Mooses´s Weekend Soup Recipe: Salmon & Chives "Fumé"

App. 150 gr of Cold-Smoked Salmon - 200 gr is not too much
(trims do well, no point using nice filets, but of course you may)
2-3 Shallot Onions
Good handful of fresh Chives
(don´t scrooge - fresh and quite a lot)
2-3 dl of fresh, thick Double Dream
Some Fish Stock
Some Butter
Freshly ground White Pepper
Powdered Cayenne Pepper
2 bottles of chilled, nice, dry White Wine

Open the wine, pour a glass for yourself and enjoy it for a while. Cooking is all about having fun, is it not? Before you´re at half a bottle, chop onions and chives finely, and cut the salmon into tiny, even sized pieces.

Melt the butter in a kettle, add onions and simmer on low heat until translucent and soft. Do not burn but let colour slightly. Add the salmon, stir everything together, add some white wine (half a glass or so) and all the cream right away. While stirring, let become to boil and add the chopped chives (save some for serving). Bring again to boil and if needed, add some fish stock until thickness is according to your liking. Spice up gently with white pepper and a pinch of cayenne. When the soup is boiling hot again, it´s ready - it does NOT require boiling.

Finish the first bottle of wine while setting up the table. Serve the soup, garnished with the rest of the chopped chives. And goes without saying, accompanied with the second bottle of wine.

Serves 6 but does not allow another serving then. And folks will want it. So serves actually only 3-4.

Mooses says: Three main ingredients of French Kitchen are: Butter, butter and butter.

Colloquial Politeness vs. The Old School

Dutch is a Living Language and develops interesting twists to match the needs of contemporary communication. Ease of use and swiftness are important features to keep the kids learning and using the opportunities of Dutch mother tongue and not fall into the easy trap of Amsterdam street dialect blending any common word of any language together into a horrifying mess. It is OK to spell "Cadeau" as "Kado" to follow the pronunciation. Why go "weekeinde", "weekend" is just fine. And so is officially also the Surinam Dutch with its utter efficiency and lack of confusing polite forms. No need for "would you", "may I" or "please", tell what you want in an easy way - to the point, "give me!"

Iedereen houw van Duku.

So based on Van Dale, "Bitch, geef mij Duku!" should do the trick and translates "My dear Girlfriend, may I have some money, please?" So why should somebody English then get upset if a South African call agent asks (to his/her best polite ability) "Gimme your serial number, Maaan!" meaning simply "Sir, may I have the serial number of your unit, please?" Simply not efficient and sheer waste of time, eh?

Finnish for Foreigners - just teeny-weeny little bit...

Speaking polite, correct Finnish is very difficult. In Finland, Lenita Airisto is still - among the TV old-timer news readers - one of the very few gifted who can do it without sounding ridiculous.

<--- Lenita, knows the difference between "mämmistyisitkö" and "mämmistyisittekö".

With the 30.000 or so ways to modify a single verb, all those post and pre-positions, fancy way of stating the time plus the infamous conditional makes Finnish a true brain-twister. Try using the singular variant of everything else but plural form of the person in a same sentence - without an error while having a civilized conversation. Nobody but Lenita actually even dares to try it anymore.

In Finnish the above request for a serial number would be: "No anna se sarjanumero nyt ja vähän äkkiä, senkin Äijänkäppänä!"


Now Opossums, analyze the following sentence grammatically:

"Lämmittäisittekö mämmimme mämminlämmittimellänne?"

Answer using the comment option below, include English translation and phonetic pronunciation marks as well. Correct answer wins a box of Mämmi, Finnish Easter delicacy.

Mooses says: Finnish = Words made in Heaven, Grammar made in Hell!

Paradise, no, Saturday Lost.

This is not America, la la la la la la... Falcon and Snowman. Cold War. David Bowie. US presidential pre-election. My private Idaho. Dreaming in Colours. Bitter Moon. Global Warming. Slavic Europeans. Windaloo. But the tests yesterday with hygienic hand wash gels... have to dissapoint you, my Opossums, had no time to test the gel at the office. Please test it yourself and report back!

