In early autumn of 1621, the 53 surviving Pilgrims of the Mayflower celebrated their successful harvest and that moment is remembered as the First Thanksgiving in Plymouth.

This Thanksgiving was modeled after celebrations that were commonplace in contemporary Europe. One of the influences on that First Thanksgiving, according to professor J.W. Schulte Nordholt, were the celebrations for Leiden's Ontzet that some of the Pilgrims had seen during their stay in Leiden, the Netherlands.

There are four official Thanksgiving events in the Netherlands tomorrow:

• Thanksgiving Day Service: The English Reformed Church, Begijnhof 48 in Amsterdam, 5.00 pm
• Thanksgiving Day Service: The Pieterskerk in Leiden, 11.00 am
• Thanksgiving Dinner: ABC Treehouse in Amsterdam, 6.00 pm (reservations required)
• Thanksgiving Day Dinner: Mövenpick Hotel, Piet Heinkade 11 in Amsterdam. 7:15 pm (reservations required)

The well-known painting the The First Thanksgiving by Jenny Brownscombe is on display in the Lakenhal Museum in Leiden, the first time that this painting is on display outside the United States. It is loan from the Pilgrim Hall Museum, Plymouth, MA through January 4, 2010.

The First Thanksgiving by Jenny Brownscombe.

Last weekend the Lefferts Historic House organized an exhibition of its Dutch documents and Bibles. This display was part of the 5 Dutch Days, a city-wide event in New York City.

The House was built circa 1783 and is located within Brooklyn's Prospect Park. It is the former home of Continental Army Lieutenant Pieter Lefferts and his wife Femmetie.

It houses a children's museum on the first floor. For the 5 Dutch Days a guided tour of the rooms upstairs was available every 30 minutes which introduced the history of the house and its inhabitants.

Eight historic documents, most of them in Dutch, were on display. One of the most interesting exhibits is the land grant with the signature and seal of Petrus Stuyvesant, Director General of New Netherland, dating from 1661. Written in Dutch, this document establishes the Lefferts family's property in New Netherland.

On display was a slave bill of sale which described the purchase of a young woman named Jenny by Pieter Lefferts from her former owner Hendricks van Buren. The bill was discovered in one of the family Bibles of the Lefferts family.

Also on view was a quilt show, "Sewing Threads of New York: The 400 Year Anniversary of Henry Hudson’s Voyage". For the kids there were old-fashioned games such as walking on stilts and hooping. Dutch snacks were provided at the end of the tour: Dutch cheeses and speculaas cookies.

Lefferts Historic House
Located in Prospect Park, Brooklyn
(Inside the Park’s Willink entrance, at the intersection of Flatbush and Ocean Ave. and Empire Blvd.)
www.prospectpark.org

The Lefferts Historic House in Brooklyn, NY.

Quilt exhibition on the first floor: Sewing Threads of New York: The 400 Year Anniversary of Henry Hudson’s Voyage.

Quilt.

Dutch documents and bibles on display.

A religious book in Dutch -- "Van de Ondervindinge".

Two land deeds that establish the ownership of the Leffert family's property. Both carry the signature of Petrus Stuyvesant.

Dutch cheese and speculaas. American wine -- in the 1600's the Dutch experimented with growing grapes in what is now New York but weren't very successful.

I had a fun dinner in Bernardsville tonight; it was great to see some folks again who I hadn't seen in a long time.

I got terribly lost on the way back home. When there was a traffic jam 3 exits before mine, I thought to be smart and to take a secondary road. It took me about an hour longer to get home... highway 28 (one way, then the other), finally highway 22 and then back on 287 where I took a wrong turn again. Made it home!

I had a busy weekend, with a number of Dutch events -- it's http://www.5dutchdays.org in New York. A lot of fun. To top it off I visited two Dutch places in New Jersey, a store and a bakery. I bought some speculaas and Dutch cheese. Articles will appear on 'the other website' in the next couple of days.

