Zwarte Piet again

So it's that time of year when I bemoan the obsession foreigners have with the Dutch Zwarte Piet, and the Dutch stubborness for insisting that such a display of racism isn't actually racist.  In previous years, I've treated it with the distance that my expat status allows me--"let the peons have their gods, I will follow my reason" sort of thing.  And honestly, it was a stance I was more than happy to maintain, since the arguments for and against the Zwarte Piet are like the Titanic and the Carpathia--gliding past each other without ever hitting the real mark:  why do Dutch people care so much about him, anyway?

But now, that's all changed.  Because I'm a mom, now, and in a few years the kidlet will be old enough to want to partake in Sinterklaas, and frankly...well, this'll probably get me into some trouble with the IND, but I don't want him to.  Because it is racist. Say what you will about Santa and his helpers, everybody knows elves aren't real.

I've always maintained that there are better things to get your panties into a twist about, and I do stand by that.  See:  child marriage, modern slavery, Texas.  But here I am, getting my patnies into a knot about it, because on the one hand I don't want my kid to be the one kid who ruins Sinterklaas for everybody, but at the same time, it's not a celebration I would weep over if it were to disappear next year.  It's especially tricky, because his father loves Sinterklaas and genuinely isn't racist (hell, he married me) but Karel is perhaps the only person who still remembers that it's Sint Nicolaas who is the ultimate arbitrator of the presents, and one of the few who isn't pathologically attached to Piet.

What makes it even harder is that I kinda like the tradition of writing a little poem and reading it aloud before opening the little present.  Putting your shoe in front of the fireplace--in our case, leaving a "key" outside our apartment door (yes, they sell keys for Sint and Piet in case you don't have a chimney)--is quaint and devestatingly cute.

I wish there was a way to separate the celebration from the icons.  I don't see much wrong with celebrating a saint's death--it is a bit morbid for my tastes, but kids in Catholic countries seem to do all right.  But why does Sint need a Piet?  Why the silly Sint report on the nightly news, with the made up drama about lost packages and boats sinking?  (No, there is no Santa report in the US)  Why does it matter so much that the Sint has his Piet?  The way I see it, that's the real question that needs answering.  And until someone can point me in the direction of a good answer, Sinterklaas in our place will be devoid of both a Sint and a Piet.

Back to the grindstone

So it took a while, but life has finally settled into a more-or-less pleasant rhythm with Rijntje, and I've been getting the blogging bug again.  I don't think I'll be updating quite as frequently as I used to, but with a new accountant, Vierdaagse pictures, and rediscovering the markt, there's quite a bit of material to work with.

I'll leave you with perhaps the best tip I've ever encountered about zucchini.  Alas, I ate everything before it occurred to me to take a photo of it, but I'll be sure to make the lemon-herbed zucchini again before the summer's out:  salt.

Zucchini (or courgettes) are deceptive:  you slice them open and they're nice and dry, but when you cook them they go from raw to stew in the space of minutes.  Harold McGee says that this is because all plants release water when their cell walls are broken down, and zucchini have more water than most.

So what you do before cooking zucchini is salt it.  Cut it into the size you want, and then put it in a bowl and sprinkle liberally with salt.  It might seem ridiculous, and it might seem terribly unhealthy, but after about an hour or so, you wash off most of the salt and all of the brine that's accumulated.  You probably won't be able to get all of it off, but odds are the dish you're making probably requires a smidge of salt anyway.  The end result is a zucchini that hits the sweet spot between tender and crunchy quickly and easily, and never ends in soup.  

Finger wags

I suppose I owe my readers an explanation as to where I've been for the past two weeks.  Then again, the picture of Rijntje in the last post ought to be sufficient.  Thing is, it hasn't been busy exactly, just that the time available isn't conducive to writing thoughtful blog posts about life in the Netherlands with cats.  My days have blurred into a mix of feeding the baby and getting as much stuff done in between the feeding sessions as possible.  Which is hard to do on the best of days, when Karel's around.  When he's not, well...peanuts count as a vegetable, don't they?

Not that I'm complaining.  Rijntje is one of the easiest babies ever--he's pretty mellow, content to sit in his carseat and watch me do stuff or play with him.   He's a good sleeper, too, falling asleep with a minimum of crying, provided that you catch him at the right stage of tiredness (tired, but not so tired he's wired again). There are days when nothing goes right, but more and more are the days when I'm on top of things and everything works out and the apartment is even clean.

Being on top of things means running errands, unfortunately.  And this is when I'm glad I've lived in Philly and have acquired ample experience ignoring people.  To understand this, you have to realize that, as part of our baby-stuff-buying, I bought an enormous Quinny from an older couple whose grandson had outgrown it.  (They, in turn, bought it from a woman whose child had outgrown it--there's a whole set of stuff floating around on Marktplaats that just gets passed around the country).  Said stroller is too big to lug up the stairs, so it stays in the basement storage unit, and I take it out for longer trips--the vet, or the Albert Heijn, or to the consultatiebureau (an upcoming post), or to town.  In other words, the trip has to be long enough to justify taking 10 minutes to wrangle the thing in and out while juggling a baby and the bags.  However, most of my errands are merely across the street, either to the DA for something like moisturizer or hair ties, or to the C1000, for groceries.  Not worth the effort of taking out the stroller, in other words.

