Zen!

I'm reading a beautiful novel, "Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance" by Robert M. Pirsig. Under motocyclists this book is considered a classic. It reads very well, and I almost cannot stop reading it.

It's getting a little bit colder

This morning the battery of "diversion" didn't like the cold. But the battery of corolla give it a kick in the ass and then it started. Here we are in Hooge Mierde in the fog at 1 degr. cent. (not really warm, but who cares, that's where they invented "beerenburg" for)

Marion drove the 1st time on her motorcycle!

Today we finally had time for driving after many busy weeks and weekends. We drove to our friends in Castelre (about 50km) in the 3degr. cold. But we put on many clothes, so it was cold, but not too cold. In Castelre we heated up again with a hot cup of coffee and christmas cake. And then we drove home again.
If the weather is ok tomorrow we will drive again.

Almost christmas............

The One: "Superstituous" van Trijntje Oosterhuis (eigenlijk Stevie Wonder)

Nice: Fawlty Towers, with Germans in the Hotel

Christmas ball at the former Dancing School of Marion

Last Saturday we attended the Christmas ball at the former dancing school of Marion in Twente. It is not easy to see, because it was a little bit dark, but here's the competition couple showing their skills.
They were moving very fast, that's why the picture is "hazy".

Our new department

Here's a nice panorama picture of our new department. The other picture is the "view" during sunrise on the "skyline" of Eindhoven.

Oisterwijk

These are some pictures of the "Oisterwijkse Vennen".

And this is the new department

Moving....moving....moving

Our department at work is moving to another building, nice opportunity to ask myself if I really need all this stuff....................or throw many things I don't need away....

The "Loonse en Drunense Duinen" national park

The weather prediction was not good, but we decided to give our walk a try. One of my favourite national parks in Holland: "The Loonse and Drunense Duinen". There are many sand-dunes here.

Funny Chinese Sign!

And what about this one?

And this one, of course!

This is one Monty Python scene I like a lot!

Marion has her motorcycle driving license!

Marion has passed her practical exam, she is very happy. Check the movie in the link below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6STiVLcDOgE

Cantonese fried rice

Patrick with his pedals

Difficult to see because it is dark in our rehearsal room. This is Patrick with his pedals................

Pollo alla Cacciattora!

Another nice dish: Pollo Alla Cacciattora (Chicken with mushroom-tomato-wine sauce)

Ingredients
100 gr. pancetta or bacon in small pieces
3 el olive oil
4 chicken legs
2 toes of garlic in small pieces
500 gr. roma tomatoes with peel removed, in pieces
150 ml dry white wine
salt
pepper
2 tl sage (salie)
2 tl rosemary (rozemarijn)
2 leaves of laurel (laurier)
250 gr mushrooms in slices

Preparation:
Bake the pancetta shortly in the olive oil (1 min). Do this in a very large pan.
Add the chicken legs and bake them gold brown.
Add the rest of the ingredients and fry solftly for 30 min. with the lid on the pan.
Turn the chicken legs and fry softly for another 30 min. with the lid on the pan.

Serve with tagliatelle or other pasta.

Funny Chinese signs!

The Chinese are not very good when it comes to translating signs.......

And what about these ones:

Brassband "Sirena" in Concertzaal Tilburg

This is Brassband "Sirena" performing in Concertzaal Tilburg. I also tried to record it, but the sound in this music hall was not very good (that's also what the musicians said). Strange, such an expensive music hall and even worse sound than De Tref in Hapert.....

New motorcycles for 2007!

Always nice, going to motorcycle fairs and grope over the newest models for next year. It's always a huge amount of money. I'll try to dream: much cheaper. It's me on a brand new VFR 800 (new version of the '93 one I own. Also the new Triump Thruxton and the MV Augusta 1000.

It is voting day in Holland!

Today we have to vote for a new government. I'm curious what party will win this time.
Most of the times things don't change so much after dutch elections because in Holland there are many parties. Not 2 big ones like in many other countries.

