Archive for the ‘cooking’ Category

Eating spruitjes (Brussels sprouts) again

Sunday, November 21st, 2010

Spruitjes, heel veel spruitjes

Part I

Does the following sound familiar to you: your meals this week are roughly the same as last week. Probably, huh. And not just because stuff with potatoes seems similar (up to a point) to other food with potatoes (ditto for rice, couscous and pasta). Naah, we also all get lazy and fall back on the easy-to-cook stuff. Possible escape routes: invite someone(s) over for dinner (pushes me to make a bit of an effort), or just buy something in the shop and see what you can make of it.

Part II

I was in the shop the other day, and brussels sprouts (spruitjes) were on offer. Now seriously: when is the last time you had some?? Not that you hate them (well, can’t speak for you, but I don’t), but it’s just that… well… they’re boring.

Wikipedia is heel goed voor plaatjes om je blog op te leuken! :)But, since it had been ages, I bought a pack. A kilo-pack at that… that was the one on offer. That gave me a new problem: I know one way to prepare them (boil, add potatoes and meat, sprinkle some nutmeg (nootmuskaat), and enjoy. No way on earth that you’re doing that more than once a week, if that much. (I did say “boring”, right? Should’ve said “booooooo-ring!” :). Luckily, the boss came up with a good suggestion: just stir-fry ’em with some onions, leek, bell-peppers, carrots, etc. and add rice. Sprinkle some curry powder to finish.

Seriously, you wouldn’t believe how yummy a sprout can be, if it is a tad crunchy. Yummy enough to have more than once a week — a good thing, because I managed to finish before they went bad on me :)

So here I am sitting, after a medium portion, wondering if I’ll have another round or not. Had you told me this 10 years ago, that I’d voluntarily cook spruitjes myself, and that I’d ponder seconds, I’d’ve laughed in your face.

I guess we all grow up — a bit at least ;-)

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Optimist by nature

Wednesday, October 7th, 2009

I am having a great week! Running sucked, had cramps for two days. I got rejected by the owner of the house I had set my sights on (and the agency more or less promised me), some luxembourgian idiot rode me off my bike (still in one piece, relax), the housing agent for a new place didn’t have the right key to get us in, and there suddenly are more guys in our dancing class, meaning that we no longer have the luxury of picking girls, there’s an exact match now. On top of that, I lack sleep. Way too much.
Yet, I am happy :) And lucky :) Guess I am just optimistic by nature ;)

(okay okay, there are external influencing factors, but none of them are any of your business, you noisy folk you ;-)

Posted in backblogging, cooking, fun, moving, personal, sports, travelling | Comments Off on Optimist by nature

Bread & Games

Sunday, July 27th, 2008

As I am keeping an eye on Maren’s bread baking machine while she is in Canada, I am sometimes experimenting with it. First trial was hilarious: I figured I’d like some fresh bread in the morning, and as I had to be at a conference in my home, the bread need not be finished until 20 minutes before the first talk. That did not begin too early, so fresh bread seemed a good idea — hence I set the machine to have bread finished at roughly 8am.

Miscalculation. Fresh bread is nice, but the machine takes about 3.5 hours to prepare it… and it is noisy. So now it was time for attempt 2. And the second problem I’ve discovered too: 3.5 hours is long. It’s close to 11 now, and I will not have my fresh bread for another hour… :(

Well, that underlines that really, the only possibility is to move the machine when it is operating. Which sucks, as I don’t have an easily accessible non-public location… (well, could put it in my office, but that would be pushing it, and would mean breakfast at work… hey… that might actually be an idea… ;-)

What I did want to confer, is that I also ran a bit to kill the time (and to exercise a bit, of course). Killing time is actually a powerful motivator. I felt like returning home quite often, but a glance at my watch told me roughly how long I would then have to waste time before fresh bread (which gives rise to the nice acronym and measure of time TTWBFB), and hence I ran on. In the end, I crossed the one hour limit, which was the rough idea I had in mind. I need to do this more often, but for today, I have other plans. To shed some light:

  • work a bit
    Am working on the One Paper To Rule Them All, and still need to put in lots of stuff…
    Not to forget, I also should bring Mel up-to-date on WOTE 2008, and somehow secure some of the knowledge I gained while attending WOTE and PETS 2008.
  • get my laptop/ubuntu combo to act as a damn internet bridge :(
    I mentioned this before. Since Maren is in .ca now, the need for this has expanded from just the pleasure of getting my Wii and DS connected to getting the Eee (which comes with a webcam) connected easily. Yesterday I tried the guides to getting my WifiMax running under Ubuntu. I can’t get it to work for now, because of the following:

    • The chipset in it is the Zydas ZD1211B (or so the internet rumours have it)
    • Neither the vendor’s open-sourced driver nor the community-driver based on that one compile on my system. Support for either is low, so also little hope of finding help getting this fixed.
    • The current community driver, the zd1211rw driver, does not support Master Mode. I had no clue what that was either, but that is exactly what you need — it’s the Access Point mode. (To my surprise, no article on “Master Mode” exists on Wikipedia — actually, even having some suspicions as to what it is, it is not trivial to find substantiation for this on Wikipedia.)

