Adventures of an Un-Swiss Miss

Toto, I don't think we're in Switzerland anymore...

2007-07-01T20:52:00.000+01:00

I spent nearly all of June in the United States. The trip was wonderful, of course. I got to visit friends and family, drive everywhere, indulge in proper barbecues, bask in air-conditioned homes, and of course stock up at the local Target and Wal-mart! Still, I could tell that my time abroad has changed me. Top ten moments from the trip:

"Wow, these [clothes/shoes/food] are such a good deal!"
~ on multiple occasions while shopping with a friend in the West Village
"Have American beds always been so short?"
~ on seeing Swissy Pie's feet sticking out over the queen-sized mattress (they don't in our bed)
"What's this Top Chef show everyone is talking about?"
~ at Perilla, a restaurant in New York recently opened by 2006 season winner Harold Dieterle
"What's wrong with you guys?"
~ on being told there's no recycling in my Kentucky hometown - because the city thinks it's too expensive
"These yolks look weird."
~ while cracking some nominally organic free-range eggs from the supermarket, which nevertheless have much paler yolks than European eggs
"This is NOT cheese!"
~ tasting some locally made product from Kentucky
"What kind of crap farmer's market is this?"
~ on seeing signs for produce from California, Georgia, and the Carolias being sold in Kentucky
"Oh my God, I can understand everything on TV!"
~ flipping through the 999 cable channels at my sister's apartment
"Where did all these friggin' cars come from?"
~ on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway at 3 pm, headed to Manhattan from JFK - this was NOT rush hour
"Grüezi... uh, I mean, hello!"
~ to the immigration officer upon arrival at JFK

Vampires Are Alive!

2007-06-01T09:25:00.000+01:00

They'll probably never star in any horror movies, but as far as I'm concerned, aphids are evil, evil monsters. Called Blattläuse in German - leaf lice, which is very appropriate given their green but otherwise tiny, lice-like bodies - these sap-suckers have killed my cilantro.

Admittedly, I could be written up on charges of plant neglect, given that I first spotted the creatures about two weeks ago. Even if I hadn't been keeping a close eye on the plant, which was already looking a bit strung out and not terribly healthy, the aphids would've been difficult not to notice. They seemed to emerge from nowhere to swarm my cilantro. Once infected, the plant's stems looked like they'd sprouted boils all over.

I did have good intentions, though. I first thought to go to Obi for some insecticide, though the idea of using the herb for cooking afterward put me off a bit. Then I remembered an offhand comment from Swissy Pie, about some nettles I'd stepped in because I didn't recognize them as such. (They didn't look like the kind I was used to in the States.) Apparently some people boil the leaves and use the liquid to kill aphids. But that was not a very specific formua, and besides, I was a bit wary about picking a plant that had given me a rather unpleasant rash on both calves. So in the end, I just tried to wash off the little buggers, which only worked for a couple of days.

Oddly, the basil and parsley plants right next to the cilantro have remained untouched; the rosemary and thyme don't seem to appeal to them either. Hopefully things will stay that way.

Not that it'll matter too much. We're headed for the United States today, and by the time Swissy Pie gets back in a week, the herbs will probably all be dead, anyway - unless there's a good bit of rain in Basel in the meantime.

As long as we're not greeted by singing, leather-clad Blattläuse...

Strawberries, cherries, and an angel's kiss in spring

2007-05-29T17:27:00.000+01:00

"It's snowing in the Black Forest," Swissy Pie announced yesterday afternoon.

"What? No kidding!"

My surprise wasn't for the snow, precisely. Outside the apartment, a cold, heavy rain was intermittently pelting our courtyard. Though it had warmed up since morning, temperatures were still hovering around 14°C, and I knew from unfortunate personal experience how much colder mountain peaks could be than valleys. Given our weather in Basel, I had no problems believing that it was snowing on top of Blauen.

What was so disorienting was that two short days ago, snow was the last thing I'd have expected to see. At the time, we were being oppressed by a heavy, humid air mass that left us sticky with sweat. On Friday our thermometer registered 31°C (nearly 90°F); Saturday was little better. So, my mind was already in summer mode. A little early, given it's only May, but still, snow simply didn't fit into the picture.

We had to see for ourselves. Piling into our car, we set off for Germany.

I can't remember the last time we drove just to drive - back when Swissy Pie was still trying to sell me on moving to Europe, perhaps. But our adventure soon took on a life of its own. Without a particular destination in mind (though I had a vague idea we'd head for Blauen), Swissy Pie was free to take impromptu detours and make spur-of-the-moment decisions to check out off-the-beaten-track places such as the tiny town of Vogelbach, and a cemetery for local soldiers who'd fallen during the World Wars.

On the first such detour, we discovered Ötlingen, a charming town with fantastic views over Basel, the Alsace, and Germany. Somewhere between there and Kandern, we came across a roadside farm stand that was doing a brisk business for locals and foreigners alike. Several cars were pulled into the make-shift gravel parking lot. Part of the draw was that it was Pfingsten Montag, so almost all stores and many restaurants were closed. But really, these roadside stands are the best places to buy produce that's fresh, local, and delicious.

"What do they have?" Swissy Pie asked as we zoomed past.

"Um, I just saw strawberries."

"Just strawberries? That can't be."

I'm not certain what made him turn the car around, the prospect of proving me wrong, or the prospect of strawberries with quark for dessert. (In his defense, he never seems to tire of strawberries and quark.) Whatever the case, a minute later, we were crunching into the lot, right behind a Dutch car.

The stand sold strawberries, alright - cardboard boxes filled with giant, fragrant berries. But Swissy Pie was right. There were lots of other goods, from apples and potatoes, to fresh bread, to apple juice and milk. But real treasure was right next to the strawberries: plastic containers mounded high with the first local cherries we'd seen this season. Like the asparagus, they were early - but nontheless very welcome.

We grabbed a box each of the strawberries and cherries, as well as six enormous eggs (laid by free-range chickens, of course), and continued on our way. By now we were entirely distracted from the snow. We were too busy snacking on our cherries. So when I saw a sign for someplace called Schloss Bürgeln, I didn't hesitate to express an interest in seeing it. (Schloss is the German word for castle.)

Swissy Pie duly drove us up the narrow, thickly forested approach. Aside from being beautiful, it had the added advantage of giving me cover to toss a handful of stems and pits out the window. (I didn't feel bad - they're biodegradable, after all. And I figured cherry trees would be a nice addition to the land.)

At the end of the road, we came to a small parking lot, a trailhead for at least ten different walking paths, and a single paved path leading directly up to the Schloss. We opted for one of the more scenic routes through the forest, which was densely populated with stands of beech and fir trees; black, orange, and brown slugs; mice (or at least their holes); and buzzards. Near the castle, the woods gave way to fields of chamomile, nettle, and yarrow, trampled down and glistening with rain. We had to detour to avoid the occasional wild rose bush and Weinbergschnecken, large edible snails that are considered a delicacy in France (though Swissy Pie seemed to have little interest in adding them to our dinner menu).

The Schloss itself was a surprise. Though I could tell from the signs below that it was still in good condition - it boasted a restaurant, after all - I'd expected something similar to Burg Baden, only better maintained. But instead of a towering stone edifice, we saw a gracious estate mansion that wouldn't be out of place in a Jane Austen novel. A tangle of rose gardens, half-wild, half-manicured, surrounded the house. Wild strawberries peeked through the ivy encircling its walls. And the menu for both the restaurant and the terrace cafe looked quite appealing. Too bad nothing was open for the holiday - this is yet another place we're putting on our To Revisit list. (Note: Tuesdays are Ruhetage - in other words, it's closed.)

By the time we got back to the car, it was getting late, so after a short stop for me to pick wildflowers, we headed home. We never did make it to Blauen to verify the snow report. But at least we had a blast not going!

Don't stay out of the rhubarb

2007-05-23T14:26:00.000+01:00

I admit it: until recently, I was terrified of rhubarb.

No, I didn't think it was one of the monsters who lived under my bed, nor did I fear it would jump out of the refrigerator and attack me in the middle of the night. I was just worried it would kill me.

Where did this unreasonable phobia develop? As best as I can guess, during high school biology class, when I learned that the leaves of the rhubarb plant are filled with the poison oxalic acid. For some reason, that left a very strong impression on me - perhaps because we also learned that as little as 2 tablespoons of antifreeze can kill an adult. (And why is antifreeze so toxic? Because the body metabolizes it into oxalic acid. You see the theme of the lesson.)

In my mind, "a little bit of antifreeze" soon morphed into "a little bit of rhubarb," and I began treating the plant the way I treated pufferfish: as a high-risk edible. I did indulge in the occasional slice of strawberry-rhubarb pie (as well as the occasional slice of pufferfish), but still, I figured the handling was best left to professionals.

Until last week. Buoyed by Swissy Pie's declaration that he loved rhubarb, I decided that really, I was well-educated enough to distinguish the leaves of the friggin' plant from the rest of it, dammit. So when we went to Fünfschilling, a farm/restaurant in Germany that sells its own top-notch produce, I picked out a few stalks (which had already been stripped of their leaves, anyway), plopped them down alongside the strawberries and apples, and took them home.

We were so busy with stuffing ourselves with strawberries and quark that it took a few days for me to get around to the rhubarb. OK, so maybe I was procrastinating, just a little. Besides, I didn't know what to make. At first I was leaning toward a classic pie, but I'd just made an apple and pear tarte tatin to use up some rapidly ripening Alexanders in my fruit basket, as well as a tomato tart for similar reasons. So I decided to stick with the basics and make a compote, which we could have with quark or vanilla ice cream.

No more than 20 minutes could have elapsed between when I took the rhubarb from the refrigerator to when I stuck the finished compote back it. It's really that easy. And it's pretty yummy, too.

So for anyone else out there who's afraid of rhubarb, don't be. I just had some with a scoop of ice cream, and I'm not dead yet. (And if that doesn't convince you, it turns out there's oxalic acid in many other foods too, including spinach, black pepper, most berries, cocoa, and chocolate. Bet you've been eating oxalic acid all your life!)

Basic Rhubarb Compote

500 g rhubarb (about 5 stalks)
200 g sugar (about 3/4 cups)
2 Tbsp water

For best flavor, choose firm, bright red stalks that aren't too thick. (Thicker stalks are stringier.)

Lop off the tops just where they pinch in (before the leaves begin), and trim the bottoms where the stalks were cut. Slice the rhubarb into 1 cm (1/2 inch) pieces.

In a saucepan over medium heat, combine the rhubarb, sugar, and water. Stir occasionally. When the sugar is dissolved and the liquid is simmering, cover the pot and cook until the rhubarb is tender, 5-10 minutes depending on the size of the rhubarb.

Cool and store in the refrigerator until needed.

War and Peace

2007-05-18T20:15:00.000+01:00

In Switzerland, May apparently serves as a warm-up for summer. Humidity levels have been rising, local grocery chains have begun to offer bonus points for their shopper loyalty programs, and due to the heavy holiday schedule, people spend nearly as much time not working as working. The day before a holiday, many people get half-days at the office; and if a holiday falls on a Thursday, the Friday afterward is generally free as well. As a result, Swissy Pie has three 3- or 4-day weekends this month: Labor Day was on May 1; this week is Ascension (Ausfahrt if you're a Swiss German, Christi Himmelfahrt if you're a proper German); and Pentecost (Pfingsten) comes next week.

The problem with long weekends is that they make for horrid traffic conditions on the roads. Trucks are swarming off the autobahn, just as everyone is trying to get to whereever they're spending their mini-holiday. And for those of us who stay behind, we have to scurry to stock up on groceries because stores won't be open. Wednesday afternoon, it took us nearly an hour to get over to Germany to do our shopping for the weekend when it usually takes about ten minutes. Mostly it was bad traffic: the entire Alsace looked like it was being evacuated before a hurricane. But it didn't help that border control in all three countries seemed determined to check everyone both leaving and entering. We'd have gone over by bicycle, if it hadn't been for the lashing rainstorm that was intent on making everyone even more miserable.

Such annoyances are luckily only temporary. By the time the weekend started in earnest, on Thursday, heavy traffic was nothing but a bad memory. Unfortunately, the rain stuck around a little longer, so we weren't able to go off on any cycling trips until Friday.

Since I wanted to go back to France, Swissy Pie nosed around for a new spot there for us to explore. He came up with the Route des Crêtes, an old military road constructed during World War I which runs 80 km through the Vosges. Promising little traffic and beautiful scenery, it sounded quite appealing: I envisioned empty tarmac threading through the feet of the mountains. Rolling terrain, perhaps, but nothing terribly challenging. (I was feeling lazy.) In my mind, it was perfect.

So we set off, going first to the rather depressing city of Mulhouse, where we belatedly acquired a map of the region, and then to the cute little town of Cernay, where signposts for the Route des Crêtes began to appear. So far, so good.

But then, we hit Uffholz, and as is the wont whenever Swissy Pie is involved - whether he intends it or not is debatable - the road started tilting slowly, inevitably up. By the time we passed from the village to its Forêt Communale, we were climbing steadily, and sometimes, fairly steeply. At last we found a mud and gravel clearing that was supposed to be a parking lot, pulled out the bikes, and promptly started up the mountain. So much for the rolling terrain I'd been hoping for.

If my French were better (or if I'd looked up the words before we left), I'd have realized my mistake much sooner: crête means crest, as in a mountain peak. But then we might have missed out on a beautiful ride. And though the terrain wasn't easy, with slopes up to 12%, it was never impossible. Evergreens shaded the pavement; cliffs and curves hid the upcoming challenges. It wasn't until I was near the top that I could look out over the Rhine Valley and realize how far I'd climbed.

At the first crest, where Swissy Pie was waiting - as usual, he'd taken off and left me crawling in his wake - we ventured into the woods to look down on Mulhouse and the towns of Alsace.

That's where we found this guy sunning himself on a rock...

...and this unidentified ruin.

As we got back on our bikes, I was feeling quite pleased with myself. But then, we made a short little descent, rode along the ridge for a couple of kilometers, cranked our way to a somewhat higher pass - and found ourselves in the middle of a large parking lot. A road sign informed us that we'd arrived in Vieil Armand.

Dozens of tourists were climbing out of cars and buses to make their way to a low-slung building that was clearly a some sort of memorial. Since we were already there, we decided to see what the fuss was all about. We picked our way along the grass-lined walkway, clip-clopped across the red stone terrace in our awkward cycling shoes, and looked down.

On the other side of the hill, stretching down to the bottom of the slope, lay row upon row of stone crosses, the graves of the 30,000 soldiers who were killed in Vieil Armand during the First World War. 30,000 young men, who had died in the trenches just beyond the cemetery. 30,000 young men, who had come up by the very road we were now cycling on. A road that was built for the sole purpose of bringing them to the front, and keeping them there.