So I stick Rijntje in the Moby and pull my ginormous maternity coat over both of us, and skedaddle across the street, get stuff, and skedaddle back.  And this is when I get the stares.

I'll confess that I hadn't ever paid much attention to how people transport babies earlier, but apparently wearing one in a wrap is a novel sight and every other person stops and gawks for a moment.  The friendlier ones coo and start up a conversation about kids.  The gereformeerd ones give you the stink eye and seem to want to lecture you about how you're abusing your child by wearing him.  No joke--on my last trip I kept running into an old woman who just kept scowling at me.

The funny thing is, wearing a baby isn't unknown in the Netherlands.  You have websites selling draagdoeken that are far more flamboyant than our modest navy-blue Moby.  Maternity magazines have glossy ads showing babies in slings and beaming parents.  I very much doubt that babywearing is so new that I'm the only one doing it, but I'm pretty sure that not living in the trendy part of town (or the part of town that can afford to be trendy, if it so desired) has something to do with it.  After all, not everybody is willing to drop €70 on a giant bedsheet.  

It's been an adventure

It certainly has been one hell of a year.  I've started my own (very small) business.  Had a child.  Made new friends.  Passed the NT2.  Rijntje celebrated his first Christmas; in the meantime, I celebrated running my first mile since I got pregnant.

Last year, as Karel was scaling a ladder and dangling precariously from our balcony (I thought he had the key, he though I had the key, and neither of us did, so we borrowed a ladder from our neighbor and he got to play burglar), we assumed that that little episode of breaking-and-entering was the adventure we'd both wished for as the clock struck 12 and the fireworks exploded.  Needless to say, we did not foresee...well, any of it.  The one thing I did foresee was that 21 December, 2012, would be abysmally non-apocalyptic, although I must confess that had it been sunny that day, rather than the usual Dutch winter dreariness, I'd have considered that show-stopping, if not end-of-the-world worthy.

And it's strange:  until I wrote this post I didn't think all that much had happened this year, not even with having a child.  I mean, I know that having a child is a life-changer.  It just doesn't feel that way--it feels like he's always been here, and that I've always been "mommy". All of the big things just seemed part and parcel of life at the time, while the little things seemed like monumental events.  When I was trying to figure out how not to pay a €4000 fine for filing my sales taxes late, for instance, that seemed like the most important thing thing in the world.  But it didn't change me, in any way--not nearly as much as meeting new people using Meetup.  We humans seem to have a hard time differentiating between what's important and what's big.  I guess that's what we need hindsight for.  

So who knows what 2013 will bring?  One thing is for sure--it's going to be an adventure.  

Me and My Moby

Kids are a bit of a learning curve, to say the least, and at 3:00, all good intentions go out the window when your primary goal (only goal) is to get the little whiner to shut up and sleep already.  Cloth diapers ended up being a no-go for Rijntje--they were too bulky and he couldn't bend his legs at the hips properly, bringing on a screaming fit for the ages.

The Moby Wrap  was one of those things that I honestly never really thought I'd use.  It's basically a long sheet of fabric that you tie around yourself and somehow stick a baby into.  Somehow the baby doesn't fall out.  Advantages of baby-wearing?  Well, supposedly it's what's "in" these days--what with the whole attachment parenting thing and what-all.  The Moby Wrap website provides a bunch of other reasons why wearing your baby is a good thing--note the prominent placement of the "43% less crying" graphic.

If I must be completely honest, the whole thing stank of an au-naturel-hippie-love vibe that I really don't have the patience to indulge.  Still, when Karel saw the Moby Wrap videos and websites, he was instantly smitten with the idea of wearing Rijntje and getting groceries and cooking (the one thing they say not to do when wearing your baby) and just generally bonding with the little guy.  And so, in our Amazon-binge, we purchased one.  

And...it just sat in our baby-supplies closet for a while.  I'd occasionally take it out to try to get Rijntje used to being cradled in it, but he hated it--most probably because I hadn't quite mastered the art of getting a squirmy baby into a confined space--and for the first few weeks it seemed like the biggest waste of €50 we'd ever run up.  Karel, who had been so enthusiastic about wearing Rijntje, could hardly figure out how to tie the thing (and, needless to say, never did quite get the hang of putting the baby into it).  

Until one day, it clicked: One especially fussy afternoon, the kind where I was dreading spending the entire 5 hours coddling a little screaming beast and not getting anything done, I put him into it and started doing the stuff that I needed to get done--and he passed right out, barely bothering to open an eye when a pot clanged to the floor (I was unloading the dishwasher, not cooking).  Not only did he sleep, but it was a quiet sleep, uninterrupted by the occasional yelps that for some reason he's prone to make.

I don't use it all the time, but in the afternoons, when he tends to be especially difficult, the Moby has been a godsend:  I can do laundry!  Run a short errand across the street! Make myself a sandwich!  Type up a post using both hands!  Which I'm doing right now!  I can get stuff done and make sure he sleeps!