    So, for now, this seems like a dead end. [Edit: or does it?? Patch existing, developer has provided some updates too, compilation woes might be addressable??? [Edit2: oops, I might have been trying the version not suited to my kernel…]] Perhaps the zd1211rw driver will eventually support this feature, but I couldn’t find a timeline, or plans, or any indication for doing so. Actually, the development seems more oriented towards supporting “Mesh Mode”, whatever that may be :)
    So the next step is to do the obvious (isn’t it always?): I have a laptop with a wired connection to the internet, and a wireless port. So now to find out how to let that act as an access point. Funny thing is, there are some different suggestions out there, some suggesting bridge-controls, and others not. More investigation needed here.
    (though it is good to have a log of my attempts so far — even if no one else reads this, I can find this back and re-realise what is a good idea and what is not. Hence the lengthy explanation / side track in this post.)

  • Welcome Marcella and Tim to Luxembourg!
    Let me quickly check…. I think it will be the Lasagna ice cream today at Veneziano’s :) :)

Lengthier post than anticipated… if this is the general result of me trying a hand at having fresh bread, I might do this more often ;) But now it is off to the shower for me, and then only another … 25 minutes till breakfast / brunch!!

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Hmmmmmsssss…

Tuesday, July 8th, 2008

Chocolate brick is good! Too bad Laura just moved out, she’s missing the brick. So, what happened? I experimented with cooking once again. This time, I tried and succeeded to thwart the general conventions and notions surrounding the enigmatic concept known as “chocolate mousse”. Without spoiling too much of the fun, I can honestly claim that chocolate and raw egg a good taste do make!

Popular opinion on what exact devation I may applied varies. Current contenders are “insufficient whipping of the egg whites” (by the Boss-man) and “too much chocolate” (by my girlfriend). As we all know, there is no such thing as too much chocolate. Nevertheless, to achieve the airiness usually associated with chocolate mousse, more eggwhite would probably have been better. Thus, the first option seems unlikely too. So, for me, the issue is still open. Which means: I will have to try again :)

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The prequel (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday)

Saturday, November 3rd, 2007

“One word sums up the responsibility of any vice-president, and that one word is `to be prepared'”

After waking early on monday morning, I quickly got myself to working. Not my favourite thing in the morning, of course, but there was this presentation hanging over my head, and there was not sufficient material yet in the presentation. One of the first things is of course checking mail… hey look, a mail from the symposium organisers. Turns out that I do have enough material already! Woohoo! :) Okay, time to hop in the train to Enschede, meet the people there and finish the slides there.

Getting to work in Enschede took some time (even though it is handled neatly, explaining my laptop that it is handled neatly was step 2… eventually, I get connected, work on the slides, meet the people (it’s nice to see them all again), work a bit more and then it’s time to visit Ileana & Stefan’s new apartment. It has changed incredibly since the last time, Stefan & Ileana worked quite hard to get this far it seems. Ayse comes over for dinner too, and we have a nice, traditional Romanian dinner (cabbage+sour cream stuff). Good, I like to be prepared for the wedding :) And, if these tastes are anything to go by, Romanian food will be OK!

Next morning, some more work on the slides, and then they feel finished. Of course they aren’t, but that’s okay, the seminar doesn’t start until two o’clock, so let it settle a bit, have lunch, go through it once more and then: done! There’s actually some new stuff in there compared to the WISSec presentation. All of that is fairly new, so I am not feeling too confident yet. Luckily, there’s enough time to prepare…

And then surprise, surprise, turns out the seminar starts at one instead of two. UH-OH!!! A hurried lunch and a couple of quick glances at the slides later, it’s almost time! Most of the audience are familiar to me, so that’s a relief… waiting to be dissolved by the last-minute entrance of a couple of new folks. :) Good thing I thrive on this sort of thing, I guess. At least, perhaps if I think that I’ll fall for that.