It's difficult to describe what I felt at that moment. Sadness, of course, that so many had lost their lives. Shock that so many had lost them in this single remote mountain. (While I knew that nearly 1.5 million French troops were killed during World War I, it was something else to be confronted with part of that evidence.) Some cognitive dissonance, that this peaceful, shady wood was not too long ago stripped bare and ripped apart by war. And guilt, too, that I'd forgotten how much bloodshed had taken place in the Alsace-Schwarzwald region. Though it's obvious in retrospect, this morning I hadn't really considered the implications of the Route des Crêtes being military road. It was a bit strange to think that the only reason I could enjoy my ride today was because the 30,000 bodies lying beneath my feet had once needed to be fed.

I spent some time wandering among the graves, reading the names. Many were obviously French; others clearly had German ancestors, reflecting the region's split identity. There was even a Muslim man, whose headstone was quite unique. I wondered if he had fit in with his comrades while he was alive, because in death, he was clearly set apart. (Come to think of it, did the French French trust the French Germans?) But they all had one thing in common: MORT POUR LA FRANCE.

After that, it was difficult not to be reminded of the region's bloody history wherever we went: the German names that most of the towns bore (Altenbach, Guebwiller, Issenheim), the dual names of a few others (Vieil Armand/Hartmannswillerkopf), the concrete bunkers in the Petit Camargue and Forêt Dominale de la Hardt, the cone-shaped bomb craters off the cycling trails there, the separate cemeteries for French and German soldiers in Cernay. Even the horrid bunker-like apartment buildings from the 50s and 60s are a legacy of the wars (though other places, like Basel, inflicted the ugliness on themselves).

Only when Swissy Pie's shifter cable broke, partway up Le Grand Ballon d'Alsace, did my focus snap back to the present. He was stuck in big gears for the rest of the trip, and a great deal of mountainous terrain lay between us and our car. How he made it when I needed my easiest gears, I'll never know; how he recovered to go back to conquer Grand Ballon the next day is an even greater mystery.

But it's far more pleasant to wonder about that, than about the dead who lie in Vieil Armand.

Call of the Wild

2007-05-13T21:10:00.000+01:00

I need drugs. Badly. Allergy season has turned me into a snot-nosed, red-eyed wreck. People can hear me coming from at least 100 meters away: even Swissy Pie, whose ears function about as well as Helen Keller's when he's on his bicycle, kept looking over in amazement today whenever I shot off a volley of sneezes. By the time we got home from our ride, I looked like Lord Voldemort. Or Darth Maul. (Hey, Harry Potter was on TV yesterday, and tonight we got Star Wars, so right now mediocre fantasy movies come easily to mind.)

It's been a long time since I've suffered from hayfever. When I was young, I had to stay indoors during recess because of it. But I thought I'd outgrown my allergies. In New York, only the cherry blossoms in Central Park triggered it, and it was easy enough to avoid the area behind the Metropolitan Museum of Art during the two weeks they were flowering. I guess there just wasn't enough greenery in that city to set off my symptoms. Ah, how I miss living in a concrete jungle!

But I refuse to let my wayward immune system keep me indoors - not when there are places like Badenweiler to be discovered.

We came upon the town entirely by accident. On Saturday, we'd taken a friend of mine from college up to Blauen to do a bit of light hiking. Though it was a little hazy and quite windy, we managed to get in a good walk, complete with views.

Afterward, Swissy Pie was still feeling adventurous, so he descended via a different route, which took us by Badenweiler. Nestled between the mountains of the Black Forest and the vineyards of Markgräflerland, the town is beautiful, with a picturesque Neo-Romanesque church, painstakingly landscaped greens, elegant outdoors restaurants and cafes, and a number of posh-looking spas with saunas, mudbaths, hot springs, and other treatments. My friend seemed quite interested in the sauna - he kept pointing out that it only cost 10 euros - but as it was rather late, we had to content ourselves with exploring Burg Baden, a ruined castle overlooking the town.

First built in the 1100s, the castle is part of the beautiful Kurpark (which also showcases subtropical plants, gardens, as well as an old tea pavilion, the Belvedere). Though Swissy Pie translated the signs that explained the ruin's history, the views from its walls distracted me too much for the information to stick. All I can recall is that Elizabeth of Burgundy once lived here, so the land must have exchanged hands at least a couple of times. I suppose it's worth fighting for!

Since Badenweiler is only about 30 km from Basel, we'll certainly be back to finish exploring the rest of the town, and to give the hot springs a try. And with any luck, I won't spend half of the next visit blowing my nose...

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

2007-05-05T17:51:00.000+01:00

When we lived in New York, we went to Señor Swanky’s, a tacky Mexican joint not too far from my apartment, more or less once a week. Aside from a high calories-per-dollar-spent ratio, it featured cheap plastic tables (although happily, they were outdoors), indifferent service, decent chips and salsa (when the servers remembered to bring them out), and gigantic burritos roughly the size and weight of a brick. The latter were the draw for Swissy Pie: he adored those burritos. But while I agreed that they were quite tasty, I generally avoided them, in favor of something that would leave me capable of walking home afterward.

Ususally, I ordered the enchiladas. Sometime during my childhood - very likely during a visit to Chi-Chi’s - I’d gotten the impression that I liked them. But at Señor Swanky’s, I always ended up disappointed. They were too heavy, too cheesy, too bland… Yet I kept getting them. Apparently, I’m a slow learner.

Now that we’re over 3000 miles from our old haunt, we don’t eat Mexican very much. But when we do, it’s prepared just the way I like it. (Not too surprising, since I’m the one who has to do the preparing!) At last, I can have enchiladas every bit as good as the ones in my memory.

As a general rule, I avoid using jarred sauces from the grocery store shelves. Although making mole sauce from scratch requires a bit of extra time, everything from the chicken to the sauce can be prepared in advance. To me, the results are worth the effort.

Enchiladas Un-Swiss Miss

for the mole sauce:
1 C. canned whole tomatoes
2 garlic cloves

2 Tbsp. flour
2 Tbsp. chili powder
1 Tbsp. cocoa powder
1 tsp. ground cumin

2 Tbsp. butter
2 Tbsp olive oil

2 C. chicken broth or water
1 Tbsp. molasses or brown sugar
1 Tbsp. tomato paste
pinch cinnamon
2 tsp. salt (reduce if using chicken broth)

for the enchiladas:
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 onion, diced
2 medium tomatoes, diced
1/2 C pitted green olives, diced
2 whole chicken breasts, poached and shredded

8 8-in corn or flour tortillas
8 oz finely shredded Emmentaler or Swiss cheese
1/4 C pitted green olives, sliced

Make the sauce:
Put the canned tomatoes and garlic in a blender and process until smooth. Set aside.

In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, chili powder, cocoa, and cumin until blended.

In a medium saucepan over medium heat, melt the butter in the 2 Tbsp. olive oil. When the butter starts to foam, add the flour mixture and cook, stirring, 2-3 minutes.

Slowly pour in the chicken stock, whisking to ensure the sauce stays smooth and lump-free. Whisk in the tomato-garlic puree, molasses, tomato paste, cinnamon, and salt. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the sauce is thick and glossy, approximately 5 minutes. Set aside. The sauce may be cooled and refrigerated, but bring to room temperature before assembling the enchiladas.

Assemble the enchiladas:
Preheat the oven to 350ºF (175ºC, or if using a convection oven, 160ºC).

Set aside 1/2 C. of the diced tomatoes for garnish.

In a medium skillet, heat 1 Tbsp. olive oil until shimmering. Add the onion and cook until softened. Add the diced olives, remaining tomatoes, and shredded chicken. Cook until just heated through. Divide into 8 equal portions.

Dip a tortilla in the mole sauce to cover. Place a portion of chicken and approximately 2 Tbsp. cheese down the center of the tortilla, roll up the tortilla, and place in a 9”x13” casserole.

When all the enchiladas are assembled, pour the remaining mole sauce over the casserole, sprinkle with the leftover cheese, and scatter the olive slices on top.

Bake the enchiladas for 30 minutes (20 minutes if using a convection oven). Garnish with the reserved diced tomatoes and serve.

Olé!

Spice Girls

2007-05-04T12:07:00.000+01:00

The ginger cookies that my sister makes are out of this world. Last Christmas, she whipped up a batch, and I swear the cookie jar was empty again within 24 hours. Or was it 12? In any case, it was fast. Especially when they're warm, they're amazing: soft, not too sweet, and hauntingly spicy.

Even though I've stolen the recipe from her, I've never made them myself, not even after I had Swissy Pie track down a jar of molasses for me at Migros. Part of it is that I'm lazy. I only have one baking sheet here, a cheap black thing that came with our oven, and I just don't want to spend half the day in the kitchen waiting for it to cool down so I can stick another dozen in. The other part is pride: I don't want to end up with cookies that aren't as good as my sister's. (No, I'm not competitive. What gave you that idea?!)

But the other day, I came across a recipe for molasses cake that sounded super-easy and very appealing. Since I also had a bit of fresh ginger that I wanted to use up, I couldn't resist grating some into the batter. The result was moist, tender, and perfectly ginger-y. Dare I say it? This cake might even be better than my sister's cookies. (But only because it's a lot less of a hassle to make.)

Fresh Ginger and Molasses Cake
2 1/4 C. flour
1 C. sugar
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 C. fresh ginger, grated
1/2 C. butter, melted
1/2 C. molasses
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 C. boiling water
Preheat oven to 350 F (175 C, or with a convection oven, 160 C).

Cut out a round of parchment paper to line the bottom of a 9-inch cake pan.

In a mixing bowl, stir together flour, sugar, salt, ginger, and butter. The mixture will gather into crumbs; using a whisk helps keep the crumbs fine. Take out a scant 1/4 C. of the crumb mixture and set aside for topping.

In another bowl, mix the molasses, baking soda, and hot water. The soda will fizz a little when dissolved.

Slowly whisk the liquid into the dry ingredients, and stir until smooth. Any lumps that remaining should be ginger.

Scrape the batter into the prepared cake pan. Scatter reserved crumbs on top.

Bake for 45 minutes (35 if using a convection oven), or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

Cool, run a knife along the outside of the pan to loosen the cake, and turn out onto a serving plate.

What's illegal in America, but very common here?

2007-04-30T14:26:00.000+01:00

Two weekends ago, Swissy Pie and I had our closest brush to date with the border police. We'd spent the morning shopping in Germany, the early afternoon walking around a nature preserve in France, and around 3 pm, were finally heading home, across the lightly monitored border in the northern part of Basel. More often than not, there aren't any agents at the booth, but today, as we drew closer, we could see a two-car queue ahead of us.

At first we figured it was no big deal: it just meant the Swissies were home today. But when we crept closer and closer, and still neither car had moved, we realized customs was playing hardball. And that meant we could be in big trouble. In our back seat, we had more than the kilo of meat that was our daily duty-free allowance, not to mention a crate of beer that added up to well over 2 liters. (Swissy Pie is blithely certain beer counts as water rather than alcohol. I hope we never have to prove him wrong.)

A customs agent was interrogating the driver of the first car. As we watched, a second agent strolled out of the booth and joined him. With a brusque jerk of the head, they motioned the car over to the side for further attention; and then a third agent emerged to question the two men in the (French) car just ahead of us. Papers were produced and handed back and forth. More questions were exchanged. At last, the passenger, who evidently didn't have identification on him, got out and scuttled into the Zoll booth, while the driver, curiously, continued into Basel. And then it was our turn.

Perhaps it was our Baselstadt license plate. Perhaps customs had already stopped their quota for the day. Or perhaps we looked entirely uninteresting. Whatever the case, the blond, broad-faced customs officer merely peered into our car (somehow ignoring the very visible contraband in the back), scanned our faces, and nodded for us to continue. Relieved, we drove on, past the hapless Arabic-looking men from the first car, who were still off to the side, watching the customs officers comb through their vehicle.

"I guess customs just isn't interested in people who aren't dark-skinned," Swissy Pie noted, nodding at the searchees. "Those guys get stopped all the time."

It's true: everyone we've seen pulled over to the side of the road and being searched has looked either Muslim or African. And frankly, it bothers me.

Part of it is the injustice of the whole situation. Why should perfectly innocent people be continually harassed, just because of the color of their skin? Granted, I haven't heard any stories about police brutality, like the ones we hear about in the US, but that doesn't change the fact that being stopped and searched is embarrassing, not to mention inconvenient.

But what really gets me is how little good the policy does. I seriously doubt that the majority of people stopped have any criminal intent; stopping them routinely doesn't make me any safer. And if terrorism is the concern, there are plenty of cases in both the US and in Germany where the criminals were home-grown. Plus, not all Muslims look Muslim, for lack of a better word: I went to school with both men and women who would've easily passed for Caucasian.

No wonder that Turks and other minorities feel so alienated in Western Europe. Even for the ones who are successful, how could they ever feel at home in a place that continually singles them out for "special" treatment?

What a long strange weekend it's been

2007-04-25T19:34:00.000+01:00

There's no longer any doubt in my mind: the climate of the Rhine river valley is downright surreal. I've lost count of how many sunny, precipitation-free days we've had. But over the past two weeks, we've had 9 days where the thermostat's shot past 75°F. Despite a slide back into the comfortable 60's in the middle of last week, the arrival of the weekend sent the mercury climbing again. Great for Swissy Pie, who loves hot, sunny weather. Not so great for me: I'm an Eisbär. (If you've got any doubts, see my photo.)

Friday, when Global Librarian and her friend Laurie came to Basel, was the transition day. When we set the date last week, the forecast had called for rain. So I was thrilled to wake up to see the sun glittering in a clear, haze-free sky. Nor was it too warm: it was actually chilly enough that I debated putting on a sweater that morning.

Good thing I didn't. By the time we finished our little walking tour of the Altstadt and enjoyed a leisurely al fresco lunch on the charming terrace of Au Violon, the weather was starting to warm up. Things were just about perfect when we made our way over to the Tinguely Museum. But after we'd clambered and clanked and whirred our way through the exhibit, which Global Librarian recounts perfectly here, it was downright hot. (The lead photo of the fantastic chairs, by the way, is courtesy of her.)

Our journey back along the banks of the Rhine was like a walk through the Garden District of New Orleans, only without the mosquitoes, crime, or vampires. Heavy boughs of wisteria draped themselves across beautifully maintained old houses. Just past a screen of exquisitely tortured sycamores, a languid river rolled toward the sea. At times, the air was so thick it didn't feel like we were walking: we were wading through hot, liquid sunshine.

Saturday and Sunday, it only got worse, but each day Swissy Pie managed to draw me out of our nice cool apartment: first, with the prospect of frog-viewing in the Petite Camargue d'Alsace, and then with a Geissenfest in the Black Forest. I'm not sure why a goat festival sounded so interesting to me, but it did. So I slapped on some sunscreen (Swissy Pie managed to evade my minstrations), we got out our bikes, and off we went to Germany.

