Hoi, ik ben Eszter
From debugger to dough
I'm a software developer who moved to the Netherlands and thought learning Dutch would be easy. It was not.
So I did what any reasonable person would do: I started learning it through baking bread instead of flashcards.
This is a place for people like me — expats, internationals, and curious locals — who want to cook, bake, and pick up a little Dutch along the way. No perfect grammar here. No polished cooking-show moves either. Just real recipes, real mistakes, and the occasional flour explosion, narrated in my very-much-still-improving Dutch.
Why cooking + Dutch?
There are over five million expats and internationals living in the Netherlands, many quietly (or loudly) struggling with the language. Cooking is one of the few places where mistakes are delicious instead of embarrassing — so it turns out to be the perfect classroom.
What you'll find here
- Simple, cozy recipes — the kind you'd find in a countryside kitchen, not a Michelin one
- A new Dutch word or phrase with every dish
- The honest, occasionally chaotic story of someone building a food life from scratch
- A little vintage warmth in every post — think grandma's kitchen, not a sterile studio
A bit more about me
Before flour and dough, I spent my days writing code. I traded debugging for dough-proofing, and while I haven't fully left my developer brain behind (this website is proof), I've found something cooking gives me that code never did: a way to slow down, mess up loudly, and still end up with something good to eat.
Whether you're here to learn Dutch, pick up a new recipe, or just enjoy watching someone bumble through a language while baking bananenbrood, welcome. Pull up a chair — dinner's almost ready, and so is the Dutch lesson.
Tot ziens (see you soon),
Eszter