Stomachs on legs are proud to present

This Taai Popje traveled all around the world in order to have me bite its head off. My sister bought it in a Dutch store in NZ and sent it to me in Germany. The chewy, not-too-sweet coriander-infused Dutch gingerbread is quite different to the more biscuit-like German lebkuchen (also delicious). It melts to a pleasantly sticky-gluggy consistency in your mouth.



There aren't many traditional German dishes that can make me seriously salivate just by looking at a (crap phone-cam) photo of them. Maybe it's my cheese-loving Dutch blood, but our boxing day meal of Swabian Kässpätzle (with vinegary potato-cucumber salad for added carbs) inspired absolute devotion in me. It's a treat I'd definitely recommend to anyone who's skeptical of German cuisine.

Our workmate Wulf comes from the Swabian-speaking area of Baden-Württemberg, where this is a traditional dish. He and his girlfriend Dagmar made the noodle dough and chopped it freestyle off a board in thin strips into the boiling water. Then they baked it in a glass casserole dish coated in a not-too-greasy mix of emmentaler and aged british cheddar cheese, topped with very thin strips of toasted onion.

If angels in heaven eat mac 'n' cheese, I am sure it tastes exactly like this.
Here is a recipe - just swap in your favourite type of cheese.

For dessert Wulf served us delectable baked apples stuffed with real marzipan (different to the stiff white stuff on wedding cakes), topped with whipped cream and a drizzle of rum.
If I was in the market for a heart attack, I'd eat this menu for a month. It could be a nice way to go.



I am a kitsch-hound and a christmas aficionado, but I do have standards. There's only one Christmas market in the world for me, and it's the Market of Angels on Neumarkt square.

The market by the cathedral is too fake and touristy. The market on Rudolfplatz is too trashy (they sell mobile phones and young hoodlums ride a carousel that includes a motorbike and a police car). The market at Stadtgarten is polite and bourgeois, a haunt of Cologne's liberal elite, where everyone seems to wear brown.
But the market on Neumarkt is just right.

I can't imagine going to these places to buy souvenirs - but to drink two hot mulled glühwein under twinkling star lanterns in the trees is something I actually look forward to all year.

Importantly, the christmas market on Neumarkt also has yummy things to eat. For example, egg-spiked potato pancakes with applesauce. Or the stall selling crispy skinned flame-grilled salmon (nailed to boards over a fire), which drips its grease into soft white rolls smeared with creme fraiche and a lettuce leaf (see pictures above and below).
Our pescatarian friend Celia, visiting from Australia with her winking Irish boyfriend Dave, was quite a fan of these.



Another treat from the Neumarkt christmas market is the Flammkuchen (everything delicious here seems to be born of the flames).

From the Alsace region, similar to a pizza, the brownish sourdough base comes hot from the oven – topped with creme fraiche, little specks of bacon (check the pun: speck means bacon in German) and thin strips of onion. You can alternatively choose a less traditional, but still satisfying, mix of vegetables and salty grilled cheese. This is a market that (unusually) caters well to vegetarians.



It is always tragic when the Christmas markets close for the season, leaving behind a quiet grey snow slush in the absence of twinkles. The stone angels are chained up on trucks on Christmas eve, with a poignant smell of aniseed candies floating on the air. life is all about goodbyes and new beginnings. In this case, a new beginning of me not eating deep fried 'reibekuchen' potato pancakes with apple sauce every other day (until next christmas of course)

After I have been gone to my mountain hood for another few days... I saw big ice sticking out from the internal freezer.

It took me a while to realize what kind of catastrophe my fridge was having. Well, it came with the room and I didn't buy it, so it's actually not my fridge but it is the fridge I am renting with a room, to be precise.

The picture below was actually taken after having gone through a couple of hours defrosting it... the ice got so big that initially I couldn't even move the inner door or the defrosting tray underneath.


For some reason this picture reminds me of Winnie-the-Pooh that got stuck when he was trying to fetch honey.

After a few hours of defrosting I was able to remove just the tip of the iceberg and the door could be opened.

I threw in the French butter, Belgian chocolates, and the Dutch stroopwaffels I brought back from Europe (except butter) in the wee bit of space in the giant ice so they don't spoil during the defrosting process, which literally took twelve hours. Hello, do I really live in the tropical climate?

The fridge is not even those questionable unknown brand but Whirlpool... I don't know what to do other than setting it to "minimum" to prevent the future catastrophe.

This is the biggest freezer ice I've ever seen after the very crappy dorm-fridge I used in a college dorm years ago.

Oh, my.

I spent a half day in Amsterdam to catch up with my elementary school classmate and his wife. Since I don't know Amsterdam other than the cat boat on the canal and Van Gogh museum that I visited almost ten years ago, I let my friend pick a place for lunch.
.. and he took me to Intercontinental Hotel for its high tea.

Why???

He said, it's close to the canal and has a very "Amsterdam" view,,, and it's one of the few places in Holland that serves something somewhat refined. Hmm. He and his wife have been in Amsterdam for a little over a year now, and they have noticed that the majority of the Dutch didn't care if food was good or not.

So, here we are, on a cushy couch on a cushy carpet. Many of the tea servers were 20-something good looking young men, and I wonder if it's one of the attractions of this place. For some reason, they started us off with chocolate, which made me quickly full, then several different cakes, sandwiches, scones followed, while we had five or so refills of different kinds of tea.

While we just had tea, some tables were indulging in champagnes and strawberries. That was quite decadent.

Here's a plate that broke the feeling of decadence.
...did we forget to pack those in Japanese mom's obento's?

I guess it's the Dutch people's love of deep fried snacks, that they have vending machines selling deep fried foods... but I did not expect these fried foods to show up on the table at a high tea at Intercontinental Hotel.

The tea was finished off with a chocolate fountain, which you can dip your cream puffs. I was so full of sweets that I couldn't indulge in it, but my friend, who works for his family business of confectionery company, has the amazing capacity to eat all the sweet stuff.

After all, I am not sure if it was worth a huge bill of 133 euros for three people... but at least I can blog it.