It’s been nearly a year since we moved from Zaandam, a small town near Amsterdam, to London, my favourite city in the world.

It’s been awesome and I’ve grown even more fond of London since living here.
Therefore I thought I wouldn’t be impressed by Amsterdam, when I went back last week. But I was wrong, so wrong, because now I see Amsterdam in a different light. It’s the place where I’ve lived 11 years of my life, the place where I met my husband, where I learned to cook and went to uni, but above all Amsterdam is the place where my friends and family live. The people I love and miss so dearly sometimes.

Amsterdam is my first love (citywise then ) and will always be.
Amsterdam is also the place where I can find all the ingredients to make my favourite Surinamese dishes and off course I brought loads back to London.

Like my favourite hot kecap manis from Helen which I use to marinade chicken and meat, as a dip sauce or as a basic ingredient when I’m making stir fry dishes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I ate fresh herring with onions and pickles at the herring stall on Albert Cuyp Market.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Friday night I had dinner at Indonesian restaurant ‘Kantjil en de Tijger’ in Amsterdam and I’m still dreaming of the bami Kantjil.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And of course I had a Surinamese roti with vegetable and chicken curry, one of my absolute favourite dishes in the world! The best roti is obviously the roti made in Suriname, but Rooprams in Amsterdam is the best roti shop in the Netherlands! I even brought P some roti cause if I didn’t he wouldn’t let me in the house. That’s how crazy he is about this roti.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I bought ginger cheese, my absolute favourite, at famous cheese shop Reypenaers in Amsterdam.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Saturday I had a food stall on the Dutch Underground Farmers Market in Amsterdam which was absolutely lovely! I met some wonderful new people and I saw all my Twitter friends again.
A lot of them were selling their home made xmas cakes, cookies, raw food truffles, vanilla sea salt, pulled pork wraps, emapanadas, pork and fennel bangers and loads and loads more absolutely delicious stuff!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was really impressed by famous Dutch foodwriter Gert Jan Groothedde’s margarita ice cream with a salted shortbread cookie and his Xmas eggnog ice cream. It was too good

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Off course I took pictures of everyone’s stall but mine, but I had a great evening, wonderful response to my baguettes filled with Pom, pickles and hot sauce, which was sold out by 10.30pm.

I had a great, but very short, 5 days in Amsterdam and I cannot wait to go back. I cried my eyes out when my plane departed.

But I’ll be back in 6 weeks time for an insect dinner party where the main ingredients will be cockroaches, worms and larvae. Yum!