Time flows…

~ nocsta ~ Leave a comment

The days of going over /or more than the 9 to 5’s are over! I have been working a lot lately, but at the workplace the situation has stabilized for the moment.

This month onwards I am having a little bit more time for myself. And with these extra time, i’m looking for ways to upgrade my life in anyway possible. I really really want to start something for my own, something that could bring in something extra. I am looking for something that would give me more freedom.

I want it but I can’t get my grasp on it.

(Thinking back, my innerself speaking)

Do I know what I am doing? Not at all, I had been following a road of ‘getting educated and you will eventually be succesful.’ I have wandered off that path some years ago and I am still wandering around to find the next road to follow.

Time is flowing ever so fast, as time goes on and on. I’m in my 30’s and I want it to be worthwhile. I have used and wasted most of my time in the 20’s, so I just want to get the most out of this decade before the-four-zero.

This me ranting, Don’t settle and Keep Experimenting!

Not Online Coz Still Tired Aight! 2018 ed.

~ nocsta ~ Leave a comment

Welcome back to the not so exciting life of the selfproclaimed professional sandwhichmaker. In recent years this dude here, worked his ass off and lived his magnificent ordinary life in the great capital of the lowlands. This dude here haven’t accomplished much but went from a zero to be just someone basic. He is nowadays a selfproclaimed professional sandwhichmaker..

Did he accomplished his dreams? Nope. Is he an handsome guy? Not really. Rich? Definitely not. Masochistic and not caring about himself? Ofcourse!

TBH, his body has become more fit than in the past, his social-life is on-and-off okay-ish, HIS love-life? still single A.F. xD

So what does this ‘wannabe’ want?

WORLD DOMINATION!!! Just Kidding.

I am not sure, but he is still continueing ‘Searching for his Life’s Purpose!’

Writing and opening up again.

~ nocsta ~ Leave a comment

This past year 2016 has gone by in a blink of an eye and It was just June 2016 when I was building my life in the bustling city of Amsterdam. These six-seven months has been fun and joyful, but I hardly remember what happened in those months. I remembered of doing my job and went on helping/working in the food area of the store. Within the past three months I just focused on work and it made it hard for me to reminisce all those joyous adventures of the past. Like forgetting the calming sceneries in Belgium,  the sunny days in Liverpool, the gastronomic meal with friends, Chillin’ time with the bro’s, poking balls, getting grubs and drinking with others.

The motto of this period has been ‘work hard and play harder’, it was fun for the most part. While working I learned a lot.. job wise, but I didn’t had time to relax and reflect on the path I was moving. The path that I chose to move to the other side of The Netherlands and start building a life that I would not regret. The path to build something of my own, something where my passion lies. The path of hardships and overcoming these hardships. Al the things what I had started was put on hold while I was tying myself to learning skills in the area of cooking, which is different from what I was striving to create/build. I worked and worked without stop thinking about work, it was never-ending. I stopped doing things which gave balance to my life; like creating interesting meals, working out to stay fit & healthy and reading as well as writing to develop my mind. I was pushing myself to not feel much or anything at all. (Idk if this is all true, but it can be seen as this.)

The other thing that I turned to was something more dangerous which diverts my focus on pursuing my passion. The one thing books are written about, songs are sang about, films are shown of. The abstract term called LOVE. I am kind of a romanticist, dreaming about loving scenarios and stuff like that, which are portrayed in movies. I was and am still searching/looking for love to make me full, but that is a hazardous way to think. I know it because even if you find it, it would not last and you will still feel empty. I had my share of days without work filling the void. And times of missing connection with the people whom I care about filling me up with the fleeting sensation of love. I couldn’t stand being alone while being struck by various emotions, feeling empty while needing love. The feeling of loneliness, while having lots of close ones who cares about you. (Yes, I’m gratefully blessed with these friends and family that I have.)

The One thing that I forgot the most is to Love myself first, finding lovers isn’t what I needed. It is something that will come to you, if you make yourself whole again by loving yourself first.
What I am trying to say is that I forgot to love myself and was looking for the wrong things to focus on. This problem has been on the back of my mind for some time and I didn’t make time for it to work through these things, it had only built up in my unconsciousness.

So what is going to happen now? I don’t know, but I try to live a more balanced life in which I start picking up the things that I left out during my period of ‘work hard and play harder.’

My journey is not over, it continues, Lets have fun and Keep on Experimenting!

I got my Laptop working again!!!

