Chapter 27: An American in Amersfoort

What a joyous festival! I expected a phenomenal grilling experience at the the fourth annual WeberFandag (Dutch for “Weber Fan Day”), but nothing approaching the magnitude of the actual event held in Amersfoort, the Netherlands. For years, I tracked on social media how large the Fandag had grown, which really motivated me to attend. I did, however, have some questions. Would I be welcomed? Would language differences prove a barrier? After all, I would be an outsider. This chiefly outdoor affair, sponsored by the Weber Original Store and Grill Academy there, brings together Dutch grillers into their showroom, the Academy, the facing street renamed Weber Street for the day, and the adjoining park for an all-afternoon event.

WeberFandag is the brainchild of Yorick Verbeek, store manager since its founding in 2017, and Abraham “Bram” van de Vuurst, their head grill master. During the span of one year, the Grill Academy offers over fifty barbecue courses in its spacious indoor and outdoor facility. Their greatest attendance derives from its basic and American BBQ courses.

The store location seems ideal for a WeberFandag celebration. The Netherlands are centrally located in Europe, within a few hours of driving or by railway from Brussels, Paris, Budapest, Rome, and London, although its attraction stems exclusively within the Netherlands. Nestled exactly in the center of the country, this Weber Original Store and Grill Academy is one of the premier Weber presences in Europe, if not the world, and actively posts on social platforms. The store also has an enthusiastic fan base from which to launch its brilliantly simple plan for WeberFandag: Invite top grillers and influencers across Holland to cook their favorite recipes on site, for which the store underwrites the food costs. By adding about forty zealous employees and volunteers, Verbeek assures the day will run smoothly, especially since he’s enlisted the fiery first Weber grill master of Holland, Reitse Spanninga, to emcee the five-hour event. Spanninga owned his own restaurant in the Netherlands for thirty years, and he is an authority here for hospitality, food and drink, cooking, and barbecue. Plus, he is just so fun to be around!

We arrived one day early in Amersfoort, having traveled by train from Amsterdam Centraal (train) Station. Although Amsterdam is an international city with ubiquitous English signage, Margie and I found that once we passed through the turnstiles of the station, we faced signs only in Dutch. That shouldn’t have been a barrier, because I knew enough of the geography of the Netherlands to recognize the major cities. However, the nonstop destination listed on the train tickets we purchased didn’t match any schedule on the overhead electronic boards; the signs on the train only indicated where the train originated, not its destination.

After asking at an information booth and confirming with strangers in line, I still looked for further confirmation, asking a teen rider in the next row if we were on the right train. She removed her earPods and smiled. “Oh, yes,” she said, in hesitant English. “But I never take the train. They’re so unreliable!”

I laughed nervously while pulling out my iPhone to discover I could track our railway progress on Apple Maps. Yes, we were traveling in the right direction! After viewing the countryside for a few stops, we arrived in Amersfoort within forty-five minutes and then walked with our bulky suitcases and backpacks to the hotel three blocks away.

The plan was to meet at the store  at 4:30, the Friday evening before the event, and then to have dinner at what Yorick called “our neighbor’s,” a Michelin Star steakhouse, Rauw [“Raw”] located next to the store and within the same building. Yorick graciously offered to have a taxi pick us up so that we could browse the store casually and take photographs before the event or, as Yorick said, “before we have chaos.” When the taxi picked us up promptly and drove up to the front door, even the driver was impressed. “Wow!” he said when he saw the large kettle outside.

The building reminded me of a large greenhouse with a standard-sized door cutout. Inside, various grills appeared in rows, with each platform displaying a grill within a circle, that guided customers around the various sections of the store, including charcoal accessories, rotisseries, fuel, apparel, and a “living room” area. Makeshift tables temporarily lined many of the rows, filled with merchandise, supplies, and paper instructions all contained within large milk crates and ready for transporting outside for the festival. Within the first few steps on the property, Yorick greeted us with a strong embrace.

“Gary! We are honored to have you here!” he said, grinning broadly.

“The honor is all ours,” I replied, really humbled at his welcome. Any apprehension I felt quickly vanquished. I was now an insider.

