Food-shoppin in Nijmegen

I did one blog on eating out in Nijmegen. Which as I explained, is a tricky business. What about buying food in shops? Well, it actually isn't too bad. There have been questions from some of y'all back home as to the food here. So I have decided to compile a few of my favourite items. When it comes to stocking the fridge, Nijmegeren aren't too bad at it.

1. De Rit Volrogge honingkoek
The latest discovery. You wouldn't even think about buying a cake in an Australian supermarket, but here they sell these ginger and honey cakes which really aren't too bad, especially once you've got used to the level of sweetness of dutch desserts (I am now able to drink a Chocomel hot chocolate with a cake and not expire immediately from over-sweetenedness).

The De Rit brand ones are a step above, coming from the health food shop, for your 100% bio (organic) honey cake, which is made from rye flour. If you want to get your honey cake really nice and dark, try rye flour. It seems to work.

Recipe (alright, ingredients): 33.5% Wholemeal rye flour (who ever heard of white rye flour! I don't think it has a skin), 27.9% honey, rye grains (or something called bloem), then it has some other chemicals or something and also of course the old cinnamon. So there you have it, bung a huge amount of honey, sugar and a bit of rye together with a dash of cinnamon and you could have some yourself.


2. Pickles
Another good supermarket product is pickles. You can wander right into your Albert Heijn (the most ubiquitous supermarket around) and grab the home brand pickles (go for zuur 'sour' -not zoet 'sweet') and you'll find they are quite delicious.

3. Beer

Plenty of beer in the supermarket. No separate sealed section just another aisle. You can get Grolsh here, although not in the funny bottle, they seem to be getting a bit sick of that here. For a start all that glass is heavy on the bike. Instead of a slab you can get a plastic crate that sits nicely on the bike rack.
(a beer accident, illustrating the plastic beer crates, googling images is a terrible waste of time)

4. Veldsla

This mysterious salad green is not found in Australia, not surprisingly, since it is a delicate juicy kind of baby green, that looks like it could be a baby buk-choi or something, but never grows up. Translated as 'field lettuce/cabbage' it seems to me it probably used to grow in the shade of grasses in the field, but now is probably hydro. It doesn't exactly taste of anything but tastes delicious as a salad, on its own or with lettuce. You have to eat it soon after you dress it - it kind of melts in the dressing after a while. I was getting it at albert heijn in a little bag, but recently discovered the boxed variety at the health food shop - much stronger and with a longer life.

5. Other greens
Even your usual garden variety green veges just taste better here. I think they like the unlimited water supply (except for the 3 week drought we had). So I thought I'd just mention the better ones together here:

Leeks - these are so much juicier here I overcooked them for months, I just couldn't get used to the fact that they cooked so quick.
Green beans - like leeks these are picked smaller here which makes them tasty.

Asparagus - Also taste delicious. Have avoided the white ones even though dutchies seem to have a seasonal obsession with them - just can't quite see the point or how they could taste as good colourless.

Lettuces - very nice!

On the negative side - can't seem to get a decent pumpkin here. They have these orange-skinned round things which are so hollow there's hardly any pumpkin there. Plus they're a bit heavy for the bike.

6. Potting mix

(My happy plants on my balcony)

Potting mix isn't really food, but since it's unlikely I'll write a list of best nursery products I have to mention this potting mix. It is the most amazing stuff, so delicious (to feel, I'm not that nutty). It has the nicest texture, the plants love it and it hardly ever needs watering.


.... to be continued

Musicmeeting madness in Park Brakkenstein

(my photo: Gipsy.cz)

As most of you are no doubt aware, there was a world music festival on this weekend (Pinksterweekend - a long weekend). It took place in Park Brakkenstein, next door to my apartment, or as I like to think of it 'my backyard'. I have been raving about it for months, to anyone who'll listen, but unfortunately most didn't. Anyway, there was an amazing line up of musicians and it was very hard not to listen to music all-day, everyday for 3 days. They had two stages so a different act came on every hour and wouldn't you know it even listening to music can be tiring if you do it persistently enough!