But the goats were not to be easily reached.

First, Swissy Pie had equipment problems halfway there, so he sent me racing back to Basel to get his other bike and drive it out. (Now that's dedication.) Then, we found that you had to be able to climb like a goat to see them: the road up to the Geissenfest, which was probably an unpaved goat path in the not-so-distant past, was so steep that at one point I swear my front wheel lifted off from the ground. Eek! Thank goodness Swissy Pie allowed that not everyone has Geissen genes, like he seems to. So, we headed back to get the car, and even with its 170 hp engine, it needed to be in second gear the whole time!

At last we made it to a make-shift parking lot, judging by the number of Mercedes SLKs adorning the meadow. (Apparently there are a lot of rich goat-lovers out there!) We pulled into an empty expanse of grass. I pulled on my shoes, which I had conveniently needed to drive over, but Swissy Pie was forced to go barefoot to the upper meadow, where the goats were. There was also another parking lot up there: that was probably meant to distinguish the regulars, who knew about it, from tourists like us, who parked a long way off. But at least the walk was scenic!

The festival itself was very small. Like any self-respecting festival, anywhere in the world, there were booths selling food (in this case, bread, bratwurst, and fries), drink (beer), and random souvenirs (bottles of sour cherry schnapps, jars of local honey, leather collars with goat bells attached, free trade coffee beans, and hand-woven baskets). And while there were a lot of people milling about, there was one thing the goat festival was noticeably short on: goats. Perhaps we arrived too late in the afternoon, and missed the fun, but there were less than 20 goats at the entire show!

Still, the kid goats were adorable, and the scenery was fantastic. And it was worth going, just to see the other attendees gawking at our funny cyclist outfits and Swissy Pie's bare feet!

Deliver the puddings or the blog gets it...

2007-04-18T21:36:00.000+01:00

I was quietly catching up with blog reading this morning when the latest recipe at Once Upon a Tart jumped off the screen, dove straight for my stomach, and took it hostage. At least, that's what I assumed happened, because after that, said stomach started to send out distress signals, and nothing would satisfy it except a batch of the mouthwatering Yorkshire puddings that Myriam had just posted about.

Fortunately, the puddings were phenomenally easy to make, requiring nothing but a bit of flour, milk, eggs, and salt. The only thing about the instructions that made me pause: Myriam specifies that the batter should rest for an hour. I briefly considered following the instructions to the letter, but the hostage squealed in alarm. On went the oven. In went the custard cups I was using in lieu of muffin tins. Ten minutes later, out came a lovely, buttery-warm aroma. Gorgeous golden puffs followed in short order.

As soon as they were cool enough to handle, I ripped into one. It was a revelation: crisp outside (though the rest softened by the time I got to them), and soft and tender inside. Though Yorkshire puddings are traditionally eaten with gravy and the Sunday roast, I made a pretty good lunch out of them and the wonderful bauern ham we get at our favorite butcher.

They were so good that I couldn't stop thinking about them all afternoon. My stomach kept sending out hopeful queries: is it dinner yet? What about now? No? Then can we make a snack?

So on the spur of the moment, I decided to introduce Swissy Pie to the joys of British cuisine. But I wanted to play with the recipe a bit. I happened to have two egg whites left over from making Hollandaise sauce - more on that in another post - so I subsituted them for an egg. And because the Yorkshire puddings reminded me of gougeres, I chopped up a bit of Gorgonzola and mixed that in, too. (Yes, I probably should've used a good English Stilton or something like that, but Gorgonzola was what I had in the refrigerator.)

Wow. WOW. WOW.

After the first bite, Swissy Pie asked, "What's this again? It's really good."

That's high praise from him. Usually, to indicate his approval, he says, "Not too bad."

Yes, I cheated a bit. I know he's a sucker for anything with blue cheese in it. But still, it really was scrumptious.

What was that? Oh. Just my stomach, informing me that very soon, we'll again be making some version of Yorkshire pudding.

Yorkshire Puddings with Gorgonzola

100 ml milk
40 g flour
2 egg whites
2 Tbsp Gorgonzola cheese, finely diced
oil for ramekins, custard cups, or muffin tins
In a bowl, mix together eggs and milk. Add flour, and whisk until the batter is smooth and there are no lumps left. Stir in Gorgonzola, making sure the pieces don't stick together. Set aside.

Take 3 ramekins, custard cups, or muffin tins. Pour approximately 1 Tbsp oil into each container. (The bottom should be covered with oil.) Place the ramekins on a rack in the middle of the oven.

Turn on the oven and preheat it to 220 C. Once the oven is at the desired temperature, carefully pour in 1/3 of the batter into each ramekin. Be careful, as the oil will be hot.

Immediately close the door and bake until the puddings are puffed and golden, 10-15 minutes. (This will take longer in non-convection ovens, and if the recipe is doubled or tripled.) Do not open the door prematurely, or the puddings will fall.

Yield: 3

And don't miss Myriam's recipe over at Once Upon a Tart!

What next?

2007-04-12T17:00:00.000+01:00

America is, with some justification, considered one of the most consumeristic countries in the world. However, in some ways Switzerland is just as bad. When I was here back in October, I saw that many shops had already started displaying their Christmas wares. Then, Fasnacht cakes took the place of Christmas lebkuchen and läckerli cookies, and those in turn were nudged aside by enormous chocolate Easter bunnies and elaborately decorated eggs. Whenever I'm here, there's been something special for sale in the stores.

Now that Easter is over, I've been wondering what they'll come up with next. As far as I'm aware, there are no religious, national, cantonal, or city holidays coming up. So what excuse will Coop and Migros use to get people to indulge?

Well, yesterday I went into Migros for the first time since Easter, and the answer seems to be: BEETLES.

Yes, you read that right. Beetles, and I don't mean the car, either. For some reason, an artful arrangement of fist-sized, creepy-crawly-shaped chocolates was perched in the middle of the grocery store, between a refrigerator case filled with yogurt, and a display stand of melons.

After a bit of staring and obligatory photo-taking, I got down to the serious business of wondering. Who would want to eat a bug, chocolate or not? (On second thought, I can imagine a lot of grade-school boys thinking this would be really cool.) And were there actually beetles inside? (The American Museum of Natural History used to sell similar stuff for its Insects exhibit, and some of those candies involved real bugs embedded in lollipops; they were meant to ressemble flies in amber.) And why, of all things, beetles?

Swissy Pie clarified things somewhat when he got home. Those were Maikäfer, or May bugs, which were once a terrible pest in Europe. Both the larvae and the adults are voracious eaters, so infestations could wipe out the entire year's crop. Nevertheless, since they appear in late April or early May, they are a sign that spring has arrived, so apparently as long as they don't behave too terribly, they are welcomed.

That still didn't quite explain why people ate chocolate Maikäfer. After all, spinach, asparagus, lamb, strawberries, raspberries, and all sorts of seasonal stuff was appearing on the market at the same time. Why bugs? Was it some sort of "we'll eat them before they can eat us" mentality, I asked? Swissy Pie only shrugged.

Possibly, as a little bit of research showed, but more likely it's an evolution. Back in the dark ages before DDT and other lovely pesticides were invented, farmers attempted to keep the Maikäfer population under control by catching and killing the adult beetles. These efforts were only marginally successful, so presumably crops were often destroyed. People might then have turned to the beetles for food. There are recipes for Maikäfersuppe, which evidently tastes somewhat like crab soup. Even as late as the 1920s, some students ate sugar-covered Maikäfer. Just as the Karneval Nubbel has taken the place of a real human sacrifice, chocolate Maikäfer may have taken the place of the real thing.

Which is probably for the best, as far as the Swiss retailers are concerned. But what will they put in the aisles after the May bugs are gone? June bugs?

I don't know how he does it

2007-04-10T11:28:00.000+01:00

After five days off, we had a really tough time getting up this morning. Part of the problem was that we'd gotten used to sleeping in, until after 10. (At least!) But the bigger problem was that my legs didn't want to move. Actually, never mind the legs. My whole body aches, and unlike Swissy Pie, I didn't even get on my bike every day. (Though 4 out of 5 ain't shabby, if you ask me.)

Not that we spent the whole weekend cycling. With the longer days - at the moment, the sun doesn't set until 8 pm - we have the luxury of running errands and/or exploring the region before saddling up. Friday, for example, Swissy Pie hurried me through breakfast so we could get to the Basel Zoo.

We weren't the only ones there: the whole city had apparently decided to visit the animals. (I guess it was one of the few attractions open on Good Friday.) Although we weren't spared the typical family dramas (dropped ice cream cones, lost toys, etc.), Swiss efficiency was very much in evidence. So, despite the long lines, we obtained our tickets and got past the gate quite quickly.

Though a few of the particularly cold-sensitive creatures were still indoors, most were outside basking in the sunlight, like these hippos:

I also liked the monkeys, especially the guys pulling on each others' tails...

...and the baby giraffe...

...and the wild birds infiltrating the zoo (a grey heron and storks)...

Oh, honestly. I liked all the animals!

Afterward we headed to the Black Forest for Day 2 of Swissy Pie's Great Adventure. Since we'd gone up to Sallneck Thursday afternoon, I needed a "recovery ride." Swissy Pie went back to Sallneck, but I took a more leisurely spin up past the town of Wies. Going out, it was a slow, steady climb, which made the downhill return really fun. The turns were broad and sweeping, so even someone like me, who's notoriously afraid of descending, only had to tap the brakes a few times!

On Day 3, Saturday, we attacked Hochblauen via Marzell. Swissy Pie had first taken me up there last autumn, by car. Even back then, the long and frequently steep climb made me wince. (12%+?! Oh, my knees!) But on the bike, it looked even more daunting. I really didn't think I would make it all the way up, but somehow, I put my head down, and inched my way up.

The reward? This (somewhat hazy) view. The glittering band on the horizon is the Rhine River. In the foreground, a few patches of snow are visible. (It was cold up there!)

I was so thrilled to have conquered Blauen that I didn't even feel particularly tired that evening. (Usually, after a tough ride, I'm a zombie.) The full effects didn't hit me until the middle of the night, when I woke up with so many aches that I thought I should move to a retirement home!

Fortunately, I figured I was pretty safe from further pain: I knew we had plans to visit Swissy Pie's family in Bern for Easter. Plus, I had to finish baking this Easter Bread. So I guessed that neither of us would do much cycling on Sunday.

But while I was waiting for my dough to finish rising, Swissy Pie shimmied into his cycling gear, stuffed a change of clothes into a backpack, and stuffed the car keys into my hand.

"Can you drop me off in Liestal?" he said. "I'm going to ride toward Bern. Call me when you head out - you can pick me up along the way."

I was in shock. Alright, so it was sunny and gorgeous outside, but it was also windy. I should also point out that about 100 km, and a nice mountain range called the Juras, separates the two cities... And did I mention that we'd been cycling the past three days? Yet, he nearly beat me there: I ended up meeting him about 5 minutes from his parents' house. Unbelievable.

Yesterday, needless to say, we were both back on the bike again. This time we went to Freiburg, a lovely university town in Germany (which is not to be confused with Fribourg/Freiburg, another lovely university town near Bern).

I quickly discovered my body was still in krank mode, so partway up the mountain Swissy Pie wanted to climb, I turned around. Good thing, too. He told me that after that, the going got really ugly: a 14% incline for the last 8 km that I didn't even attempt. So while he labored up, I sunned myself down in the charming little town of Oberreid.

Even after all that abuse, he was still bouncing around last night, full of energy and looking for the next mountain to conquer. Preferably today.

Fortunately for me, I've got other plans for this evening.

Alles, was Osterhasen suchen?

2007-04-05T22:07:00.000+01:00

At first, the signs were so subtle that an outsider might have missed them: bags of onion skins being sold at the supermarket, little egg tarts that replaced the Fasnacht specialties. But when the Migros ads began to feature demented Roger Rabbit lookalikes, chocolate bunnies in various sizes and flavors began to reproduce in grocery store aisles, and otherwise ordinary branches began to sprout brightly dyed eggs, two things became obvious. First, Easter was approaching. And second, the Swiss were no strangers to Hallmark-ified holidays.

Though few Swiss are very religious (at least by, not by the standards of Jerry Falwell), Easter here is a big deal. Hundreds of different confections, from Easter eggs and bunnies to dove-shaped Columba breads, stuff the shelves. Children dye eggs and go on egg hunts. But what excited me the most was the fact that Good Friday and Easter Monday are holidays, giving Swissy Pie a four day weekend. Actually, make that four-and-a-half. He got half of today off, too.

So what does one do when faced with the prospect of a glorious long weekend? Some head out for short vacations: based on the traffic reports, ski resorts and Ticino top the list of favored destinations. Others go home to visit their families. But if you're Swissy Pie, you plan daily bike tours around the region. And if you're his girlfriend, you shudder when he inevitably gets too ambitious, and when your attempts to dissuade him fail, you start carbo-loading to muster your strength. (That's my excuse, anyway, and I'm sticking to it!)

Our journey through the Alsace last weekend was a typical case of Swissy Pie overestimating my capabilities: we had to cut out a chunk of the loop he'd planned because at some point he realized I simply couldn't climb any more. The ride itself was lovely, though. We wound through bucolic valleys, where women gathered wild herbs in the fields, and up pine-blanketed slopes. We climbed past goats and sheep grazing on the mountainside. Hawks crouched on fence posts, waiting for lunch to emerge. Grey herons splashed down into mountain streams, and storks stood watch over their chimney-top nests.

For our own lunch, we stopped at a little inn/restaurant near the Col Haut du Ribeauvillé called Auberge du Petit-Haut. It served hearty, well-priced food, and seemed popular with locals. We both ordered Roestis, expecting to see golden pan-fried Swiss potato pancakes emerge from the kitchen. Instead, we got sizzling hot skillets, straight from the oven. The only similarity to Swiss Röstis was the presence of shredded potatoes. Swissy Pie got one with five cheeses and ham; mine was studded with ham, morels, oyster mushrooms, and champignons. Both were topped with a dose of heavy cream and baked until hot and bubbly. As if that weren't enough food, we got a huge bowl of salad and a basket of earthy wheat bread to share. All that for about 11 euros each! Perhaps I was just very hungry, but I liked the Alsatian version of Rösti better than the Swiss one.

The end of the ride took us through wine country. After we descended from the Vosges, we must have passed hundred of vineyards, and thousands of visitors wobbling in and out tasting Rieslings, Crémants d'Alsace, etc. It would have been nice to join them, but given I was sweaty and disgusting, it seemed like a bad idea. Not to mention, drunken AND tired cycling would have probably led to disaster!

