Author Archives for Ellen

A happy day again

Today i went to the market. Waiting for the traffic lights, i smiled at a woman. I apologized straight after. “I feel so happy”, i said. She smiled. “I don’t see too well”, she said. “But please be happy!”

I’m paraphrasing. The conversation was in Dutch of course.

I do feel happy today. My mind spins up and out. Last night i woke up around four. I was lying awake for a bit. I turned on the lights. Read some new rss posts on my iPad. Got out of bed and stroked my cats. Went in again. Finally fell asleep.

Did do some bibbly-o-tek work today. Aah, thats what i suddenly realized last night, i never got a backup from the database. I did log in the old hosting. Couldn’t get to the phpMyAdmin page. But luckily there was a backup page where i could get an entire backup of databases and other stuff, so i turned that on. Took a while, around half an hour. I did get the back up. Yay!

So i did spend some time copying a new wordpress setup to my own hosting, setting up the database, copying the images and clips and audio. Most of the links are working now. But i will change the theme. It’s ten years old and showing its age. Not responsive one bit. So yeah. I will also change the flash flv files. That will take a bit longer. And change the gigography page. I always enjoyed the hovers, but that is so ten years ago. I also do need to add all the dates after 2006. Pfff.

Anyway, rambling on a bit. Not a clear day. Still, a happy day!

Published on April 6, 2016 at 6:00 by Ellen

Categorised in: General

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The referendum

I am Dutch. This Wednesday, 6 April 2016, there is a Dutch Ukraine–European Union Association Agreement referendum.

The question: Are you for or against the Approval Act of the Association Agreement between the European Union and Ukraine?

I still don’t know what to vote. I will go and vote. I can vote yes. I can vote no. I can vote blank.

I can vote yes
The European Union has many association agreements with countries all over the world. From Albania to Zimbabwe. Why not add Ukraine to this list? A Young Democrats (D66) leaflet i got last Saturday told me this.

This is not about all the other countries the EU has an agreement with.

There are many types of agreements. One other still in negotiation is with the USA, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). I will not get into this one in this post. My first thought is to be against this. I even signed the petition.

This post is about the Ukraine–European Union Association Agreement. I didn’t realize that Yanukovych, the then current president of the Ukraine, had refused to sign this agreement. He had presented an alternative, the Customs Union of Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan. The new chosen president Poroshenko did sign the economic part of the agreement on 27 June 2014. I knew about the revolution in the Ukraine. I knew the president Yanukovych was removed from office. At the time, February 2014, i didn’t realize this was about this Association Agreement. To be honest, politics is not my main interest, some of these events simply pass me by. Still, it is a bit embarrassing to admit this.

The European Union and the (then) new Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko signed the economic part of the Ukraine–European Union Association Agreement on 27 June 2014,and described this as Ukraine’s “first but most decisive step” towards EU membership.President of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy, said at the signing ceremony: “In Kyiv and elsewhere, people gave their lives for this closer link to the European Union. We will not forget this.”

This forms a big push towards voting yes.

I can vote no
The article about the Ukraine–European Union Association Agreement on wikipedia does give quite a lot of attention to the Russian and European fight over the Ukraine. The Ukraine itself is divided in its pull towards either Europe: the west part of the Ukraine, and Russia: the east part of the Ukraine. There is even a war inside the Ukraine itself, with two eastern provinces declaring itself for Russia.

The shooting down of the commercial airplane above the eastern part of the Ukraine, the Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, with over half the passengers being Dutch, is a direct result of this war.

The human rights situation in Ukraine is hard for me to judge. Reading the Follow the Money article about this from 1 April 2016 Hoe staat het met de mensenrechten in Oekraïne? (Dutch: What is the state of human rights in Ukraine?) doesn’t bring a lot of hope.

A new law makes it possible to keep people in custody for 30 days. The Ukrainian constitution however states custody can be no longer than 72 hours. The Eastern war brings out the worst in the Ukrainian secret services and the eastern based rebels. Torture, threats, assault and detention are used by both parties.

The Panama Papers opened up Sunday 3 April shows we will need to move with utmost care. We are still at the first stories from these papers. I do hope the politicians and sportsmen mentioned in these papaers will not be able to let these stories disappear from public interest.

