My friends, the brothers Marijn en Michiel Slager of Zeeuwse monster rock band Nuff Said, just posted their above video report (in Dutch) from the ‘world’s biggest kroket’ event that took place in Amsterdam in October 2007. I was also reporting from this special day in grease history. I recall being as excited as Kermit the Frog when he reported live from the scene of Humpty Dumpty’s nasty fall. Now thanks to the Slager Brothers, I can relive those happy, but mixed, memories. I pasted my own report here:
SUPER SIZE KROKET A marketing sham. But at least it was a freebie feast. Amsterdam Weekly, 1 November 2007 By Steve Korver
‘Kom op, met die grootste kroket,’ says a 10-year-old boy, pretty much summing up the anticipation felt on Rembrandtplein last Saturday, before the kroket manufacturers Van Dobben presented their much-hyped ‘world’s biggest kroket’ — a 250 kilogram, one-and-half-metre long and half-metre thick hunk of deep-fried meat-and-potato goo, which required a bubbling bath of 1,200 litres of oil to bring its shell to maximum crustiness.
A talking head from the company explains over the microphone about how they wanted — with the help of an advertising agency — to do something ludieks, and give something back to Amsterdam. ‘After all, they’ve taken away most of our amsterdammertjes.’ So, Van Dobben decided, as compensation for the loss of these iconic parking poles, to give the world its biggest kroket ever. It makes perfect sense really.
As the crowd grows restless, personnel are handing out — for ‘gratis, eh’ — regular-sized kroketten, not only of the standard beef ragout version, but also ones stuffed with haring, beer, apple pie or pea soup (the ‘snertkroket’ as one onlooker described it). All of these versions had been submitted to public scrutiny in an online vote during the past month, to decide which of the fillings would form the stuffing of the elephantine version.
As the volkszanger Dries Roelvink takes the stage, a thick Amsterdam accent rises from the crowd to note how the overtly tanned Roelvink is the perfect poster boy for this event: ‘Hij ziet er uit als een doorgebakken kroket!’
Roelvink was the ambassador for the idea that the world’s biggest kroket should have the pea-soup filling. When Petra Boots, the editor of Weekend who’s presenting on stage, makes a joke about how it would have been more fitting for him to have represented the beer kroket, he answers: ‘Well you’ve obviously never seen me in my yellow swimming trunks.’ The crowd exchanges looks of deep confusion: ‘What the hell does that mean?’
Finally the big moment arrives, as the monster kroket — supposedly filled with the vote-winning standard beef ragout — gets rolled up the red carpet, accompanied by a meatball shaped security guard with a handlebar moustache. The crowd presses in with cameras over their heads, so they can have a good look. Another chunky Amsterdam accent enquires: ‘What’s going on? Do they think a naked lady is going to pop out of there?’
It’s a mob. Kids start breaking out in tears. A mother starts to panic and call out for her ‘Luukje!’ The woman behind the microphone tries to keep the mood light: ‘There’s a kid under the kroket!’ The mother is not amused. More children start crying. And is that a fight breaking out in the corner?
Finally, the crowd thins enough for less aggressive folk to come in close for a gander. It’s big alright. The size of a human hotdog. But it’s also a big disappointment. Only a few people actually taste it and for good reason, it seems: the crust/ragout ratio is obviously out of whack — it’s pretty much the same thickness as a normal kroket, and the filling is obviously more potato than ragout.
When asked what’s going to happen with the kroket now the display is over, a man in a Van Dobben uniform answers: ‘I guess it’ll go in the recycling bin.’
But the crowd seems satisfied. Only one small group, out to give grease yet more of a chance, decides to head up the road to eat shrimp kroketten at Holtkamp on Vijzelstraat. Sometimes it’s just worth it paying the extra.
Arise spirits! You will be able to reel and writhe as singer/accordionist/raconteur Geoff Berner and his Klezmer Trio play this Wednesday 30 March at Cafe Pakhuis Wilhelmina in Amsterdam. Don’t miss it. He’s a bit of a Whisky Rabbi and his latest album, Victory Party produced by Socalled, is really quite excellent. I particularly appreciate the more spiritual direction he’s taken with such tunes as ‘Rabbi Berner Finally Reveals His True Religious Agenda’. You can read an interview I did with him last year HERE where he also reveals much about the Odessa underbelly, an ex-Rastafarian mentor and how curling is making a comeback in Canada.