~ nocsta ~ Leave a comment

I have been living without using the computer for a few months now and it is hard. I was doing everything on the small smartphone. Because of this change in lifestyle, I changed as well. What has happened these 5-6 months? Well I have been living my daily life of work and social events. For about a half year it was like this cycle of ‘earning money, spending it.’ I like the status quo of having work and a social life, but still there is something inside of me that wants more or something fullfilling my hunger for growth and learning. Maybe I have said it before, I’m a lifelong learner. 

Wow, this is what wrote a few months ago to be precise 17 nov 2016. 

In the mean time, a lot have happened while I was working A lot! To be continued….. Soon! Have Fun and Keep Experimenting.

The Anago Donburi

Image ~ ~ nocsta ~ Leave a comment

This recipe has been in the concept box for over some weeks and I finaly made time to write it.

I had already told you about my adventureous sidetrack in last weeks post. Getting back on track, a Donburi or an easy ricebowl recipe. The recipe is somewhat taken from http://www.japanesecooking101.com/

Ingredients:

20 mL of Sake
1 filet of Anago or (Unagi vacuum sealed)
125 grams of Japanese rice (short grain sushi rice)
120mL Soy sauce
80 mL Mirin
60 grams of Sugar
40 mL of Sake

This recipe is divided into three pieces: The rice, the anago and the sauce.

I used a steamer to cook the white rice and if you do not have one, it is also possible to use a rice cooker or a regular pan. First I washed the rice grains and at the same time boiled some water in the steamer. When the steamer is ready(steaming), put the washed rice in a Ceramic bowl or a metal bowl and add enough water (1cup:1,2:cup rice:water ratio). Put the bowl with rice and water into the steamer and let it steam for 10-15 min. When ready turn off the heat and keep it warm in the steamer.

Preheat the oven on 220 degrees Celsius, meanwhile cut the anago in even pieces and sprinkle some sake over it. Next put it on an oven plate. When the oven is ready, insert the oven plate and let it bake for 20-30 min.

For the sauce add everything in a saucepan, the soy sauce, the mirin, the sugar and sake. Stir the sauce and let it warmup until boiling point, when it had boiled turn down the heat and let it simmer to reduce. It will thicken and gets concentrated.

When everything is ready, it is time to assemble. Firstly scoop the rice in a bowl, secondly add a spoon of sauce on the rice, thirdly add the Anago on the rice and finally pour enough sauce over the Anago and rice.

I hope you like it, have fun and Keep Experimenting!

Long time no ‘blog!’

~ nocsta ~ Leave a comment

It’s been a long time since I wrote about my journey. 

The time of this blog stood still, but my daily struggles continued. What happend since I last posted anything here; I took a detour and wandered off from my goals, my purpose of creating something of my own. I have lived a little, worked a lot and has been searching for some companionship. I have been single for about 6 years now and it is time again to find some love. However you do not find love, it finds you when you are in the least of expecting it. In these past few weeks I had fun with collegues, family and friends. But I felt something was missing, I thought it was love, but it is not that what was missing. I forgot my purpose, my goal and missed the resolve to get the things done to get there. 

What I’m trying to say is, that I need to focus more on my goals. The journey is harsh, however sidetracking still happens from time to time. I just need to catch it when I do and know why I am here without getting too much distracted.

For now I am single and can do whatever I want, so Keep Experimenting!

Tada, Pasta Carbonara

Image ~ ~ nocsta ~ Leave a comment

Just like the title says, Tada random recipe out of nowhere!

It is not literally true, but there haven’t been much on this blog recently. You could say that I am inactive, not realy proactively in creating new content. The thing is: There are just lots of things in my personal life that prevents me from creating new contents, but also very important in life. It has consequence on my lifestyle. And I like to get rid off some of it, but it might take some time.

In the mean time I’ll post when I have the time to do so.

Pasta Carbonara
Ingredients

150 grams of Pasta (macaroni)
100 grams of Pork belly meat or bacon
20 grams of Parsley
30 grams of Butter
125ml of Cream
30 grams of Grated Cheese
1 egg
Some Salt & PepperSome Oil

Get a pan and turn on the stove. Put enough water into the pan for the amount of pasta you are cooking. When the water in the pan starts to boil add pinch of salt, some oil and the pasta. Let the pasta cook and stir once in a while.

Next chop up the bacon into bits and parsley as well. Set the parsley aside for later on. Now start heat up a frying pan and bake the bacon in their own fat. It takes a while before the fatty bacon can be baked in it’s own fat, be patient. When it happens fry the bacon until it is crunchy on the outside. Take the bacon of the heat, pour out the oily fat and set the bacon aside.

Take a look at the pasta, when they are soft enough pour it out into a colander and catch a half cup of the pasta liquid for the next part.

The preparations are done and the next part is to create your pasta.