To wrap up the weekend I cooked two dishes for the rest of the week: a big pan of soup and slavinken. Busy week ahead.

Yesterday was the start of 5 Dutch Days, a series of events around Dutch-American Heritage Day. In the Our Saviour’s Lutheran Church in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, NY the Scandinavian East Coast Museum presented two speakers on Dutch New York and Scandinavians in Dutch New York.

The Scandinavian Museum has the goal to establish a permanent museum recognize the contributions and stories of immigrants from Denmark, Iceland, Norway and Sweden to the United States.

The first speaker, Pascal Theunissen, is a journalist and Dutch national. When he moved to New York he was inspired by Russell Shorto's book about New Netherland to start looking for traces of Dutch history in New York. His book, Van Jan Kees tot Yankees, was published earlier this year. While he didn't immediately realize that 2009 would be the year to celebrate 400 years of Dutch-American relationships, it obviously fits in nicely in this year's theme and it the book received positive reviews in the Netherlands. His book is currently not on sale in the United States; it is available in Dutch in bookstores in the Netherlands and on-line. (Disclosure: we received a free copy of the book to review).

Mr. Theunissen provided a lively introduction to the history of New Netherland, and the role of the Dutch in New York's early history. Keeping in line with the evening's theme of Dutch-Scandinavian relations he described how Dutch Governor Peter Stuyvesant moved an army to New Sweden in 1655 and captured the Swedish colony. Mr. Stuyvesant clearly did not come to Manhattan to make any friends.

Dutch millstones in the pavement
Mr. Theunissen gave a number of examples from his book of Dutch places in New York, such as the Voorlezer's House, the first school in the United States, and the Wyckoff House in Brooklyn. He also mentioned 17th century millstones in the pavement in Queens, Sinterklaas' influence on Santa Claus and the game 'double Dutch'. "New Amsterdam is long gone but there are signs all around you". The most remarkable is the Brooklyn's slogan: Eendraght Maekt Maght -- strengh in unity, in old Dutch.

Bergen Street and beyond
The second speaker, Victoria Hofmo, is the driving force behind the Scandinavian East Coast Museum and President of the museum. Ms. Hofmo introduced the history of Scandinavians in the 17th century. Against a background of internal conflict in Scandinavia, war, unfavorable inheritance laws and a massive loss of population due to the black plague many people from Norway moved to Amsterdam, and later to the New World. Scandinavians around New York often blended in to the Dutch culture and even used the Dutch language. A nice example of a Dutch-Scandinavian relation is the story behind the Bergen Street and Bergen Place -- named after a Norwegian-Dutch/French couple.

Only a few people in the audience were Dutch; most of the people attended had a Scandinavian background. Ms. Hofmo explained that the long common history between the Dutch and the Scandinavians encouraged the Scandinavian Museum to start participating in 5 Dutch Days a few years ago.

After the official program there were drinks and Dutch and Scandinavian cheeses as well as herring, a treat in both Scandinavia and the Netherlands. A highlight for your correspondent was the plate with marzipan and Swedish cookies that were very similar to speculaas.

Scandinavian East Coast Museum
http://www.scandinavian-museum.org

Van Jan Kees tot Yankees, Pascal Theunissen
http://www.pascaltheunissen.com
Mr. Theunissen will be in the library in Alkmaar, the Netherlands on November 22.

The presentations were in a beautiful church room.

Pascal Theunissen: "Van Jan Kees to Yankees".

Victoria Hofmo: "Scandinavians in Dutch New York".

Herring.

Another Dutch-Scandinavian connection: Swedish cookies that taste exactly like Dutch speculaas.

I traveled from Raleigh/Durham, North Carolina (RDU) to Newark, New Jersey (EWR) early this morning. It's the third or fourth time in the six weeks that I make this trip but I still enjoy the experience of traveling very much.

