Volume 2, Day 32
Sunday was to be the finals of the Women’s World Cup, which just so happened to be down to the United States and the Netherlands. I was delighted when C said some friends would come over to watch the game at 5 and quickly volunteered to cook–one might say in order to foster international goodwill, but really I just want to show off.
So, my thoughts were mostly on getting all the ingredients procured and mentally arranging the cooking order. I did get a chance to run to a supermarket in the morning. C recommended I go to an Albert Hijn (or something like that), which is a famous supermarket chain in the Netherlands. It’s kind of upscale and they have handheld scanners for shoppers to “pay as you go.” After spending much too much time running around the shop looking for what I needed I headed to the registers and found that all of them were marked “Alle Pinnen” meaning that cash wasn’t accepted. I rolled my eyes, then quickly returned all the items. Luckily, there was a Lidl next door, which I would have needed to go to anyways, and I did my shopping there.
After a quick and simple lunch, C and I got on our bikes to head out to “the dunes,” which is a fancy way of saying the beach. Leiden is about 5 or 6 km from the seaside, though it took us a good 45 minutes to bicycle out there and not necessarily on the nicest route. I was happy to get the authentic Dutch experience and see a bit more of the countryside (mostly highway and industrial) up close and personal.
The beach at low tide is wide and long. To the south, one can see the skyline of the Hague and theoretically one could walk the entire distance along the flat sandy beach. The dunes, which are blanketed in vegetation, rise up from the beach like a sea wall. Though it was still a cold grey day and the water is pretty much never quite suitable for swimming, there were plenty of surfers and sailboats in the middle distance. Cargo ships and platforms with windmills were in the far distance. We walked a long way down the beach before turning around and walking back. We stopped in one of the dozens of beachside cafes for a drink and an ice cream. C picked up the check again, further indebting me to her.
The bicycle ride back was more scenic as we passed mostly through nice residential neighborhoods. We stopped at the train station to return my rental bike (I wouldn’t need it again) because C had only checked it out for two days and it was already day four. Apparently, the rate goes up if you rent one for more than two days at a time, but I promised to give C some money to cover the cost.
We walked back to the house passing mostly by the university (which is everywhere really). One interesting feature of Leiden is that there are poems in different languages written on the sides of buildings.
We got back to the house by four and I busied myself in the kitchen. The friends were a bit late and by the time the TV was on, we had missed the first ten minutes of the game. I was in and out of the kitchen tending to a few things, but I mostly tried to watch the game. As for my menu, I made a summer sangria with rose (Zinfandel) and strawberries. Cheese and crackers were laid out for snacks. I wanted to cook Indian food and apart from marinating and baking tofu (subbing for chicken) in tiki masala spices and making fresh paneer from scratch, I was able to wait until halftime to do all the chopping and prep work.
After the US women won, I was back in the kitchen to quickly fry up the palaak paneer and tofu tiki masala with basmati rice. It came out really well. I think the last year in Beijing of guerilla kitchen cooking really upped my culinary game.
After dinner, we put on a movie (Rear Window). That was it for the weekend. Fun, relaxing.
| Lidl Groceries | 18.15 |
| Cayenne peppers | 1.3 |
| Total: | 19.45 EUR (151.7 RMB) (USD 22) |
Running Total: 11766.21 RMB (USD 1708.75)
Daily Average: 367.7 RMB (USD 53.40)