Last week I brought some dark Dutch chocolate to my work.

I served it on a Delft blue plate and it was well received.

Tonight I attended the rijsttafel dinner organized by the Dutch club in the Triangle, De Wieken.

There were at least 40 people and a large variety of food. I especially liked an Indonesian 'salad' consisting of mixed rice, shrimp, currants and chopped vegetables. There was a huge bag with krupuk. True to Dutch habit, the evening started at 5.00 pm and dinner was served pretty much right away. Quite a difference with yesterday's dinner. The party was in a club house of a community in North Raleigh, about 30 minutes away from us.

I brought some of the serundeng I made earlier this week and beets pickled based on a recipe my parents gave me, atjar beet. The latter worked out really well; with a subtle delicious flavor.

Someone I spoke with, of Indonesian descent, recommended a new store in Raleigh that carries a lot of real Indonesian ingredients, including dried shrimp paste (trassi), something I've been looking for for a while. I'll check it out next week.

It was a nice, relaxed evening and I enjoyed the company a lot.

Making pisang goreng, baked banana.

Here are about 40 pictures of the weekend in the Dijkgatsbos when Jaap celebrated his 60th birthday.

Guests included: Ankie, Anneke, Anouk, Arienne, Arne, Carel, Christianne, Cock, Dieuwke, Diny, Ettie, Eva, Eveline, Frank, Gea, Gerben, Gerrit, Gerrit, Guus, Jaap, Jan, Jean-Paul, Jelly, Jennie, Jerry, Johan, Joost, Kirsten, Len, Maarten, Marieke, Marjolein, Mieke, Nicky, Paula, Peggy, Peter, Ria, Rob, Roel, Ronald, Sophie, Steven, Tibor and Twan. For the first time in many years all the cousins were together, that was pretty cool.

See also Steven's pictures.

Packing.

Loaded caravan.

Setting up a Dutch flag at the entrance.

Happy birthday!

The first guests arrived! Peter & Christianne & kids.

Setting up camp; uncle Peter on the right.

Rob and Anouk.

Tibor, Guus and Ronald.

Chatting.

Jaap with two beautiful women at his side.

Steven, Mieke and Gea.

Delicious foods.

Installing a tennis game.

Arne, Eva and Humpo.

Jelly playing the highly popular game.

Real Dutch apple pie!

A crowd.

Jerry and Marjolein.

Frank, Dieuwke, Peter and Johan.

Steven and Jennie.

Marieke, Peggy and Len.

A present and a speech for Jaap.

Yours truly.

Uncle Roel and uncle Peter.

Guus and Eveline.

Ladies.

Starting the fire.

Eva's turn in the game.

Happy faces.

Peter, Jean-Paul and Johan.

Gerben's turn. Sophie, Jennie and Ronald in the background.

Watchful eyes.

Ria's turn.

Ria and Paula.

The fire.

The tent Tibor slept in. He came by back from Amsterdam. Steven, another hard-core friend, slept outside.

Early cup of coffee.

Breakfast.

Ettie, Gerben and Mieke.

Packing.

Tonight I attended a presentation by Adam Parrish on the use of Maven in building Adobe Flex & Java projects.

Maven is routinely used to build Java-only project, but this presentation talked about using the Flex Mojos plug-ins to build projects that combine Flex front-ends with a Java back-end.

It was an interesting presentation/demo for a small but knowledgeable crowd. There was a a lot of opportunity to ask questions, and I learned more about large scale Flex projects. A well spent evening.

The evening was hosted by One Cow Standing in Durham. They have a foosbal table and a real beer tap with Yuengling in the conference room.

Steven sent us 3 pictures he took during Jaap's 60th birthday.

Beautiful images.

Mieke.

Guus.

Humpo.

I made seroendeng tonight, an Indonesian mix of peanuts, coconut and spices.

It came out nicely; it has the mouth feel of the coconut that I like about seroendeng and was tasty. A next time I'll put a little more spices with the coconut so it has a stronger flavor. I added a tiny bit of sambal to the spices and that worked out great.

I found real gula jawa at the Asian store. I've never used it before, it's palm sugar (see picture, the dark brown stuff).