Webcam!

Now there's also a webcam: check the link

Brassband "Sirena" tryout for their concert next week

This is brassband "Sirena" where Marion is playing clarinet from Hooge Mierde during a tryout for their concert next week together with a few professional ensembles.

The "Sint Jan" in Den Bosch

This saturday it was very nice weather, this is the "Sint Jan" cathedral in Den Bosch.

Rehearsal with the One: "Mustang Sally"

Chili con Carne

We stay in the winter dishes: this one is another famous one and easy to make: Chili con Carne
Ingredients:
500 gr brown beans in pot
1 big onion
1 red capsicum (paprika)
6 roma tomatoes (without peeling and cut to pieces, with liquid)
2 tl capsicum (paprika) powder
Butter
300 gr minced meat
Chilipowder, this is a mix of capsicum (paprika) powder, kumin (komijn of djintan), coriander and cayenne pepper
Salt (to taste)

Preparation:
Put the beans in a stainer (vergiet) so the liquid can go out.
Cut the onion and capsicum to small pieces.
Smother (smoor) the onion with the capsicum powder in a few spoons of butter.
Add the fresh capsicum pieces and bake a few minutes.
Add the minced meat and bake until it it light brown.
Add the tomatoes (with liquid) and bring to cooking.
After cooking, put fire low and stil until you have a thick sauce. It must be not too thick, but also not soup, somewhere inbetween.
Add the beans and heat the dish.
Add the chili powder and salt to taste.
Serve with white rice.

Colder weather: colder "winter" dishes

It is getting al little bit colder in Holland, I don't mind, I can start again with the real winterdishes I didn't cook for 6 months now.

Sauerkraut "Alsace" style

This is a very typical dish they eat in the French Alsace, it is a region that was at first part of Germany, that's why they have still some German influences over there.

Ingredients:
1 kg of fresh "sauerkraut" (zuurkool), not this pack from the grocery store, no, you need the fresh stuff from the vegetable shop, tastes much better.
Butter
2 leaves of Laurel (laurierblaadjes)
10 pellets of black pepper (zwarte peperkorrels)
10 dried genever berries (gedroogde jeneverbessen)
2 dl white wine (The Alsace Pinot tastes best for this dish)
200 gr sausages (a can will do) (knakworstjes)
200 gr sauerkraut speck (dutch: zuurkoolspek). The butcher knows what to take.

Preparation
Preheat the oven at 200 degr. cent.
Cover the sides of a large ovendish with butter.
Melt 3 el of butter in a pan, put the molten butter in the oven dish.
Put the loosened sauerkraut in the dish.
Add the laurel leaves, crushed (with side of big knife) genever berries, and the crushed pepper pellets.
Add the wine and the sauerkraut speck.
Put the lid on the dish and put it in the oven for 1.5-2hrs.
In the meantime, cook the sausages 10min on low fire (otherwise they burst)
Add everything togeterher and serve with cooked potatoes (and the Pinot wine, of course).

Traditional dutch pea soup! (Dutch: snert or erwtensoep)

This is a very tasful (at least for most Dutch people) typical Dutch dish: Traditional Dutch Pea Soup (also known as "erwtensoep" and "snert").
Here are the necessary ingredients:
* This is a recipe for a big full pan of peasoup. Look at the big pan on the right, you really need this size, otherwise cut the ingredients in half.
1 turnip - rooted celery with leaves (knolselderij with groen)
2 leeks (prei)
1 big winter carrot (winterpeen)
1 pack of split peas (spliterwten)
4 middle sized potatoes
800-1000 gr pigmeat (rib/ham)
2 dutch smoked sausages 275 gr each
salt and pepper to taste
For together with it (typically Dutch): pumpernickel bread (roggebrood).

