms, serves 4)
- 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
- 2/3 cup yellow cake mix
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
- pinch of salt
- 2 eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1-2 cups milk (see directions)
- assorted sprinkles
Combine flour, cake mix, baking powder, sugar and salt in a bowl and mix.
Add 1 cup of milk, egg and vanilla extract and stir until smooth. You want the batter to look like regular pancake batter- not too thin, not too thick. This will vary greatly on the brand of cake mix you use. Start with 1 cup of milk and add more if needed.
Preheat a nonstick skillet over medium heat. Fold desired amount of sprinkles into batter. Pour batter in 1/4 cup measurements onto skillet and let cook until bubbles form on top, about 2-3 minutes. Flip and cook for 1 minute more.
Networks
