De Vliegende Schotel

29 July 201029 July 2010

I did a post a few months ago about a favorite local bar that served local beers, and I thought it was time to do a post about a local restaurant, located at Nieuwe Leliestraat 162-168 in Amsterdam. The name Vliegende Schotel is a play on words in Dutch. Schotel means plate, dish or saucer, and a common word for restaurants to use in their menus to indicate ‘dish or dishes’. Vliegende means flying, and so the name of the restaurant also means UFO.

I’ve been going to this restaurant longer than any other in Amsterdam. My first visit was 25 years ago, when I was here as a tourist. The staff got to know me from the start, and greeted me as a returning customer on every visit. I’m really happy to say last October the restaurant has been sold, and is now under new ownership — Woohoo!! As much as I continued to go there, about once or twice a year, it used to be a really bad restaurant.

I used to go there because Amsterdam is really lacking in quality restaurants, and there are only a very small handful of vegetarian restaurants. It’s also close to where I live. It had me as a captive audience on those nights I didn’t want to cook for myself.

How it Used to Be

Americans, and maybe others, will know Molly Katzen. She first wrote a vegetarian cookbook called Moosewood. It was famous first because Molly wrote the cookbook without ever trying any of her recipes first, just off the top of her head, so none of them worked properly when you tried to cook them. The other reason this cookbook became famous is it sort of defined 1980s vegetarian cuisine in America; bland, overcooked, strangely spiced, uninspired and boring. It was also a difficult book to cook from, because every recipe needed very small amounts of large numbers of exotic ingredients, so a large shopping expedition was always needed first. Anyway, this was the sort of food the Vliegende Schotel used to serve; boring, overcooked, uninspired and strangely spiced.

In the 25 years I went there, the menu hardly changed. All the dishes were all pre-planned, usually totally lacking in seasonal ingredients, and without any inspiration from the cooks. The portions were all carefully measured, so while tofu was expensive and cabbage was cheap, it was served proportionally to maximize their profits. Much of their food came from the freezer, and it was not uncommon for it to still be half-frozen on your plate.

The big changes came about around 5 years ago, when they started serving alcohol legally (they used to have it behind the counter if you knew to ask for it), and they started using organic food ‘when available’. This ‘when available’ business meant you never knew what, if any, part of your meal was organic, you knew profit was their overriding goal, so you never knew how much extra they were willing to pay for certified organic food rather that just stating it was unavailable. Also, local had little to do with their purchasing choices, rather they just served supermarket certified organic foods. They were associated with a natural foods store, that sold supermarket style certified organic foods, and presumably what was served at the restaurant was the leftovers.

They also had a ‘quiet non-smoking room’. This was a little bit revolutionary in a city which until about a year ago pretty much didn’t have any non-smoking areas in any restaurants. I guess the ‘quiet’ part about it was to somehow rationalize it for smokers as not being a room that discriminated against them too much, and perhaps at one time was full of loud non-smoking Americans, so they wanted to ask them to tone it down a bit. This was a separate room, but the door between it and the rest of the restaurant was usually open, letting in smoke. Also the staff of the restaurant used to smoke outside the window of the non-smoking room and blow all their smoke in.

You also needed to order your food at the counter which was in the smoking area, so no one was allowed to escape. I only sort of appreciated the effort they went to providing a non-smoking room.

It’s all changed now!

Steph and I went there for dinner, the first time we’ve been there since it changed owners.

It was really good!

Amsterdam has for more than a year now banned smoking in restaurants, so that’s no longer an issue.

The menu still has a lot of the old dishes on it, but I hope they will soon phase these out. There are several new and interesting dishes, including daily and weekly specials offered at a low price. There are lots of vegan choices.

I ordered a salad, and the cook not only took a great deal of care preparing it by hand, but he came out to the table and presented it with pride. It was really nicely made.

They like sprouts, everything from bean, radish, lentil to pea and more. This really gives their food a fresh taste, and is something unusual. It’s a little early to know if they will truly embrace the idea of local and seasonal foods, but their heads are in the right place and I have high hopes. Their English is excellent, I think they are native speakers, and the menu is in Dutch and English.

Time will tell if it really turns into a nice restaurant in the long run, but for now I can safely recommend it to anyone who finds themselves in Amsterdam and is looking for a vegetarian restaurant serving fresh and unprocessed foods. In fact, it’s still one of the few choices available.

