Trip Report: AMS-FRA-ORD-SAN part II

After living it up in the Senator Lounge it was back to plebe life; funny to think, this was the first intercontinental trip in economy class in a year and a half (as readers of this blog will know). Also the first time in transcontinental LH economy class. I have to say, Lufthansa Design (there is such a thing) communicates to me brand attributes of well-engineered, man-made, and efficient. Not really anything about comfort of wellbeing. But kudos for being consistent across the lounges, plates and cups, seat design, even arm rests in economy are sculpted and branded.

Lunch was chicken in porcini mushroom sauce with spatzle, salad with carrot shreds and feta cheese, apple cake (sort of bread pudding-ish in texture), and bread with camembert.

Pre-arrival snack was a choice of pizza or bratwurst. I chose the bratwurst, which came in a bread shell. There were three tubes of bratwurst, and each one was filled with an inner tube of mustard! Quite tasty.

Connecting in ORD was smooth. My luggage was already on the carousel before I got through immigration, and I was waved through customs. In the domestic terminal, I won a pack of United playing cards by spinning a wheel (promotion for new Travel Options from United). I went to the Red Carpet Club by B18, and was pleasantly surprised by how light and airy it looked. A lot of Red Carpet Clubs seem to be going through renovation which is a nice sign from the airline for being serious about investing in their product. The food seems to be given an upgrade too with more choices.

I had some celery and carrots, cheese and crackers (yay to real cheddar for the first time in 4 months!), Kit Kat, Ghiradelli chocolate, oatmeal squares, and green tea.

On my flight (upgraded) from ORD to SAN, I found it intriguing that the flight attendant offered us steak salad, chicken sandwich, or anything from the Choice menu from Economy class (she called it "Fresh Express" and "Bob" as in buy-on-board but she pronounced it like Bob Dole). I took the steak salad, substantial and well-seasoned, with pecans carefully arranged around the plate. There was also a roll with real butter (for a while I feel like I've been getting butter-flavored vegetable oil product on UA), and a warm chocolate chip cookie. A nice end to a very long journey.

Trip Report: AMS-FRA-ORD-SAN part I

What usually is a 16 hour journey from Eindhoven to Southern California became a 24 hour journey since the cheapest ticket connected twice, once in Frankfurt (FRA) and once in Chicago (ORD). Plus, with the connection into FRA departing AMS early in the morning at 7:15am, I ended up leaving my apartment at midnight in order to get the last bus to the train station (otherwise I would have had to walk ~30 min with two large suitcases and my computer bag in the snow).

AMS is supposed to be a 24 hour airport, and there were plenty of people, but I'm not sure what airlines people they were flying in the wee hours of the morning because even KLM check in counters were closed. I waited until about 4:50am for Lufthansa check in to open, and I was through within 5 minutes.

I got a present at duty free, and then proceeded to the Servisair contract lounge that LH uses. Interesting, it's a different one from the Menzies contract lounge that Swiss uses (which I tried during my Spain trip). I thought the Menzies lounge was meager food-wise (crackers and ham for breakfast), but the Servisair lounge was so much worse. The lounge attendant was so lethargic, barely able to look up from her newspaper to check me in, and the food selection consisted of potato chips, Cheetos, freeze dried soup (in the glass cup below - could only take a few sips), and indeterminate pastry.

I was looking forward to having a nice sandwich on board my flight, having had a nice little sandwich last time on MUC-AMS (trip report here), but it turned out to be rather industrial-tasting like the sandwiches I got on Spanair.

I landed in FRA in concourse A, and it took almost an hour and another security check to get to concourse C. I only had ~15 minutes to use the LH Senator Lounge in C but what a salvation it was! Real Food!

There was a selection of three smoothies and I was so parched for fruit and liquid that I had all three (my favorite was the rhubarb/strawberry/cherry/raspberry/pineapple one), real bread with ham and cucumbers, muesli, assorted chocolate and a really nice almond cookie in the shape of a palm tree. I usually don't eat muesli, but I have fond memories of the muesli I had on an LH flight many years ago so I decided to give this one a try. Also very good.

But my favorite part of the lounge and probably the highlight of the whole trip was how I got to board the aircraft! Basically when the lounge attendant announces it's open, you walk through a door at the end of the lounge (past the food area and past the bathrooms).