Bram soon followed Yorick’s lead, greeting us merrily, along with sales associate Rob Snell, the first employee of the store I connected with several years ago. Immediately, drinks were in all our hands, and we were posing for photographs. I love this European custom in the Original Stores! Since the store was still open and several customers needed help, I said I just wanted to wander throughout the store and peek my head around the corners and shelves to see what goodies lay in wait. We could talk later.

My inner geek quickly surfacing, I spotted the apparel section and some beautifully embroidered shirts that I had never seen online or in photographs. European sizing tend to run one category smaller than the US’s, and so I would take an XL rather than a L in the Euro pattern. There were a range of hoodies and sweaters and shirts, all embroidered, and I nabbed the only XL embroidered tee.

Yorick wandered over to me. I explained this is the first time I had seen this apparel. “We’re not a clothing shop,” he said, “so we don’t offer them online where we’d have to exchange for wrong sizes, but we’re happy to do so in the store.” I walked to the long front register to pay for it, but he pushed me away, indicating that there would be no charge. I returned to Margie in the living room area with Weber-themed embroidered pillows and vintage Weber advertisements on the wall.

“I’m not surprised,” she said. “He’s not going to let you pay for anything, so limit what you take.” Hmmm. I thought Margie may have had a controlling interest in restraining my purchases! Later, I tried to sneak a Weber-branded power bank for laptops and phones past Yorick; I had found another register to check out, but he caught me again and waved me away. Obviously, my hosts were incredibly generous.

Bram gave me a quick tour of the Grill Academy, showing me the large prep area for group work and an outside annex where all the working grills, with guests enrolled in the courses, prepare the meals for the courses. Bram would be using the Grill Academy for a competition he designed for the Fandag participants.

When the store closed at 6 pm, Yorick grabbed a few beers and a bottle of white wine from the refrigerator and joined us in the living room. He explained the store origins, how the store was originally part of a strategic plan to plant Weber Original Stores across Europe. Each store needed considerable investment for the start-up. Unfortunately, the initiative produced mixed results across Europe, and the initiative did not continue beyond its first year. No more Original Stores with their unique architecture, painting scheme, aisles, and signage would be planted, although new Weber Stores continue to open throughout Europe.

In Amersfoort, the investment had been successful, but like all businesses, requires vigilance and new strategies to keep the enterprise profitable. In the beginning, Yorick explained that the store alone funded the business. A US army presence was nearby, and servicemen used to purchase kettles and grilling supplies for weekend furloughs. Since then the base has closed, and with decreased foot traffic, the Grill Academy has taken on a more pronounced role by offering classes five days per week. During the pandemic, the store opened an online shop when the physical store could not remain open.

Yorick said he had first become enamored of grilling by how it attracts friends and family. He said it was common in the early days to have “grilling weekends” where friends would join to grill all weekend and talk, sitting in a circle around the barbecue, and bringing their favorite meals to experiment on the grill. Just then, Bram joined us, and we spent an enjoyable hour just jumping from topic to topic in the Weber world until Yorick said it was time to have dinner at “our neighbor’s.”

A Michelin Star restaurant, Rauw offers its guests an expansive dining room experience without walls or petitions among guests, which struck me as very different. When we entered, the head chef was waiting for us. He met Margie and me to explain that the restaurant uses cows that have a dual purpose, for milking and meat, that produces a tenderer meat. They also have their own dry aging room in which they process meat for a minimum of 28 days, bringing a 30% reduction in moisture and therefore a greater concentration of flavor. With the dining room in an open floor plan, furniture was minimal: only a few island work stations and an industrial feel with metal chairs and tables in the dining space.

Bram insisted we try the “beef tartar” first, which is raw meat styled like a spiral cone and containing various herbs and spices. He also assured us it is “safe to eat because the meat is extremely fresh.” For the main course, we had “Entrecôte of Ribeye,” served medium rare, a 175-gram, 28-day aged ribeye steak served with a Chimichurri sauce on the side with tall paper bags full of long, golden fries to share with our table. Delicious. (We learned to refer to fries as Flemish Fries, their origin stemming from Belgium and not France.)

That may have been the best steak I had ever eaten. It required no chewing. At the end of the that long but enjoyable evening, Yorick called a taxi for us to take us back to the hotel.

