Seafood Stew

9/16/2026

We spent our last day in the Netherlands heading north where the busy city gives way to green fields, waterways, tiny villages and scenery that looks as though someone painted it specifically for a travel brochure. Our itinerary included the towns of Marken, Edam, Volendam and Zaanse Schans. The goals: windmill villages, cheese factories, clog making demonstrations and lunch.😋😂

Our first stop was Zaanse Schans. If there was ever a place that made me feel like I wandered directly into a Dutch postcard, this was it. Majestic windmills lined the water and bright green wooden houses dotted the landscape. The air smelled like fresh bread, freshly cut wood and warm chocolate. And everywhere I looked, there was something worth photographing.🤳🏻😅

Our next stop was Edam. A lovely little town filled with canals, historic buildings, bridges and the kind of quiet streets that make you want to slow down and wander. And it's a whole town named for the delicious cheese that's made there - what could be better than that?🧀

The most memorable part of Edam was the massive rain storm that popped up unexpectedly and trapped us under a tree for shelter until it slowed enough for us to see our feet again.⛈️ I was annoyed for about thirty seconds before I realized that I was standing in one of the prettiest little towns in the Netherlands - soaking wet but experiencing it all with the love of my life.😂 Somehow, it became one of my favorite memories from Holland. The rain didn't ruin Edam. It become part of the story.

Marken is another must see town in North Holland. It's a former fishing village known for its charming wooden houses, narrow streets and traditional Dutch character. The houses are picture-perfect, the harbor is beautiful and the entire village seems to be operating on a completely different pace from the rest of the world. We wandered around taking pictures and trying to absorb it all and of course we did it all while taste testing the ice cream.🍦

After getting thoroughly baptized under a rain cloud in Edam, lunch seemed less like a meal and more like a necessity when we got to Volendam. There's something unmistakably peaceful about sitting at a seaside table along the North Sea while enjoying a delicious lunch and letting our shoes dry out a bit.

We both ordered the Volendam special for lunch - fish and chips. We ordered it 2 ways different ways though. One was fried cod and the other was grilled cod. Can you guess which one I ate?😆🤣🐠 This might have been my favorite meal of the entire trip. It was absolutely scrumptious. 😋

I have memories, souvenirs and pictures from our day spent in North Holland but the one thing I couldn't bring home was the fresh cod. Eating fresh fish from the North Sea while sitting at a seaside cafe in Holland was a amazing and I can't recreate that exact meal at home but I can make a seafood stew with cod from my grocery store.🙃 This is the next best thing to freshly caught cod from Holland.

Seafood Stew
1 pound cod filets
12 ounces extra large shrimp, peeled
1 pound sea scallops
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup white wine
2 Tablespoons brandy
2 Tablespoons lemon juice
1/4 teaspoon saffron
1/3 cup slivered almonds
1/2 cup fresh parsley, chopped
2 large tomatoes, halved horizontally
1/2 cup olive oil
1 onion, chopped fine
1 red bell pepper, chopped fine
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 teaspoon paprika
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
16 ounces clam juice
1/2 cup pitted Manzilla olives, chopped (optional)
1 pound mussels, scrubbed