And today of course is my birthday! Thank you all very much for all the e-mails, Facebook & Twitter messages, calls and comments on my site! While I was traveling I checked Facebook every now and then and the messages kept coming in, a very nice feeling. Thank you.

I'm pretty sure that it's the first time that I flew on my birthday. It's exactly 5 years ago that I started work at my first job in the United States.

I'm in Somerset for two weeks. This time I'm not staying in a hotel but in a furnished apartment, not far from our office. It's so much nicer to stay in an apartment -- you can leave stuff behind and most importantly I can cook my own meals now. Much healthier (and often more delicious) than eating out.

I had to do some serious grocery shopping tonight. The apartment comes with pots, pans and other kitchen gear, but I needed to buy many "basic" things. Things you don't think of at home, such as pepper and salt, cooking oil and cleaning supplies. I'm all set now and cooked my first meal here (pasta with my favorite avocado salad).

I'm turning 31 years old tomorrow! I received a couple of nice presents and I've opened some of them already, including Dutch beer + breadmix and a 500+ page book on Dutch-American relations (thank you!).

I'm traveling tomorrow morning to Somerset. I'll be spending more time there in the next few weeks and months and we even have a temporary apartment. It makes traveling a lot easier since I'll be able to go to CVS and buy some stuff and leave it in the apartment.

This weekend was the 75th edition of the annual Verboort Sausage & Kraut dinner in Verboort, Oregon, about 25 miles west of Portland.

The festival is an annual fund-raiser for the Catholic school. The main event is the beer garden style meal, where for $15 you get all-you-can-eat homemade sausage, sauerkraut (zuurkool) and other dishes such mashed potatoes with gravy, green beans, lemon and apple pie. Besides the feast people line up early in the morning for a chance to buy sausage and sauerkraut in bulk. Sales start at 9.00 am but the line forms as early at 3.30 am.

The tradition started in 1934 when 198 lbs of sausage were served to 150 diners. This year about 15 tons of sausage and over 2,000 pounds of homemade kraut -- more than 50 barrels -- were served to thousands of diners. Due to unforeseen circumstances your local correspondent could not attend in person but next year we will sample the sauerkraut and sausage for you.

All the ingredients are produced in Verboort (except the meat for the sausage). The smoked sausage is prepared by tens of volunteers in Verboort and consists of a mix of beef, pork and a secret spice blend. Sauerkraut with sausage is a popular winter dish in the Netherlands and sauerkraut features in many Dutch dishes, for example stamppot zuurkool, boiled potatoes mashed together with raw sauerkraut.

Verboort
The small farming community of Verboort was established by six Catholic families who traveled from the Netherlands to De Pere, Wisconsin and settled in Oregon in 1875. In the same year, Father William Verboort transferred from the diocese of Milwaukee to the Archdiocese of Oregon City. Upon arrival Father Verboort and the community built an informal school and a church. In 1876, Father Verboort and his parents died of fever and the community was named Verboort that same year.

Verboort Annual Dinner, organized by the Visitation Catholic Church
4285 NW Visitation Rd, Forest Grove, OR
http://www.verboort.org/

Verboort, Oregon.

It's that time of year -- days are shorter, it's getting cold and thus time for some good old Dutch cookies.

We made speculaas this weekend for the first time and it worked out very nicely. I used the speculaas spices Ettie and Gerben gave us.

The reality with baking cookies is that it's great to have 1 or 2 cookies, but that two pounds of dough make more cookies than anyone could ever eat. So I'll bring them to my work tomorrow, as sort of a birthday cake.

(Here's a recipe in English).

The dough.

The cookies.

It was a long but good week at work. This afternoon I brought our car to the dealership for its 60,000 miles maintenance and for the state inspection.

I brought my laptop and a cup of coffee and had the time to read up on some documents.

When I came home I saw that a garage in front of apartment was damaged -- somebody must have hit it with a big truck.