As Ameri...I mean, Dutch as Apple Pie

I've been in Amsterdam for the past few days for a wedding and am just about to leave for the airport to get on a plane to NYC. I am so psyched to be on my way there: it's been ten months since last time, which is the largest amount of time I've ever been away. I miss you, USA!

I just took a walk through the Jordaan, and stopped off at Cafe Papeneiland for some of its famous apple pie (which Bill Clinton made even more famous because he had some a few years ago). Say what you want about all of the good old American apple pie I've had through the years, this trumps it. (I actually feel awful saying that, is it possible that my memory for good American apple pie is just not that good?!) The slabs of pie they give you here in Amsterdam are massive, but it's so delicate at the same time- not too sweet, slightly cinnamony, but just a hint of it. Not the kind of pie you need a nap after, just perfect.

American apple pie-lovers, go back to your Dutch roots, you won't be sorry.

In the meantime, I hope you'll still let me come see you even though I think you'll have to find something new to be as American as. I'm just a plane ride away!

A Food Medley

I've been jumping around from couch to couch in and around NYC the past few weeks, staying with good friends and family for two or three nights each, spending Good Quality Time with the people and the city I love.

It's weird. When I got back to NYC, I wasn't overwhelmed with nostalgia or haunting memories like I have been when returning to other cities. It just felt like I'd been out of town for a weekend, and here I was, back where I know how things work, (back where people know my name and they're always glad I came) back where people think like I do, but then also, where people don't think like I do at all and people thinking in so many different ways is a great thing.

This was weird because when I left NYC just seven or eight months ago, I was so ready to leave, felt so disconnected, didn't feel like I loved NYC at all. Yet, despite all the couchsurfing, coming back for this visit didn't feel anything like one. It felt like I was home. I guess it's true what they say: NYC is a city you never truly leave.

I've collected a lot of food stories and impressions over these weeks, so instead of posting about each of them separately, I give you here, a food medley:

Zucchini for Sillies: The Sequel

"You know what REALLY gets to me, though? What REALLY gets to me is that you're LYING. And I RESPECT you less for that."

A slightly overweight, red-in-the-face guy is standing over us, so aggressive I think he might punch me and my brothers and sister, or maybe there might just be a simple little *pop* and then his head disappears due to overexertion. Only, I know he won't hit us because we're at the Little League World Series and no one would actually hit anyone with all these kids around. Plus they don't sell beer here.

Zucchini Chocolate Cake - recipe below

Something really American

Yesterday, I sat on a plane.

When I got to Boston, my brother picked me up from the airport and asked where I wanted to eat. "Sushi?" he said.

"How about something REALLY American?" I said, having been gone from the States for a whopping 7 months.

"Oh easy," he said, "Red Bones."

Yes, true. Yes, of course.

Beijing Cooking

Friends of mine had a beautiful wedding in Beijing this July, and about 30 people from Norway were present to witness it. It was a traditional Chinese wedding and was utterly fantastic. I mean, there were dancing dragons and bow & arrows involved, what's not to love?

I was in China and Tibet for about three weeks and this post and possibly the next one or two will be about that trip.

*****

So I'm standing on the street across from my hotel. I have been for 20 minutes. I'm frantically trying to wave down anything resembling a taxi, but it's rush hour, and there just aren't enough taxis to go around, what with the like 20 million people who live in the city.

Finally one pulls over. I show the driver the slip with Chinese letters on it I have with me. No, no, he shakes his head vigorously, waving his hand. "But it's just down there," I say in English, as if that will help, pointing down the street. No, no, he shakes his head again, and I climb out of the taxi and shut the door behind me.

I sigh.

And then I start walking through the streets of Beijing in the direction I have just pointed. I'm going to be late for my cooking class.

This is London

I was three years old the first time I was in London.

I have two memories of this trip that I'm certain are my own. One of them is very vague. It's of my mom holding me and pointing at a big clock (Ben) and me going, "That's it?". The other is of a very shy me whispering in my mom's ear that I want french fries, while a waitress hovers by our table. My mom tells me I can order from the waitress myself, but that I should ask for chips. "But I don't want chips," I say, "I want french fries."

There are other memories of that trip that are not my own, stories that have been told time and time again, so often that I've created images and feelings to go with them. One of these is of the three of us, my mom, my brother, and me, just having arrived on a plane from the US, sitting on the tube together, one kid on each side of mom, holding onto her and taking in this strange new place. My brother, then an avid PBS viewer, also at night when the British BBC would come on the channel, looks around for a while at this and that, the people around us, then turns to my mother, and goes, "Mom, does EVERYBODY here work at the BBC?", figuring that talking the Queen's English was something you learned on the job.

Oh, children can be so sweet when they haven't got a clue.

[Pasteis de nata: more on this below!]