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New York Times
17-05-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Jonnie Boer, Dutch Chef With 3 Michelin Stars, Is Dead at 60
Jonnie Boer, a Dutch chef who started as a cook at De Librije in Zwolle, the Netherlands, four decades ago and never left, steering the restaurant to wide acclaim with humble ingredients plucked from nearby streams and fields, died on April 23 on the Caribbean island of Bonaire. He was 60. The cause of his death, in a hospital, was a pulmonary embolism, according to a representative from his restaurant. Mr. Boer was foraging, fishing, fermenting and flying in the face of received notions about fine dining years before those things became pillars of the New Nordic movement. He didn't give up entirely on foie gras and caviar, but they shared the menu, and sometimes the plate, with pikeperch, tulip bulbs and chickweed. 'His belief was, 'Everything that grows here is just as good as something that grows somewhere else,'' Nico Bouter, a Brooklyn chef who worked under Mr. Boer for 10 years, said. 'Beetroot was his favorite ingredient. He liked the challenge of this almost boring, cheap vegetable.' If critics and food guide inspectors did not necessarily look forward to eating eels and weeds when they first walked into De Librije, they soon got used to it, and even learned to like it. The restaurant steadily climbed in the Michelin Guide's estimation, until it was given three stars in 2004. It has stayed at that peak every year since, an unbroken streak that few restaurants in the world have matched and that, after Mr. Boer's death, inspired Dutch social media users to call him 'the Roger Federer of chefs.' De Librije took its name from its original site, the library of a 15th-century Dominican abbey. Ten years ago, Mr. Boer and his wife, Thérèse Boer-Tausch, moved their restaurant into the covered courtyard of an 18th-century building where they had amassed a small colony of businesses, including a wine bar, a cooking school, a second restaurant and a boutique hotel. As the Boers renovated the structure, they retained some remnants of its past life as a women's prison. As they put it on their website, 'The cell doors, bars on the windows, and the 'cachot' (dungeon) create a unique look and atmosphere.' The Boers' establishments moved to their own rhythms, which often had a rock backbeat rarely heard in restaurants that hope to impress Michelin inspectors. Desserts at De Librije were assembled tableside, on a rolling cart inspired by Mr. Boer's favorite record, Van Halen's cover of the blues song 'Ice Cream Man,' with the band's winged logo painted on the side, below the song's title. Mr. Boer wasn't afraid of a carefully timed drug reference, either. De Librije sent diners off into the night with edible herbal joints inside glass pre-roll tubes, and the restaurant was placing small morsels of beef tartare on the back of diners' hands, like bumps of cocaine, years before Manhattan was swamped by caviar bumps. The dining-room playlists Mr. Boer collaborated on with Hans Stroeve, a local D.J., would progress from deep house music early in the evening to 'Livin' on a Prayer' and other raised-lighter stadium anthems as it got later. 'If Jonnie felt like guitars in the restaurant, you heard guitars in the restaurant,' Mr. Stroeve said. Jan Boer was born on Jan. 9, 1965, in the village of Giethoorn, about 70 miles northeast of Amsterdam. His parents, Lebbertus and Hennie Boer, owned a cafe called De Harmonie, and young Jan would sometimes wander into the kitchen to fry duck eggs or eels he had turned up while exploring the waterways. His education and training as a cook took place entirely in the Netherlands. After attending culinary school in Groningen, Mr. Boer spent three years working at a fine-dining restaurant in Amsterdam. In 1986, he answered a help-wanted ad and was hired by the owner of De Librije, who promoted him to chef soon after. The dining room was rarely full, he later recalled, which gave him time to experiment at the stove and gave the owner, who was in his 60s, time to contemplate retirement. Mr. Boer met Thérèse Tausch, a hotel-school student, at a disco, twice. The second meeting took. After she began working as a server in De Librije's dining room, he would pick her up at the bus stop in his Opel Kadett sedan. She appreciated the ride, but the car often seemed noisy to her. After a few weeks, she discovered that the banging she heard coming from the luggage compartment in the back seat was made by young lambs that Mr. Boer was driving from the farm to the slaughterhouse. The couple offered to buy De Librije in 1993, applying to a local bank for a loan — 'the only time in my life that I wore a tie,' Mr. Boer said in a 2017 interview. They married three years later. With his wife overseeing the wine cellar and the service in the restaurant they now owned, Mr. Boer overhauled the kitchen to revolve around local oddities that few Dutch chefs bothered with: pimpernel, pine tips, meadowsweet, birch sap, bog myrtle. What he wasn't able to serve right away was salted, fermented or made into vinegar. Eventually, what he gathered in the wild, often during weekend excursions on his black Harley-Davidson motorcycle, was planted in De Librije's greenhouse and kitchen garden. 