29 July 201029 July 2010

A Green Garden

Several bloggers have been talking about environmentally friendly and/or cheap gardening recently. For example Kenny at Veggie Gardening Tips and Jane at Horticultural. For me these topics are almost one and the same, and I thought I would do a post on this too.

The cheapest and most environmentally thing for your garden is the thing you don’t buy! Every time you buy something it needs to be manufactured or produced, then packaged and transported. If you buy it from a store, it needs to be stocked and marketed. Eventually everything you buy needs to be consumed or disposed of. All of these things use energy and other natural resources, and not buying them is always the greenest thing to do.

In principle, with the exception of a few tools and maybe lime if your soil is acidic, nothing else is needed to grow your own fruit and vegetables.

Realistically speaking, there are some other things most of us have. For example, a shed to store our tools, maybe a greenhouse, materials to construct paths, nets, fences, raised beds, garden furniture and so on. Almost all gardens have some of these things. In addition, when you’re first starting you may have some special problems to take care of, for example it’s pretty common to find your garden is lacking organic material in the ground and needs some amendments at the beginning.

Here are some tips on how to avoid buying things, and if you must, how to buy the most environmentally friendly things.

Reuse and Recycle: If something in your garden needs replacing, consider using it a little while longer, or finding another use for it. Try to find unwanted things in your neighbors gardens or elsewhere in your neighborhood, and find a new use for them in your own garden. If you live in an agricultural are, look among the farmers. For example straw or other plant waste can be used as mulch in your garden or to make compost. Farmers may have unwanted tools. Organic farmers might make a good source of manure, but be careful of getting contaminated products like this.

Avoid Toxic Materials: Many common consumer items contain toxic materials, that can contaminate your garden and/or may be a special disposal problem when you’re finished. For example, chemicals, paint, batteries, treated wood, PVC plastic and similar things. All of these things if burned can create serious pollution problems, and if they find their way into the ground can decompose into toxic and long lasting chemicals. These products are also difficult or impossible to recycle.

Buy Long Lasting But Also Biodegradable Things: Buy good quality products, that will last and you won’t need to replace in a short time. At the same time, don’t buy things that are too durable! PVC plastic is a good example. PVC lasts virtually forever. If it’s burned, it decomposes into PCBs and dixoins. Realistically, it can’t be recycled. Materials like galvanized metal are made with heavy metals, and can also contaminate your ground virtually forever. We all need to use some of these things sometimes, but look for alternatives and think before bringing them into your garden. Try not to buy these things, only to turn around and throw them away a year or two later. Try to get these things used.

Make Use of Your Own Compost: Everyone needs organic material for the ground in their garden, and home made compost is the best source of this. Most people’s gardens are self sustainable with respect to compost, once things get started. At the beginning you may need to import material to make your compost with, or even purchase some additional compost, but this is usually only for the first year or two. A good source of compost to get started with can often be had for free or nearly free from your city. Most cities have compost available from discarded plant materials they have made themselves.

Start Small: For everyone a garden is a lifelong learning experience, and something that evolves over time. Get used to the idea that things take a few years to setup. For example, if you decide you need raised beds, try starting with one small one. Rather than going to the store and buying a peat based product to fill up your raised bed, try just using dirt or start with just a frame and raise the dirt inside over time with home made compost. In this way you are sure you’re buying the right raised beds from the right materials, and you’ll discover if you like using it and it’s the solution you really want over time. Don’t try to build everything in your garden all in one year. Don’t buy netting until you know you have a pest problem, and understand exactly what it is. Don’t buy other materials in large quantities, until you’ve had a chance to test it and you know it’s right.

Anyone else have any other tips?

28 July 201029 July 2010

Photographer: Vitaly Geyman

Vitaly recently contacted me and asked me to help publicize his site, Vitaly Geyman Photography.

In case like me you’re a little puzzled by his accent, he grew up in Ukraine, then lived for a time in Italy, moved to Australia where he got his MBA, and now lives in the US.

Anyway, readers of this blog will know I’m happy to promote the work of people doing related things, and in particular people selling their own work. Vitaly’s work isn’t directly related to the subject of this blog, but I do think his photography is very good and worth having a look at.

