Nicoise Salad with Herring

A Simple salad made around the wonderful herring we bought at the specialist Jewish sour shop De Leeuw. If you like souer stuff as much as I do, please go and visit this sweet little shop on a thursday, friday or sunday and get yourself some fish, pickles, onions or even some souer horseradish.

This salad is a mix of boiled green beens, tomatoes and sliced red onion, mixed up with some vinegar and olive oil. Herring, hard boiled eggs and some fresh dill on top.

Forest Theater

In the middle of “het Amsterdamse Bos” (The Forest of Amsterdam) there is an open air theater: Het Bostheater. Every summer there is a play on this stage. This year they play Don Q, A wonderful play although a bit confusing.

One of the best parts of the theater also is the time before the play starts, when people have their picnic on the benches. Eating the food they brought, having wine and mainly having a good time. The atmosphere during these warm summer nights is very special and even though you might not speak Dutch it would be worth visiting a performance when in Amsterdam

Finland

A weekend break to Finland is one of the most relaxing things I have ever done. They do not only all have saunas, they also seem to have their vacation cabins located next to lakes or on private islands in their archipelago. We fly to Turku to have a real Finnish dinner – fresh mushroom soup, Finnish cheese, Home baked buns, real Finnish meatballs and mash potato – with the parents of our friend the Viking, before driving up to his little house on an island. An Island without electricity or running water but with a sauna and hammocks.

Nightly sauna sessions, cooling down in the lake, having sausages, beer and potato salad at 2 at night. Picking blueberries, searching chanterelles and even go spear fishing to catch some fresh cod. Strolling a nearby year market in search of a coffee at 10am, only find out the only beverage that can be bought is beer. Deciding to than have beers instead, accompanied by one of the very best smoked salmon I have ever had.

Wish we could do this once every year!

Roadtrip

Sometimes you just have to escape the city and take a little road trip. We packed up our stuff and our dogs, drove to Holten, took the camper and crossed the border to BBQ on a German campsite. Grilling meat, smoking beets and having the dogs run outside for the whole weekend.

Fretoy

This was one of the most beautiful weeks of our lives. Five days of our closest friends and family getting to know one another. Starting the week with our civil marriage in Zeeland, so our three grandmothers and 1 grandfather could be there too. Afterwards driving up to France with a big group for a couple of days of BBQing, swimming overall relaxing while the other guest were trickling in. On Thursday saying our vows to our fathers in front of our guest in a French meadow under a burning sun.

We would do it over every year if we could

Petite

The one in the back...you see him, with his little eyes closed...with the babyblue ribbon...the one that's playing hard to get...can you see him?...thats the one we took home.

He's grown into a big and strong weimaraner now, but here in this picture he was a small puppy with a severe handicap. He and five of his siblings weren't able to control their hind legs.
 

We took him home anyway, even though they told us there was a chance we would have to let him go within a couple of months. We decided to give him the best life he could wish for even when it wouldn’t be a long life. Well, you should see him now and the strong guy he has become.

View

The first house we lived in together was a small but wonderful attic in the southern part of Amsterdam called “de Pijp”. Best things about it were the lightness in the apartment, the fact that nobody could see you (except for the neighbor when she would open her skylight and stick her head out, scared the hell out of me one morning) and the magnificent view we had from our rooftop terrace with the ‘Rijksmusem’ as the big eye catcher. So many good memories.