'He was always looking for products from the neighborhood,' said Arjan Bisschop, a Dutch chef who went to work for Mr. Boer in 1998. 'In the 1990s, that was very unusual.' Mr. Boer's preference for homegrown flavors extended to the dishes he served, which drew from Dutch tradition at a time when many ambitious chefs in the Netherlands still defaulted to French ideas. One of his signature desserts was a disassembled apple pie based on his grandmother's recipe, with pan-fried apple cubes and whipped-cream rosettes laid out alongside sleight-of-hand components like trompe l'oeil vanilla beans made from vanilla gel and chocolates in the shape of star-anise pods. As Mr. Boer's reputation grew, he masterminded in-flight meals for KLM Royal Dutch Airlines and 'Taste of De Librije' menus for Holland America cruise ships. The Boers never cloned De Librije, but they opened two more-relaxed restaurants in Zwolle, Brass Boer and Senang. Brass Boer also has outposts on the Dutch-speaking islands of Curaçao and Bonaire, where the couple owned a beachside brasserie, Club Tropicana. And in 2022, the Boers' company bought Brasserie Jansen, a 10-year-old restaurant in Zwolle. Recently, Mr. Boer began enacting an orderly succession plan for the empire he owned with his wife, giving a stake in the company to De Librije's head chef. He also gave stakes to the couple's daughter, Isabelle, and their son, Jimmie, who both survive him, along with his wife and two brothers, Roelie and Berrie Boer. After a memorial service at De Librije, Mr. Boer left the restaurant for the last time in a blue-and-purple coffin his friends had painted with his name and an image of a skull and crossbones. The coffin was placed on the sidecar of his Harley and driven to the cemetery, escorted by a dozen motorcycles and two of Mr. Boer's Porsche convertibles.
Globe and Mail
08-05-2025
- General
- Globe and Mail
The scraps of war
As Canadian and Allied troops drove the German army out of the Dutch city of Groningen on April 16, 1945, they were greeted as heroes by the local population. Among the throng of well-wishers was a 25-year-old teacher named Klaas Nieborg who was desperate to collect some mementos from the Canadian liberators. Mr. Nieborg spoke just enough English to ask the soldiers if they would sign a scrapbook he was putting together. Dozens and dozens obliged. They not only signed their names but many also added their home addresses and scrawled messages to Mr. Nieborg. Some handed over photos of their wives, children, brothers, sisters. Others gave the young teacher scraps of Canadian candy bar wrappers, cigarette packages, used train tickets and even a fragment of a parachute – all of which he carefully pasted onto the pages. Mr. Nieborg became such a fastidious collector that he started another scrapbook and ultimately covered 250 pages in memorabilia between April and August, 1945. The scrapbooks were stored in the Nieborg family home for more than 70 years before finally ending up in the regional archives in Zwolle, a small Dutch city roughly 100 kilometres south of Groningen which was also liberated by Canadian forces around the same time. In honour of the 80th anniversaries of Zwolle's liberation and Victory in Europe (VE) Day on May 8, which commemorates Germany's surrender, the archives staff have made digital copies of the scrapbooks and they hope to track down relatives of the hundreds of soldiers who left their mark. 'It would be great if we could communicate to Canada that these notebooks exist and try to tell the story of how important Canada was for us,' said Vincent Robijn, the director of the archives known as Collectie Overijssel. 'Especially nowadays it's important to say 'thank you' and to also realize there's a strong connection between Europe and Canada. And maybe we can tell our story in Canada and say, 'We have a mutual a shared history.'' The scrapbooks came to light almost by chance and nearly ended up collecting dust in the archives. They first surfaced in 2019 as Zwolle was preparing to mark the 75th anniversary of the city's liberation. Mr. Robijn and his staff decided to tour some towns in the region to see if people had anything from the war they wanted to donate to the archives. 'We thought, we won't find anything because we already know everything about the war in the Netherlands,' he recalled. 'We didn't realize that a lot people had material that was still at home in their basements and attics.' A long line of people showed up with letters, diaries and photographs. Someone even brought a stainless steel toilet from a British warplane. Among those who came was Mr. Nieborg's son, Joop. He'd been hanging onto the scrapbooks for years. 