Number of days in Amsterdam – 253
Number of days without a bike theft – 249
Days since it last rained – 0
With a total relocation and shift if life like we’ve experienced, everything becomes a first. There are first days of doing this, first times of doing that, and the first everythings for the little one.
Today, our first Valentine’s Day in Amsterdam, marked another first – it was the first day in a while that it was really warm enough to go out and about with the Kitten, and so the first day that she and I went out and about alone.
I bundled her up, loaded her in the Bjorn, and set out to make this a special Valentine’s Day for mama, and that meant making a special, decadent Valentine’s Day dinner.
You see, Nicole and I are big foodies. We both love to cook and eat, and find new and exciting things to try. In fact, were we to attain independent wealth, one of our dreams would be to go to culinary school, and open up a little restaurant, with maybe a half dozen tables and one or two seatings a night – maybe it would be the sort of place where one just came in and we made you dinner – no menus, here’s what we’re serving tonight, and we guarantee it will be awesome.
Dut I digress, and for today, it was just dinner for two in our cozy little kitchen.
But what to make?
Recently, Nicole had gone out to eat with clients at Brasserie Vlaming, a restaurant that has generated some great reviews. Nicole’s experience was, unfortunately, that those reviews were overly generous. Her meal had a handful of issues, with the most egregious offense being that her monkfish was overcooked. She found that to be a bit upsetting, and it’s really quite disrespectful, to take something like a good piece of fish and not treating it the way it deserves.
So as a main course, I decided I would be grilling monkfish.
A fish that’s really quite ugly, but also very tasty, similar in texture and flavor to lobster. In fact, it’s colloquially referred to as “the poor man’s lobster,” although the days when that was applicable are long past – the price of monkfish equals or exceeds that of lobster today. Maybe someday lobster will become “the poor man’s monkfish”?
At any rate, we found some beautiful pieces of monkfish at our favorite fishmonger on the Albert Cuyp (I love having a favorite fishmonger), who also gave me a rundown of the flavor profiles of his selection of oysters, before I opted for eight of the ones he said tasted most of the sea.
We added to the proteins with some fresh beautiful hericot verts and fresh figs from the produce stand, along with a bottle of prosecco from the wine shop.
The market also provided a bouquet of fresh-cut purple tulips (Kitten picked them out), and the scented candles for the center of the table came from our local Dutch kitsch supplier – Blond Amsterdam.
Which of course, left dessert. Which leads to a confession.
We have a ton of great little independent sweet shops in our neighborhood, but I actually went with a chain.
Le Pain Quotidien is a little bakery/coffee shop in the hood, and they make really good stuff – including the eclairs I picked up for Valentine’s dessert. Granted, it’s great to go obscure in your quest for the best, but sometimes the reason that certain chains are successful is that they make a quality product, and Le Pain Quotidien’s eclairs are really good.
So, with our dinner fixings in hand, the Kitten and I popped back to the flat, where I put the flowers in water,put her in her Valentine’s Day outfit and we got on with our daily routine, wherein I try to work and she tries to prevent me, with both of us reaching some measure of success.
When Nicole got home, she saw the flowers, and I wished her Happy Valentine’s Day, and we chatted for a bit.
Then she asked what I wanted for dinner.
“I hadn’t really thought about it,” I said. “Maybe we could thaw out some pasta sauce, or I could go grab some shawarmas, or we could get a curry delivered… Or I guess I could grill some monkfish, and serve it with steamed hericot verts, raw oysters and figs with mascarpone and honey. Oh, and eclairs.”
Nicole opted for the last option.
So we had the sort of dinner that’s fun to make as a couple – the sort of thing where no course takes to much time, and I could cook while we talked. She sat at the table holding the baby, I poured us some prosecco, and made the figs. After we finished them, I shucked oysters, and then after devouring them quickly with a dab of hot sauce – they tasted like summer – I slapped the fish on the grill and steamed the veggies.
Note to the chef at Brasserie Vlaming:
I did not overcook the monkfish.
We had eclairs, and the wine, and the three of us had an awesome time in the dining room on Valentine’s Day.
So it was another first. First Valentine’s Day in the ‘Dam, first day out alone with the Kitten, and perhaps the most important…
It’s the first year I’ve ever had two valentines.
