when my husband asked me if i wanted to accompany him on a business trip and make a nice weekend out of it, i didn’t have to think twice, and quickly plane tickets and hotel rooms were booked. i was last in Amsterdam over ten years ago and all i really remember was standing in line to see “Wheat Field With Crows” at the Van Gogh museum and visiting a squat that looked like a 19th century mansion. i don’t really remember anything involving meals and food and i am not sure what that says about how (terribly?) i ate. then again, most (all?) of my money was spent on vinyl back then.
so, day one.
hi!
after landing around 9 am and parting ways with the business travelin’ boys i managed to store my bag at the hotel and started exploring the Plantage district: i got lost around the Hortus Botanicus for a bit because i wandered off into every small cute side street there was, it seems. i finally found the Verzetsmuseum, the Dutch Resistance Museum, a moving, interactive and interesting collection, a place i highly recommend you check out when in town.
Verzetsmuseum (Museum of the Dutch Resistance)
since there hadn’t been any breakfast, not even free coffee!, on the plane i crossed the Magere Brug into Utrechtsestraat to check out The Golden Temple.
the place is hippie but in a good, wholesome, organic way, all the spirituality around me was easily warded off by consuming good food, good indian and mediterranean and italian and dutch food.
Zing a Ding Ding, a.k.a. the best juice i ever had, a.k.a. an orange, grapefruit, lemon, fresh mint, coconut & cinnamon juice.
Broodje Tofu, a grilled tofu sandwich with a tangy tahini sauce (cost an ok EUR 5, 75)
raw mango & banana ice cream. unfortunately this was frozen solid and not as amazing as i hoped.
The Golden Temple is open for lunch and dinner: lunch (tue-sat): 12h00 - 15h00; dinner (mon-sun): 17h00 - 21h30 and has free WIFI!
after coffee with friends and some more walking around we grabbed dinner at Maoz, an all vegetarian falafel bar. i love their fries!
later on i picked this blue beauty as my favourite bike of the day
and then fell asleep to “Falling Down” in my comfy hotel bed.
i am so happy our little sunday brunch is becoming a monthly fixed date! if you would like to join the July one, leave a comment with your email address and i will send you an invite. deal? deal!
there were six of us at our 3rd get-together and there was so much delicious food!
i made lemon poppy seed muffins, a Vegan Brunch (get this book already!) recipe and they came out great.
i tried the swiss chard frittata (also from Vegan Brunch) that decided to turn into yummy scrambler when evacuated from the form. here it is in its pre-oven state:
Carmen made her awesome sausage. so great!
here’s the goods: frittata, sausage, oven roasted vegetables and a muffin. there were also kick ass roasted potatoes that Josh made.
Carla and Stefan brought cashew/tofu ricotta and whole wheat bread rolls.
and, of course, there is sweet stuff. sweet sweet stuff! fabulous sticky buns and strawberry cheesecake ice cream.
and finally: let them eat cake! raspberry blueberry cake.
i cannot wait for July!
a cookbook with traditional Cretan dishes, has many accidentally vegan recipes, the one for Gigantes for example. i picked up the main ingredient: giant white beans at a random supermarket.
dried herbs. unfortunately the walking through hills and picking my own fresh herbs-resolution didn’t really work out.
and some awesome olive oil from Mochos was brought to my door steps. well, my desk at the office, anyways.
so, greece, right? my one week work-cation on Crete was so much nicer than expected: the people were great, genuinely helpful and friendly, big hearts and big portions when it came to the food. the truly vegan-friendly food, i should add.
the first half of the week was spent in a little village by the ocean in the SW of Crete, Kalamaki. i had almost all of my meals at a small taverna called Athivoles, after a few days also known as my home away from home.
my first meal in the taverna was glorious:
grilled garlic bread
fried zucchini (in the back you see pastichio, a greek lasagna dish i plan on veganizing one of these days)
and a big plate of horta with steamed zucchini and boiled potatoes
all ingredients were fresh and whenever i listed the things i didn’t eat, i only met smiles and the best improvised dishes, not once did i get a “why?” or strange look.
after meals we usually had greek coffee, metrio (a little sugar) and fresh fruit. i don’t think i paid for more than a third of the coffees i consumed, the fruit platters were always free.
there were numerous greek salads (hold the feta, please), hearty vegetable stews w/ green beans, potatoes and carrots and a great grilled tomato stuffed with rice
and accidentally vegan halva, a cake made with millet and sugar, olive oil and orange zest
i even found a healthfood/ organic produce store in the next small town over that not only had the freshest and cheapest organic produce ever but also helped me out on the breakfast front:
i found vegan margarine and chocolate rice milk
after quaint friendly Kalamaki, we moved on to the 5** conference hotel where food was buffet style and uninspiring but filling. i ate many soggy vegetables and really missed my little taverna!
Crete is great and if you stay away from the loud touristy beach towns you get to meet some of the friendliest people that will dig through their kitchens to feed you a great nutritious vegan meal and tell you stories in a mix of greek, german and english and you get to hang out with cute beach bums:
I have recently added going to the farmers’ market on Naschmarkt to my Saturday routine. i don’t have to tell you that picking up fresh produce from the market beats picking up limp and unattractive fruits and vegetables from the supermarket any ol’ day! asparagus is still in season for, i would say, one more week, so i bought pounds of thin green and white one from a favourite stand from Burgenland, i picked up two kinds of pretty radishes (the white long “icicle” have a nice kick and were only 10 cents a piece!), elderberry flowers (for syrup or to dip them in dough and bake them), swiss chard and the first beets of the season, they tasted glorious, roasted in the oven with olive oil and just a spritz of lemon. and i only consider it a successful visit to the market if i find and buy at least one new (to me) product. this time it was Mizuna which tastes great cut into a salad or fried for a bit and added to stir-fries.
i roasted and steamed some of the purchases for dinner:
our second monthly vegan brunch was glorious! we had tofu scrambler, roasted potatoes, roasted asparagus, carrots and beets, fried seitan sausage, cinnamon rolls (pictured above) and hummus, whole wheat dried tomato rolls, waffles, apple cinnamon ice cream, peanut butter pillows, oat blueberry muffins. i am still full!
Noted vegan chef, Isa Chandra Moskowitz, is a generous person. so generous that she went ahead and posted a few recipes from her upcoming cookie book, co-authored w/ Terry Hope Romero, on the PPK blog. One of those recipes is for Peanut Butter Chocolate Pillows. Cannot wait for the book to hit the shelves!
as you can see i turned the pillows into flat cookies. chewy, peanutty, delicious!
Thanks, Isa!
sunday afternoons are perfect for baking. but you knew that already, didn’t you?
