We interupt this tour for a snack break...

 Green Beans from our garden

Let's take a quick break from the trip recap for some food - I am sure the Dutch and Belgians would approve.  We have cooked some really good meals lately, so I'd like to share them with you.

I love getting our food directly from the farmers. It makes a meal like this, risotto (rice not from farmers - but it is the only part that is from the store), broccoli rabe and squash, and pork milanese, that much better.

We have started using our grill again, now that it is summer.  Last week we had grilled salmon with a Cajun rub and grilled zucchini with cous cous. So very good.

In honor of the symbolic start to summer, and because it is just darn good, we grilled burgers (meat from Ratchfod Farms here in AR) and whipped up a batch of the best potato salad in the world. And ate the green beans fresh from our garden. Ahh...

(I just realized that all these pictures are on the same plate. Hmm. We only have one red plate. Interesting. Well, it is a striking background to the food.)

Tomorrow we will return to the tour...

Den Haag

One of the days that we were in Delft we took a side trip to Den Haag (The Hague), the seat of government in the Netherlands.  After a bit of wandering around, trying to figure out where we were (got off the bus one stop too early), we made it to the Binnenhof, or Parliament Square area.  Once there, we found a large gilt statue with (I think) Queen Beatrix on it.

This is the Ridderzaal, where the queen gives her annual speech (according to Wikipedia).  It certainly looks like a church from outside, but since we didn't go in (don't even think it was allowed unless you were part of a tour), I couldn't say what it is inside.

Apart from seeing the sights of Den Haag, our main objective was to go to the Mauritshuis Museum.  It has The Girl With a Pearl Earring, as well as many other paintings from the Dutch Golden Age.  I loved the Girl - in reproductions, you really don't get the true nature of the play of light and dark, and the glow that she has - as well as a small painting of strawberries (I got it on a postcard), and some of the still-lifes. 

Before heading back to Delft for the afternoon, we had to have lunch. There were many little cafes to choose from, all with tables and chairs arranged on the sidewalks and in the middle of the square. I can't entirely remember what we had - sandwiches? - but it was good, and it was so much fun just to be sitting in Europe, eating at a cafe.  Ahh...

Delft

I'm back, and I come with pictures!  We had a wonderful, lovely trip to the Netherlands and Belgium.  I am going to play it out a while here on the blog, so be patient.  Today, we start with Delft, home of Delftware pottery and Vermeer, and burial place of the Dutch Royal family.

Here you have one of the bike parking lots at the Delft train station. Notice that I said "one of" the parking lots. People, there were a lot of bikes in the Netherlands. Most people seemed to use really old, rusty, beat up bikes - so that they would be less upset when the bike got stolen or vandalized.

We had perfect weather for the entire trip. Most days were sunny and pleasant - not to cold, not too hot - much better than the weather in Arkansas for the same time period!

I would not want to try to parallel park my car along the canals. Do you see how close they get? And that is the driver's side of the car! I guess you really have to get it right on your test, huh? We never saw anything that gave statistics for the number of cars fished from canals each year, but I would bet, given the amount of alcohol consumed, and the closeness of the maneuvers, that it is a fair number.*

This is the courtyard of our hotel in Delft, Hotel de Emauspoort. If you find yourself in need of a place to stay in Delft, I cannot recommend them highly enough. The food, oh the food... Dutch pancakes, fresh croissants, hard rolls and cheese, fruit salad.  And the room we had was lovely too.

We climbed to the top of the first tower of the trip in Delft.  From it, you could see the giant IKEA (not in this picture), and all the way to Rotterdam and Den Haag.  Over 370 steps to the top, but definitely worth the climb.

The town hall in Delft, the first of several town halls we would see. This square is not on the scale of later squares, but is delightful nonetheless. It was surrounded by tourist shops and restaurants.  In the evening, the cafes were full of people sitting in the sun, enjoying the weather, the food and drink, and their friends.

So, there is the first installment. If you want a fuller, quicker version, you will just have to come hit me up for the slideshow in person. Otherwise, sit tight and more will be revealed tomorrow.

*Update: After doing a Google search for cars in canals in Amsterdam, I came up with several reports of an, err, interesting (illegal) activity that afflicted Amsterdam last summer: Smart Car tipping.