A friend pointed out this report featuring a pissed off Johan Cruijff and complained about how the subtitles don’t do justice to the man’s gift for freestyly language. And that’s truly a shame…
Most of the work of Dutch philosophy’s major figures can be handily summed up with one of their catchphrases – Erasmus with his ‘In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king’, Descartes with his ‘I think therefore I am’, and Spinoza with his ‘We are a part of nature as a whole, whose order we follow’.
But Johan Cruijff is a case apart. First off: he’s a football player. But he was perhaps the best footballer of the 20th century and remains the most famous Dutch person alive. As a member of Ajax and the Dutch national team in the 1960s and 70s, he developed and became the personification of ‘Total Football’ which he later fine-tuned as the coach of Barcelona FC and applied at his own Johan Cruijff University where pro-footballers learn how to deal with life after they’ve hung up their shoes. He remains a favourite commentator at major football matches. His catchphrases – equally applicable to football as to life – keep filling books and invoking wonder in the way they make perfect sense in a strangely nonsensical way. After meditating deeply on the following Zen Slaps of insight, you will understand why it’s not only his initials JC that earned him the name of ‘The Redeemer’.
‘Football should always be played beautifully.’
‘If you don’t score, you don’t win.’
‘You should put the point on the ‘i’ where it belongs.’
‘Every disadvantage has its advantage.’
‘Coincidence is logical.’
‘You should never cheer before the bear is shot.’
‘The game always begins afterwards.’
‘He heard the clock strike but didn’t know what time it was.’
‘A balloon keeps going deeper into the water until it bursts.’
‘Whenever things do not work, you realise the importance of details (details that have gone wrong in the detail).’
‘A mistake begins where it’s supposed to begin.’
‘Either you are on time or late; therefore if you are late you must make sure you leave on time.’
‘When my career ends, I cannot go to the baker and say “I’m Johan Cruijff, give me some bread.”‘
‘If I wanted you to understand it, I would have explained it better.’
On 12 April 1961, Soviet Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin (1934-68) yelled ‘Let’s Go!’ as he was launched for a 108-minute circuit around the earth to become the first human in space. For the last decade, photographer René Nuijens and I have been re-visiting Russia to document the major settings of Gagarin’s bizarre and dramatic life, and talking to people who were close to him. In the process, we are capturing the essence of both the man who is dead and his myth that is still very much alive. He remains the most popular 20th-century figure in Russia, where he has the legend status of a JFK or a Bruce Lee – inspiring love, art and conspiracy theories. We believe, like many others, Yuri should become more of a global icon again.
To be published in 2011, the book Road to Gagarin – In Search of the First Man in Space combines photography, travel writing, archival material and a tasty selection of cosmonautic kitsch. Yuri was our rocket into Russia. We recommend the ride to anyone.
Over at Unfold Amsterdam, I wrote a new installment about food — or rather: grease.
Are You Finished with That? Episode 2: Will the ‘hairdresser’ enter the Global Grease Canon? On my first encounter with the patatje kapsalon — ‘hairdresser fries’ — I did not actually taste, or even see, the product. I was merely a witness to its after-effects. I had dropped by the practice space of some friends who usually play a rather rigorous rock ‘n’ roll. But this time when I walked in, they were all lying around lost in some sort of space jam. Occasionally one of them would fart. And then apologise (they may be rock ‘n’ roll but they are also polite and well brought-up boys). After the seventh apology they admitted to indulging in a kapsalonnetje from a nearby Turkish snackbar… [READ THE REST HERE...]
See previous posting for my first installment of my food/Amsterdam series. I’ve also written about the food/grease equation HERE, HERE and HERE.
Posted: February 19, 2011 at 12:06 pm. Add a comment
Over at Unfold Amsterdam I just started a new column Are You Finished With That? about food and Amsterdam. At first I wanted to write a column about ‘chairs’ but I think ’food’ gives me more freedom. After all, while we often sit down to eat, we rarely eat chairs. The column’s first episode begins with the following paragraph:
ARE YOU FINISHED WITH THAT?
Episode 1: Cafe Plop A large orange mushroom has popped up on Mercatorplein. It’s the newly-opened Cafe Zurich and it’s meant to bring more glam to the gentrifying De Baarsjes neighbourhood. Many locals already call it ‘Cafe Plop’, a reference to a deeply odd children’s TV show starring the singing gnome Plop, who deals milk from his cosy little ’shroom shack…. [READ THE REST HERE]
My old friends the Anacondas have just released their third album of post-surf tunes: Bad Buzz/Lost in the Space Age. It comes with a story. After they recorded it a year or so ago, they asked me to help turn it into a ‘concept’ album. Since making a ‘concept’ album out of something that’s already recorded seemed pretty high-‘concept’ in itself, I naturally said yes. And anyway, I always do like a nice ‘concept’. And it’s really quite amazing what some liner notes, visuals and overdubs can do when it comes to fleshing out the ‘conceptual’.
