This thing called zadelhoes

Amazing opportunity. Zadelhoezen or bike seat covers, are often placed on the seats of bikes parked in public places as advertisement for various companies/causes. These precious covers are alternatively coveted, saved, stolen, used and reused, but it seems like most of those advertising through this medium are design challenged. There is a great opportunity for graphic designers and design forward thinking companies alike to get their name out there...

A Comment

One of the best things about the Netherlands is that people drink tea all the time. I remember that one of my first assignments upon my arrival at the TU Delft was to design a high tea set for offshore workers. Though the whole point of the exercise was oxymoronic, the idea that offshore workers would drink tea was totally baffling. So instead I designed a high coffee set. Now that I've lived here for two years though the idea of oil rig workers drinking tea is becoming more and more plausible. As I am writing this I am sitting in my office downing one cup after another between bathroom breaks. It works better than coffee because I don't get the jitters no matter how much I drink.

Macau Project Pt. 2

It is an incredible sweltering day outside, but I did get a couple of things done that I am proud of. I finally completed and turned in my analysis phase report for my graduation project. This means I can get started conceptualizing and designing now. Woohoo. No more bleary eyed nights of typing and reading the small font of typical research papers.

Also, I heard from Alexander that they (NorthernLight and KisstheFrog) won the bid for the Macau project, which is the same project that got me involved with Kissthefrog.

Speaking of work, here is a top 5 weirdest lunch sandwiches Dutch people make:
1. Sambal + Peanut butter + hamburger bun (sambal is like that generic Chinese "spicy" sauce).
2. Apple syrup + cottage cheese on bread.
3. Butter + sliced strawberries + white bread

Ok, it's just going to be three for now because I want to stay accurate to observation. However I can think of some dubious ones off the top of my head which I might be inventing.

In other news, Holland vs. Italy tonight!

Ok, back to work now...

Naomi eating haring

almost there
Originally uploaded by raisin.detre

Hollandse Nieuwe Haring (herring) is the Dutch version of sushi. Most foreigners (and many Dutch people) dislike haring, due to the raw and pungent flavor of the fish, but I always make a point to eat one first thing on any given brack (hungover) Saturday. Knowing this, I warned Naomi of the fish and made the two of us have lunch before we ventured to the haring stand.

The following is why I love Naomi:
naomi: I can only foresee one problem
me: what?
naomi: I could really see myself becoming addicted to this..it is very creamy.
naomi: I bet it goes really well with soy sauce

encounters of the dutch kind: hutspot

I had my first experience with hutspot recently. According to J.C. Diehl, hutspot is the most Dutch thing you can eat. Serendipitously, just as I had learned of this mashed potato-carrot concoction, we happened to make it for dinner, and it all happened because of Daniel's refusal to eat the bratwurst I brought back from Germany with just normal mashed potatoes (even though it was Sunday and the last supermarket had been closed for 5 minutes already at 6:05).

Our salvation came when we called Inga to eat with. She had carrots! As it turns out, a lot of onions, butter, and creme fraiche can make boiled potatoes and carrots go a long way. Jorn found this great recipe online, and the result was delicious even though everyone kept warning me hutspot was gross. The bratwurst was also soooo smaaaaaklijk, much better than the kind you can get here.

I put the candles I got from Pielter's wedding to good use, and we ate by candlelight. When we fed some to Bas, he told us that this was easily in the top five hutspot experiences of his life (out of 50+ times).

Recipe (source) boil carrots, potatoes in the meat stock. Add fried onions and everything else except the meat, mash mash. Ready the wurst and serve on the side.



Ingredients
1 kg kruimige (??) potatoes
750 gram carrots
500 gram onions
1 meat bullion tablet
20 gram butter
125 ml creme fraiche
thin sausages or spicy wurst
20 gram butter - fresh ground pepper

note: before I arrived in the Netherlands, I never liked potatoes much except in the fried variety...but now i know better (potatoes?)