In any case, Sunday's ride completely drained me, and despite my best efforts to do some "active recovery" this week - OK, so maybe running errands on my bike doesn't really count as cycling - today my legs were still a little weak. Fortunately, I didn't discover this until we were well on our way up the aptly named Bergstrasse (Mountain Road), somewhere in the Black Forest near Hofen. Though I was tempted to quit on a couple of steep spots, I managed to grind through to the top. (Swissy Pie's description of the last leg, after Kirchhausen, as a "bump" didn't really help.) But he seemed inordinately pleased that I'd made it all the way up. Perhaps he thought he'd have to carry me home?

So that one ride down, four more to go, if the stubborn guy sticks with his plan. Pass the bread basket, please!

Gluttony - it's my favorite sin

2007-03-31T20:50:00.000+01:00

I have unduly fond memories of Devil's Advocate, the 1997 movie about a small town lawyer (Keanu Reeves) who's got a preternatural ability to get his clients off the hook. After successfully defending an obviously guilty man, he's invited to join the big leagues in Manhattan. Life's good... until he discovers that he's quite literally sold his soul to one of the partners at his new firm: John Milton (Al Pacino), the devil in disguise. (John Milton, get it? Snicker, snicker.)

The plot sounds completely silly, and Keanu Reeve's role as the lead isn't exactly a confidence booster, either. But the script is witty, and Keanu's clueless demeanor actually works well in this film, much as it later would in The Matrix. Even if it didn't, though, Al Pacino's show-stopping performance would more than compensate. As Lucifer, it's his job to exploit people's weaknesses, and he does it with a zest that's downright enthralling.

So how does he trap poor, bewildered Keanu?

"Vanity," Pacino informs us with a smirk. "It's my favorite sin."

He wouldn't have too a hard time snagging my soul with that one, as vanity is certainly one of my vices. But he probably wouldn't bother with it. Of the seven deadly sins, the easiest way - by far! - to get to me is gluttony. And on an overcast Saturday like today, this particular sin gets indulged. A lot.

It started this morning with buttermilk pancakes. Earlier this week, I'd made oven-fried chicken (which though tasty, is encountering some technical difficulties... I don't translate very well into convection oven-ese), so I had enough buttermilk left over for a special weekend treat. We haven't made pancakes since we were in New York, and I was really looking forward to having them.

Then I opened my old reliable Joy of Cooking, which reminded me that the acid in buttermilk needs to be offset with baking soda. And that reminded me that I hadn't been able to find soda last week, when I wanted to make biscuits to go with the fried chicken.

Scheisse, I thought. Oh well, I guess we'll be having regular pancakes then.

I opened the refrigerator again, only to discover that we were out of milk, too.

In short order, Swissy Pie was dispatched to search for baking soda, which he discovered is called Natron in German. But did that help? Nope, at least not at Migros or Coop. No Natron on the shelves, only Backpulver (baking powder). But on the way home, he realized that since it's plain sodium bicarbonate, the friendly neighborhood apothecary would certainly carry it. (He never did explain why the pharmacist has sodium bicarbonate.) So we were able to have our buttermilk pancakes after all!

After breakfast, we headed off for our weekly smuggling session. Today we headed straight for Germany, as there was a bike shop there we needed to visit. Swissy Pie has grand plans for a 137 km, 6 pass bike ride through the Vosges tomorrow, and since I'm a wimp, we needed to purchase a cassette with bigger (easier) gears, to reduce the likelihood of me having to walk up the mountains. While we were there, we also stopped by a charming little Italian store, where we got some wine and some truly excellent olives, as well as an amazing butcher's shop, where we stocked up on meat, reh-pastete, and liverwurst. For lunch, I tried fleischkäse for the first time.

Fleischkäse, for the uninitiated, sounds repulsive. (It doesn't look all that great, either.) Who wants to eat something called "meat cheese"? It sounds like a cold cut gone horribly, terribly wrong. But the name's misleading. There's no cheese in fleischkäse: it's only finely ground meat that's been formed into a loaf and baked. For serving, it's sliced into finger-thick portions, and (in our case at least) wedged in a crusty roll. The end result has the texture and consistency of a hot dog, but it's got a much heartier, meatier flavor. And yes, it's actually quite tasty!

We ran a few more errands before heading back home for dinner, where a couple of nice salmon filets were waiting. Initially I was just going to glaze them with some honey, rice wine vinegar, and sesame oil, but by the time we finished unloading the car, I'd decided that I wanted to show off with something spontaneous and spectacular. (Oops, what did I say about vanity earlier?)

So after some digging around the refrigerator, I pulled together some ingredients that were just screaming to be made into a salsa: oranges, onions, parsley, and some red chilis from the freezer. (A good trick for hot peppers, ginger, and many other spices you can't use right away: chop it finely, freeze it in ice cube trays, and pop them out into Ziploc baggies. Later, pull out as many cubes as you need.)

At the last minute, I remembered that I had a basket of physalis lying around, so I cut up a few and threw them in, too. Physalis are tiny orange fruits that come beautifully encased in parchment-like sepals. At their best, they're quite sweet; when I tried them once, in some fancy restaurant back in the States, they'd been delectable. Unfortunately, the ones I got here weren't as tasty as I would've liked, but at least their firm texture worked really well in the salsa.

The salmon itself I marinated in a mixture of sweet chili sauce, orange juice, mustard, and garlic. After roasting it, I nestled it in a bed of white wine and lemon risotto, and spooned the salsa over. The result was heavenly, if I do say so myself. Unfortunately I was so eager to taste the experiment that I forgot to take photographs!

Yes, gluttony is certainly my favorite sin. But at least we put something on a diet today: our energy usage. Yep, we've sprung for a bunch of those energy-saving lightbulbs and installed them all over our apartment. So tonight, at least, I can go to bed feeling virtuous.

Aktuelles Nachrichten

2007-03-29T13:05:00.000+01:00

Here is a summary of today's top news headlines:

Happy birthday to Jessica Brogan in Neuchâtel!
Here's wishing you lots of chocolate, cake, and happiness!
French press coffee and espresso raise LDL ("bad") and total cholesterol levels
What?! Cream, cheese, liverwurst, and now coffee. Living in Switzerland may very well kill me. My only hope is that I can drink enough red wine to offset the effects! Wait... did someone say cirrhosis?
Swiss man gets 10 year jail sentence for graffiti
Well, not in Switzerland. He had to move all the way to Thailand, and go after posters of the king, before he was caught.

The weather in Basel: Sunny, 57°F, winds from the SW at 10 mph.

Border crossings

2007-03-25T17:47:00.000+01:00

Now that we've got a car, we've joined the masses sneaking into France and Germany for groceries on weekends. It's astounding how much less expensive food in the E.U. is, particularly meat. Everywhere we've been, at least half the cars have had Swiss plates. Several shops advertise that they accept payment in Swiss francs. As far as I can tell, customs officials are resigned to the rampant smuggling. Aside from the major crossing points, most of the customs checks are unmanned, and even at the big ones, they don't seem particularly interested in stopping anyone.

This is fortunate, because last weekend, we tried out a couple of hypermarchés in Alsace, where our purchases of Riesling, scotch, and gin exceeded our duty-free allowance by several multiples. We lugged back a tank of laundry detergent that comes up to my knees. Oh, yes, and we got some food, too. We shopped as if we were stocking up in advance of a famine. I can't tell how much more it would've been in Basel, because with some of the more extravagant purchases (Swissy Pie snuck in some foie gras into the cart when he thought I wasn't looking), our bill was a lot higher than usual. So much for saving money.

This weekend, after going to our local Coop for more wine (never mind what happened to the bottles we got last week), we headed over to Germany, "just for a peek." We should've predicted the outcome. Once again, we bought so much food we were hard-pressed to make space in our refrigerator for it.

Part of the problem: we came across Jever, Swissy Pie's favorite beer. The poor dear's been deprived ever since he left New York, where I'm quite certain he was single-handedly responsible for 90% of its consumption because no one else will touch the stuff. Naturally he had to get a few bottles, but they ended up occupying half a shelf in the refrigerator. By the way, we've only got 4 shelves.

But mostly, the problem is us. We're so used to prices in Switzerland that everything in the E.U. looks like a bargain by comparison. Plus, the French and German stores are so much bigger that they can offer a lot more variety. The cheese departments are much more interesting, for example. And instead of the one type of strawberry that Coop carries (which is from Spain, at that), in France you can pick from three different breeds. And have I mentioned that I saw my first European bagel? Of course I got a package, even though there's no shortage of bread in our home at the moment.

But as much fun as I had shopping across the border, I couldn't help but notice that I'm turning into a Swiss snob. "Oh no," I heard myself saying. "That spinach doesn't look very good. I'll get some at Migros next week." Or, "This beef looks disgusting. I'd rather pay more for the stuff at Coop."

Now, I'm not sure if there was really anything wrong with the food, and certainly I've picked up sub-standard food in Swiss shops. (Don't even ask about the last cucumber I bought. When I cut it open... Yech!) But because prices were lower (and in France at least, the stores looked dodgier), I became a lot more critical. You gets what you pays for, right? At least if you're not careful, and I have no desire to be the chump here.

Here's another point where I prefer the Swiss to their European neighbors: acceptance of credit cards. On our way home Saturday, we stopped by Dehner, a German chain of garden stores. I wanted to get some house plants, but at the moment there's no space for them in our living room, so we agreed to come back later. However, I picked out some herbs for the kitchen, as well as a couple of adorable little glazed pots for about 1 euro each. The grand total for my purchases: something on the order of 6 euros.

But when I went to pay with my credit card (why would I carry euros around when I live in Switzerland?) the cashier was very upset.

"For so little?" she said, grimacing in dismay. "It takes us 30 days to get the money."

"Sorry," I said, somewhat taken aback. (If that were the reason, wouldn't she be crankier if the bill were actually larger?) "I don't have any cash."

In the US, because of the fees they're charged, many small businesses request a minimum purchase before using credit cards, but I've never seen a big chain store do so. (In part because it's illegal.) In Switzerland, I've never encountered a minimum, either. I've charged 9 CHF at Nespresso, 4 CHF at Migros, both of which were less than this purchase. Not once have the cashiers stared (the official sign of Swiss disapproval). But this German woman, who works for a giant retailer, actually cared?

Swissy Pie volunteered, rather unhelpfully, "She's American, it's common there."

The woman replied irritably, "She's in Haltingen, not America."

Really? I hadn't noticed. I must have taken the wrong turn off of I-95!

After some more pouting and lecturing, which I pretended not to understand, she ended up running my credit card. "Just this once," she said sternly. I nodded and thanked her and tried to look as clueless as possible.

It's good to be foreign, sometimes.

Despite these little issues, we'll be back to smuggle our groceries. As the weather gets nicer, I'll probably start riding over on my bike during the week - it's only a few kilometers away, after all. And some day, we may even stop shopping like it's going out of style. But I doubt that will happen any time soon.

All that you can't leave behind

2007-03-25T16:17:00.000+01:00

After nearly two months of floating along in my comfortable little world here, this week I was powerfully jolted back to reality. Several incidents served to remind me that I'm quite far from my homeland, and taken together, left me feeling quite vulnerable. I've been stricken by another bout of homesickness, and as usual, it came completely out of the blue.

Although I'd been a little down all week, I didn't recognize the symptoms until Friday night, when Swissy Pie and I met up for drinks with a friend from New York, who happened to be in town for a meeting. We had a wonderful evening catching up, but as we emerged from the close, cigarette-fueled haze, I remarked, "Boy, that's one thing I miss - smoke-free bars."

In that moment of alcohol-induced clarity, I realized that I miss a lot more than the carcinogen-free air. I miss knowing what to do in an emergency. (Kids, 911 doesn't work here.) I miss having a bank account. (Damn you, Citibank, for charging me inordinately high "foreign fees"!) As much as I like rösti and fondue, I miss real ethnic food. (Sorry honey, that's why you've been coming home to kebabs, tandoori chicken, ma po tofu and Japanese curry.) I miss bagels. (My favorite splurge: an everything bagel, toasted, with cream cheese, tomato, and lox.) I even miss American-style potato chips, which I never ate back home. (Yes, they have chips here, but they just taste different. Less salt, less oil... they're just off.)

So - perhaps unconsciously - this past week I've been trying to make our apartment feel more like home. Helped along by miserable weather - the high winds keep me from venturing out more than the snow and the cold - I've resumed unpacking with a vengeance. I've reorganized the cabinets, planned and plotted how to squeeze the remaining boxes of clothes into the meager space remaining. I've filled the closet that Swissy Pie helpfully assembled one night. I've spent hours browsing through the garden center at Obi, trying to decide what kind of plants I'd like to have in our living room. (Swissy Pie is singularly unhelpful on this front. His allergies to flowers helps narrow things down, but otherwise, he just says, "Get whatever you want.")

To complete my good little hausfrau image, I've even been ironing. Now, the last time I turned on my iron was probably at least five years ago, but I schlepped the thing all the way from New York, and I'm determined to use it. (The absurd dry cleaning fees here are also a good motivation - 10 Swiss francs per item!) So one day I stuffed all of Swissy Pie's dirty dress shirts into the washing machine, dragged them upstairs while they were still damp, and set to work. It took me all afternoon, but at last I managed to wrestle the pile of tangled cloth into something approaching unwrinkled shirts on hangers.

But ultimately, the most therapeutic thing I can do is indulge myself with comfort food. One day, for example, I craved Japanese curry. Now, most people associate curry with India, or perhaps Malaysia, but anyone who's been to Tokyo will recognize it as a national dish: it's a cheap, nutritious meal that can be purchased anywhere for a mere 400 or 500 yen. Nevertheless, it's alleged to be the Emperor of Japan's favorite food, and the average Japanese family eats it 2 or 3 times a week. Japanese grocery stores - as well as those in New York - carry kits that make throwing a curry together quick and easy.

I haven't come across any of the kits in the Asian markets here, so instead, I cobbled together a makeshift recipe. It turned out pretty well. It's not fancy, or even subtle, the way most Japanese dishes are. But it definitely keeps winter at bay!

Japanese Curry

1 lb ground beef
4 medium potatoes, diced
3 carrots, diced
1 onion, diced
2 cloves garlic
4 C water
2 chicken or beef boullion cubes
5 Tbsp vegetable oil
1/4 C flour
4 Tbsp curry powder
1 tsp chili powder (optional)
2 Tsp salt (or to taste)

2 C short grain rice
4 C water

In a large pot, heat 2 Tbsp of vegetable oil. Saute onion and garlic until softened. Add the ground beef and cook until it is no longer pink. Add the carrots and potatoes, stir a few times, and then add the water and boullion. Bring to a boil, and simmer for 15-20 minutes.

