Keepin' the Nostalgia Alive

Continuing my tribute to my mom and her family, I decided to try out my hand at some Dutch cuisine.

About a year ago (could've been longer, actually), I purchased this spice/herb mix from the House of Spice in Kensington called Bahmi Goreng (directly translated, this means "fried noodles"). I'd seen the package before- in my mom's kitchen cupboard! My gram and my mom (and probably both of my aunts) make this dish, and just the thought of it makes my mouth water. It's a great Carribean/Dutch/Indonesian noodle dish with pork, onions, garlic, ginger, soy sauce, etc. So good!

The only problem with the spice mix? The cooking instructions were written in Dutch. I tried an online translator, but typing out those extremely long Dutch words with too many vowels took so long- and the translation was pretty confusing.

Fast forward to a couple weeks ago. There's a new employee here in eBay named Michelle, who is VERY Dutch (you just have to look at her white blond hair and her rosy cheeks!) I asked her if she spoke the language, and she said that yes, she could understand it. I thought of the Bahmi spice mix, and asked her if she could translate the package for me. Well, she did me one better- she took it home and had her mom translate it, who also wrote down her own Bahmi recipe for me. On Sunday, I finally got around the making it. It was SO easy. I couldn't believe it.

And although I didn't follow either recipe exactly, it ended up tasting wonderful. The spices brought back memories of my grandparent's old place in Lambeth (near London, ON), of family gatherings, of other great dishes my gram makes (her trifle is to DIE for), of my dear dear grandpa, and of the happier times with my mom. I'll have to go and buy more of this Bahmi Goreng spice mix stuff- I wonder if I can get it anywhere else?

Labels: cooking, dutch, family, mom

posted by Unknown @ 1:38 p.m.