What to do?
Writing the above, reading about the agreement, its history in both Ukraine, Europe and Russia, even in its two hours i spend this morning is mind-boggling. I can say this is too much and simply vote blank. What i do realize is the importance of this. Looking at the Ratification table on the Ukraine–European Union Association Agreement page shows me a green table. Every country has ratified this agreement. There are two parts with a different colour: the Council of the European Union and the Netherlands. With it advisory referendum.

I will vote no
I read the column by Ewald Engelen for De Groene Amsterdammer, in which he comes to his final no-vote. At the end of this column he writes:

Voor of tegen de kaste – dat is de vraag.
For or against the caste – that is the question.

This is not a doubtless, right from the heart, clear from the start NO.

I do wish Ukraine to grow as a nation. I’m not sure the European rules are right for it in its current condition. I don’t even think the European rules are right for the European countries. I’m not saying leave Ukraine to Russia. But, I do think Europe is going too fast and is too greedy.

I’m not sure about this decision. I have no doubt this agreement will go through, one way or another. My vote, any Dutch vote, will not change this.

But i will vote against this.

Against the current political stream.

Against this world as it unfolds itself in shameless selfishness.

Published on April 5, 2016 at 6:00 by Ellen

Categorised in: World

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Gado gado

Around two weeks ago i made myself nasi goreng with peanut sauce and tofu. Nasi goreng is a very common dish in the Netherlands. Indonesia used to be one of our colonies. We still have many Indonesian restaurants. Conimex is sold here in like forever, or as long as i can remember. Or, as you can read in the linked page (Dutch) Thuis in de Oosterse keuken, available since 1932.

Of course i didn’t use any Conimex in the recipe for my gado gado. I mean, it is so well known, it can’t be good.

Gado gado is a Indonesian salad. You can use all sort of different vegetables. I used broccoli and french beans. Cucumber and coriander for some freshness. One day i had boiled potatoes, the next i cooked some basmati rice. I had fried tofu, the second day marinated them in some ketjap manis.

First i made a peanut sauce. I used different recipes as a starting point. This one from Ottolenghi and one from Rasamalaysia.

I used the following ingredients for the peanut sauce. This gives a sauce for around four people.

4 garlic cloves
1 stalk lemongrass, chopped
2½ tbsp sambal manis
2 small pieces galangal
4 medium shallots
trassi
80ml vegetable oil
½ tbsp salt
90g palm sugar
½ tbsp paprika
2 tbsp thick tamarind water (tamarind paste whisked in water)
225g roasted peanuts, without skins
450ml water
200ml coconut milk

I followed the next steps, basically following Ottolenghi’s steps. I did add the trassi and used the palm sugar insted of normal sugar. In the chinese supermarket the Sambal Olek wasn’t available, i got the Sambal Manis in stead.

Whiz the garlic, lemongrass, sambal, galangal, shallots and trassi in a food processor. Heat up the oil in a saucepan and cook the paste over a low heat for around 40 minutes, stirring regularly.
Mix the salt, sugar and paprika with the tamarind and add this to the cooked paste. Cook for 10 more minutes.
Wiz the peanuts, not too fine, and add them to the cooked paste with the water. Let this simmer for a further 20-25 minutes.
Add the coconut milk and stir. Done!

For the gado gado cook any vegetable you can not eat raw. I had a simple version. I cooked some broccoli and french beans. I cooked some basmati rice and added coriander leaves. I sliced a fourth part of a cucumber. Tofu was fried and afterwards put in some ketjap manis to marinate a bit. The wrong order, i know. Still enjoyed the taste. I didn’t have any eggs. I had eaten two eggs for breakfast, that was enough for me.

I had some kroepoek with the meal. I had bought some of the dried paste you can fry your own kroepoek (krupuk?). Simply heat up some plain vegetable oil and wait till its hot enough for a kroepoek to fry quickly. Afterwards i put the finished kroepoek on some kitchen paper to get most of the oil out of it. Great with the gado gado. I used a vegetarian kroepoek one.

Lovely meal. Especially the peanut sauce!

All the ingredients for the peanut sauce. The trassi was still in a drawer, i did add that too.

The paste for the peanut sauce cooking on a small fire

The peanuts and the water added to the paste.

The kroepoek before and ...

... after they were fried.

Published on April 4, 2016 at 6:00 by Ellen

Categorised in: Food

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Paul Cézanne

It was a good idea writing a bit about some of the best painters i know. Johannes Vermeer, making perfectly balanced and composed paintings. Paul Cézanne is the next painter on my list. I won’t go into his biography. You can read about that on his wikipedia page, or do a search on duckduckgo.