You then end up walking through the landed gentry in the Business Lounge (if you're the aristocracy in the Senator Lounge, and the true first class flyers are the royalty in the FRA First Class Terminal). The picture below was actually taken in that lounge - yes indeed, it does look like a regular gate area, but trust me there's food and beverages right behind where I'm standing.

I suspect this is how upper deck boarding for the A380 will take place, because we had to go down a couple flights of escalators and passed a set of doors for boarding before we got down to the level where our jetways were. Nice - no mingling with the plebes! Here's the view from the upper deck boarding level, looking down on our looooong Airbus A340-600.

Winter is here

On my way back home, I was surprised to find frost on my bike seat, waiting for me at the bike parking lot! I remember the first time my car was iced over in Cincinnati, coming back from a business trip. That time I had to call the parking lot customer service for advice, and ended up scraping the ice off with my library card (getting bloody in the process).

Some frost on the bike seat is nothing in comparison!

Alumni Club Holiday Dinner

My school's alumni association chapter in the Netherlands had sent me an invite to their second annual holiday dinner. At first I wasn't planning on attending, because it was in Amsterdam and I was worried about getting back to Eindhoven late on a weeknight. Plus it was really expensive - €80 ($120) per person! Contrast this with a dinner in LA with the president of the university, for only $45 per person. Everything in the Netherlands is more expensive, including alumni association holiday dinners.

But the chapter president emailed me offering me a discount for being a young graduate, and that made a big difference. I decided to attend.

It was hosted at a mansion called Huize Frankendael. Really beautiful, and surprising to see in Amsterdam where everything is packed together really tightly.













Drinks in the beginning and dessert at the end were upstairs in elegant reception rooms, while we had dinner downstairs in the rustic carriage house.













Now, in America I can already tell you the menu for this type of event. Salad to start, choice of chicken breast or cream pasta for main, and chocolate cake for dessert. I was pleasantly surprised by the food here, which I presume is catered by the restaurant in the same building, Merkelbach.

First course was wild goose terrine en croute, with a bit of salad on the side.













Main course was pike perch with horseradish crust, parsley, artichoke, and lots of tiny little very tender mussels. The perch was really masterfully cooked; very juicy with a crisp crust.

We finished with a chocolate mousse with pistachio sauce.

Besides the food, I did enjoy meeting the different people at the dinner. It wasn't just alumni from my school, since the invitation was also extended to alumni from other schools in the US and UK as well. There was a mix of Dutch and non-Dutch people, from all different fields, and of all ages. Unlike in Cincinnati where there were always 5 or 6 of us younger graduates who all worked at the same company, with a dozen or so alumni in their 60s or 80s.

Reverse Engineering Cincinnati Chili in Europe: attempt #1

It turned very cold and rainy a couple weeks ago, which spurred a hankering for a big pot of chili. It started out too, as a quest to use up some bacon I had bought earlier, and maybe some chives I had on hand too. That I settled on a recipe for Cincinnati chili, which uses neither bacon nor chives, speaks to how much I miss Skyline I guess!

There were lots of different recipes that claim to have reverse engineered Cincinnati chili. I found a couple endorsements for a recipe from the Frugal Gourmet (it's copyrighted, but Google it - you'll find it); one of these endorsements said it was exactly the same as Skyline, so I had to try it.

Well here it is:

You can tell the colors are really off. I used whole wheat spaghetti, and the only shredded cheese I could find that had cheddar in it also had a couple other cheeses like Emmental. But I was able to find spices like allspice (piment in Dutch), real Lea & Perrins Worcestershire sauce, and real Tabasco, so I had high hopes.

But this came out really off. First of all the recipe calls for tomato puree, but I thought the texture in the end was way to thick. Also the taste was not right; it lacked a beefy flavor (I even added a beef bouillon cube). And I think the Worcestershire sauce was a bad call.

There are a few other recipes online which I shall attempt in the future!

Cooking Indian

I'd never cooked Indian before, since Cincinnati boasted a ton of wonderful Indian restaurants (it seems much more than Boston or California). But while I've seen one or two Indian restaurants here in Eindhoven, they look to be rather upscale like most restaurants, meaning at least $20 for a meal.

