Sunday, May 8, 2016

Wine and Food of the Giro 2016 Stage 3: Kitter, Batavia Arrack and Old Amsterdam

It is like we have been here before. This time, 190 kilometers from Nijmegen to Arnhem.


The stage: Our last day in the Netherlands and once again we have a breakaway. It also looks like the Giro social media team has added a watch.



Our first abandonment in the race: Peraud, after a crash.

Seventy one kilometers to go and the gap was at 4:30. Echelons and splits in the peloton. With sixty kilometers to go the break had 2:45 over the main peloton and 3:20 over the trailing group. Ahead, our new King of the Mountains will be Tjallingi. Inside forty kilometers to go and the gap was just under two minutes. 

Fuzzy picture from Twitter, but pink cows:






Crash while Eurosport is in commerical and lots of riders were caught up. Alone up front van Zyl. Five kilometers to go and he still had about thirty seconds. Three kilometers and eighteen seconds. Alas. Once again, Kittle making it look very, very easy. He takes the stage win and also the pink jersey.

Stage and Pink: Marcel Kittel



The wine: Batavia Arrack van Oosten

"A product of Indonesia and the Netherlands."

Getting a little creative here. Batavia Arrack is a Javanese/Dutch distilled spirit made from sugarcane and fermented red rice. The spirit, which was traded by the Dutch East India Company, was especially popular in the heyday of the "Punch"--between the late 17th and 19th centuries. A lot more here.

What to do with it? It appears that I should be making a large bowl of punch. Other suggestions here.



Food: Old Amsterdam Cheese. Aged for 18 months and coated in black wax, this pasteurized cow's milk cheese is firm, dark yellow in color, and has a robust nutty flavor with a lingering sweet finish. My favorite of the three Dutch cheeses.

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