Carrot Cake

3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

3 cups granulated sugar

1 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon baking soda

1 tablespoon ground cinnamon

1 1/2 cups corn oil

4 large eggs, lightly beaten

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups shelled walnuts,chopped

1 1/2 shredded  coconut

1 1/3 cups pureed cooked carrots

3/4 drained crushed pineapple

1. Preheat oven to 175 c . Grease two 9-inch springform pans.

2. Sift dry ingredients into a bowl. Add oil, eggs and vanilla. Beat well. Fold in walnuts, coconut,

carrot and pineappel.

3. Pour batter into the prepared pans. Set on the middle rack of the oven and bake for 50 minutes, until edges have pulled away from sides and a cake tester inserted in center comes out clean.

4. Cool on a cake rack for 3 hours.

VOC project

In the fifteenth century the Dutch were already the greatest seafaring nation in Europe. They had many ships which sailed to different countries in Europe to buy and sell goods such as spices which were bought from the Portuguese.

In their turn the Portuguese had bought these spices in the East Indies or East India (in South East Asia: India, Indonesia and the Malay Archipelago).

In the 16th and early 17th centuries Holland was at war with Spain and it often happened that the king of Spain, Philip II, made it difficult for Dutch merchants to buy spices in Portugal.

So it was decided to buy these spices direct from the East Indies. First the Dutch tried to go to the East Indies by taking a northern route through the Barents Sea so that they did not have to protect themselves against the Spanish enemy at sea. However, the ships got stuck in the ice of the North Pole. On one of these voyages two Dutch captains, Willem Barentsz, Jacob van Heemskerck and their crew were forced to spend the winter on Nova Zembla.

There was no other choice but to take a southern route, rounding the Cape of Good Hope (South Africa) on their way to the East Indies. This was done by  ships owned by several companies. There was, however, a lot of competition between these companies so that they did not make much profit. In 1602 it was decided to unite these companies into one big company, the (United) East India Company.

The organisation cost a lot of money and for the first time in the Dutch history people could buy shares. A share is a piece of paper in which the one who has bought it (the shareholder) is promised a certain percentage of the profit made by the company each year (see picture below and click on it for enlargement). So, the company was financed by the shareholders.

There was much competition with merchants from other countries who also wanted to trade with (do business with) the East Indies. In one case the Dutch, under the leadership of Jan Pieterszoon Coen, took a number of English merchants prisoner on the island of Ambon (Indonesia), tortured them and finally cut off their heads. It was Jan Pieterszoon Coen destroyed Djakarta (on the island of Java/Indonesia), founded (built) a new city and called it Batavia and from here the East India Company was governed (managed).

The city of Batavia

Jan Pieterszoon Coen became Governor-General. He was succeeded by Antonie van Diemen who continued the fight against competing countries (countries which also wanted to buy spices and other goods in the East Indies) and in the middle of the 17th century no competitor was left so that the East India Company had a monopoly (was the only European company to trade with the East Indies). In 1652 a settlement (a place where people working for the East India Company went to live) was founded by Jan van Riebeeck for the refreshnment of ships in the south of South Africa, called the Cape of Good Hope.

Before reaching the Cape of Good Hope the ships had made a long voyage from Holland to South America and from there, making use of the westerly winds, sailing to South Africa. By the time they reached the Cape of Good Hope they needed fresh supplies (fresh food and water) before going on to the East Indies. Today many people in South Africa still speak a kind of Dutch called Afrikaans. So, the East India Company was in control of many places for their trade with the East Indies, but the organisation, and the protection of this trade against foreign enemies, cost a lot of money. In the 18th century the cost became so high and also there was a lot of corruption that for the first time in the history of the East India Company there were no profits but losses. The result was that the East India Company went bankrupt. All its debts and possessions were taken over by the Republic of Batavia.       

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Jack the Ripper! Few names in history are as instantly recognizable. Fewer still evoke such vivid images: noisome courts and alleys, hansom cabs and gaslights, swirling fog, prostitutes decked out in the tawdriest of finery, the shrill cry of newsboys – and silent, cruel death personified in the cape-shrouded figure of a faceless prowler of the night, armed with a long knife and carrying a black Gladstone bag.
By today’s standards of crime, Jack the Ripper would barely make the headlines, murdering a mere five prostitutes in a huge slum swarming with criminals: just one more violent creep satisfying his perverted needs on the dregs of society. No one would be incensed as were the respectable families of the pretty college students that were Ted Bundy’s victims or the children tortured and mutilated by John Wayne Gacy. We have become a society numbed by horrible crimes inflicted upon many victims.
Why then, over a hundred years later, are there allegedly more books written on Jack than all of the American presidents combined? Why are there stories, songs, operas, movies and a never-ending stream of books on this one Victorian criminal? Why is this symbol of terror as popular a subject today as he was in Victorian London?

Because Jack the Ripper represents the classic whodunit. Not only is the case an enduring unsolved mystery that professional and amateur sleuths have tried to solve for over a hundred years, but the story has a terrifying, almost supernatural quality to it. He comes from out of the fog, kills violently and quickly and disappears without a trace. Then for no apparent reason, he satisfies his blood lust with ever-increasing ferocity, culminating in the near destruction of his final victim, and then vanishes from the scene forever. The perfect ingredients for the perennial thriller.