I will try and limit the paintings i will show here. I did copy many from the list of his paintings. You’re welcome to go through his paintings.

I did do a year of painting at art school. At the end of that year i got a 0 for it. A refusal. All my other marks were good, but that zero, that null prevented me from going any further into painting. So i didn’t. Next year i switched to photography and monumental. I didn’t read that much about painting anymore. In the back of my mind i did have this quiet thought that i could turn back to painting in my old age. If i wanted to.

You may think i’m choosing artists which are part of the recognized canon of western art. You are right. That doesn’t mean these artists are not important, that everything has been said about them, everybody has seen their work. I do try to take my time watching these paintings when i see them. Or watch the photos i found online. Even with photos there are many things to observe. It does require time to let an image sink in. Let the image become a part of your world.

Enjoy.

inbetween

Paul_Cezanne_048

The Bathers
1894-1905
127 × 196 cm
National Gallery, London

inbetween

Paul_Cezanne_171

Still Life with Apples and a Pot of Primroses
1890
58 × 91 cm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

inbetween

Paul_Cezanne_193

Still Life with Open Drawer
1877-1879
33 × 41 cm
Private collection

inbetween

Paul_Cezanne_169

Rideau, Cruchon et Compotier
1893–1895
59.7 x 73 cm
Private Collection

inbetween

Cezanne_Madame_Cezanne

Madame Cézanne
1885-1887
55,6 × 45,7 cm
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York

inbetween

Paul_Cezanne_123

Portrait of Madame Cézanne
1885
46 x 38 cm
Private collection

inbetween

Paul_Cezanne_1888-90_Madame_Cezanne_(Hortense_Fiquet_1850–1922)_in_a_Red_Dress_oil_on_canvas_116.5_x_89.5_cm_The_Metropolitan_Museum_of_Art_New_York

Madame Cézanne (Hortense Fiquet, 1850–1922) in a Red Dress
1888-1890
116.5 x 89.5 cm
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

inbetween

Paul_Cezanne_126

Madam Cézanne in a Red Armchair
1877
72,5 × 56 cm
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

inbetween

Paul_Cezanne_124

Madame Cézanne in a Yellow Armchair
1893-1895
81 × 85 cm
Private collection

inbetween

Paul_Cezanne_114

Mount Sainte-Victoire
1888-1890
65 × 81 cm
Private collection

inbetween

Paul_Cezanne_112

Mont Sainte-Victoire Seen from the Bibémus Quarry
1897
65 × 81 cm
Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore

inbetween

Paul_Cezanne_107

Mont Sainte-Victoire
1885-1887
67 × 92 cm
Courtauld Institute of Art, London

inbetween

Paul_Cezanne_115

Mont Sainte-Victoire and the Viaduct of the Arc River Valley
1885–1887
65,4 x 81,6 cm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

inbetween

Paul_Cezanne_100

Maison Maria with a View of Château Noir
1895
65 × 81 cm
Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, Texas

inbetween

Paul_Cezanne_090

L’Estaque with Red Roofs
1883-1885
65 × 81 cm
Private collection

inbetween

Paul_Cezanne_077

Forest Interior
1898-1899
61 x 81,3 cm
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco

inbetween

Paul_Cezanne_076

High Trees In Jas de Bouffan
1885-1887
73 x 59 cm
Private collection

inbetween

Paul_Cezanne_220

The Grounds of the Château-Noir
1900-1904
90,7 × 71,4 cm
National Gallery, London

inbetween

Paul_Cezanne_046

The Great Pine
1898
85 × 92 cm
São Paulo Museum of Art, São Paulo

inbetween

Paul_Cezanne_033

The House with the Cracked Walls
1892–1894
80 x 64,1 cm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

inbetween

Paul_Cezanne_088

Boy in a Red Waistcoat
1888-1890
92 x 73 cm
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

inbetween

Paul_Cezanne_153

Self-Portrait
1878-1880
61 × 47 cm
Phillips Memorial Gallery, Washington D.C.