While the meat is cooking, make a roux out of the remaining 3 Tbsp oil and the flour: heat oil in a medium skillet until shimmering. Over low-medium heat, add flour and stir, cooking until the flour is blended and takes on a pale golden hue. Add curry powder and chili powder, using the back of the spatula to blend it into the roux. The mixture will be powdery and dry.

Take 1/2 C of the hot liquid from the meat pot and slowly add it to the curry-roux mixture, stiring constantly to form a smooth paste. By spoonfuls, add the curry paste back to the beef mixture, stirring to dissolve. Add salt. Simmer the curry for 20-30 minutes, until the sauce has thickened and the beef and vegetables are tender.

While curry is finishing up, bring rice and water to a boil in a pot, immediately reduce heat to low, cover the pot with its lid, and cook for 20 minutes.

Serve curry with rice in shallow bowls. There should be approximately twice as much curry as rice in the bowl.

Yield: 4 servings

Notes:
1) Curry mixes vary in ingredients and intensity, so adjust the spices accordingly.
2) Like a stew, there should be a lot of sauce, so if the curry is too dry, add more water.

Have and have not

2007-03-17T00:13:00.000+01:00

Since I've spent a few posts complaining about the things that Switzerland doesn't have, it only seems fair to devote a post to something that can be found here, but not in the US: the mangosteen.

The mangosteen is a small, round, purple fruit from Southeast Asia known as the "Queen of Fruits." I first read about them a long time ago, but an impression of their fabled flavor - not to mention their elusiveness - has stayed with me ever since. Legend has it that Queen Victoria offered a reward to anyone who could send them to her. Today, in the United States at least, they're still nearly impossible to find: because their flesh may harbor Asian fruit flies, the US doesn't allow fresh ones to be imported. So I'd never managed to sample the ambrosial fruit.

Apparently Switzerland has no such qualms, perhaps because customs officials know the fruit flies will never manage to fill out the appropriate visa applications in triplicate. Still, they're by no means common here. I haven't seen any at the Asian markets, though admittedly I haven't been looking. But while I was browsing through Globus today, I happened upon a handful of what looked like baby eggplants, nestled among other brilliant clusters of exotic fruits.

In case your wallet's never been ambushed by Globus, consider yourself fortunate: it's the Swiss version of Barney's, with one major improvement. Like most European department stores, it has a food shop in its basement, and appropriately enough, the one at Globus is like Dean and Deluca, only about a thousand times better. It carries a staggeringly glorious assortment of proscuittos, fresh pasta, prepared salads, wines, cheeses... In short, if you're searching for something rare, extraordinary, and/or expensive, it's the best place in the city to go.

Needless to say, it's a very dangerous place for me to venture, so usually I stay away. But since I was in the neighborhood on Friday morning, I drifted in, resolved to "just look." Then I saw the Malaysian mangosteens peeking out at me, and I knew I had to get a couple to try.

With a great deal of willpower, I made it out of Globus without further damage to my bank account, and coddled my little treasures all the way home. It took even more willpower not to succumb to curiosity and taste one right away. But I decided to make an Asian themed dinner, and to serve the fruit afterward for dessert.

As it turns out, my careful handling was unnecessary: mangosteens have a thick protective layer that start to harden after picking. Though the ones I got were still relatively soft (as is ideal), there was more than enough padding to cushion the fruit inside. Indeed, getting at the edible bit required a bit of careful sawing: once around the equator with a serrated bread knife, a little twist, and at last the shell fell open to reveal a perfectly white globe segmented - somewhat like an orange - into seven slippery sections. It was gone in less than thirty seconds.

The texture and flavor was reminiscent of a mango, though much brighter and far less sweet. (Is that how it got its name?) It had a lovely floral aroma that lingered on the tongue long after the tiny bits of fruit were gone. Without a question, it was delicious. But I suspect the biggest reason it's legendary is its relative rarity, and how much effort it takes to get at a tiny bit of fruit!

Given how much Globus charges, I won't be stocking my fruit bowl with them. But now I can cross off one more item off my personal "things to do before I die" list, and dream of having a mangosteen tree in my back yard.

Tour de Suisse, Stage 2

2007-03-13T14:16:00.000+01:00

A grey, dreary smear of sky greeted us Saturday morning in Bern. Outside it was chilly, but apparently not cold enough to transform the light drizzle into magical fluffy powder. Nevertheless, Swissy Pie and I decided to head for Grindelwald, about 45 minutes away. We hadn't skiied all year, and we figured it would be our last chance to go before spring set in with a vengeance.

The rain provided us with a chance to play with our new car's window wipers, which has a setting that magically detects spray on the windowshield and scrubs only when necessary. When it's drizzling lightly, the wipers swipe very infrequently; when the rain comes down harder, the wipers speed up. Swissy Pie loved it, of course - he's a gadget freak. But even I thought it was very cool!

But we fretted about the weather all the way to the mountain. I thought it would probably be snowing higher up; Swissy Pie pointed out that even if I were right, it isn't much fun skiing when you can't see where you're going. That was when I remembered that not only was I late to the sport - I didn't really get started until about 5 years ago - but that it's been 2 years since the last time I've gone. Back then, I was at the point where I could make it down pretty much anything, though it often wasn't pretty. But now, after 2 years... I started to worry.

Things started looking up once we got to the Grindelwald area. As we climbed into the mountains, the raindrops began swirling, and then transformed into snowflakes. Then, when we got to the parking lot, the snow was starting to give way to blue sky. The other Swiss had evidently given up on winter, so we were able to park about the same distance from the lift as when we'd come the first time, back in August. And despite five busloads of visitors from Alsace and Germany, there wasn't much of a line.

We got our day passes, which turned out to be magnetic cards that we'd need to swipe every time we got on the lift. Swissy Pie put his in his jacket pocket. Since it's not optical, like a bar code, it doesn't have to be pulled out: you can just ski up to the gate, do a little twist to pass it by the reader, and go on through. For some reason I had trouble with the card in my pocket, but it wasn't until after lunch that I hit upon a solution: slipping it into the zip-up compartment of my mittens.

Surprisingly, the Swiss weren't very orderly when queuing up for the lifts. (Or perhaps it was the Germans making trouble, I'm not sure.) People unabashedly shoved past to cut ahead. Some even used their children as weapons. Who's going to yell at pint-sized kids who barely come up to your knees? And it's difficult to figure out who the kids belong to, until those evil parents surge past in their childrens' wake. Standing in line, I often found myself contemplating alternative uses for my ski poles.

Aside from those for the gondola up and down, the crowds weren't bad. And by the time we got to the top of the mountain, it was a gloriously sunny day. Though a few banks of clouds did sweep through, by and large it was brilliant: warm, with good snow (though it got icy toward the end of the day) and lots of untouched powder.

Not that I could take full advantage of it. My skiing has definitely gone downhill with lack of practice, and all my worst habits were on full display. I even caught an edge on a very flat portion and went flying. (This is why I need a helmet!)

Still, at the end of the day, I was happy and exhausted. Some of the rhythm was coming back to me. I could identify what I was doing wrong. Even Swissy Pie's dour observation - "Next year we'll have to get you a proper Swiss instructor" - couldn't dampen my mood.

Come next winter - watch out on the slopes!

Tour de Suisse, Stage 1

2007-03-12T18:40:00.000+01:00

Despite my efforts to organize the apartment, one week after my move-in, our place is still completely unsettled. Slowly, things are getting better, but not fast enough for my tastes. Thanks to the Basel recycling center's odd and rather inconvenient opening hours, empty boxes and crumbled balls of packing paper still block our windows. Since we've run out of cabinet space, even after an emergency trip to Ikea on Wednesday, random packages of food - a jar of peanut butter, Viactiv calcium chews, tins of tea - remain on the kitchen table. Two enormous wardrobe boxes squat in our bedroom, because the closet has yet to be equipped.

So how does a girl like me handle a mess like that? Run away! Run away!

Yes, I'm afraid that by the end of the week, I was completely fed up with finding homes for the books, cookware, and clothes that had joined us from America. So Friday morning, I fled with Swissy Pie to Locarno, a town in the southern canton of Ticino, where he had a meeting.

By car, it was only about 3 hours away, but once we were through the Gotthard tunnel, it felt like we were in another country altogether. The architecture changed, favoring stone over wood, and earthy terracotta and parchment tones over bright blues, yellows, and greens. The signs changed, to Italian rather than German. Even the Alps felt different. In the north, the mountains are massive, dominating the landscape with sheer planes so steep that even moss has trouble clinging to their stones. But down south, they're somehow softer. The rocks seem browner and crumblier, and fall away at a gentler, less vertiginous pace.

By the time we reached Locarno, I already felt as if I were on vacation. And the small, quiet little town, hemmed in between the bristling Alpine foothills and glittering Lake Maggiore, did its best to maintain the illusion. Crisp white sailboats drifted lazily about their moorings. The magnolias were in full blushing bloom. Palm trees ringed the shore. I had to look twice to make sure I wasn't hallucinating. Palm trees, in Switzerland?

Alas, we couldn't stay long. By mid-afternoon, we were on the road again, winding through Centovalli to cut across Italy. It's an extraordinarily scenic drive. Narrow roads twist up mountains, through small bucolic villages, and across ancient arched bridges built over impossibly deep gorges. Peter Jackson could have easily shot Lord of the Rings here, though it probably would've been a great deal more expensive.

We reentered Switzerland through the Simplon Pass. At 2000 m, it's one of the lower passes through the Alps, which is why it's still open this time of year when all the other Alpine roads are closed. Still, a thick crust of snow frosted its slopes, and we saw a few solitary skiiers making tracks through the otherwise unblemished white. It was quite a change from the view that morning!

Now we were in Wallis (or Valais, depending on one's preferred language). But we still had to go north, and when I looked at the map (not to mention the horizon), I almost lost it. There were quite a few mountains directly in our way, but no roads open to take us there! (Did I mention the passes are all closed for winter?) We'd have to detour all the way to Geneva! The traffic was awful! It would add hours to our trip!

Silly Un-Swiss Miss! Never underestimate Swiss efficiency: if there's one thing they're really good at, it's digging holes, both through mountains and down into the ground. So naturally, there was a tunnel we could take. But we couldn't drive through it (which is why it didn't show up as a solid line on the map). Instead, we had to get on an auto train.

So we drove up to Goppenstein, where the train began, paid the fare, pulled directly onto a narrow flatbed rail car (right behind a minivan), and turned off our engine. About 20 seconds later, we felt a soft bump.

"Did some idiot just run into us from behind?" I asked indignantly.

No: the train had just started to move. Within a minute, it had rumbled up to a respectable speed. Ahead yawned the opening to the tunnel. And then we were plunged into absolute darkness.

For fifteen minutes, we sat sightless, accompanied only by the shakes and squeals of our own train, and the occasional flashes of life from passenger and cargo trains hurtling from the opposite direction. It was strange. It was disconcerting. It felt like a combination of the Thunder Mountain and Space Mountain rides in Disneyland, except a lot less fun.

We were in there for what felt like a long, long time. There's not much one can do in the dark (though Swissy Pie wisely took a quick nap). I suppose we could've turned on the lights in the car, but I didn't have any reading with me. Even if I did, all the bumping and jolting probably would've given me motion sickness.

So I was really pleased to finally emerge on the other end, in Kandersteg. From there, it was a quick descent to Thun, and from Thun, and easy cruise on the autobahn to Bern, where we were stayed for the night before heading back into the mountains for some skiing Saturday. But more on that in another post...

When it rains, it pours

2007-03-05T12:07:00.000+01:00

In this case, I mean it in a good way, because today I've got two exciting announcements.

First, if all goes well, Swissy Pie will be picking up our car this afternoon! The toy/baby/weapon comes not a moment too soon, for reasons which will shortly become obvious.

Second, my stuff is here! In the apartment! And not a single glass broken!

We heard about a week and a half ago that my container was in Bremenport, and would be catching the next train to Basel. Unfortunately, it couldn't take the ICE, and traveling with the hoi polloi in cargo meant it didn't get into Basel until Friday. Since it then had to clear customs, the moving company scheduled the delivery for Monday at 8 am.

Given this is Switzerland, I was expecting the movers to show up at 7:45. So you can imagine how nervous I got when 8:00 came and went without the doorbell ringing. Had customs decided that my tiny container was one of the 3% they wanted to audit? Did the movers have the wrong address? Had they decided to abscond with all my old clothes and 4-year old computer?

No, they were simply late. Two middle-aged men showed up at my door at 8:30. About an hour later, a third (Turkish) man joined them. I never found out what was going on, because my German isn't good enough to ask without sounding rude. (Actually, I'm not sure I could manage the task in English, either.) But I can certainly speculate and imagine: the two Swiss guys sitting in stony silence in the warehouse, getting more and more agitated as the clock grinds forward. Finally they burst into a diatribe against lazy, unreliable immigrants, and leave Herr Spät to make his own way over on his own.

To my surprise, the movers were gone before noon. Granted, unpacking takes less time than packing, and there was a lot they didn't take out, since there simply wasn't any place to put it. But if anyone has any doubts about our obsession with books and kitchenware, come take a look at our apartment. A whole corner of the living room is jammed with book boxes. (These are in addition to the 4 overflowing bookcases already in residence.) And despite my best efforts to find homes for them, kitchenware is cluttering every available surface, including the open space above our cabinets. There are even things under the table, an enormous 12-seater.

So we need the car now, so we can make a pilgrimmage to the big blue-and-yellow box out in Pratteln, so we can tame our kitchen, and so I won't be embarrassed when Swissy Pie's mother comes to visit.

Sunny day... sweepin' the clouds away

2007-03-04T20:57:00.001+01:00

Though Swissy Pie claims that the Rhine valley has some of the best weather in Europe, it always seems to rain when I'm in Basel. These past few weeks have been no exception, with showers - if not worse - more or less every day. So a few days ago, when I read that there'd be a full lunar eclipse that would be best viewed from here, I didn't get my hopes up.

Good thing, too, because the weather Saturday morning wasn't too promising. Buckets of cold rain dumped onto our heads. The wind flipped my umbrella inside-out and drove the water sideways into our faces. The Rhine, which usually runs swift and dark and clean, was transformed into a roiling yellow torrent. It was so bad that even though we usually walk to do our weekend shopping, we ended up taking the tram both ways.

But part of what makes the weather here so unpredictable is how quickly storms blow in and out. By 3 pm, the sky was clear. Remarkably, it stayed that way. So at midnight, we were able to watch the moon turn a dull coppery red. It looked quite eerie, floating in the dark, star-flecked sky. And since I'd never seen a full lunar eclipse before, it was a pretty neat experience.

