The Rough Kitchen

It's Thursday morning. I should be at work and Rihanna Gaga should be at daycare. But things are different today. Rihanna Gaga has come down with the chicken-pox, which is highly contagious, so she has to stay home. So I've taken a day off to care for her. She is not, however, very ill. Indeed: she's motly as cheerful and lively as she normally is. So we do our normal Monday routine: first the petting farm - with the added bonus that unlike on Monday, the farm itself is open so that Rihanna Gaga can look at the rabbits and cavias - and then lunch somewhere along the coast.

Just like two weeks ago, we head for the Pier, because I want to take advantage of the fact that we can now visit some places that are closed on Mondays. We sit down at a place called The Rough Kitchen. It's interesting how nowadays everything seems to exist in a normal version and a hipster version. You've got, for instance, places like McDonalds and Burger King, but then you also have hipster bars where artisan burgers are served and terms like authentic, local biological and real accompany the menus. There's hipster French fries, hipster coffee and I would not be surprised to find out that there is such a thing as hipster candy.

Anyway. The foodcourt at the Pier is, as I wrote earlier on this blog, a very hipster place. And that is true for The Rough Kitchen, where we sit down, as well. At the petting farm, Rihanna Gaga was disappointed that the chickens were out of sight - their cages were covered in plastic and plastic lining kept the public at a distance. A sign announced that this was because some kind of bird flu was going around, so that all city farms had to keep their chickens indoors. I told Rihanna Gaga that the chickens were ill, but she still kept saying how sad she was she couldn't watch them (which slightly surprised me, as I never noticed she had a special interest in the chickens). Well, I told her, if you can't look at chickens, what about eating them? This cheered her up. Yes, she'd very much like to eat some chicken. I like how uncomplicated she is about these kind of things. Animals are cute, but she doesn't mind eating them either. At The Rough Kitchen, I tell her she can eat chicken, but also pig as that's on the menu as well. She choses pig, so I order the pulled pork sandwich. For myself, I add a Brussels craft beer - craft beer with a craft sandwich - and for Rihanna Gaga an apple juice, which, unfortunately, is just plain old minute maid instead of some hipster craft variety. Together, that comes for the reasonable price of €14,35.

The Rough Kitchen (it's motto reads 'Eat meat, be happy')
has lots of wood lying around, with chairs and tables that look - as do many chairs and tables at the Pier - like they were taken from a school and painted black and grey. I've noticed that this is more often the case at hipster places in the Netherlands. Why school furniture is a hipster thing, I don't know. Maybe because it has a sense of recycling to it? I remember that squats in the nineties also often had old school furniture in them and much of the hipster aesthetic has always struck me as a posher, more studied version of the squater style.

Rihanna Gaga wants to talk to her dinosaur - meaning, I have to provide a voice for what is, rightn now, her favourite pluche toy. She mainly talks with the dinosaur about what is going on around her right now. A bulldozer creating sand dunes on the beach, the fact that there is pig to eat coming our way, that she is drinking apple juice. The dinosaur - which she has named Stampo - is welcome to have a sip of juice himself. He is also much looking forward to eating pork together with us.

Taking care of the The Rough Kitchen is a young man with a flimsy moustache and a sweater saying 'Billionaire Boys Club'. He brings us our sandwich without any cutlery, so I get some from the counter myself: wooden knives and forks for single use. Rihanna Gaga loves the pork and I must say: it tastes delicious, and that is coming from someone who is really not fond of pork at all. The sandwich is on the small side, but the quality of what's on it justifies the €6,50 it costs (although barely so, really, because a sandwich of that price should be filling enough to be a lunch and this one certainly is not). Rihanna Gaga asks if she can sit on my lap while eating the sandwich together with me. Even though she's doing fine, being ill does take its toll, of course. She clearly feels somewhat lost, the swellings are itchy and her face has red spots all over. She cuddles up to me and we finish the sandwich together.

When we're done, she clasps her arms around my chest end rests her head on my shoulder, humming while I rock her. She's becoming livelier again, and after we've cuddled for a while, she starts playing with her doll and her dinosaur, knocking over my beer in her enthusiasm. 'Sorry', she says, and I tell her it's alright. I wipe the table with some paper napkins and after I've finished what's left of my beer, we go for another stroll over the Pier.