Category Archives: Treasures

Jazz And Sinterklaas

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I’m listening to the Duke and Coleman Hawkins -Moody Indigo and Limbo Jazz- while working, and this thought just crossed my mind that I know two wonderful men who deepened my love for jazz. One was my dad who taught me about his connection with jazz while I was just a child. My mum never liked it and so my dad would end up sitting in his car parked in front of our home to listen to his favourite tunes. Just sitting in the car listening to jazz was a great adventure to me when I was that little girl so I would often ask him if I could come along and join him.

Having to ask him, slowly vanished over the years and twenty years later I would just sit there with him listening, each drawn into our own world, staring at what was going on around us. Not saying a word just enjoying that very moment. Not as often as in the past, since I moved out when I started my study in Amsterdam but still it was always our moment together. I wanted to pay him my last respects by playing some jazz at his funeral, ‘of course’ I wasn’t allowed to…

Yesterday I received a sweet eCard with a typical Sinterklaas scene from a friend, bless him for remembering half of my roots while they’re so different from his. Tomorrow is Sinterklaas evening so to all my Dutch friends: have a wonderful Sinterklaas. Last year I received a kilo bag of delicious Kruidnootjes covered in chocolate. This year I decided to bake them myself because I shouldn’t forget my roots and I’d like to celebrate just because I can *hehe*. I looked up the recipe and will bake a few batches to give to my Dutch friends here in London.

It’s been a typical wet English day with a sun peeking between the clouds every now and then, but I don’t mind, I have jazz to enjoy while in my head I’m dancing to ‘Limbo Jazz’ and I have a relaxing baking session to look forward to tomorrow or perhaps tonight.

For those Dutch out there who wish to do the same, the recipe is below.

My sky earlier today… while I tried to bask in the sunshine

Speculaaskruiden:

Grounded nutmeg [2 g], ginger [1 g], cardamom [0.5 g], white pepper [1 g], cloves [2 g], and cinnamon [15 g]

Kruidnootjes:

Flour 185 g

Baking powder 1 teaspoon

Brown sugar 85 g

Speculaaskruiden 15 g

Pinch of salt

Butter, refrigerated 125 g

Mix flour, brown sugar, speculaaskruiden, baking powder and salt in a bowl. Add the butter bit by bit and knead into a firm dough. Leave it to rest for half an hour. Heat oven: 150 C/310 F. Use baking paper or a greased baking tray. Form small balls of dough [+/- 1 cm Ø] and place them on the tray, not too close to each other. Bake for about 20 minutes then leave to cool. If you like you can dip them in melted chocolate…

Et voilà, there’s your homemade Kruidnootjes *hehe* Have a good weekend!

T(w)o Magical Fireflies

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Written: 2008-08-29 11:10:21

Firefly… I love the word and I have no idea why but it has been on my mind all morning so I decided to write down what caused me to go back to my childhood. Firefly somehow reminds me of the time I spent in France. As a child I would spend a month in France each summer, twelve years in a row. After those twelve years when I was old enough to travel on my own I would still go there each year but I would often stay with friends in Paris. I love France and I still have a soft spot for Paris which I hope to visit again in the near future!

I would stay at the same place each year: a large house owned by a rich baroness and maintained by a Dutch person, about 60km south from Paris in a tiny rural village. The baroness lived in a castle a bit further away from the house surrounded by a dense forest. We weren’t allowed to go there but I remember we would sneak through the hole in the fence next to the house and walk all the way up to the castle to peek through the windows to see the large rooms and beautiful Baroque furniture, ornaments and sculptures.

I remember that back then the baroness was negotiating about selling part of her land: the Disney people had offered her money to build EuroDisney there but in the end she refused. I’m glad she did, it would’ve been such a waste of beautiful nature… We would’ve breakfast and dinner outside in the garden at an eight metre long table made out of trestles covered with planks. I always checked underneath for spiders before pulling up the chair, there would be millions of them hiding there in the morning when the grass was still wet with dew.

Since I was the one with the best results in French at school I had to do the talking with the French people all the time and it was my task to go to the boulangerie each morning to buy fresh baked bread, a nice pain de campagne or baguette. Crispy bread with a thin layer of salted butter [margarine is a total no-go to me!] still has an affect on me. Another thing that still has an affect on me is the French UHT milk: nothing will change the disgusting flavour of UHT milk when you’re used to drinking the pasteurized version… *yuk!*

Often in the evening I would wait till it was dark enough to go for a walk through the fields to look for fireflies. Fields with grass growing so high it would tickle your armpits. I could spend hour after hour, looking for the tiny greenish lights hiding in the high grass. I was and still am intrigued by them, wondering how it is possible that they have a light like that [of course I know now *hehe*]. Most of the ones I would find would still be in the larval phase. At times I would collect them in a jar and bring them back to show to my parents.

Fireflies have something wonderfully mysterious and magical about them, like tiny guides in the dark, showing you the way home. It’s been ages since I saw one, perhaps it’s time to start looking again…

[Scotland, Aug. 2001] I so want to see the dancing fireflies in Kampung Kuantan Malaysia

In East Asia, the ancient Chinese sometimes captured fireflies in transparent or semi-transparent containers and used them as (short-term) lanterns.

In Philippine folklore, a tree surrounded by fireflies is believed to be haunted by a tikbalang, the local term for a mischievous satyr.

In Japan, Hotaru have been a metaphor for passionate love in poetry since Man’you-shu (the 8th century anthology). Their eerie lights are also thought to be the altered form of the souls of soldiers who have died in war.

The Nimitas is the name given to the fireflies in the Dominican Republic. Superstition says that the Nimitas are the soul of the dead who are watching out for their loved ones still living. They are always watching over and shining a light for all to know they are here.