The weather today was even better than yesterday afternoon. Sunlight gilded the otherwise drab city. Not a single cloud threatened on the horizon. It was even warm enough to wear shorts! So we set out for a long bike ride through the Wiesental, in Germany. We rode past industrial warehouses, whose parking lots were empty; through quaint villages, whose inhabitants were out strolling; along swollen rivers, whose banks sprouted the first flowers of the season; and next to sun-flooded pastures, where tiny lambs tottered under the watchful eyes of sheep dogs.

Unfortunately, I'm in really bad shape right now, so there was less climbing than Swissy Pie would've liked. By the end of our little trip, my elbow hurt, my knees hurt, my back hurt... But you have to start somewhere!

Note: Since we didn't have a tripod, the photo of the lunar eclipse is borrowed from NASA.

So that's what the bagpipers are for!

2007-03-02T23:56:00.000+01:00

One of my college roommates, who lives in Seattle, somehow got hold of this piece of news:

Swiss Accidentally Invade Liechtenstein
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: March 2, 2007

Filed at 8:43 a.m. ET

ZURICH, Switzerland (AP) -- What began as a routine training exercise almost ended in an embarrassing diplomatic incident after a company of Swiss soldiers got lost at night and marched into neighboring Liechtenstein.

According to Swiss daily Blick, the 170 infantry soldiers wandered 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) across an unmarked border into the tiny principality early Thursday before realizing their mistake and turning back.

A spokesman for the Swiss army confirmed the story but said that there were unlikely to be any serious repercussions for the mistaken invasion.

"We've spoken to the authorities in Liechtenstein and it's not a problem," Daniel Reist told The Associated Press.

Officials in Liechtenstein also played down the incident.

Interior ministry spokesman Markus Amman said nobody in Liechtenstein had even noticed the soldiers, who were carrying assault rifles but no ammunition. "It's not like they stormed over here with attack helicopters or something," he said.

Liechtenstein, which has about 34,000 inhabitants and is slightly smaller than Washington DC, doesn't have an army.

Honestly, can you blame the soldiers for not noticing? The people of Liechtenstein don't even have their own currency!

Fasnacht

2007-02-27T12:18:00.000+01:00

After Karneval in Cologne, I was very curious to see how Fasnacht in Basel - the only Protestant Carnival in the world - would compare. Fortunately I didn't have to wait a whole year to do so, since Basel kicks off its fesitivities six days after everyone else finishes theirs. No one really knows why, though I've heard a few explanations:

1. Fasnacht is the original festival. After the Protestant Reformation, the areas around Basel stopped observing it. Basel did not.

2. Lent is supposed to be 40 days long, but there are 46 days between Ash Wednesday and Easter. Protestants dropped six days to make the correct number; Catholics did not, and instead claim that Sundays don't count as Lenten days.

3. Basel moved its holiday by a week, just to be different.

Irrespective of why, each year Fasnacht begins on the Monday after Ash Wednesday with the Morgenstreich. At precisely 4 am, all the lights of the old city are turned off, and over ten thousand costume-and-mask wearing participants take over the streets, playing fifes, beating drums, and carrying gorgeously painted lanterns and light screens. It's a unique event, so I wanted to experience it at least once. But when the alarm went off at 3, my resolution melted. Rain was pattering on the shutters outside, as it had been doing off and on all weekend. "Mmph," I said. Swissy Pie correctly interpreted that to mean: hit the snooze button so we can go back to sleep.

There must be something magical about Fasnacht, though, because half an hour later, the rain decided to suspend its own festivities, and we found ourselves somehow stuffed into our clothes and stumbling through the chilly canyons of Basel's streets. We weren't alone. While the sidewalks were hardly jammed, I'd never seen so many people walking around before. Unlike Karneval, no one wore costumes. One exception: children, who were generally bundled into cute jester or penguin outfits.

By the time we made our way to the Mittlerebrücke, the crowds had swelled. Spectators lined the streets and poured over the bridge. Some had even crawled on top of the horse sculptures next to the Hotel Drei König. Everywhere I turned, I could see clusters of costumed participants at their collection points, grotesquely deformed masks in hand, darkened lanterns resting on the ground, waiting for the start of the parade.

Then, somewhere, a switch was thrown. The old city, with its gothic spires and Roman stonework and ancient bridge, disappeared into the twilight. Drumrolls burst in the air like gunfire. The high-pitched, relentlessly cheerful piping of piccolos joined in. Over 200 small round lanterns and huge light screens, some of them 2 meters tall, flared to life, seeming to float above the ground.

In less than one second, we'd been whisked back to a primeval, primitive time. With the city doused in darkness, and spectators' camera flashes flickering eerily on the buildings like St. Elmo's fire, the robed paraders with their exaggerated, oversized masks looked entirely otherworldly. If it hadn't for the light-hearted music accompanying them, the paraders would have been downright terrifying.

The lanterns, however, were far from primitive. Each group of paraders, or clique, had chosen a theme. Some had decided to be merely decorative. Others mocked famous figures or made political statements. Local officials, soccer clubs, Vladimir Putin, the Pope, and corporate executives were among the targets.

Though it was easy to let the parade flow past, the lilting lure of the pipes soon drew us out to walk behind the cliques. They seemed to move around in a haphazard manner, but it was wonderful to see the city alongside them. With them, we circled into the choked Marktplatz, crossing the paths of other cliques and proceeding according to some predetermined order of precedence. Around us, the narrow side streets up the Spalenberg glowed with streams of bobbing lanterns. Spectators watched from apartments and offices, and from wine bars and restaurants, which were open and serving. The whole city teemed with activity, and it was scarcely 5 am.

Eventually we grew exhausted and home. But the cliques kept going. They marched through sunrise. They marched when the rains began again. They marched in a parade in the afternoon. In the evening, when we finally went back to the old town, they were still marching, wading through the thick layers of confetti that slicked the streets.

By then, the crowds had dispersed somewhat, and the groups were fewer in number than they had been . (Many were taking dinner breaks themselves). But in the meantime, the survivors had been joined by brass bands playing Gugge music, so festive music still echoed in all the alleys. Puppets plays were being performed on wooden stages scattered throughout the main squares. Booths everywhere sold Glühwein (mulled red wine), cheese tarts, and sausages. We hit a couple of wine spots, tried a few types of wurst, got confetti dumped on us, and visited our regular bar by the university hospital before making our merry way home.

There are still two days of Fasnacht left to celebrate, but I can already say that the festivities in Basel and Cologne are too different to compare. Which do I prefer? Both are exhausting. Basel's seem more low key and family-friendly. The parade is also more impressive here. And although Köln throws a far better (and longer) party, there's something about being able to go home at the end of the night that's tough to beat.

The Fifth Season

2007-02-22T22:28:00.000+01:00

During the period before Lent, Catholics around the world let loose with extravagant celebrations. Brazil has its Carneval; New Orleans has its Mardi Gras. In Europe, the biggest and arguably most famous one happens in Cologne (or Köln, as it's written in German, or Kölle, as it's affectionely called by locals). There, the festival is called Karneval, though elsewhere in the German-speaking world it's known by other names, including Fasching and Fastnacht.

Karneval is Swissy Pie's favorite time of year. He makes plans for it months in advance; he (nearly) cries when it's over. I wouldn't be surprised if he's made this annual pilgrimmage to Köln ever since he could legally drink. This year, since I was in the neighborhood (sort of), and since I was curious what the fuss was all about, I decided to go up as well.

First, a bit of background. The Karneval season actually begins on the 11th of November at 11:11 am, and plods tamely along until Weiberfastnacht, the Thursday before Ash Wednesday, when the Tolle Tage (Crazy Days) begin. From then on, the population of Köln more or less doubles, as impressively costumed people from all over the region squeeze into the city's bars to spend their nights consuming kegs of kölsch (the excellent local beer), bellowing along to songs celebrating Kölle, and flirting with anyone and everyone within shouting distance.

Presumably, everyone spends their days recoverying from the previous night's excesses, though on Monday (Rosenmontag) there's a huge, four-hour parade through the downtown area, followed by smaller neighborhood parades on Tuesday. As in New Orleans, ancient clubs organize the whole thing. They build elaborate floats for the procession, they organize the marching bands and the troupes of dancing girls, they procure the tons of candy and acres of flowers that are showed upon bystanders. Their own uniforms are militaristic Prussian get-ups, but then they make a mockery of it by singing subversive songs, disobeying orders, and generally acting up.

The whole thing draws to a close at midnight Tuesday with the burning of the Nubbel. The Nubbel is the straw-stuffed mannequin that has been placed over the entrance to each bar. It is held responsible for all the sins committed during Karneval. At midnight, after a short comedic mass, during which its crimes are enumerated, it's set on fire. The ashes are then mixed with water and used to mark crosses on bystanders' foreheads. And with that, the holiday is over.

So what was it like?

It's really difficult to describe the mood. On the one hand, it's crazy. People are sometimes at the bar for over 12 hours at a go, which is remarkable considering that they're standing the whole time. Tables, chairs, and anything else that can be removed, are removed, to maximize the number of people that can be jammed in. People are standing on benches and windowsills. There's scarcely any room to move, much less dance; getting to the bar requires a good deal of shoving. The queues for the women's bathroom are rivaled only by the queues to get in, so perhaps it's not too surprising that you find lots of females invading the men's bathroom. (No one even blinks at this.) Small wonder that these places have to close for a week afterward, to renovate post-Karneval.

On the other hand, there's such a sense of friendliness and familiarity that even foreigners like me immediately feel included. The same litany of Karneval ballads are played everywhere, every night. The songs are written to be very repetitive, so anyone can pick up on the refrain and sing along. (It also helps that many of them have been ripped off from other sources. Gypsy Kings, Frank Sinatra, Negro spirituals, klezmer music... you name it, and it's probably been rewritten as a love song to Kölle.) Strangers link arms and sway together to the music. And people are very well behaved. While it's true that whereever there are drinks, there are jerks, there are a lot fewer than one would expect, given the amount of alcohol being consumed and the crowds.

So Karneval ends up feeling like Halloween, karaoke, and a neighborhood block party, all rolled into one. I now understand why Swissy Pie likes to go. But how he manages to party like that night after night remains a mystery.

Mysteries of the Day

2007-02-18T00:41:00.000+01:00

1. Since my earlier encounter, I've been wondering: is there some secret simpatico between Germans and Scots? The Steuben Parade, New York City's annual German celebration, also featured a bagpipe company. Several bagpipe companies, in fact. (Yes, I'm conflating the Swiss with their northern neighbors. But since the nice guys with square flags hosted several floats in the Steuben Parade, I feel somewhat justified.)

2. Has anyone else noticed that Switzerland has way more than its fair share of graffiti? There are probably more abused walls and overpasses in Basel than in all five boroughs of New York City. It's baffling, given how clean and orderly the Swiss are otherwise.

3. And while I'm at it, why on earth are the y's and z's switched on German/Swiss keyboards? Yes, I'm aware they use the 'z' more than the English, but honestly, it's not as if the American keyboard was laid out for maximum typing efficiency. Quite the opposite, actually. Way back in the Dark Ages, before computers and even IBM's ball typewriters were invented, there was a different, more efficient layout. But good typists got so fast that the typebars couldn't keep up with their fingers and jammed. The QWERTY layout was introduced to slow them down.

Twelve highlanders and a bagpipe make a rebellion

2007-02-17T23:17:00.000+01:00

If the old Scottish proverb is to be believed, this afternoon World War III was staged in the middle of Basel.

I was making my way along the Rhine, toward the old Mittlerebrücke at the heart of the city, when the wind carried a low, throbbing wail to my ears. Given Basel's recent spate of earthquakes, I initially thought it was an emergency alarm. But when the sound refused to conform to any logical shape or pattern, I realized my mistake. Really, I should have identified it immediately, for once heard, the shrill, insistent whine of the bagpipe is not easily forgotten. I can only plead cognitive dissonance. Who expects to come across a brigade of bagpipers in Switzerland?

I knew at once that there were quite a few of them, since I'd started hearing them well north of the Johanniterbrücke. Still, it was disconcerting to find myself squeezed aside by a phalanx of solemn, kilt-clad men as I attempted to cross into Kleinbasel. There must have been around 100 paraders. Some bore the bagpipes I'd heard from afar. At least four wore tubas draped around their bodies like feather boas. (Feather boas made from coils of shiny brass, that is.) The rest, as far as I can recall, kept their eyes straight ahead and marched with all the pomp and circumstance they could muster.

I must say that they looked quite impressive in their traditional regalia. Even more impressive was the green monster nipping at their heels: the tram, inching along ever so politely despite the driver's probable wish to ram through the crowds. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, today a band of rogue expatriate Scotsmen managed to disrupt the clockwork regularity of a Swiss mass transit system.

Too bad I was too distracted to make use of my camera phone. But I have now been stuck in traffic jams caused by sheep, cows, and bagpipers. Hurrah for Europe!

Painting the town red (or at least a pale shade of pink)

2007-02-13T12:04:00.000+01:00

Last night, Swissy Pie and I went to a charming wine bar called Rosario's Lo Spuntino, a cozy, casual little place on the Spalenberg, where we met one of his friends (and former boss). The seating consisted of a handful of tall oak barrel-topped tables and comfortable stools. An animated waitress with steely, close-cropped hair reigned over the bar, dispensing wine with a precise but generous hand. In the back, a small blackboard described two daily specials.

The menu was short and simple. The front page listed wines that could be had by the glass; the reverse side described cheese and/or meat cold platters that could be nibbled alongside. Everything was written in the type of oversized font I used to use back in college, when I was trying to get my papers up to the required minimum page count.

In New York, there would've been nothing particularly noteworthy about the place. Though the Italian Merlot on the menu was excellent, the Dolcetto was not. The mixed plate we got was good, but anyone can throw together a decadent plate of charcuterie. What's more, most of the patrons were smoking, which I'm not used to any longer.

Yet being there was like wearing a favorite sweater, comfortable and familiar. Part of it was the wine and food; part of it was the thrill of experiencing a new city. But mostly, I think it was the good company. Swissy Pie's friend reminded me of some of my own friends in New York, and it was unbelievably comforting to bask in the warmth of their laughter and their jokes. I felt welcomed and accepted. And for a brief time, I could pretend that I've always been here.

Book Review: Case Histories

2007-02-13T10:39:00.000+01:00

I spent part of my last evening in New York at Barnes and Noble, browsing the aisles and talking myself out of a ruinous shopping spree. I could hear a devil (or angel?) on one shoulder whispering, "Go for it! It'll be a long time before you get another chance to pick from so many English language books! Haven't you always wanted to read this one? And that one's a classic, everyone should own a copy!"

Luckily, common sense prevailed: books are heavy, and since I'd succumbed to the argument before, over clothes, I already had a great deal to lug over. Besides, I told myself sternly, I should be reading German books (though I still haven't found Richard Scarry's Big Book of Deutschewörter, which is roughly where I ought to start). Plus, there's always the miracle of Amazon.com.