The next day, we arose around 8 am to find my voice almost gone. I was slated to teach a brief master course on cooking a boneless steak, relating this experience back to how George Stephen’s irritation at burning steaks in his outdoor fireplace compelled him to invent the kettle grill. I was unsure how much talking I would have to do, although Yorick thought my teaching the brief course in English wouldn’t be a barrier. “Everyone speaks English in the Netherlands,” he said. Still, as Margie and I settled into the seating for the hotel’s breakfast buffet, I worried about whether anyone would hear my crackling voice, even with the aid of a microphone. On an impulse, I walked up to the bar where a young woman was preparing tea for guests.

“Excuse me. Is there any hot drink you can recommend for a sore throat? As you can tell, I’ve almost lost my voice, and I have an outside grilling class to teach today,” I said.

She looked over my chef coat and paused. “I can mix you a hot tea with honey and herbs, if you can give me ten minutes,” she said, as I read her name tag, Naria.

“Certainly. Thank you.”

While I was waiting, I asked the maître d’, Theresa, at what nearby store I might find throat lozenges. She checked the hotel dispensary and didn’t find any, but she recommended a drug store located three blocks away in the train station. I did a quick Yelp search and discovered they had just opened. True to her word, Theresa arrived in five minutes with a long glass of hot golden liquid, steaming in a burrowing stream. Now I typically hate tea, but I was desperate to get some of my voice back.

“Try this,” Naria said, and gave me a napkin.

I drank it down in three gulps, and I was pleasantly surprised how invigorating it was. When Theresa returned, she said she could give me the rest in a to-go cup, but there was no need. I had finished it. She seemed surprised, even gratified.

“It was fabulous. Thank you so much,” I said. “Now I’m going to run to the drug store.”

When I arrived at the shops on the outside of the train station, the store was closed and the doors all locked. Fortunately, a railway employee spotted me, and when I explained my dilemma, she flashed her ID badge as a pass through the turnstile so I could purchase lozenges inside at a train station store. She stuck with me until I exited, because I needed a pass to return outside. Quickly I hustled back to the hotel breakfast area. Theresa met me, and I reported the results.

Soon it was time for the taxi to pick us up. All month I had checked the weather report for Amersfoort and saw rainy forecasts. In the last two days, however, the forecast had improved drastically, and we were greeted by sunny though brisk weather when the taxi arrived. I remembered what one of our guides said from earlier in the week: “The weather always changes in Holland.”

When we arrived at the store, I could see Bram’s hard work in erecting twenty-two canopies and back walls along with tables and all manner of signage. The street was closed for the festival, and at the intersection of a cross street, the store had positioned a row of outdoor picnic tables. They even had a bounce house for kids.

Shortly after walking Weber Street,  I met Reitse, the emcee for the day. After a few celebratory pictures and a brief exchange in English, he climbed an end picnic table to rally all the Fandag helpers for a rousing speech.

Of course, I couldn’t understand a word, but I easily read his passion by his rising voice and gauged his humor by how often the audience laughed. Shortly a staff member handed each of us a shot of whisky, and I drank it in one gesture when everyone else did. Then Reitse wanted to lead everyone in a cheer for me. He first had the crowd rehearse my name by saying “Jerry Springer” and then he rhymed that first name with the two syllables of my first name—“Ga/ry”—and repeating them. (I hope there was a sufficient contrast  between the two names in the audience’s mind!) Before long, the whole complex cheered my name, and I tipped my cap to all. What a surprising, spontaneous, and gratifying experience!

Just before the guests arrived, I was fortunate to meet some of the Weber officials in Holland. Two in particular—Marco van Lutterveld, Field Sales Manager NL for Weber-Stephen Holland BV, and Tim Valentijn, Country Manager of Sales, Holland—stood out because I had seen their posts on LinkedIn before. A few guests also joined in the photo-taking. At this point, I was meeting so many new people that it was hard for me to catch up. I tried to copy as many names into my writer’s notebook as I could.

The rest of the day, Margie and I wandered by the various vendors and enthusiasts, pausing to introduce ourselves and ask questions. We sampled what they were making and noticed a preference for charcoal kettles in stand after stand.