The whole event was rather quaint and very 'Nijmegen'. It was well organised with the main tent being a nice red and white stripey number with a wooden floor and seats. The sound quality was very good and the lights plentiful and colourful if a little nineties. The audience was very grey with very few nutters. Most people were in the 45-60 age bracket and looked like they were off to a theater show, or about to have some friends over for dinner. This might have given it a bit of a sedate air, but they all danced and applauded like anything.

The way it was organised was very nice because anyone could go in to the festival and you could take in whatever you want (including grog). In addition there was reasonably priced food and drink available. So that was all quite nice and different to an Australian festival, where they try and fleece you for everything you've got. You didn't even have to pay for the toilet like you usually do in europe although I noticed most people put something in the tray for volunteers, feeling perhaps a little strange using a public toilet for free. The main stage was in a closed tent and you had to pay to go in but there were excellent acts on the other stages too.

So enough rant, bring on the music! I thought I might share with you some of the musicians who I really liked. As you know, the recordings don't really sound the same, and the two I liked perhaps the best conveyed a lot on stage too.

Cherifa













(photos: stolen from musicmeeting website)

Cherifa Kersit is a Tamazight Berber Moroccan who developed her rough style singing at Berber village festivals and weddings. Three men back her on lute, drums and tambourines [see video above]

Gnawa Crossroads

Also from the Magreb there was a band called 'Gnawa Crossroads' - put together temporarily from Moroccan, Algerian musicians and musicians living in the Netherlands, partly to promote the Gnawa festival in Essaouria (would like to go, but...). Gnawa Crossroads featured the singer Hamid El Kasri, who it turned out I had on a CD I got in Morocco. I am now an even bigger fan. In addition the backup singers were great clowns and reminded me of the charming berbers we met in Morocco, always fooling around and somehow serious at the same time.

I couldn't embed anything but you can hear one song with Hamid and see a cute video recorded on location in Morocco here:

http://www.accords-croises.com/en/artiste-bio.php?artiste_id=31

This site about the Essaouira Gnawa festival plays good music while you look at it:

http://www.festival-gnaoua.co.ma/en/edito.htm

Not sure how to upload a music file (any hints?)

Gipsy.cz

The biggest surprise of the festival for me was Gipsy.cz. Exactly as described in the program which didn't give me great expectations: "Imagine a gypsy group and suddenly Eminem comes on the stage". Somehow the lead singer Radoslav Banga really channels Eminem: the combination of whingy teenager and teenage bravado. Luckily no bleached hair and visor though. And yeah lots of musical talent in singing etc. which Eminem lacks.

The theme of the festival was cultural and stylistic fusion, which I find can really go wrong. But for the most part it was not a case of westerners working with 'exotic' musicians, watering it down and adding a cheesy beat, but instead people playing the music they want to rather than some kind of pure cultural product or something like a tourist cultural show (there were 4 altogther that I didn't like for these reasons, but that's all!).

Anyway Gipsy.cz was really young and energetic and were clearly masters of the gipsy style, and generally did an amazing job of mixing the genres. The tradtional gipsy music they played was heaps better than all the other stuff I've heard over here. I even starting thinking that maybe Eminem wasn't that bad after all! Europe is currently in the grip of a balkan craze - but somehow they often manage to make it sound really monotonous - I wasn't surprised to read that the DJ credited with popularising the balkan beat is a german house DJ!. But now I'm willing to give this Balkan business another go.

I particularly liked these songs:

http://www.gipsy.cz/mp3/romano/11_Nacalado_Godi.mp3

http://www.gipsy.cz/mp3/romano/10_abacus.mp3

http://www.gipsy.cz/mp3/romano/02_Multin.mp3

The rest (or samples of them) are on:

http://www.gipsy.cz

You can even see Radoslav's evil Eminem sneer - don't worry the other musicians were much cuter! Although Gipsy's certainly know how to do the cute thug as well as Nelly or 50 cent.

Now I'm trying to work out how many other world music festivals I can make it to this summer. Won't be able to pop home for a cup of tea at the other ones though.