So, with the extensive selection of spices at the Asian grocery store, and a few recipe recommendations from a friend back in the US, I decided to attempt to cook Indian cuisine/

First, check out the amount of spices you get from the Asian market. And the glass jars don't even contain everything that's in the plastic bag they come in! Even their "small" bottles of spices (the round bottle of mustard seeds) are bigger than the spice boxes from the mainstream supermarkets (e.g. the ginger powder in front - interestingly, that brand Silvo is part of McCormick).

I first tried a saag paneer with tofu instead of paneer. It was very good, but didn't really taste particularly Indian (maybe it was because of the tofu). Then I tried this recipe for Baigan Kha Bhartha (eggplant with tomatoes and onion; click here for recipe). As I was making it, it seemed really off with the turmeric, the paprika, and other spices. But after the flavors mixed together, then it tasted really fragrant! This went well with rice, but also as a spread on crackers.

Finally, I tried this recipe for Aloo Gobi (potatoes and cauliflower; click here for recipe). Once again, it smelled not right in the beginning. I think I'm just getting used to cooking with pure turmeric for the first time. This one is definitely a keeper. It tasted good hot as well as straight out of the fridge. I ended up craving bites of this for several days after I made it.

Makeshift Baking

My kitchen is now almost fully equipped. I'm waiting until after Christmas to order a Braun immersion blender + food processor combo, and I'm planning on bringing some more pans, more pots, cooling rack, and rolling pin. And then I can pretty much make anything I want.

I've decided to completely forgo a microwave oven, having lived quite well the last four months without one. But I remembered how handy it can be when I set out to make brownies for the pizza party, and needed to melt butter with the chocolate. Check out my makeshift double boiler! I also had to melt in two batches because my metal bowls weren't large enough.

But the brownies still came out nicely. My old boss called these "crack brownies" for how addictive they are.

I also made an apple cake with cinnamon cream cheese frosting. The walnuts made a really nice visual impact, but they were also there to cover up the slightly lumpy frosting with some unblended chunks of butter (and potentially powdered sugar that had been "sifted" through my colander).

Design Your Own Pizza Party

After the purchase of aforementioned oven and stand mixer, I put them to good use at the Design-Your-Own Pizza Party I hosted.

I discovered this recipe for pizza dough at King Arthur Flour's blog (click here for the description and pictures, click here for the recipe). I've always trusted King Arthur Flour's recipes, being the proud owner of their cookbook Whole Grain Baking. This pizza recipe conveniently calls for you to parbake the pizza crust before adding the toppings. Perfect for a design-your-own pizza party! I parbaked all of the crusts in advance, so that folks didn't have to wait 15-20 minutes between pizzas or deal with a floppy pizza to put in the oven, or get their hands gross by handling wet, sticky dough.

I asked people to bring a topping or a beverage, and I was really happily surprised that folks really got into it! Contributions ranged from a basil plant to artichoke hearts to corn. I set up my rolling carts from Ikea into a pizza making buffet line with all of the different toppings. In total we made 8 pizzas.

For the party, I made four batches of pizza dough from the recipe, and that yielded 12 crusts of about 8" diameters. This one is definitely being added to the repertoire of party themes!

Sarah Palin is Going Vogue

This short animation depicts Sarah Palin showing her first couture collection to Anna Wintour.

Stand Mixer!

After I gave myself a toaster oven as a present, I decided that I absolutely also must have a stand mixer if I am going to resume baking. Of course my first thought is to look into getting another KitchenAid like I have in storage in the US. But whereas I bought my Artisan for about $200 back home, they retail for €525 (about $780) here! Not only was this totally out of my budget, but out of principal I will not pay almost 4x for something identical to what I have in the US. I even put out a call on Facebook asking expat friends what they did in my situation. Responses ranged from getting an electrical transformer for their US-spec KitchenAids (even more expense), to just mixing by hand since there is no cost-effective replacement (I don't know how to mix by hand anymore!... just kidding... sort of).

