Spat!!! Here comes the first drop of rain standing as a pimple at the tip of my nose. 👃 The cold breeze slapping against my cheeks and the little amount of hair left doing a march-past ̶ left, right, left. “Quack, quack!” says the heart, “I crave something lekker (tasty), something warm and pittig (spicy).” I sprint to the nearest food joint and look around. My eyes on a quest, my heart with a zest and my stomach not at rest, alas, all I see is oliebollen, kroket, frietjes 🍟 en frikandel. 🌭I sink in a frown. “Grrr! I’d rather take a siesta,” cries my stomach. 😴All I can think of is a lip-smacking Vada Pav🍔 or some Pakodas. I try my hand at the nearest restaurant. Frantically looking through the menu with dranken (beverages), voorgerecht (appetizer), hoofdgerecht (main course) en nagerecht (dessert). Taking a breath at voorgerecht and eyes widening, “Do I see it?” I murmur. Making a crooked face 😏my brain is now on a 1000 volt thinking spree.🧠 “Stamppot, hutspot, and all the pots,🍯 but where is what I want?” “Oh, by the way, there is a tikfout (typo) in frietjes spelt with an ‘ie’ and not an ‘ei’,” says the linguist in me.

Content that I can also spot errors after learning Dutch, gives a little satiation to the crave. 😎“Do I want to spend a € 12 for a Pav Bhaji at my Indian restaurant or shall I spring to 29 spices for my Vada Pav?” 🤔 “Maybe, 🌹 maybe not, 🌹 maybe, 🌹 maybe not.” 🌹 “Ik moet bezuinigen,” says the wise girl in me (I must save). “How about some hagelslag, stroopwafel, drop or broodje met kaas🍞🧀 instead?” Tick-tock 🕐goes the clock, it’s time to get back as I have to work round the clock. 👩‍💻     

Oh boy! I am dol op (crazy about) those spicy potatoes. Laura Clery’s song “I eat potatoes (aardappels), you eat potatoes, we all eat potatoes,” is all that is doing the ding-dong now. 😵

I think of a hack for my snack as I get back to the restaurant with the little time left. “What’s the quest that makes you fret?” squeaks the man with one eyebrow raised,🤨who is dazzled by my face. 😉With a voice of a chipmunk and a nose like a trunk, 🐘🤥 the sparkling blue eyes and blinding red lips were the cause of my grin denting the dimple in my chin. Having to tilt my head up to a 6.5 ft tall hunk, “I need some spice… I … I mean some spicy food.”

“Well, we close early today, Miss, and I am afraid that mashed potatoes is all we have,” he says. Be it stamppot or Vada Pav, our ping-pong potatoes 🥔🥔are loved across the globe.

“Even that would suffice,” I grin. “I just need it fried alstublieft (please). I mean…” And politely I asked if we could pep it up a little digging out my Pav Bhaji Masala from my bag. As charming was his gesture, I was hoping not to show my dentures. 😜😂🤩

Frying the potatoes in olie (oil) with some zout (salt), peper (pepper), Pav Bhaji masala (specerij) en citroen🍋 with some mosterd (mustard), he now wonders, “Is that it?” “Maybe some bread to go with it?”  

“Yaaa…. Or maybe some CHAKNA!” thinks the bier girl in me.🙇💭🙃“A zuinige man giving me this lekkere bun.😵 Hawww…”

 “Oh my God!” my eyes just popped out 🙄when it dawned. “Ugh! Which bread for my Colgate teeth? Oh, but no. I have had four layers of Baba Ramdev’s Patanjali Dant Kanti on my toothbrush this morning.”😷

Wondering how much I was going to have to pay, now all I wanted was a chilli 🌶️ for this dilly (of a dish). “Oh! No no. I don’t carry chillies in my purse,” I said to myself. “Well, as if he asked, duh!”🤦‍♀️

So now I have a Dutch bread, a Vada (my fried pieper ̶ another name for aardappel) with my Pav Bhaji Masala.😋

I savour mijn Indiase gerecht (my Indian cuisine/dish). “Urr” 🤭burps my tummy as it is now blij (happy) with some complimentary aardbei.🍓

“But how can you give me something complimentary?” I squeaked.

“Why not?” he tweaked.

With us now roaring in laughter, his smile was targeting me for slaughter.

“Umm, guess I could ask that on my second date,” says the inquisitive me.

Now merry, I waved back at Jerry. “Oh! How about watching some Tom and Jerry?” 🐈🐁 ponders the couch potato in me! As naughty as ik ben, I hum back to my ‘den’: 🎼🎻

“Nanana… nananana …

Nog zoveel te doen, zo weinig tijd
Op jacht naar mijn dromen, anders krijg ik spijt.”💃

Jeroen van der Boom

Stroopwafel (Syrup waffle)                                          Oliebollen (Oil balls/dumplings)

                              

Hagelslag (Bread with chocolate sprinkles)            Frikandel en Frietjes (Sort of hot dog and fries)

                                         

Kroket (Croquette)                                                       Bitterballen (Meat-based) 

                                               

Drop (Liquorice)                                                      Stamppot (also called Boerenkool, i.e. mashed potatoes                                                                                                                                                   with kale and sausage)

                                     

Pepernoten (Spicy biscuits)                                        Pannenkoeken (Pancakes)

                       

 

 

 

Richa Gujarathi

Richa Gujarathi

The Dutch Door®

We are recommended by the Dutch Consulate and Embassy in India and affiliated with Marijanne Joshi Polderman from Dutchable Chennai and Thomas van Berckel from Dutch Roof Consultancy (GMAB) Bangalore. We are, however, not affiliated with any other language institutes in Pune.