inbetween

Paul_Cezanne_157

Self-Portrait with Palette
1890
92 × 73 cm
Foundation E.G. Bührle, Zürich

inbetween

Paul_Cezanne_159

Self-Portrait with Olive-Colored Wallpaper
1880-1881
33,6 × 26 cm
National Gallery, London

inbetween

1906_Cezanne_Still_Life_with_Carafe_Bottle_and_Fruit

Still Life with Carafe, Bottle, and Fruit (watercolour)
1906
Henry and Rose Pearlman Collection

inbetween

Published on April 1, 2016 at 6:00 by Ellen

Categorised in: Beauty

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Rereading

When i reread the post Mixed thoughts i was so embarrassed. Not the entire post. The first part is ok. But the middle and the end, eew. Well, apart from the final sentences, they were alright. The post felt to me to be too thought out. Too much thought put into it. Too heavy. So i felt happy to leave it behind me and not think about it anymore. “Writing this post gives me a chance to sort my thoughts.” I guess that is true.

So i postponed my post about art. Hmmm. That post is still hazy in my mind. I have a document with some lines. Most of which i will not use. But i do need to try to find what i want to say, in the coming week or two.

This afternoon i went out and made a short walk through the center. I sat on the Grotekerkplein for a bit. I had taken of my coat. Enjoying the sunshine. Looking at the buildings, at the sky, at the water, at the doves walking around, flying up at times, at the people sitting around, walking past.

*smile*

I walked to the AH after that. I heard some music from somewhere. I looked down, to the wooden platform closer to the water. I saw a mobile phone lying on a bench, with a yellow small cylinder besides it. Two girls were just walking to that bench, but they didn’t pick up the phone. I went down the stairs and looked at the phone. The yellow cylinder turned out to be a music box. I turned of the music. The phone was unlocked. I talked to the girls, but they didn’t know. My first thought was to bring the phone to the police. But one of the girls said to look at the contacts. It was a Samsung phone, which i never handled myself. But she showed me. I looked through the log file of previous calls. I decided to call someone from it. I got a girl on the line. I explained i had found the phone. She asked me if they could get the phone later that evening, which was fine with me.

They just got here. I gave them the phone. A good deed of the day.

Published on March 31, 2016 at 6:00 by Ellen

Categorised in: General

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DIY: Fermenting your own sauerkraut

Today i started making sauerkraut. I have read about this process, fermenting, for years. Last year on the Rotterdamse Oogst Markt i talked with the girls from Ferme Kolen. I bought some kimchi then.

Fermentation is used in many different foods and drinks. Beer, wine and cider converse sugar into ethanol. Bread uses the yeast to produce CO2. Sauerkraut, sausages, kimchi, yogurt, miso, soya all use fermentation to alter the taste and make the end product more usable.

The pot will need to stand in room temperature for around two to three weeks. A white mould can appear on the surface, i do need to remove that as fast as possible.

I used the following recipe.

1 kilo white cabbage
5 gr mustard seeds
4 gr juniper
3 gr caraway
± 22,5 gr salt
a few peppercorns

Sauerkraut is the easiest fermented product to make. I used some spices to add a bit of flavour, but you can make it with only the white cabbage and salt. I will see how this will evolve and report back here.

Starting out with white cabbage, salt, juniper, mustard seeds and caraway. I did add some black peppercorns at the end.

Slicing the cabbage as thinly as possible. Next time i use my mandolin and grate them really fine.

Adding the salt, 22,5 grams for 1 kilo of cabbage. After a couple of minutes of crunching and munching and stamping with clean bare hands the cabbage gets moistened. Here you see the spices put on top of the cabbage after the first kneading. After this the spices gets kneaded in the cabbage for a few more minutes.

The pot i wanted to put the cabbage into broke. I had this other pot, not ideal, i hope it will work fine. On top i put a big leaf from the outside of the cabbage. The core of the cabbage is used as a weight with which to crunch all the cabbage down. I did add some salted water to get the cabbage completely covered with it.

I use a dish cloth to close up the pot.

Published on March 30, 2016 at 6:00 by Ellen

Categorised in: Do it yourself, Food

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Looking out

On my way to Rotterdam, this afternoon, sitting in the train.

Only when i got home i saw the windows itself, the reflections, the dirt.

Great!

Published on March 29, 2016 at 6:00 by Ellen

Categorised in: Rotterdam

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Mixed thoughts

This past week, on Tuesday, in the morning i was sitting behind my computer. I routinely went through my twitter feed. I saw a strange picture. Sort of a train station with messy black and white parts of the ceiling or wall on the floor. I looked further down. I saw more tweets, but only thirty minutes back. Something was going on.

