Market size? Tariffs? Filet!

How to state this . . .

I've wondered why some small appliances are much cheaper than the U.S. equivalent (boom boxes, hair dryers, coffee makers and vacuum cleaners, for example), and some are much pricier (food blenders, electric tooth brushes). I've given up wondering, but it would be interesting to know why. I have to say that the quality of these small devices is very high. My Braun coffee maker here is turbo-charged, compared to the *very* same machine that I had in the U.S. Maybe freedom from the U.S. tariffs enables it to surge here. With the exception of the Braun coffee maker, I've bought Philips things, and they're excellent.

Today is election day in Holland. I confess that I know nothing about it, other than that there are 20 political parties. When I lived here before, there were 23! People debate the issues endlessly. Debate and discussion are key aspects of life here. What I do find odd is that many of the parties are specifically linked to religious elements. In such a secular country(under 30% have any religious belief; even fewer attend any service), this seems odd, but I'm told that the religious orientation is gradually disappearing.

I've just received my first newspaper of a new subscription to one of the main dailies, in an effort to improve my reading comprehension and overall awareness of what's going on here. As well as the political parties and some of the t.v. channels, the newspapers also have religious orientations. I opted for "De Volkskrant", or "The People's Paper". This is not what it may seem. The paper is mainstream, well written and well regarded. In addition, my former landlady's son-in-law writes a food column for it on Saturdays, which I wanted to follow (he's a fine cook and introduced me last April to the previously noted, superb "Tasty Toms" tomatoes). Other choices are the "The Word" (Catholic, I think), "Faith" (I heard this called "a good Christian paper" and ran the other way, but it is nicely written), the "Telegraph", which isn't bad but is more tabloidal than it was when I lived here in the 70s and the NRC Handelsblad, which is most like the Wall Street Journal, but I find it a bit too dense for me at this point.

Thinking of good food (rarely far from my thoughts), my wonderful neighbor, Dona, who flies for KLM, just got back from Sao Paolo, Brazil, with 15 kilos of filet mignon! "And Customs?", I asked her. "Well, as crew, we have our own, but when we went through, they weren't there", she said. I was invited last night to enjoy some of it, and what a taste! Unlike American filet, which has been tasteless the last few times I've had it, it was superb. She just sauted it in butter, with pepper, as the French do. As I discovered about ten years ago while on a road trip in France, one *does* think better when one is extremely well fed.

So, off to make a late lunch and then back to the books.

Sometime, I'll write about my little street and the grand houses that back onto it. The house on the end has what looks like a trampoline suspended from the ceiling of one bedroom. I've been tempted to ring the bell and inquire, but don't have the nerve. All that I really know about my street is that my house (and the others, as far as I can tell) was built in 1620 as housing for the needy of Leiden. In addition to having the first major university of the country, Leiden was a textile center, and my street's houses were lived in by weavers in the 19th century, so not a fashionable area, but it is now. Digging up history here can be quite a treasure hunt. I want to learn more of Leiden.

Right: lunch!