Take a frying pan, heat it up and melt the butter in the pan. Put it on low heat when starting to add the bacon into the pan, followed up by adding the egg, the cream, the pasta liquid and the pasta. Stir everything well and taste the flavour add Salt & Pepper, if it is too bland. When the sauce starts to bubble, add the chopped parsley and the grated cheese. Stir the pan a few times and remove it from the heat when it becomes one. Plate the Pasta and it’s ready.

Buon Appetito! 

It is easy to make, however some steps have to be done to make it great.

I hope you like it, have fun trying and Keep Experimenting!

Learning to Grow more…

~ nocsta ~ Leave a comment

These past 2-3 weeks has been troubling me with where I am at, at the moment. I haven’t progressed much in my journey to become an Owner/entrepreneur of my own coffee-and-dessert-shop. In the last few months I have been just surviving in a money-swindling city of the magnificent Amsterdam. I am still working part-time, the job isn’t terrible but I need to work more or have a 2nd job to feel secure. I like the people over there, colleagues and customers. What’s more is that I like to do useful work by helping the people at my job. If I can help them out, while learning new skills to do so, is something I enjoy the most.

‘I have always been like this, enjoying to learn and see growth in every aspect of my life. I enjoy it greatly like in games that have that aspect in it as in RPG’s games that I play. I am a big fan of these games and stories where you can learn and see growth in a character.’

So, back to my life. In the past three weeks I have been helping out at the food corner, because of shortage of personnel. Working there is very different than what I usually do, It is non-stop working without much of catching a break and it is fun (in a kinda masochistic way), I was learning a lot of new things and it was keeping me busy. I was trying to keeping it up with my co-workers and underhand leveling my multi-tasking skills. I am what you call a Jack-of-all-trades person and I enjoy to learn a lot as well as get better in the things that I do. Work has kept me busy and I kept my mind busy with a lot of stressful things, financial things, dream-related, health-related, relationship-related, future-related. When I had an off-day I would had these things on my mind clogging my creativity-wheel and inspiration-axis, preventing me to create/ or formulate new things.
The one thing that bothers me the most is, Should I stay at this job, while keep on living a fun, but without much purpose in life. Or stay true to my objective to create something, more troublesome but at the end a fulfilling life. I know I want the last, but I don’t want to give up on the things I have build up until now. Mostly the happy and fun relationships. I am kinda bad at keeping in touch with people and I know that peoples come and go in life.

It is a good thing that people goes when the times comes, because I happily see people grow in their progress to be unique. Growth wether it is in, personal, physical, intellectual, or any other areas are good things and I support it 100%. I just don’t like it when there is no substantial progress. It is mind-numbing to do things over and over again without a change of input. I know you can be called a specialist for doing the same thing over and over again, but it doesn’t suits me because I’m of the school of life-long learning and enjoy growth in every aspect in life. For example ‘starting a new’ is something I have done at various part of my life and it can be scary at sometimes, but eventually you will learn that it’s a good life-experience to have had. (see my past) I know I have chosen a hard path to walk on and it won’t be any less easy to continue forward, it only gets harder anyway.

About jobs, recently, I have been seeing lots of job-adds in my mail-and social-feeds. It is interesting to see them come by, but there is nothing worth looking at. It is all job-offers to work for something or someone and not something in the direction I am heading towards. I have it clear, that if I want to have the future that I want, I need to create it on my own. I am just having trouble to get started. Without much support, experience, money or skills to create something to be good at, is a crazy starting point.

Without further a do this is the answer, what I can think of for now: I just need to learn more and more, grow as much in different aspect of life to be able start things and eventually let it snowball to something great.

It is good to have these stuff’s off my chest. Don’t let Walls stop you, Keep Experimenting! (and Break through!)

Company 30th Anniversary and Rollende keuken 2016 Amsterdam

Image ~ ~ nocsta ~ Leave a comment

The Rollende Keuken 2016 Amsterdam, Westergasfabriek.

Last week in the Netherlands was very Summer-like with temperatures of 25+ degrees and all the Dutchies were enjoying these fine days to the fullest. What’s best was at the end of those sunny days was the start of the food festival ‘Rollende Keuken 2016’ in Amsterdam. The timing of it was just right for us to enjoy the ‘outdoor food fest.’ My sister and I made arrangements to go to the festival and enjoy an evening of streetfood. 

When we arrived at the Westerpark-area it was packed with, Expats, Young Professionals and Students. I think most of them are there for the drinks and alcohol in addition for the nice outdoorsy weather to chill out. Food probably isn’t their priority, but it was one of ours. We had walked around to find food that suited our likings and stumbled on a Hot Mama stand with Korean style burgers.

