Each Saturday, a family / person is featured in the Saturday supplement of the Amsterdam based newspaper Het Parool: PS | Het Parool. This series of articles focuses on people’s habits on their Saturday morning.

Today’s item is about me and my family in our kitchen. We live in an old canal house. On the left, above the text, there’s painting by my grandmother Turi Braaksma – van Heerikhuizen, who was a visual artist too. ‘Man, woman and child’, gouache on paper (see below).

Maartje Jaquet (61)
Visual artist
Keizersgracht, City Center

Each Friday Evening, Maartje Jaquet often sets the kitchen table where they have breakfast together for the next day. In the morning, her husband Rogier van der Ploeg (63) gets fresh croissants. At Albert Heijn, because there is no bakery nearby anymore. Son Jim (24) woke up in time for breakfast, daughter Loren (22) was still in bed. “The table stays set until dinner, so that everyone can make a sandwich whenever they want. The kitchen is the meeting point of our house.” Maartje and Rogier have been making the cryptogram – puzzle in the newspaper at the table for thirty years. Afterwards, they often drive to Oegstgeest. “That’s where Rogier’s father lives, he’s almost ninety.”

Actually, Rogier’s father is almost ninety-eight! The journalist must have misheard me. His birthday will be in two weeks.

Man, woman and child, gouache on 32×42 cm paper.
Turi Braaksma – van Heerikhuizen, 1959.