'There was a drive in the family to do something with these books,' Joop recalled. Mr. Robijn and his staff were amazed at the contents. They thought about handing the books over to the archives in Groningen but decided to keep them in Zwolle because many of the same Canadian soldiers were also likely involved in the liberation of that city as well. The COVID-19 pandemic forced the cancellation of the 75th celebrations in 2020 and the scrapbooks sat on a shelf in the archives for another four years. About six months ago, as Zwolle geared up to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the liberation, Mr. Robijn suddenly remembered the books. 'I said to my colleagues, 'We have to do something with these notebooks.'' He tried to decipher the soldiers' names, addresses and hometowns but he was overwhelmed by so many unfamiliar places. He nearly gave up but then one of his co-workers, Anniek van Dijk-van Leeuwen, suggested they seek help from a couple of Canadians who were already involved in a project with the archives. Geoff Osborne, from Toronto, had been searching for a photograph of his grandfather, Earl Olmsted, who was part of the Canadian division that freed Zwolle on April 14, 1945. Mr. Osborne also worked closely with Nathan Kehler, a Canadian army veteran who leads an Ottawa-based non-profit group called Canadian Research and Mapping Association. The association has been mapping the location of every Second World War Canadian army soldier and digitizing millions of war records to make them easier to search online. Mr. Osborne and Mr. Kehler have started looking at how they can help the archives make Mr. Neiborg's scrapbooks more accessible to Canadians. 'I think it's a great opportunity to allow people to research and see if they can find their grandfather or relatives' names and really build a story behind it,' said Mr. Kehler. Mr. Osborne said the beauty of the scrapbooks is that they are so personal. Just seeing the soldiers' handwriting brings them back to life, he added. 'It's like a light switch when you're talking about history.' Zwolle has long celebrated the role Canadian troops played in freeing the city and in particular the heroics of Leo Major, a one-eyed French Canadian soldier who single-handedly got the Germans to leave Zwolle by tricking them into thinking an Allied assault had begun. Mr. Robijn said the scrapbooks demonstrate that there are many more stories to tell. 'Of course, it's not only about the big heroes. There are also all these men and also women who came to the Netherlands to play a part in the liberation,' he said. 'And now we know a lot of more.'
Yahoo
08-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
PEC Zwolle bring in familiar face as new general manager
Joost Broerse has been announced as the new general manager of PEC Zwolle. The Zwolle player comes over from FC Utrecht, where he was commercial director in recent years. The 46-year-old Broerse starts his new job on 1 July. Broerse was already associated with PEC as commercial director between 2015 and 2018. As a player he was active in Zwolle between 2012 and 2015, with the former central defender part of the team that won the KNVB Cup and the Johan Cruyff Shield in 2014. 'I was at a point in my career to take a new path,' Broerse said. 'It's great that PEC approached me at this time to become general manager, something I've been aspiring to for a long time.' This news followed PEC's announcement on Wednesday that Henry van der Vegt (53) will be head coach as of next season. The Kampenaar, currently assistant coach in Zwolle, will succeed the departing Johnny Jansen and will sign a contract until the summer of 2027. PEC almost assured itself of staying in the Eredivisie last weekend with a 1-3 victory at NAC Breda. They host Go Ahead Eagles this Sunday. GBeNeFN | Max Bradfield
Times
06-05-2025
- Times
Jonnie Boer obituary: Celebrated Dutch chef
Diners wanting a three Michelin-star experience in the Netherlands know to head 75 miles east of Amsterdam to the medieval city of Zwolle where Jonnie Boer and his wife Thérèse, who both grew up nearby, ran De Librije (the Library), one of the country's most extraordinary culinary experiences. Housed in a 16th-century former Dominican monastery, De Librije seats about 35 diners who are served by black-gloved waiters in a high-ceilinged room with tall windows, well-spaced tables and a large chandelier. Unlike many Dutch chefs, Boer did not look to France for ideas. Instead, he sought inspiration from local nature. He used only Dutch ingredients, caught fish in nearby canals from his boat and pioneered the use of the whole animal in meat dishes. 'I don't
Yahoo
03-05-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Stanley walks it off in semifinals; sets up title game rematch
SULPHUR, La. (KTAL/KMSS) — Stanley 'walks off' Zwolle in the 3-2 in the Class B State Semifinals to set up a rematch with Quitman in the state championship game. With runners on the corners in the bottom of the 7th inning Kraegan Jordan belted an RBI single, scoring Jaci Springer to secure the win for the Lady Panthers. Zwolle tied the game at 2-2 in the top of the 7th when Addison Burr hit an RBI double to left field. Because of the rain on Friday Stanley's game with Quitman will be played on Sunday at noon. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