Talk went okay-ish. Somehow felt it could/should have been better, but it wasn’t a substantial miss apparently either. Aah well, something to think about for a next time. Later that evening, I help Ayse out cooking a nice dinner for Stefan & Ileana. We have some fun, and too soon it’s time to go get a train. In the train, I find that I am exhausted. So instead of going to Eindhoven, I get off in Nijmegen and meet up with my sister for a change. It had been a long time, so this is actually really nice.

The next morning I quickly go to work in Eindhoven, to prepare the final things for the trip (doublecheck the Romanian cheat sheet with Simona to see if there are some other words that might come in handy). Home: pack, early to bed, and prepare to get going!

Posted in cooking, friends, work | Comments Off on The prequel (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday)

Empowering the uni

Friday, October 12th, 2007

Came home yesterday evening, with Ton and Sasa, planning to have a nice cheese fondue at my place. There was a conspicuous absence of light emanating ominously from my building, offset by the cold, harsh light radiating from the fire escape, where a small group of smokers had sought refuge.

Upon further investigation, we became aware that there was a lack of current prevalent in the northwestern wing of the dwelling. This would definitely put a spoke through our cheese fondue, so to say. We do enjoy the luxury of having not merely one, but several alternatives to circumvent the current crisis (unintentional pun there). Hence, we opted to ignore the problems, on the tried and tested adage that if we ignore it long enough, eventually the problem will disappear.

The fondue turned out delicious for most, although those who do not share a fondness or even a liking for cheese found out to their dismay, that the flavours in a fondue are not, by any means, less intense than those of cheese in a more solid state. The conversation and company were pleasant as well, and except for a minor mishap involving unbaked pie (minor, but serious enough to never develop its full potential as baked pie), the evening was once again profoundly enjoyable.

Upon returning to my domicile, to my surprise I discovered the selfsame grouping of young students outside on the fire escape. As the fire escape is adjacent to the front door of the location I, with a flair of overstatement, may call my residence, the natural and courteous choice of action was to acquaint myself with the aforementioned group. They kindly informed me of the nature of the problems. Since 17:00, the flow of electricity had ceased. The concierge had been notified, but evidently had failed to produce the so-desired result of re-establishing the flow, despite repeated and insistent prompting. Apparently, the fact that some 31 persons were without power is not a main concern of our landlord, the university.

There was no recourse for it. The use of candles enabled applying the evening’s toilette before retiring for the night. In the morning, the situation was unchanged. But, lo and behold, at 7:15 equipment came to life! Digital clocks started flashing, the timer on the over lighted up, and it seemed that showering in the dark was not needed. Fast-forward to 7:21, and disappointment prevailed once again. The use of candles was once more an enabling factor in rousing myself to a state of coherent cognizance.

Upon parting to voyage to the lieu of my employ, I encountered an able fellow, who has at previous occasions applied many a fix in our building. Grasping the opportunity and the brakes of my bike with equal ferocity, I halted next to him and conversed about the abundant lack of electricity. We spent some time tracking the source of this profound inconvenience, and when the issue had been determined not to be a local phenomena occurring solely in my chambers, I parted company.

As the predicament had not been resolved when I left, I am partially curious to encounter the state of affairs when I arrive. Nevertheless, previous exposure to the efficiency and attitude prevalent here puts me at ease.
that is to say: if it is easy, it will be solved by the evening. If it’s slightly difficult, I will be needing candles all weekend.

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Weeking work

Friday, September 7th, 2007

So, what’s been happening here:

  • I reconfirmed my status as “The Hooded Man” (shot twice again all in yellow)
    Sasa hit all yellow once, thus bringing me only a short 3 lots away from the elusive prize!!Hooded Man wins tiger
  • The WISSec workshop is gaining momentum and seems to be going swell
  • The absurd style of Tim Burton strengthens the absurd story of Roald Dahl (yes, I watched Charly and the Chocolate Factory once again)
  • I’ve been using the blender to make soups. All the kitchen stuff the Hoopje people got me for my 28th birthday is finally being used — and thanks again! It’s all excellent equipment (I love the knives! They hate me, but I love them despite their semi-lethal attempts at injuring me)
    And you can easily vary endlessly with soups :) Tomato soup works brilliantly with ginger, but also with red wine (caution: not both at the same time! :)
  • Running twice a week might actually work out. So far so good at least.
  • Got a paper (provisionally) accepted, so that seems nice.

Greetz from ‘Bourg!

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Feeling hot, hot, HOT!

Tuesday, July 3rd, 2007

Curry.
And I am not talking about any curry either… green curry.