I did end up getting two novels, though. One is going to be a birthday present for Swissy Pie, so I won't spill the beans in case he drops by for a visit. The other one I purchased on the grounds I needed something for the plane ride: Case Histories, by Kate Atkinson. An excellent decision, if I do say so myself, though my friend Dalia gets the credit for recommending it to me. If I hadn't been excessively sleepy from those two whiskey and tonics and a couple of follow-on glasses of wine, I would have stayed up the entire flight just to finish it.

The book is difficult to describe. Set primarily in Cambridge, England, it's technically a mystery - a mystery about multiple murders, at that. But it's far too literary to be associated with the predictible thrillers found on grocery store shelves. The writing is by turns spare and gritty, then lush and evocative, then humorous and ironic, as the point of view changes from one protagonist to another. And despite a large cast, the characters are mostly well-fleshed out, from the pathetically fat and unloved Amelia Land, sister to a girl who went missing decades ago, to the childish, bitter, yet oddly sympathetic private investigator Jackson Brodie. By the end, it's clear that the satisfaction of Case Histories doesn't derive from finding out whodunnit, but from examining the impact that deaths - particularly sudden, shocking ones - have on the survivors.

I could complain that the plot is driven by a few too many coincidences, or that the ending is simply too tidy. But those are small complaints for a novel that is, by and large, deeply satisfying.

The best laid plans of mice and men

2007-02-11T06:17:00.000+01:00

It's been an inauspicious start to my life in Switzerland.

It all began Friday, on a gorgeous afternoon that seemed to taunt me with visions of roads not taken. As I rambled through Riverside Park for one last time, sunlight gilded the elegant Manhattan skyline. The achingly clear blue sky whispered: "See what you'll be missing?" And just like that, I didn't want to leave.

I was booked on a 6:20 pm flight out of JFK that evening, but since Swissy Pie would be at a meeting the entire weekend, I was tempted to put off my exodus a day or two longer. I didn't take the idea too seriously, though. My sister, who's been putting me up (or should that be putting up with me?) for over a week, had suffered enough. Not to mention, Swissy Pie's mother had kindly offered to come all the way from Bern to pick me up in Zurich and take me to Basel; asking her to reschedule on a whim would've been downright rude.

Too bad that New York is just thoughtless that way.

The airport isn't far from my apartment - less than 20 miles, according to Mapquest. By car, when traffic is light, I've made it in as little as 20 minutes. Usually it takes about 45 minutes, though, so I thought I was giving myself a comfortable buffer by budgeting an hour, on top of the 2 hour advance check-in that airlines request for international flights. Traffic at 3 pm shouldn't be too terrible, I believed, and even if it took 1 1/2 hours (the longest I'd needed up until that point), I'd still easily make the airlines' hard check-in deadline of an hour in advance.

Alas, even though rush hour hadn't officially begun, cars already choked the streets of Manhattan. It took at least 3 traffic light cycles to cross one city block, and despite my predictions to the contrary, the highways were little better. So, 4:20 found me creeping along the Grand Central Parkway in Queens, barely halfway there and still bogged down in sludgy traffic. As the clock rolled inexorably forward, my anxiety ticked, leaped, and finally rocketed Pluto-ward.

I made it onto JFK grounds around 5:10, but my troubles were far from over. I couldn't see my airline listed on any of the terminal signs, so I hurtled from one to the next, searching frantically for the right one. Three rounds (and one inadvertent exit from JFK) later, I was tumbling into the proper check-in line, my hastily loaded luggage cart careening tipsily behind.

The man behind the counter gave me a disapproving look. "Which flight, miss?"

"The 6:20 to Zurich," I panted. "Just a minute while I dig out my passport."

"I'm sorry," he said, though he didn't sound the least bit remorseful. "The flight's closed."

I gave him my best pathetic look, which probably wasn't too far off from my original appearance, and launched into my tale of woe. He was unmoved. "The flight's already been locked down. There's nothing I can do. We'll have to move you to the 9:10. Please step aside and go over to the ticket counter."

I looked to where he was pointing; I looked down at my luggage. I had so much stuff I looked like a refugee: an unwieldy ski bag, an enormous hard-sided suitcase, and a fat red duffle bag that were threatening to tumble off my luggage trolley, and a wheeled carry-on that had a tendency to topple when loaded with the messenger bag and satchel I was toting around. Though the ticket booth was no more than 100 yards away, I couldn't face the prospect of dragging it all over there. But I was also too tired to argue, so after my initial moment of speechless horror, I sighed and obeyed.

Fortunately I didn't have any problems getting on the next flight, but I had far bigger problems trying to get in touch with Swissy Pie's mother. International calls weren't enabled on my cell, I didn't have a calling card, and I couldn't find a phone booth. The knowledge that it was nearly midnight in Switzerland didn't help. Finally I thought to call my brother, who called her for me. He spoke to her directly; she understood the message that I was delayed.

At last, the crisis was resolved, or so I thought. I rewarded myself with a nice whisky tonic (actually, two) while I waited to board.

Little did I know that Saturday would be almost as bad. Suffice it to say that the plane arrived an hour before I was told it would. Then, Swissy Pie's long-suffering mother couldn't find me in the airport for 45 minutes, because I'd gone outside to wait for her so she wouldn't have to park the car, and neither of us had cell phones. Because of all the delays, we missed lunch, and I had to throw together an ad hoc meal when I'd really wanted to take her out to a nice restaurant to thank her for her trouble.

Well, best not to dwell on it too much. Instead, I'll remind myself why missing my flight was actually a good thing. I had a chance to have a nice long talk with my family. I had time to turn off my cell phone service. The later hour made it easier for me to get to sleep on the plane. And I'm left with a memory of New York that I'm in no hurry to experience again.

Around the world in 80 boxes

2007-02-03T00:43:00.000+01:00

My movers arrived at 9 AM sharp last Tuesday. I'd ended up picking a German company that had been recommended to Swissy Pie, and while I wasn't sure exactly what to expect - a small army of blond, stony-faced packing machines? - what I saw definitely wasn't it.

Three young kids stood outside my door, stale cigarette smoke seeping from their pores. While the crew chief could have been a poster-child for the Third Reich - tall, muscular, blond, and blue-eyed - he turned out to be Polish, as I discovered after he started giving instructions to a skinny silent Ukrainian kid who stuck near him the entire day. The third member of the team was a chunky, dark-haired Irish-Italian-German. I'd have happily wagered that none of them was older than 25. In fact, I wondered whether the Ukrainian needed a fake ID to get into bars. (On second thought, this could be a sign that I'm getting old.) How much experience packing could they possibly have had?

Before I could get too nervous, they charged. The Irish-Italian-German headed for the bedroom. The Polish and Ukrainian stayed in the living room. Soon, whiny squeals and dizzying clouds of chemical fumes choked the air, courtesy of the alarming quantities of markers, bubble wrap, and tape that the movers were consuming.

Like some neurotic ping pong ball, I bounced back and forth between the living room and the bedroom, marveling as the pile of boxes grew. Within a couple of hours an entire wall had been obscured; by lunch time, the closets were empty, and the big pieces of furniture had been completely encased in packaging material.

As fast as this had all happened, however, it evidently wasn't fast enough. In the afternoon, their boss - the man who'd surveyed my apartment - called to check on their progress. Whatever he said apparently made them nervous, so they started to speed up, just as they were getting to all the breakables in the kitchen. I watched anxiously as they wrapped up my favorite wine glasses in nothing more than paper (though they did use plenty of paper!) and piled them into an enormous dish boxes. Odds that all the kitchenware survives intact: pretty much close to zero, if you ask me. (Though one of the moving companies I'd interviewed told me the damage rate is about 25%: 1 in 4 shipments is reported to have some damage, either minor or catastrophic.)

Because they were short on counter space, the Ukrainian kid had placed a pile of packing paper on top of my gas stove. At one point, as he turned from wrapping to packing, he accidentally hit one of the knobs. Click click click went the stove. "Sh**!" went the Un-Swiss Miss, diving forward to turn it off. Just in time, too: the bottom layers of wrapping paper were already polka-dotted with smoldering ash. Good thing those plastic fumes had long since conquered my apartment, or the whole thing might have caught fire. And that day I wouldn't have been able to locate my brain, much less the fire extinguisher.

As it was, we were forced to endure the overwhelming stench of burnt paper for the rest of the day. Around 2:30 the boss called again, and the crew chief got so anxious that he actually asked me to help out. Not that I was entrusted with much: he gave me rolls of colorful stickers and told me to slap them on the appropriate boxes. I was the official sticker fairy, flitting around dispensing green "SEA FREIGHT" and red "FRAGILE" labels.

The guys had another panic attack when they went to start moving the boxes down to the truck. A sign hung from the door of the back elevator, which is the one we're supposed to use for moves: "STOP! ELEVATOR BEING SERVICED. PLEASE USE STAIRS." I live on the third floor. I have big, bulky, heavy furniture. Schlepping it down the stairs would not be fun.

Fortunately, it turned out that my building was being helpful: they'd hung the signs to make sure nobody but us would use it. Some of my neighbors gave the guys strange looks as they headed into the evidently out-of-order elevator. One even asked the crew chief: "Are you the repairman?" "Yep," he answered cheerfully, though I doubt the neighbor was dense enough to believe him.

At 4:30, I was signing a little form stating that the guys had arrived on time, and that they'd taken everything they were supposed to. It wasn't strictly true, since they were still ferrying down boxes and furniture. My beloved bicycles were still hanging from the walls, completely untouched: those would be wrapped later, in the warehouse. At 4:50 I got the inventory form - 4 pages! 80 items! - and we said our hurried goodbyes.

Or so we thought. Five minutes later, I was catapulting myself down the stairs after them, shrieking that they'd forgotten the enormous armoire that was sitting in the middle of my bedroom.

"Lucky for you that you caught us," the crew chief said, trying to make a joke of it. "You already signed off on the form!"

I smiled and agreed, though I was really thinking: "Lucky for you!" The armoire was listed on the inventory already; I suppose I could've just sold the thing here and claimed they lost it.

Finally, around 5 pm, the apartment was well and truly empty, except for a few piles of 6-year old dust (amazing how much can build up under furniture!), opened bottles of vinegar, oil, and cleaning fluids that the movers wouldn't pack, and the suitcases I'd be taking on the plane with me. I surveyed the place, trying to feel some sense of sadness, or regret, or... something. But I felt nothing. I was utterly drained.

I tottered back to the living room and slumped to the floor. Catharsis, I thought. My frantic, fretful month was finally over. And I would soon be headed home, to Switzerland.

Let me eat cake!

2007-01-26T23:44:00.000+01:00

Today, as everyone in the press has been pointing out, is the coldest on record in two years. Including the wind chill, this morning it clocked in well below 0 degrees Fahrenheit. This comes after weeks of unseasonable warmth: at the beginning of the month, I was able to go for a bike ride in shorts and a short-sleeved jersey! So, even though winter is my favorite season, right now I'm happy to remain ensconced in my apartment, organizing my papers and consuming the last of the amazing chocolate mousse cake that my sister dropped off Monday night for my birthday. For someone who can't eat wheat, she can sure pick 'em.

I spent much of the day on the phone, changing my address of record to Switzerland. People's reactions were quite varied. The Indian operators couldn't have cared less. What's more, they were easily confused. "What?" one asked. "The street number comes after the street name?" The German tendency to mash a bunch of normal words into one gigantic superword didn't help: a second representative was panting by the time she spelled my address back to me. (I have no idea why she didn't take a breath in between letters.)

But another lady with a lilting Southern accent was genuinely thrilled for me. She'd spent time in Italy when she was fifteen, she told me, and dreamed of going back. We compared notes on our respective countries. Talking with her was almost like chatting with a friend, and it made me positively cheerful about the imminent move.

Until I got off the phone and surveyed my apartment again, and that now-familiar lump of dread settled back into the pit of my stomach. I've been walking back and forth from the living room to the bedroom, touching favorite things and mentally preparing myself for the possibility that I'll never see any of it again. Shipping overseas does have risks, as the recent windstorm that lashed Europe proved. At least one container ship, I read, was wrecked in the English Channel, where beachcombers had a field day picking up bottles of perfume and engine parts. Yes, that's what insurance is for, but when it costs 2.5% of declared value, I simply can't cover everything. Which is why I've only listed the most valuable and breakable stuff: furniture, artwork, wine glasses and dishes, etc. If my ship really does go down, I'm not going to be happy.

Funny, isn't it? I never considered myself materialistic, and yet I'm so attached to my belongings! Filling out the insurance valuation form was another reality check. If you saw the way I dress, you'd never guess how much money I've spent over the years on clothes and shoes. Note to self: Un-Swiss Miss if you're going to spend like that, you might as well stop looking like a slob.

The good news is, I'm almost done cleaning out my pantry. I've even had to go grocery shopping! For lunch I made a delicious pasta out of ingredients I had lying around. (A triumph, since I thought I had nothing meal-worthy in the house.) It was quite simple:

Cappellini with Mushrooms, Spinach, and Mozzarella

2 cloves garlic, finely minced
4 oz mushrooms, sliced
1/2 cup frozen spinach
2 oz whole-milk mozzarella, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
1/8 package of angel's hair pasta
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
1 tsp balsamic vinegar
olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

Put a pot of water on the stove to boil.

In the meantime, sauté garlic in olive oil over medium heat until fragrant, but not yet golden. Add mushrooms and cook until softened, sprinkling a few spoonfuls of water over, as necessary, to keep the mushrooms from sticking to the pan. Toss in spinach, balsamic vinegar, and red pepper flakes. Salt and pepper to taste. Turn heat to low and set aside.

Cook pasta in boiling salted water and drain. Toss pasta with spinach-mushroom mixture and mozzarella cubes. Adjust salt and pepper as necessary, drizzle with good-quality olive oil, and serve.

Makes enough for 1 hungry Un-Swiss Miss or 2 normal people.

Yes, it's filled with garlicky goodness, but trust me: I'm not kissing anyone tonight.

It's not fondue, but...

2007-01-11T06:22:00.000+01:00

I've always said I'll try anything once. So this evening, with Swissy Pie egging me on over the phone, I gave the recipe for raw chocolate pudding a whirl - literally. The jujubes I'd planned to use turned out to have gone bad, so I skipped that ingredient, as well as the optional nut butter.

Making the recipe took little more than five minutes; blending was the most time-consuming part. In the end I had a couple of cups of thick, glossy stuff.

Was it disgusting? No, the results definitely exceeded my expectations, and over the course of a few hours, I confess I ate the whole batch. (Not a great idea, incidentally, because of the high fiber content.) Still, I have no regrets about making it.