23 July 201023 July 2010

Mystery Garlic

I’ve been exchanging emails with Barrett, a reader and fellow garlic grower, and he’s come across an interesting garlic and is wondering if any of you out there have any more information about it for him.

Here are some excerpts (with permission) from his emails:

Thanks for offering to help. I appreciate the difficulty in trying
to determine a garlic variety in this way. On my own, I could possibly hope to narrow to Rocambole vs. Purple Stripe classification. I’m hoping to be able, with your help, to possibly narrow further. I’ve also read the Volk paper, so I understand those classifications are not perfect. A short list of possibilities is probably the best I can hope for. Ideally, I might be able to learn more about the actual origins of this particular cultivar.

I ordered the the garlic, called “H&A” by the seller (Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds) and the description only listed as “rare hardneck”. I contacted Baker Creek for more information, but the grower Merlyn Neidens had passed away, so no further inquiries could be made.

So that is the history. The bulbs I received were medium to extra large. This was my first year harvest, so I only got medium to large bulbs. The bulbs I planted had silvery white wrappers, which tan to brown clove wrappers (to the best of my recall). At the time, I guessed it was a rocambole variety.

After growing however, I’m more inclined to believe PS, possibly marbled subgroup (see photos). The scapes typically did a 270 degree curl, though a couple had the rocambole style double loop. The bulbs had characteristic purple stripes initially. One bulb that I peeled fresh seemed to develop more purple coloration as it cured in my kitchen. The other bulbs when cured tended more toward silvery to white outer wrappers with some purple showing through.

The clove wrapper on many cloves is incomplete/split, as seen in the open bulb photo. The bulbils are still maturing, but look largish and few (approx 15-20 at a guess) from what I’ve read, this indicates a leaning toward rocambole again, but doesn’t rule out PS. There is only a single layer of cloves, 8-10 per bulb, but that doesn’t really help much.

Photo link:

http://picasaweb.google.com/bgreyt/Garlic?authkey=Gv1sRgCKia0MeP2punKg&feat=directlink

I suggested to him that it seemed like it may be a creole type, mostly because of it’s color and clove shape, and I also found a reference to it on the Internet with this link:

http://rpagarlic.blogspot.com/2008/07/2008-garlic-crop-is-harvested.html

This was his reply:

So, I have an update on tracking down H&A origins. Turns out the link you found was the source for Merlyn. So I can trace mine to them. They say they got it from a place called Dakota Garlic, which appears to be defunct. I’m trying to get in touch with the former owner to see if he can tell me where he got it (and so on).

So, does anyone have any more information or ideas about this garlic?

23 July 201023 July 2010

Artichoke Pictures

I wanted some artichokes for my garden, and there’s no particularly good place to buy these locally. Perhaps there are a couple of fellow gardeners to ask, but instead I decided to try growing them from seed. I was placing an order with Baker Creek in the US anyway, so I just added on some of all the artichokes they had in their listings at the time:

Except that winter here is a little wet, I have a pretty good climate for growing artichokes as a perennial. Generally by partly covering the artichoke to protect from direct rain, it will keep dry enough to survive the winter.

I read two important things about growing artichokes from seed. The first is the genetics are variable, so you should plant several with the intention of selecting the best ones. The other was they don’t normally produce flowers (artichokes) the first year, but you can increase the chances of this by exposing the young plants to a period of cold, which I tried to do. In fact we had very strange weather this spring, so not only did the young plants get exposed to cold, they got exposed to all extremes of weather; hot, dry, wet and cold. They also stayed in rootbound pots too long, because the weather wasn’t cooperating enough to let me plant them out.

Most of my garden neighbors artichoke plants start producing by early summer, but for some reason mine didn’t start blooming until the solstice. I’m sorry, except for the green globes, I didn’t keep track of which picture was of which variety, but if anyone’s interested, I’ll try to go back and match them up.

Here are two of the green globe plants:

What was kind of interesting, as well as the plants doing well, the plants that didn’t do well. For example here is a plant that’s doing fine:

but here’s a plant of about the same size and of the same variety sitting right next to it:

This one has it’s own ecosystem on it. First it’s covered with aphids, but also ladybugs and some other insects, which are eating the aphids.

As far as I know, this is the only plant in my garden at the moment with aphids, and certainly none of the other artichokes have them. I wonder what it is about it that’s so attractive to them?

Finally a number of the plants never got much larger than this, which is about 5 cm off the ground.