We saw several pig roasts on two Weber Ranch Kettles, that enormous kettle with a huge cooking surface. One featured artichokes that looked like they were caressing the full pig. One participant grilled chicken wings with a unique, thick, warm cheese sauce drizzled on top. Another chose long “hot dogs” that featured a thick casing that escaped its bun, including a choice of condiments of mayonnaise and, surprisingly, mustard, which I didn’t find elsewhere as a condiment in Holland. Another stand was cooking salmon on a plank, one of my favorites.

Beer flowed all day long from an outdoor drink station. A few groups competed in a contest the store sponsored, with Bram unveiling the results at the end of the day in the Grill Academy. Not knowing the language, it was difficult to know all details. We all had the opportunity to sample the dishes in the competition, however, and all the ones I sampled were stellar.

My short master class, under one of the canopies, was fun to teach. My voice was a hoarse whisper by this point. Reitse said he would help by interviewing me, holding a wireless microphone. That seemed to work out for the best. I described how I had prepared the rib eye steak the evening before at the Grill Academy, coating it with a corn starch-kosher salt layer before freezing it. The rib eye steaks in the Netherlands, much thicker than I was accustomed, resembled roughly-cut short logs. I doubted I could finish this lesson in my original 15-minute plan. It was going to take a long time for these thick steaks to come up to serving temperature.

To add to the presentation, I related how George Stephen began his journey to the kettle when he became frustrated with his backyard brick fireplace to cook a good steak that was not raw in the inside and burnt on the outside. After each aspect of the story, I would pause momentarily to allow Reitse to translate.

After I seared all sides over direct heat, I slid the two steaks over indirect. I expressed my goal—to produce a properly prepared steak with a crispy outside crust. I also wanted thick steaks to have different doneness points—some medium, some medium rare, some rare—so that they could feed people with different tastes. “If you follow this technique, you cannot do it wrong.”

I really liked that Reitse gave me the freedom to take my time. “Don’t rush it,” he advised with the microphone off. “You don’t want to lift the lid too often and cook the kettle.” That’s fundamental, but always good advice.

With the microphone still off, he asked me if I thought the center might still be frozen.

“No,” I said, “because I’m rotating the center and thickest part to face the hottest part of the direct fire while still remaining under indirect heat.” He seemed to accept that while still looking doubtful. Nevertheless, I held to that theory because I had seen it work so many times before.

Reitse then reported, “I’ll be back” and walked around to other canopies and interviewed the participants with his wireless microphone. When he returned twenty minutes later, he asked me some questions about indirect grilling and then translated my response for the forty attendance members now gathered in front again. I opened the kettle lid and reviewed the temperature of the meat with an instant-read thermometer, which now read at target temperatures between 125 and 130 degrees F. I was glad I brought my own thermometer along; I thought that I might have trouble converting the Academy’s thermometers from Celsius to Fahrenheit readings, a scale I’m more comfortable with. I’ve learned that when I’m teaching a class, I don’t want extra variables that can distract me from cooking.

Reitse motioned that I should serve others by pointing to a clean cutting board and slicing knife. I pulled the two rib eyes from the open kettle with tongs and transferred them to the board. I grabbed one ribeye with my left hand in a claw configuration, feeding the steak to my right hand that worked to slice the meat thinly and across the grain. Immediately, I felt the crackle crust on the ribeye’s outside. I also saw the rainbow of doneness, from rare to medium rare interior, as I continued slicing. Reitse grabbed a box of bamboo toothpicks fashioned in the shape of forks and plopped it on the cutting board; guests began grabbing small pieces immediately with the forks. Two of the Weber chefs in adjoining canopies grabbed them too. “This is very good, Gary” one of them said. Even Reitse gave me a nod and smile: “Very crispy on the outside.”  I must say that was enormously satisfying to have some acknowledgment from the top grillers in Holland.

WeberFandag wound up quickly when it reached its fifth hour. I posed for a few more pictures with our new friends, and the crowds began thinning. The sun, low in the sky by now, began casting long shadows from the building to the street. Yorick called us a taxi, and within a few minutes we were hugging and shaking hands goodbye to our friends in the Netherlands. I cannot wait until we meet again.

The spirit of cooperation, enthusiasm, and yes, love that the Weber family from Holland showed both Margie and me testifies to Weber’s enduring legacy. This whole enterprise is far more than “just grilling.” Oh, if only the world might take a page from that notebook!