My Dutch publisher took me to a traditional Dutch restaurant, and all they gave me was this stick to chew on.

Just kidding :). There was a lot of food, and it was delicious. (Though you may find this post gross if you’re a vegetarian.)

Bread with butter and a lard type spread that was YUMMY (above). A mix of little starters, including a white radish soup, marinated pumpkin, truffle potatoes, black pudding, and my favorite, little sugar bread sandwiches with duck liver terrine and apple syrup (below).

Here is my bowl made of potato, with beets and sausages inside. There was also a DELICIOUS rabbit stew I forgot to take a picture of.

And finally they brought the stick! It came with the crème brûlée, which had a touch of licorice to its taste (amazing), and a cone-shaped serving of strange gray licorice ice cream (very nice). The stick is called  zoethout — sweet root — and it is, in fact, for chewing. It was very tasty!

My Dutch schedule is hardcore and I may not have time for taking pictures, so I wanted to get this blog in before the hard stuff begins. We ate this gorgeous dinner at Restaurant Greetje, Peperstraat 23 in Amsterdam. Yummy.