Lost and Found

So I lost my memory card and card reader for about three months. I wasn't concerned until I made a rare and serious effort to clean my apartment and they didn't reappear.

This made me start to worry that I might have to go into Future Shop. That was sufficiently motivating to make me remember that I'd done a photo shoot for work. Turns out that they were in one of my purses that I haven't used since December. Oops! 

Anyways, I'm back now.

No food pictures today, but here's a picture of something I just bought:

Turns out one of my favourite food bloggers, KamutflakeGirl, has just created a zine. They are available through Etsy.

What the Heck... is Roggebrood?

Roggebrood is een voedzaam product bereid uit gebakken deeg. Het deeg bestaat uit rogge, water, zout en enzymen.

Translated from Dutch: Rye bread is a nutritious product made from baked dough. The dough consists of rye, water, salt and enzymes.

Apparently in Holland, this bread is mainly eaten in three provinces: Groningen, Friesland and Drenthe. I've visited many places in Holland but have never been to those three. Fortunately, there's a Dutch grocery store just 30 minutes away.

Wikipedia tells me that there are significant biochemical differences between wheat and rye and that this affects the broodbakproces. The bread is baked from coarsely ground rye without yeast. Apparently the bread gets it dark colour and sweet taste through a long baking process which converts starch into sugar. 

I think it has a good smaak (taste).

What the Heck... ?

Trick question: is this a giant lemon... or a very small orange?

What the Heck... are Ground Cherries?

Or Groud Cherries, as the package says. Oops! But it's très charmant. 

When I first saw them at a distance I thought they were gooseberries, to the extent that once I actually read the label I wondered if ground cherry was an alternate name. But no, they are their own unique phenomenon. 

These one are actually naked - they grow with little coats on (see illustration) like tomatillos. I've seen them before on cakes in fancy bakeries but never actually tried one.

The result? Well, the word cherries is misleading. They smell a bit like cotton candy, but bite in and there's a burst of intense sweetness, followed by a taste that's like a combination of tomato, pineapple and vanilla. The ground cherry straddles the line between fruit and vegetable, sweet and savory. 

Not bad.