Visited my personal (antroposofic) doctor the other morning. All the RACI at the office had given me a rash which did not self-heal and needed some anti-fungal treatment. 2 weeks, 2 tablets a day and likely not having any red spots anymore. Mooses goes naked! Medication is not sensitive to sunlight or alcohol, so having my fungus tablets and rushing for a drink at closest solarium...

<--- A RACI-free Smurf Is there a cure for RACI?

Oh, almost forgot The Smurfs

Albert Heijn (local supermarket chain famous for bad book-keeping) has bought 30 million (thirty million) little plastic figurines picturing the famous Smurfs. Holland goes crazy! For every 15 Euro's you get a FREE Smurf!

Buy and get for free?
 

The more you buy at AH, the more Smurfs you get! Fair? People with kids get stressed. Schools ban Smurf-trading and mothers are forced to it at the office. Public demands more Smurfs! National Guard is called in to contain the Mass Demonstrations to get Gargamel's Cat figures un-wrapped for easier collecting! AH gets even more publicity because of it. For Free!

Why is this kind of advertising allowed in NL when it is banned in the Nordics? So much easier to go shopping with kids there. "Free" (gratis) actually means that you do not need to pay - or buy to get for "free". There's a trick in it ... got it?

Sweetie got the wrong Smurf --->

Holland is Smurfed, Big Time!

Whoever sold the Smurf idea to Albert Heijn deserves a medal! Mooses hails you and your team! Just by riding on an old, sweet Belgian cartoon character Les Schtroumpfs (from 1958), you made it! People have not changed: everybody likes cute characters behaving like humans but not being human. And just at this time, two generations who like Smurfs co-exist. Bloody Clever! Mooses collects Smurfs, too, and any kind is welcome! The more the merrier! Mooses gets them from friends who get them for free (and almost lost the latest delivery among the week-end trashes, but no, found them back!)

Mooses says: Give me your Smurf!

Happy Birthday to Me!

Encouraged by the Hand Wash Bulletin the other day, Mooses decided to give it a try. During afternoon coffee break time I entered the Gents at the office with The Number 1 in mind. After the relieving operation, according to the famous bulletin it is time to wash your hands.

Watering my hands, squeezing some soap from the handy wall mounted dispenser on them and starting the processing phase; for 20 seconds... Safety first and timing is essential - singing "Happy Birthday" twice and scrubbing like a Maniac!

<--- Mooses scrubbing vigorously

If Mooses had good singing voice, there would already be a Christmas Album with Kiri te Kanawa: "Joyous Christmas Moments with Mooses and an Aboriginal". But no, Mooses was not blessed with that, but with countless other admirable and rare skills.


*scrub, scrub* "Happy Birthday to Me, *scrub* Happy Birthday to Me, Happy Birthday Dear Myself, *scrub, scrub* Happy Birthday to Me! *scrub, scrub, scrub - deep breath* Happy Birthday to Me, Happy Birthday to Me, *scrub* Happy Birthday Dear Mooses, Happy Birthday to Me!" *final scrub*

And so true, my hands turned out incredibly clean. Wonderful! Even if I forgot to use the paper towel, which I used to dry my operating-theater-qualified hands, to close the faucet and open the door out, I felt like Million Dollars! (not much to brag about in Euro's nowadays.)

Tad of hygienic moisturizer with mild self-tanning effect would seal the success nicely. But why did I get all those looks?

"Happy Birthday to me???" --->

Maybe I should have used the version from movie Madagascar ending: "... You look like a Monkey, and you smell like one, too!"


This must be explored further: it is Friday tomorrow, so will bring some germicidal hand wash gel and a timer to the office and test which gives better results: using a timer - or singing 1,5 times "Happy Birthday".

Mooses says: Sing if you're glad to be Gay! (Tom Robinson, 1978)