After a lot of research into hand held mixers (I got tired just thinking about using those), and considering bringing my check-in sized KitchenAid over on my next trip back, I settled on a Bosch Kitchen Machine. It was actually ranked just after the KitchenAid Classic by Cook's Illustrated, the Consumer Reports of recipes and cooking equipment, and was said to outperform the KitchenAid in kneading dough. Plus at €55 (about $80) on Amazon.de with free shipping to the Netherlands, I thought this might be the first "great value" I found in Europe. Much less than what a KitchenAid would cost even at home, and comparable to some low-end hand mixers that I found in Eindhoven stores. And the Bosch turns out to be really cute too. Here it is at work on creaming butter and sugar for an apple cake.

I really like the Bosch. It is cute and compact, fitting in really small spaces on top of my mini fridge or on top of an Ikea kitchen cart. It does a pretty good job of mixing everything in the bowl, despite not having the calibrating screw on the KitchenAid. And despite being totally made of plastic, it feels well constructed. The head locks into three positions with a determined click, and there's a "parking space" for the head too, so it always rests at the same position when you turn off the machine. Very German.

The attachments are the same as what comes with the KitchenAid: a whisk, a dough hook, and a beater for heavier stuff. If you look at the picture above, the beater is made of wires, quite unlike the "paddle attachment" of the KitchenAid. I was skeptical that it would be sturdy enough, but it's done pretty well with the cake and the batch of chocolate chip cookies I made first. I do find that butter gets stuck within the wires more so than the paddle attachment, but it's not something that a couple swipes with a spatula can't fix. You can also get other attachments like a blender, food processor, meat grinder, grain grinder, and ice cream maker to plug into the machine's two other orifices.

So far, I can recommend the Bosch as a replacement for the KitchenAid in Europe.

Sinterklaas-season Food

Since tomorrow is the day when Dutch people celebrate Sinterklaas, I thought it would be timely to share some of the Sinterklaas-season food I've been tasting the last few weeks.

My favorite has been various forms (cookie, log, etc.) of speculaas (like gingerbread cookie) filled with pure marzipan. The spice and saltiness of the speculaas complements the sweetness of the almonds well.

I also enjoyed appelbol, which is a whole apple baked inside of a pastry shell. I had mine at the Ikea restaurant, which was offering them only for a limited time. A nice way to get whole fruit in your diet!

I enjoyed less the oliebol, which is like a doughnut, only with a bit more bready texture. I had one filled with raisins, apple, and cinnamon, and they're traditionally topped with powdered sugar. I just found it too bready and greasy.

Previously I posted a picture of kruidnoten (click here), but I'm sad I didn't get a picture of pepernoten. That's because I had to buy a whole bag of them just to taste what it was like - dry and flavored like licorice, one of my least favorite flavors. I did find a picture on Google images of it; click here.

Healthier, Cheaper Ferrero Rocher

One day I was just combining things in my pantry looking for a snack, and came up with this invention. The cheap DIY Ferrero Rocher, with less calories, fat, sugar, and more fiber! (FYI the company that makes Ferrero Rocher also makes Nutella)

Ingredients
1 Wasa crispbread, preferably Light Rye variety
1 Tbsp Nutella
5g chopped hazelnuts

Directions
1. Spread Wasa with Nutella
2. Sprinkle top with hazelnuts















Nutrition Facts

Cheap DIY Ferrero Rocher @ $0.35/serving
Calories: 162
Fat: 8.5g
Saturated fat: 2g
Cholesterol: 0
Sodium: 42.5 mg
Carbohydrates: 18g
Sugar: 11g
Fiber: 2.5g
Protein: 3g

Real Ferrero Rocher @ $1.00/serving (serving size = 3 spheres)
Calories: 220
Fat: 16g
Saturated fat: 5g
Cholesterol: 0
Sodium: 15 mg
Carbohydrates: 16g
Sugar: 14g
Fiber: 2g
Progein: 3g

Sochi 2014 Olympics brand launch

The brand identity for the Sochi, Russia Olympics in 2014 was unveiled today. The press release from the design agency, Interbrand, and the Sochi 2014 folks touts that it is "the first ever Olympic Games emblem that forms a web address to provide a clear emphasis on reaching new audiences through digital platforms."

I don't hate it, but I don't like it for three reasons:

1. The ".ru" suffix is so 90s dot com era.

2. The font is so late 70s / early 80s. As in, when the Olympics were last in Russia. (There's even a soundtrack for this: click here for the Sochi website where you can watch the brand essence video with music straight from that era.)

3. The mirroring and symmetry is a bit too neat and planned.