The album’s ‘concept’ is really quite simple — like any good ‘concept’. It begins with the anger we all share: that the shiny space age we were promised never actually showed up (Where are our jetpacks? Where are our slow food pill packs? Who can we lynch?). Now try to imagine how pissed off and bitter a jaded and washed up astronaut would be. Of course: he would be really,really pissed off and bitter. And so Bad Buzz as a ‘concept’ was born. And from there we only told the absolute truth. And as Bad Buzz, I was given the opportunity to rant anti-hippie poetry while wandering the deserts high on Tang crystals, and sound like a psychobilly singer from Pluto (the non-planet) while grunting out the tale of a hotrod rocket race between Major Tom and Barbarella. And for these experiences I would like to say: Thanks fellas! But yes, it’s now best for all parties if they return to their instrumental ways.
The release party is at Amsterdam’s Paradiso on November 6. Oh, and the coolest thing: this album is also available in vinyl. Now there’s a ‘concept’! And a big thanks to Unfold for indulging the above advertorial. Maybe next time they’ll actually get paid — yet another ‘concept’.
Check out the work of my cherished pal and ex-colleague Reed van Brunschot. She makes wacky videos. Not only did she once cast me (after years of being typecast as a newsman or peckerhead) as the green colour bar, but she also recently cast dog Billy (see above) for whom I act as secondary caregiver. Thanks Reed, for letting both a cad and a canine live out their dreams and stretch out their repetoire.
I just returned from a few days at the biggest book fair on the planet. I got lost in the mass that is Frankfurt’s Buchmesse with its 300,000 visitors and 7500 stands belonging to publishers, printers and distributors from 111 countries. As examples: there was one publisher from Haiti, two from Albania, 16 from Iran, 188 from China, etc, etc. With 3,315 stands, Germany easily won out in the property wars. Strangely, many of these stands seemed to reflect the country’s unaccountable passion for books about cats. However I ended up being most charmed by the more forgotten back corners of the fair where, for example, Manga comic publishers nestled up with Christian fundamentalist pamphleteers.
I was one of around 10,000 journalists wandering endless kilometres to follow a story or interview an author. And like me, probably half of these journalists had a personal project to pitch. My favourite came from a guy who was pitching his book by going cubicle to cubicle in the press room. His dream project was called ‘Sulphur is your Friend’ which argued that this smelly element was in fact heroic because of all the worthy work it does within the wine industry. Another highlight of Buchmesse arrived around five or six each evening as the drinks and food began to flow. Rumours would quickly spread as to where the best freebies could be scored. Naturally, the French and Italian bookstands were the most highly regarded. Sadly I missed the big Dutch publishers’ event when they feed the 5000 with bottomless barrels of raw herring. Apparently the whole hall stinks up and there are always leftovers. Actually I guess in the book trade these fish would be called ’remainders’.
Because I did not book a room a year ahead, I had to stay in the spa and gambling town of Wiesbaden at the end of the S-Bahn. On the way to the hotel from the station, I asked the cab driver about what I should know about this town. After inquiring where I came from, he answered laughing: ‘I think we can compete with Amsterdam here. We have public clubs but we also have very many private clubs — if you know what I mean.’ I did. However I decided to seek my happy ending at my hotel with a shower. Unfortunately my hotel turned out to be the German version of Fawlty Towers. Luckily my Manuel spoke excellent English and we had a good laugh as the mishaps piled up. There was a leak over the bed (not exactly the shower I had imagined) so I was put into another room. As it turned out, that room did not come equipped with a functioning toilet, shower or lock. So in the end I mentioned the war and got away with it. They gave me a free night and a fancy room the next day. And since freebies and slapstick always put me in a good mood, I didn’t even mind later when a lit cigarette butt bounced off my head when I was unwinding with a beer on their patio. In fact it was like the cherry on top.
Actually I’d like to stress how much I love Germany. And my respect goes beyond just their rich culinary tradition in reconstituted meat products (for some thoughts on currywurst, click HERE and HERE). I might even consider moving there if Canadians end up getting stigmatised under the Dutch right wing government that is now being formed with the backing of the populist politician and amateur filmmaker Geert Wilders. I keep getting the feeling that Germany has done a much better job at dealing with its past. There are certainly a lot of books on the subject – it’s a topic right up there with cats.
I just returned from a few days at the biggest book fair on the planet. I got lost in the mass that is Frankfurt’s 