A Social Breakfast Gathering: Dutch Pancakes, Russian Cheesecake, and Turkish Delights!

Breakfast time!

When Mikhail, a Russian guy I met at Folkart Vega when going to the gym with the guys was adopted by our little Folkart Vega family, we started hanging out quite frequently. His wife, Galina, happens to be a good chef, and they proposed to organize a 'small' breakfast gathering with the crew. The idea was that everybody would make something and bring it to the table.

I love this idea so much, as it will make up for great memories that I will and can look happily back to. Though I had a challenge here: not able to do proper groceries here (not comfortable enough yet to get my ass to the grocery store alone), and I rarely cook on electric stoves.

But! Luckily for us Dutch guys, we have some simple recipes that would make up to be a good addition to breakfast. I'm of course talking about Dutch Pancakes! With the concept in the back of my head, I figured there would be way too much food on the table if everybody was gonna bring food. I mean, with the amount of people it was no surprise this gathering turned out to be a full on feast. So, I decided to make mini Dutch pancakes, which turned out perfect.

It was great. We gathered around 9:00 AM, so I had to make sure the timing of the pancakes was good, to deliver them still somewhat warm.

_{From left to right: Vedat, Mikhail, Galina, Sude, Bartu}

Behold! My pancakes! I topped the first one off with powdered sugar, because "stroop" is not available here in Turkey. It also tastes good with lemon, but exsqueeze me, it would just make a big mess. I must say, compared to what the others have brought, I felt like a real Dutchman: cheap. But I hope my friends will understand that I'm just a tourist and am not equipped with comfort in an unknown kitchen + where the hell I can get the proper things for Dutch breakfast?

Galina, Mikhail's wife made delicious chocolate-filled croissants, a typical Russian cheesecake, and brought watermelon. Bartu and Sude made a carrot cake, unfortunately for me, it contained walnuts, but from the munching around me, I have to believe it was good. They also brought Sigara böreği which was very nice too. Vedat made something with Sucuk in it (which was very nice), the women he's gonna introduce this to are gonna be blessed haha. Emre brought Börek and something else I can't remember. Jordan -also- had the greatest idea of making pancakes too, so we had to battle it out :P. Yasin and his wife came a little bit later and brought Peynirli poğaça, which was also pretty nice to try.

So, I feel like a blessed man, who got to try both traditional Russian and Turkish breakfast in one go. I also felt proud to be able to share some of the Dutch kitchen of course.

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Turning it into a real memory

One thing I always regret when coming home is not taking photographs of the people that I meet. I was always so focused on taking the 'perfect' travel shot, that I barely took time to photograph the things that also are important: celebrating life itself. Bringing my camera to gatherings like these is in a way; me getting out of my comfort zone. Why? Because I usually think that people 'mind' getting their pictures taken. Nonetheless, I feel like having such photographs will always make us think of this moment. Where we talk, have fun, share, and eat together.

So here are the photographs :), taken with my Sony A7RII, and Canon f/4.0 17-40mm lens.

What did you have for breakfast?

Overall, the gathering was a success! I had so much food, the moment I came back home, I took a 1-hour nap right after my online meeting with Sabrina (some of you have met her at Web3 Berlin) where I talked about Hive and how she could implement it in her life as a Blockchain Recruiter.

What did you guys have for breakfast?

Cheers,
Ruben