Despite the 1000% increase in my ability to get stuff done in the afternoons, though, I have to confess that I'm still not entirely comfortable with the idea of babywearing:  my mother's voice in the back of my head keeps insisting that babies should sleep in their bassinet (in our case), and that carrying him around with me all the time is going to somehow irreparably spoil him.  I still haven't found a device or method that shuts that voice up.

WE HAVE A CAR!

In some ways, the ownership of a car is more monumental than the arrival of Rijntje (sorry, little guy). In order to understand why, you have to realize that while Rijntje was merely biology at work, Karel obtaining his driver's license was an act in defiance of the natural order of things.  It may sound melodramatic, but one does not nearly reach 40 withou a driver's license without questioning whether such things were meant to be obtained.

Karel, after almost 9 months' worth of lessons (an appropriate number) and God-only-knows how many thousands of euros, finally passed his driver's exam.  The driver's exam in the Netherlands is notoriously difficult, not necessarily because driving in the Netherlands is all that difficult, but because the proctors get paid to be anal-retentive.  It must be said, though, that driving in the traffic circle of the Keizer Karelplein in Nijmegen (5 imaginary "lanes" wide) probably warrants a lesson or six.  First-time pass rates are a shade below 50%--and many people need more than 3 tries.  Most of Karel's friends who drive had to take their exam 5 times, and ironically enough, they are some of the better drivers out there.   Karel, happily, passed on his third try, and two weeks later bought a car.

The NS is a great system (at least, compared to SEPTA), but it has its limits:  as long as you're trying to get from one "major" city (in quotes because what counts as a large city here is kinda piddly compared to large cities in the US) to another, it's fine, but the moment you start factoring in stopovers and bus rides and transfers, it becomes infinitely more complicated and there is invariably at least one f*ck-up that causes you to arrive 30 minutes late.  And the schedules at the hours that Karel is most likely to commute (midnight, 6:00 am) suck.  Plus if you're travelling with a baby, you either find yourself obligated to grow another arm, or learn to juggle really fast.  There's just no easy way to manhandle a stroller onto any form of public transit.   And if you're on a long trip, you also have the to-survive-a-nuclear-holocaust-diaper-bag that also needs wrangling.  And that doesn't include a fussing baby.

So a car is a vast improvement in our situation.  Whereas before, it was possible to make trips to Kleve or further abroad by train, now it's easy.  OK, there's still the fussy-baby-issue to deal with, but at least nobody's going to glower at you for (not) doing (any-) something about it.  

Kweeperen and kaki in the markt

Have you ever read about something interesting, and then decided to see it for yourself, only to find your expectations totally obliterated?  A dinosaur that was smaller than it seemed in the book, for instance, or meeting a Maine Coon cat that looks as big as a small lion--things that were much more or less impressive than your research had led to believe?  Meet quince fruit:

Kweeperen, or quinces, are great for jamming.  So I've heard, anyway.  I have never had a quince before, much less tasted quince jam.  Supposedly it's a marvellous accompaniment to game, but it also works great as, well, just a jam.  But since I'd never seen them around before, kweeperen had always occupied the same mythical food space that foie gras does:  conceptual, theoretical food.  Certainly, not something that was this big. For some reason, I was always under the impression that quince fruits were the size of a large-ish apple.  These suckers, though, are the size of a small watermelon.  And, given how heavy the shopper was to haul up to our apartment, they must have weighed just as much.

It was through pure luck that I ran into them at the markt one Saturday.  Karel had mentioned raiding some old estate he knew about and filching their kweeperen off the trees to make quince jellies, but I don't think he'd actually do such a thing, and he never thought he'd actually get a chance to make it.  These are not things that are regularly sold, not even at the greengrocer's.  Still, even though most people probably wouldn't know what to do with a kweepeer if grandma beat them over the head with a jamming jar, they don't count as "exotic".   They may be delicacies, like gooseberries (kruisbessen) and red currants, but they're not truly strange and the Dutch don't do a "WTF" when they see them, unlike, say, with kaki fruit.

Kaki (persimmons) have been around for a few years--one Allerhande recipe goes back to 2006--but they just started making their appearance in the Nijmegen markt this year.  One of the reasons for such a long intro period is that I--and, if Karel is indeed typically Dutch in this respect, most Dutchies--find their ripened state to be unpalatable.  They are soft, and indeed almost gooey.  The fruit tastes a bit like a very sweet papaya, which is not my favorite fruit to begin with, and coupled with that slimey texture, it renders itself inedible.  So why did I get 5 of these?

Because if you get them before they are ripened, they are crunchy, almost like a good apple or a crisp pear, and the papaya flavor is quite mild.  Karel likes them pre-ripened, so I keep them in the fridge to prevent unwanted changes in the fruit.  Still, I wonder:  Karel can remember the introduction of kiwi fruit to the Dutch supermarkets, and now they are inescapable (kiwi being the one fruit that is always on sale at one supermarket or another).  Will kaki suffer the same fate?