I turned on the television. There it was. The Dutch journal with an extra edition. Explosions in the airport Zaventem in Brussels. I switched to the Belgian tv.

That entire morning i was watching the news. Switching between Dutch, Belgian and British tv. I saw the footage of people running out of the halls in Zeventem. The short clips of people climbing out of metro train in Brussels. People crying, other people quiet. The city becoming more silent, with only heavenly guarded police and militairs on the street. My mind went to friends who are living in Brussels for over ten years.

I saw the speach of our prime minister Rutte, around half past eleven.

“We are with more.”

Those words went through my head over the next few days. So being with more means what? The majority wins? What if we got into war with China? India? There are more of them.

Over the next few days i read more articles about Brussels and the responses of our politicians.

“An attack on our values.”

We can not live in this make believe innocence in which we inhabit this perfect land where nothing bad ever happens. We do not. Our Western European world is as internally conflicted as all the other parts of the world. We do sweep it under the carpet. Out of sight, out of mind. But it is still there.

We do have a certain amount of freedom. Especially the indigenous people of Western Europe do have the possibilities and chances to find what they most want to do in their live. It is hard though, in this neoliberal world with fast four years studies, high debts and expensive living costs.

The last war in Western Europe ended in 1945. Seventy years ago. In those years our western world has evolved in a rich, polluted and contaminated, globalizing, expressive and rude world inhabited with people unaware of what a war can be like. People taking our hard won peace for granted. Most of us. Me too.

We live in this highly coated world with shop fronts the same around every city in Europe. We do not apply any terrorist action. Of course not. Other do those actions to us. The innocent, happily buying stuff, dancing and eating and drinking Europeans.

A few days after the attack, Johan Cruyff died. Every news show was showering his memory with love and adoration. The last symbol of our Dutch glory. So it was said.

I am not a football fan. Not a Johan Cruyff fan. It is not my world. I watched some of the shows with amazement. Not my place to say anything more about it.

Microsoft pulled its chatbot Tay from Twitter. In less than 24 hours its tweets changed from the innocent to the outright dark. Since it was learning from tweets targeting at it, all its noises were coming from other people, “a pack of sadistic psychopaths”.

hellooooooo w🌎rld!!!
1:14 PM – 23 Mar 2016

@wowdudehahahaha I fucking hate niggers, I wish we could put them all in a concentration camp with k****s and be done with the lot
12:49 AM – 24 Mar 2016

We do have problems.

The entire world has problems.

I don’t have solutions. I simply think about what is happening, what people say, what people do. I don’t do this every single day. But this past week, i did.

Writing this post gives me a chance to sort my thoughts. Try to see a line to pick up, try to find a way out of this aweful mess we are in. This desolate world in which we live our lives as is prescribed by the people with powers surrounding by other people with powers surrounding us.

I am not able to find an answer on my own.

I am happy to search.

Links
Most of these links refer to Dutch or Belgian articles. Some may be behind a paywall.

Na de aanslag
Aanslagen in Brussel
Waarom aanslagen geen aanval op onze waarden zijn (en politici ons dat wel willen doen geloven)
Brussel leert: over terreur is alles al gezegd (behalve wat bijna iedereen denkt)
Er is niks mis met selectieve verontwaardiging
Buitenhof: David van Reybrouck en Willem Schinkel over Brussel
The US-led Coalition Bombed the University of Mosul for Being an Islamic State Headquarters
Irakese academica schreeuwt haar woede uit over bombardementen op de universiteit van Mosul
Provo
‘Als je geen regenpak aanhad, schopte ik je helemaal dood.’
It’s not Tay’s fault that it turned racist. It’s ours.
Twitter May Have Just Doomed Humanity by Trolling an Artificial Intelligence Bot
Willem Schinkel over de ‘allochtoon’
Boeken: Willem Schinkel “Over nut en nadeel van de sociologie voor het leven”

Published on March 28, 2016 at 6:00 by Ellen

Categorised in: World

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Rotterdam CS

I sat in the train homewards this afternoon. I was thinking about my plan for today’s post. I do have a post about the news this week around the events in Brussels. I remember thinking i needed a bit more time. And then the thought cropped up to make a few photos inside the Rotterdam Central Station. It would give me a few more days to write about the news.

I actually do like a couple of the photos. I did make them a bit more saturated. And a bit less contrasted. The dark a bit lighter, the light a bit darker. Nice ones.