For those of you uninitiated into the wonderful world of metal-sponge-scrubbed tongues and fireblasted mouths, suffice it to say: HOT!

It seemed like a good idea:  I had this curry sachets to try out, so we got some chicken and tried them out. Yeee-ouch has a new definition! And we didn’t even add anything spicy – heck, we even added coconut milk, which should wear down the overall hotness. Well, all in all it was a nice dish, only just a tad on the hot side. Got a couple of ideas on how to mitigate that for a next attempt. (Despite what you may think, I am not a donkey, and hence have no reservations about making mistakes more than once.) It was a memorable way to celebrate Baptiste’s birthday. I’ve only cooked in that kitchen 5 times now (I think), but I am pretty sure I shall never cook as spicy a dish ever there as I did yesterday. Sasa bravely powered through, but even his hunger was not up to the task. Although the faces he pulled were hilarious :D

So what else is new? Well, holiday plans are coalescing. I’ll be visiting my friends in Zurich for a bit longer (raced in for a weekend, didn’t have that much time, so I should revisit them). Sailing will be happening too. In between that there’s Paris. Hmms, doesn’t sound too shabby, now does it ;-)

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Gotta share this one

Wednesday, March 21st, 2007

Good thing Sasa didn’t join today — although I think he might’ve appreciated today’s meal, maybe even as much as I did :)

Anyway, apple-cinnamon-couscous-cashew nuts turns out nicely :) Next experiment will repeat yesterday’s meal in a slightly different fashion (of course different), but I am already looking forward to whatever Jen & me will be cooking on Wednesday next week!

Now gaming: WarioWare, Polarium, Phoenix Wright

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Mostly about dining

Wednesday, March 21st, 2007

But first one other thing: I finally managed to set up Ubuntu (more precisely: grub) such, that it defaults to Windows. Yihaa, I no longer get accidentally confronted by a broken desktop anymore!

Yes, we can start a nice flamewar on linux vs windows. Thing is: the moment I get into Ubuntu, it A) starts annoying me (with things being not how they should be) and B) distracts me from work (because I try to address these annoyances, and this is never fixed in a few minutes — even though the problem looks like it should be).

Anyway: dining! Saturday the SaToSS gang met up at the Auchan for some shopping. Somewhere along the line, the idea for a dinner on Sunday popped up, so suddenly we were shopping for a dinner together. Back at the office yes, still Saturday we ran into Sjouke still Saturday and invited him to dinner too. Then it sort of became non-earlish, but finally me and Sasa went back home again.

Incidentally, Sasa had borrowed my bike, which is hilarious, trust me! :) Well anyway, since it was late and we both could use something like food, we ended up having pasta (Italian style) at Sasa’s. Kind of funny, since the dinner of Sunday would be there as well.

For that one, planned without Sjouke’s advice, we had thought of doing something with couscous and some veggies. Since we all contributed some ideas, our ingredients were a mixed mesh without any real direction. And that’s why you invite the Big Boss to dinner ;-) Sjouke’s supervision proved superior, and with some extra items available in Sasa’s kitchen, we constructed a delicious couscous stew. For dessert we had yoghurt with some strawberries (strawberries are affordable, so we have an abundance of them ;-).

Well, the next day I realised that since we hadn’t executed the original plan for dessert on Sunday (fruit salad), Sasa had some ingredients which I could use. To thank Sasa for keeping the cottage cheese in the fridge, I made him a dinner — filled paprika, vegetarian style. Thanks to Sasa bringing cheese (quite essential ingredient, and planned), the dish turned out wonderful. Definitely worth having again.

Well, to top it off, after Saturday’s post-shop-closing-time invitation to Sjouke to join the Sunday dinner, Sjouke felt it would be nice to also invite us over once. In discussing what this would be, we finally settled for showcasing famous Dutch cuisine: hutspot!! :) Of course, Sjouke style dining and allowing me some free reign means appetizers (mozzerella, tomato and mint) and dessert (flensjes with icecream, whipped cream, strawberries told you we had plenty of ‘m and chocolate sauce). The hutspot was ok, of course, despite some improvising (no meshing kitchen tool). The unavoidable sausage turned out wonderful, and the appetizer was delicious. The dessert topped it all off — as if we weren’t full, having icecream, whipped cream (shaken, not from a can), pancakes and strawberries to ensure lack of hunger. For the next week probably ;-)

Anyway, it might seem to be all about dinner, but in reality it’s about having lots of nice evenings with my colleagues. The talks are much harder to capture in the blog, and some of it should be moderated, but we’re having much fun together :)

Now gaming: Wario Ware, Phoenix Wright

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