Please note that since writing this blog post, Cafe Louter has closed down
To offer you a little insight into the way the Amsterdam Foodie’s brain works, I’m sitting here trying to think of an angle for today’s restaurant review. As you’ve probably noticed, I rarely dive straight in with ‘the restaurant was great/rubbish/slow/fashionable’. My brother thinks this is a weakness; I think it’s why you read it. But anyway.
So I’m sitting here considering the weather (it’s already 26 degrees in my living room, even though all the blinds are drawn), the World Cup (England got nailed by the Germans yesterday, and the Dutch are playing this afternoon), the tennis (Wimbledon is on)… but all these seem too obvious. Then there’s the situational stuff: as in, what I was actually doing on the night I went to the restaurant in question (Café Louter, in this case). It was spontaneous after-work drinking, which led to cocktails, which led to a horrific hangover the next day. All of which you’ve heard before – too many times.
Maybe I just don’t have enough head space to find an angle today. My schedule is reaching a level of ridiculousness that means I just had to email back my editor at the NYT and tell him I couldn’t write the article I’d pitched to him last week because my head was in danger of exploding. I have a cook book to finish, translate into Dutch, photograph and design (admittedly, I won’t be doing all of those things myself). I have two Hidden Kitchen events in the next month (having just cooked for the June edition last night). I have a cookery student arriving in my kitchen in approximately five hours. And that’s just the first half of the to-do list of the job I am – in theory – doing only one day a week. Still, it’s a luxury problem, being busy, I always think.