Preparation:
* Please note: wash everything extremely well, otherwise you will get sand in the soup, and you will not like that (believe me, I've been there before).
Wash the turnip very well and cut the rind (schil) off the turnip. Cut a little bit more than necessary.
Cut the turnip into dice and wash them very thoroughly.
Wash the celery leaves very well and cut them into very small pieces.
Wash the leeks very well and cut them into rings, wash them again after that.
Take the peelings off the potatoes, cut them into dice and, again, wash very well.
Wash the split peas very well.
Was all vegetables together very well again. You don't want the sand in there.

Next, put all the vegetables into the pan, together with the meat (don't cut the meat yet, leave the sausages out, they will come later). Take a very big soup pan.
Add water until everything is under water well, leave 1cm under the top of the pan.
Bring it to cooking with the lid on. Cook it for 1.5hrs with the lid off.
Not this low fire, like with cooking broth (bouillon trekken), no, quite high fire.
It is very likely that somewhere in this process you will get green "smurry" on your stove, this is normal and unavoidable, don't care about this.
Take the meat out after 1.5hrs, and let it cool down for 30min.
Cut the meat into small pieces and take the bones out.
The soup must now have its thickness (must be thick, after this point it won't get much thicker).
Be careful that the soup will not burn to the bottom of the pan, otherwise, add some extra water to prevent this, otherwise the soup gets too thick. It must just not burn to the bottom of the pan, than it is perfect (at least, for me).
Put the meat back in the soup.
Wash the sausages under hot water from the tap and cut them into slices, put these slices also in the soup. After this, the soup is ready.


If you want it for next day, the soup must rest in the fridge for 1 night. Look out for freezing because the potatoes don't like that.
The next day you need at least 45min for heating it up again, point is: the soup burns to the pan fast, so it must be heated very slowly. No problem, just a matter of taking enough time for this.

Serve with pumpernickel bread with ham or dutch "katenspek".

Boerenkool met worst

This is a typical Dutch dish, "boerenkool met worst", translated something like farmers cabbage with sausage.
recipe
1.5 kg potatoes, was very well
250ml water
1 bag of "boerenkool"
salt
1 rookworst (special kind of sausage in Holland)
1 dl milk
40 gr. butter
Clean the potatoes, cut each potatoe in 4 parts and wash them very well.
Take a very big pan, put the water in together with the potatoes.
Add the salt (I like it with a lot of salt). On top of that you put the boerenkool.
On top of the boerenkool you put the sausage. Wash it fist under hot water.
Cook for 30 minutes (low fire)
After that, use a "stamper" to mix everything, add the butter and the hot milk.
I like it together with mayonaise, but not all people like that.

Driving home on my VFR, still nice weather in november

Instruction bike!

This is the bike that Marion is using to get her motorcycle driving license.

Back from Guadalajara

This is the Boeing 737 that brought me back from Spain.
There was much rain in Spain. I also included a movie of life at an airport. Most people always say: nice job, you travel a lot, but it always these airports that are so very boring, and the waiting, and waiting, and more waiting, and delay, and more delay, that is really what I hate about ALL airports.

Nice places in Guadalajara

Yesterday I saw a few nice places when I was walking through Guadalajara after dinner.

View outside the hotel

This is outside the hotel, I'm waiting for a co-worker from the factory to pick me up. It will be very quiet today in the factory, because today is a public holiday in Spain and most people have a holiday.

To Guadalajara Spain

Today I went to our factory in Spain. I have to assist with the transfer of a product selection machine. Because of very busy traffic on the roads I had to get up at 4.00hrs in the morning.
This is the Boeing 737 that flew me to Madrid.

Dit heb je gemist!

Our CD, Playing for the love of LIVE

Annemiek and Patrick rehearsing "Loving Whiskey"

Rockband The One

The One Live in Diessen!

This is our Rabbit, Snoopy!

Paperwork paperwork!

Last days I had to go through an enormous amount of paperwork.............

Autumn in Holland!

Been very very busy after my return from China. After one week also sick at home (when I coughed I barked like a small dog).
This weekend we made a nice walk through the forest.

We're going back home!

This Boeing 777 from China Southern flew us back home from Guangzhou, over Beijing, to Amsterdam.