All posts filed under: The Squid Stories Address

Tried & enjoyed: Restaurant Meliefste in Zeeland NL

Published by Kate Stockman

Restaurant Me Liefste* has been on my wish list for quite a while. The restaurant just celebrated it’s first anniversary and when looking for an inspirational, quiet location for our annual strategy meeting at Stockmanverstraete, we knew that Me Liefste was thé ideal spot. *Meliefste means ‘my love’ in Dutch and once you hear the name you never forget it because it’s so romantic and pure. For the moment it is not difficult to book a table. Yet…. The star struck foodie army has not discovered this wonderful food paradise. Yet… But hurry, it’s a question of months until Meliefste will be much harder to get. The fact that the restaurant of Dutch chef Thijs Meliefste and his lovely wife Anuschka is totally hidden in the backyard of ‘Het Veerse Meer’ in Zeeland is also one of the reasons only dedicated foodlovers find the way to the marina of Wolphaartsdijk. Last week, we made the trip. Only one hour drive from Ghent my home town, so that was fine. The road to Wolphaartsdijk is so …

Tried & enjoyed: Ottolenghi Nopi.

Published by Kate Stockman

The first time I tasted Yotam Ottolenghi’s food was strangely enough during a fashion shoot in 2014. We rented a beautiful bohemian house in Holland near Amsterdam and we were told that ‘the lady of da house’ was going to serve lunch during our work. It was in her kitchen, attracted by the fresh ingredients she was using, where I saw this rather unusual cookbook Jerusalem by chef & entrepreneur Yotam Ottolenghi. I could not help it, but I needed to take some instant images, just to try out at home someday and to write an article about it. That time I didn’t, and today, I feel I own him a kind of tribute on The Squid Stores pages. Who is this guy, who could do magic with vegetables and make them look so appetizing the word food porn was invented only for his recipes? Well, Yotam Ottolenghi was born in Jerusalem (Jerusalem is by the way also the name of his third cook book about the food of his home town and the rich …

Holy breakfast! Meet the “All-day Breakfastarians”

Published by Kate Stockman

At StockmanVerstraete we spotted this trend all ready a while ago: breakfast, as one of the main eating moment of the day, is getting more and more important in people’s life. People always loved breakfast, they sure do. But that’s not what this trend is all about. The game changer here is the fact that people start asking to have breakfast all day long and smart inspired entrepreneurs respond to that demand. Last year I went to New York on a food safari with a client, and I had breakfast at the fab bar Five Leaves in Brooklyn, a tip from my friend Niels, living in the neighbourhood. All the hippest breakfast dishes of the moment were served here and it was clear that something was going on. For example I had thick artisan sourdough bread toast, with vegetables and a poached egg and another toast with an entire Asian noodle dish dressed on top of it. We also had beautiful scrambled eggs with some parmesan cheese and truffle and the obligatory pancakes with maple syrup. …

Banksy’s Dismaland, a fabulous stunt art show. PART 2.

Published by Kate Stockman

Many pieces are sharp critiques on modern amusement. Banksy’s whale jumping trough a ring in a toilet was inspired by Sea World that was ripped apart by the 2013 documentary “Blackfish.” Or Cinderella’s crashed carnage inside her grungy dark castle, surrounded by flashing paparazzi with motorbikes. When you leave the ‘scene’, you can buy your own souvenir photograph for 5 pound. (“Terribly expensive”, as the staff comments without asking.) Another central spot is the Jeffrey Archer Memorial Fire Pit where visitors can warm themselves around a daily burning of the local lord’s books. There is Ben Long’s sculpture of a horse constructed from scaffolding (a piece that was shown in the V&A). I loved Banksy’s model boat pond with overly crowded boats packed with asylum seekers you can operate yourself from the side with a (paying) remote controller. You never know if you will stair a police boat or the refugee boat and that’s the point. Some dead bodies floating in the water could not be more pain full, with little refugee Aylan in mind, …