Leiden

Leiden is a university town, and they have a terrific market on Saturdays.

We started with french fries...

Take a look at those snazzy sauce holders built in to the fry cones!! 

And so many sauces to choose from :)

Then we went on to stroop waffles. It was a healthy eating day! We did get a bunch of Turkish food from a deli counter, so that made up for the other stuff we ate :) So who knew that stroop waffles are waffles that are cut in half, then slathered with caramel and put back together and heated again? In the store, you buy them in packages--and can be found everywhere!!! 

But at the market, they hand them to you warmmmmmmmm

And there are these fabulous stroop waffle keepers (like they stay in the house for more than a few minutes), and I might have to put one on my Christmas list and aspire to not eating the whole bag in one sitting.

Not sure if it's the season, but there are a lot of these organs in the streets playing songs. As far as I can tell, operated by older gentlemen. I'll have to ask if it's a seasonal thing or just a way to create ambiance.. of sorts. Makes me want to whip out my dirndl.

First stop - a windmill!

 Memere came to visit!! She arrived Saturday morning, just in time for Open Monument Day so we could visit the windmill in Leiden for free. And there just happened to be a Saturday market going on too.

We learned about how the windmill worked, and saw where the mill owner lived on the first floor--it was snazzy! As you can imagine, milling was very political and there was a lot of discussion about who could mill what and how much. A number of mills were destroyed over the years so that they would not be taken by invaders. 

The views from the mill were fantastic too!

We are ok, but getting cold!

It's been tough to be just three of the four of us, we are missing Zeric. Glad that he is a call away, that we can talk often, and that we will see him soon. This is the photo we sent to welcome him to his new home in Kin:

The weather is starting to turn, though. Rainy and chilly. Some of us are handling it better than others.

 Some of us are making new friends just to keep warm.

Eben got a bike!

Very important acquisition in Dutch land. Everyone has one and rides it everywhere. Note: these are not mountain bikes or racing bikes, these are Dutch bikes... think touring bikes with baskets or crates or bags that carry groceries, children (mulitiple), dogs, household wares, friends.

Eben is on his way! 

Mine is ordered. 

Jaffa is psyching herself up about learning how to ride.

 

What we know about Dutch food so far

We know that we like the cheese--which is a good thing, because there is a LOT of it! There are all kinds: with cumin, with nettle, old, very old, not old, young, very young. Some of it not so easy to tell apart from the others if you're not.. Dutch. 

There are many other dairy products that we are learning about. Karne melk: buttermilk, easy to find and fun to bake with. Vla: custard that people can eat for breakfast, some comes in a carton that's split so you can have chocolate and vanilla, separated in your bowl. Many kinds of yogurt, one called kwark. Need to try that. 

We also tried some Dutch food the other day at a neighborhood restaurant. Jaffa had the pancake (pannenkoeken) and Eben had the mustard soup. Both were very nice!

Finally, sprinkles. For breakfast or snack - on bread with butter. That is the proper way. Don't tell anyone I steal them for my vanilla ice cream.

We'll talk about stroepwaffels later. Oh, and if you are looking for peanut butter, they have creamy and chunky 😃 just look for pindakaas - peanut cheese.

Oreo cows

 Sighted in fields close by! Multiple times. 

Must explore further to see if they make oreo milk and oreo ice cream.

Zucchini.. bread

When Jonathan came for the birthday celebration, Astrid brought two huge zucchini from her garden. They were awesome!

It was a lot of veg for the three of us (especially as it is in Jaffa's category of evil vegetables that she refuses to eat), and so, I made :

But, I still had one left. I decided to gift it to the neighbors. I'm sure you can imagine me rockin' up to the new neighbors, ringing the bell, and when their 18 year old son answered the door, asking "Is your Mom home? I have this for her." Right. 😂