  

The left pic shows a steamed bun with lettuce, kimchi and pulled pork meat that was made on the grill. It was good, just a bit expensive but everything was expensive.

The burger on the right was a beef bulgogi burger with lettuce, cheddar, some sauce and a tomato infused red bun. It was good, but not too special for my taste.

  

Our hunger was still not stilled and we wanted some more food. Paying more for overpriced food was not something we wanted to do, so we went for food that we both liked as well as being reasonablely priced. 

Most Churros found in Amsterdam are very bad, fatty and too sweet. All the bad stuff in one dish. The stand at the fest was making them fresh and from organic ingredients. So we tried it, it was incomparable with other churrosstands in Amsterdam. The Churros felt light in fat and it was not that sweet like the others, ‘those churros were your teeth would fall out instantly by having one bite.’ It was the best Churros up till now that I had in Amsterdam.

After that we still wanted something and just went for dessert. You can not go wrong with ice cream from Metropolitan, a food-truck stand of the shop in the center of Amsterdam. The shop is a regular place for me and my housemates. Chocolate, ice-cream and various sweets a place for all sweet-tooth’s. We ended with that and got picked up, to go to her place for me to borrow her car for the weekend.

30th Company Anniversary at Van der Valk Schiphol A4.

Sunday was the day of the event, dress code: Ties and Dresses, a banquet and a day of anniversary enjoyment. I took the car and went to pick up my passengers to the event. The event was held at the Van der Valk Hotel near Schiphol at the highway A4. We arrived at the location and already saw flags hanging out with the company logo. As we were rolling over the parking lot we were seeing packs of Asians moving towards the entrance. Everyone, the guys wears nice suits, shiny shoes and a tie, while the ladies are all made up, wearing dresses and on high heels. It was different to see all my colleagues dressed at their best, very different from their regular wear.

Once entering the building we were welcomed by familiar faces, who would give us our name tags and brought us to our seats. The setup was big, because every branch in the Netherlands was their to celebrate the 30th year anniversary. The program of the day was mostly speeches, first and foremost a speech of the company founder, eventually every regional manager made their talk. Later in the afternoon a play was done by the founders about the founding of the company as well as a quiz-show with all the branches competing against each other.

At the turn of night was the start of the banquet, tbh. I expected better quality of food, but I give them the benefit of a doubt. The reason was that we were with over 600 people at the event. The dessert was the best I had that day, see the picture below. It isn’t an Asian celebration with out a prize rain of lottery prizes. Too bad I didn’t won anything, maybe next time.

All in all it was fun! What’s more to come? I don’t know, but I will Keep Experimenting!

Chocolate…. and Pan, cakes.

Image ~ ~ nocsta ~ Leave a comment

Last post was a dessert with Pancake and ice cream, in this case it was done with pancakes in Dutch style (flat, thin and as big as the plate.) It can also be seen as the French-style Crêpe.
This time instead of the regular Dutch variant, I tried out the American styled pancakes, which is smaller, thicker and a bit fluffier. Tbh, I have never made it this way and it is easily done with a bit of knowledge on cooking techniques.

Ingredients:

200 grams of Flour or Pancake-mix
20-30 grams of Chocolate powder
2 Egg Yolks
2 Egg Whites
400 mL of Milk
Some Butter or Oil for baking the pancakes
Some Honey or Maple Syrup or any Syrup for the pancakes. (Whatever you like)

First off separate the egg yolks from the egg whites into two bowls. Take some kitchen foil to cover the bowl with egg whites and refrigerate it for a bit. Take the bowl with the egg yolks and add the Flour and Chocolate powder with a sieve. After sieving the powders, add the milk to the bowl and use a whisker or a hand-mixer to create a pancake batter. Clean up the mixer of the residue and get the bowl of egg whites out of the fridge. Now use the clean whisker or hand-mixer to stiffen up the egg whites to stiff peak. Once the egg whites are stiff enough scoop the egg whites into the pancake batter with a spatula, carefully fold the egg whites into the mix. Once the egg whites are mixed in, it is time to bake the pancakes.

Heat up a frying pan, when heated add some butter or oil. Use a ladle to scoop one scoop of mix and gently pour it in the middle of the frying pan. Use the ladle to form the pancake into a round disk. Flip the pancake with a wooden spatula, after the lower-half part is done baking. After it is ready, plate the pancake and continue to bake a new one.

When you have a stack of pancakes, plate up a number of the pancakes and pour on some syrup on top. et Voila your pancake is done for consuming!

It is the first time I have done it this way and it went well because I have done and understand the techniques, that was used. Adding air to the batter/mix is the method to create fluffy American style pancakes.

Try it out, have fun doing it and Keep Experimenting!