But did it taste like chocolate pudding? Er... Kind of. The cocoa conjured up vague intimations of dark chocolate, and the pudding had a nice silky texture. But I couldn't quite ignore the figgy overtones, and the pudding lacked the depth and richness of a true chocolate pudding.

Including nut butter probably would have helped with the richness, but I really doubt that dates would've neutralized the sour-sweet flavor of the figs. I may experiment with using raisins, instead, to see if that gives a more muted flavor. If not, no problem - grapes go quite well with chocolate, in any case.

So would I recommend this to a friend? Sure, under certain conditions. It's a good substitute for someone who's lactose intolerant, or who loves chocolate covered figs. It's great for using up dried fruit in a novel way. It's a perfect dessert for entertaining friends who are raw vegans. And it would be fun as part of a creative meal constructed in the spirit of Ferran Adria or Wylie Dufresne.

But for anyone looking for a big bowl of comfort food, my advice is to look elsewhere.

How would you like your chocolate cooked?

2007-01-10T05:42:00.000+01:00

It can be a lot of fun to search for recipes by ingredient; one comes across the strangest stuff. For example, under "dried figs" I found this concotion on Epicurious:

Raw Chocolate Pudding

10 fresh dates, pitted and cut in quarters
10 dried figs, stems removed, cut in quarters
2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
2 tablespoons raw nut butter (optional)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 - 2 cups filtered water

Place the dates, figs, cocoa, nut butter (if using), vanilla, and 1 cup of water in a blender and pulse several times until the fruits begin to break down.

Blend until smooth and creamy, slowly adding water as needed for desired consistency.

Makes 2 1/2 cups.

Dare I make it? It sounds disgusting, but there's a single (suspiciously) glowing review. Even if the review is real, I'm going to be omitting nut butter and substituting jujubes for the dates, so this pudding might turn out disgusting anyway. Stay tuned for the decision...

Three down... a gazillion to go

2007-01-09T01:51:00.000+01:00

Heather's comment to my last post reminded me of a cookie recipe that I found on Epicurious a long time ago, when my sister was first diagnosed with her wheat allergy. With peanut butter and chocolate chip as the main ingredients, I suppose it's hard to go wrong. They're so tasty and easy that I used to make them just for myself.

Here's the recipe as originally written. Since my peanut butter's pretty sweet on its own, I usually cut the sugar in half.

Flourless Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
1 cup super chunky peanut butter
1 cup (packed) golden brown sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup miniature semisweet chocolate chips (about 6 ounces)

Preheat oven to 350°F. Mix first 5 ingredients in medium bowl. Mix in chocolate chips. Using moistened hands, form generous 1 tablespoon dough for each cookie into ball. Arrange on 2 ungreased baking sheets, spacing 2 inches apart. Bake cookies until puffed, golden on bottom and still soft to touch in center, about 12 minutes. Cool on sheets 5 minutes. Transfer to racks; cool completely.

Makes about 24 cookies.

Incidentally, I think I'll be taking over a bottle of vanilla extract in my suitcase. When I was there last, I had trouble finding it in the grocery stores. I came across imitation vanilla, vanilla sugar, and vanilla beans, but no pure extract.

Get out of the kitchen

2007-01-05T22:47:00.000+01:00

With my imminent move, I’m starting to clear out my pantry. It’s like clearing out the refrigerator before going on vacation. In the case of vacation, the goal is to use up food that will spoil. In the case of the move, it’s to use up as much food as possible, period.

Some things will be easy to get rid of. I can think of hundreds of recipes involving basic supplies like chicken broth, dried pasta, canned salmon, and frozen peas. Others will be more difficult. What do I do with a pound of rice flour or two bags of dried jujubes? Still others are downright impossible. There’s no way I’m going to eat two jars of peanut butter, for example. And how will I use up red bean paste when I can’t stand the stuff?

Then there's the packrat part of me that resists using up the exotic ingredients, because God only knows whether I'll be able to find them again in Switzerland.

Well, I’ll give it my best shot. I’m including the list of supplies below, in the hopes that someone will share recipe ideas, particularly for the more esoteric stuff.

Basics in excessive quantities

peanut butter
basalmic vinegar
semi-sweet chocolate
honey
at least 5 types of tea
bread crumbs
raw wheat germ
barley
golden raisins
crystallized ginger
dried figs
cocoa powder
sunflower seeds
corn syrup
Dijon mustard
Miracle whip
anchovies
artichoke hearts
vanilla protein powder
various alcohols (vodka, gin, rum, port, and wine)

Other basics

canned salmon
canned tomatoes
canned mango
farfalle
capellini
maple syrup
all-purpose flour
confectioners sugar
brown sugar (hardened into a lump)
dried chickpeas
frozen peas
frozen scallions
frozen bananas
polenta
active dry yeast
chicken broth
espresso
homemade spicy bourbon barbecue sauce

Ethnic ingredients

s’chüg (a spicy Middle Eastern paste similar to harissa)

nori (seaweed)
red miso
tofu
rice vinegar
red bean paste
rice flour
dried adzuki beans
dried jujubes (Chinese red dates)
Chinese dried noodles
Thai garlic-chili sauce
coconut milk
mango chutney
cilantro chutney
yellow lentils

guava paste
masa harina

In Beverley Hills, they don't throw their garbage away...

2007-01-03T07:05:00.000+01:00

...they make it into television shows.
Woody Allen

It's been a long time since I've posted. Somehow, while I was in Basel, I never found the time. I wasn't particularly busy. Cleaning and grocery shopping could be stretched to occupy an hour each; job hunting took perhaps two; exploring the city on foot got old after about a week. Instead, I was waylaid by that evilest of human inventions: the television.

Despite the fact that there are only three English channels, I had the TV on quite a bit. Not because the programming was good (though I admit I developed an addiction to The Good Life on BBC Prime). I simply needed to hear noise. The noise of people speaking English was just a bonus: at times, when I really couldn't stand whatever was on (ahem, Jamie Oliver), I switched over to the unintelligible babble of one of the German channels. (Swissy Pie, I believe, neglected to program in the French ones, which I might have actually understood.)

That first week, the TV probably saved my sanity. Whether it's because I'm used to the bustle of New York, or because there are few cars in the city center, I found even the main streets of Basel to be eerily quiet. Since we're on a side street, and our bunker-like building houses all of 8 other families, our apartment is even more... stifled. More often than not, the only people I spoke with on a given day were the cashier at the grocery store and Swissy Pie.

Fortunately, I'm introverted by nature, so once I adjusted, I didn't particularly mind being alone. But there were consequences. As my inclination toward spoken communication dwindled, so did my interest in written communication. The English language books at Thalia, the big bookstore in Basel, failed to interest me. It was far easier to sit passively on the couch and allow mediocre British real estate shows to lull me into a coma. (Seriously, about 80% of the shows must have been about finding a new house, selling an old one, or redecorating!)

Still, there were times when I felt lonely instead of merely alone. Like I didn't exist. One day, at a nearby Coop, the butcher ignored me while I stood patiently in front of him, waiting to order pork chops. He helped everyone else first. I don't know why. Perhaps he was worried my German would be unintelligible. Perhaps he didn't like Asians. As I didn't really want to tell him he was an ass when I might encounter him again, I gave him my most disdainful glare before accepting my package and going on my way. Another time, after it had been raining for days on end, I thought I'd go mad from being cooped up inside for so long. I kept checking my contacts on Skype, even though I knew most of my friends weren't awake yet. Thank goodness for one of my college roommates, who now lives in the Philippines. Though we only talked once, just seeing her little green checkmark lit up made me feel connected to the rest of the world.

At other times, I felt homesick, which shocked me. Even when I went away to college, homesickness had never afflicted me. But after the initial excitement of being in Switzerland wore off, it began to strike at unexpected moments: when I couldn't find cheddar for the macaroni and cheese I wanted to make for supper one night, or kale for soup, or dumpling wrappers at the Asian market; when I went to sleep, but simply couldn't get as comfortable as in my own cozy bed at home; when I had to wrestle Google into searching English-language sites instead of the default German ones.

But there were triumphs as well. I cooked a rabbit for the first time - and it was good. I managed to make bread using fresh yeast, which I'd never worked with before, and a metric measuring cup; and it actually turned out even better than in my own kitchen. I discovered a children's library near our apartment that contained tons of German and English-German dual-language books. I stopped getting lost every day.

Most importantly, I managed substantive conversations with not just one, but two people who spoke only German - Swiss German, at that. First, with the super for our building, who needed me to do a walk-through of the apartment with him. (Swissy Pie was always at work, so he'd been unable to take care of it himself.) While I went through and pointed out flaws so that we wouldn't be charged for damage at the end, he talked to me. About my neighbors, one of whom is apparently also American. About the building's shoddy construction - "Schweinemachen," I think he called it, which translated literally means pig-made. (The place is actually quite solid, but he was angry that the roof was leaking water all over the fourth floor.) About cars, which he considered unnecessary. He complimented me for biking and told me that he himself got around by motorcycle.

Obviously, he was making an effort to speak slowly, but I was pleasantly surprised how much I understood. (Pantomimes helped too.) Not only was I understanding, but I talked back as well. My responses would hardly win any rhetoric prizes, but at least I was speaking.

Then the morning after, someone with a very thick Swiss accent called, speaking very fast.

Er... entschuldigung?

(Improper response, anyway: I should have said, "Wie bitte?")

More gibberish. It was a bad moment, the aural equivalent of staring stupidly at a blank wall. I thought I'd have to call Swissy Pie at work to deal with it, and I wasn't even sure if he was around. But once the caller understood that I was a foreigner, he began speaking loudly and slowly, the way one might speak to a retarded person. (The way, incidentally, I see Americans speaking to tourists all the time. I'm sure I've done it myself.)

I didn't care, since I eventually managed to piece together the message. He worked for the builder; our super had called him about a problem with our apartment. I confirmed that one of the doors didn't shut properly, since it had been hung crooked in its frame. He wanted to come by to fix it that day. We settled on 2 pm.

I stayed in the apartment all morning for fear that I'd misunderstood him. (Perhaps he meant he'd come sometime before 2?) Also, I'd been in obsessive-compulsive Switzerland long enough that I wanted to clean. I kept seeing strands of my hair on the floor. How embarrassing! He might think that I was a bad housekeeper! (Which truth be told, I am.) But precisely one minute before 2, the doorbell rang. I hadn't made a mistake, after all. He came in, fixed the door, and left. No small talk (and no comments about the state of the rooms), but I felt a sense of accomplishment nonetheless.

After that, there were smaller victories. Trying to order a coffee filter at Migros but being told they didn't take orders - if it wasn't on the shelf, I was out of luck. Asking for directions in unfamiliar areas. Chatting with a neighbor about his new baby.

Then the Friday before I left, Swissy Pie and I sat in front of the TV, watching a German cooking show. And that night, to my delight, I understood almost everything.

Thanks-goodness

2006-11-23T16:36:00.000+01:00

It's only 9 am, but already in the hallways of my apartment building I can catch the distinctive whiff of charred meat. Hello, isn't it a bit too early to be burning your turkey?

New York is a city where no one seems to cook. Look around, and it's not difficult to understand why. In my immediate neighborhood the choices are almost mind-boggling. Would you like French, Chinese, Indian, Japanese, Korean, Italian, Thai, Vietnamese, Ethiopian, Peruvian, Cuban, Argentinian, or Mexican tonight? No? Then perhaps southern comfort food, steak, or "new American" would fit the bill better. And would you like to eat in, or take out, or get it delivered? For the overworked, harried professionals who inhabit this little island, restaurants are an irresistible convenience.

But the holidays roll around, and then suddenly everyone - even the socialite who's converted her kitchen into a giant shoe closet - turns domestic. Half of them can't find the way to their oven. The other half end up cutting themselves while peeling potatoes. And I putter around under a cloud of carbonized meat, assembling the side dishes I'm taking over to my sister's apartment.

News of the weird

2006-11-22T17:41:00.000+01:00

In case you haven't got a time-honored stuffing recipe passed down from grandma, White Castle wants you to know that they've got your Thanksgiving covered. You can make stuffing from their hamburgers!

Just make sure you don't order pickles in these Slyders. (Seriously, it's in the directions.) I guess no ketchup or mustard, either.

Thank goodness. I couldn't go another year eating homemade.

Tis the season for... kale?

2006-11-22T05:55:00.000+01:00

It's almost midnight, and I have the strangest craving right now: I want kale. And the funny thing is, I'd never cooked it before today.

Kale first got on my brain during my book club's discussion of The Omnivore's Dilemma last night. We were talking about CSA, community supported agriculture, which allows individuals to pre-buy one season's worth of a local farm's crop. Then, once a month during the growing season, the farmer delivers the produce (or meat, or eggs, or whatever else they've got) to a central location, and the "shareholders" come and pick it up.

Farmers like it because it gets them money earlier, to cover their production costs. Consumers like it because it's usually a lot less expensive than buying organic at the supermarket. However, the selection is dependent on whatever that particular farm produces; it is also obviously quite seasonal, which is both good and bad. One girl mentioned that a friend of hers had signed up with a CSA. In summer, she loved it, but when winter rolled around, all she got was boxes of kale - acres of kale, month after month after month.

We laughed. What could you possibly do with all that kale? Kale soup, kale salad, kale chutney, kale ice cream... We were starting to sound like Forrest Gump.

But in the midst of that recitation, I realized that I didn't really know how to cook kale. I'd never bought it myself, never prepared it, never paid attention to any recipes. I'd seen it in the greens section, but with its stiff, crinkly leaves I considered it somewhat scary looking, especially next to its tamer cousin spinach.

I must have considered the gauntlet thrown, because on my way home, I stopped by Fairway for a bunch of locally-grown kale. This morning, I began to brainstorm ways to cook it. Breakfast was clearly on my mind, because what did I come up with?

Kale pancakes.

It's not as crazy as it first seems: we've got potato pancakes and zucchini pancakes. Why not kale?

So, I assembled:

a generous handful of kale, stems included as long as they look fresh
2 eggs
2 tablespoons flour, more as needed
salt to taste
Tabasco, Red Devil, or some other vinegary hot sauce

I sliced the greens about 1/4 inch wide. It made for approximately 5 cups of loosely packed kale, which was then mixed with the eggs, flour, and salt. (In case the quantities are confusing, I was aiming for very little batter - just enough to coat most of the leaves, no more.)

Then, I scraped the whole thing into a 9-inch crepe pan, tamped it down, covered it, and cooked it over medium heat, about 5 minutes on one side and 2 minutes on the other, until the eggs were fully cooked.

I turned the pancake out onto my plate and sat down with a bottle of Trapper's Red Devil. Prep time: 5 minutes. Cook time: sub 10 minutes. So far, kale ranked high on the convenience scale. But how did it taste?

Pretty good, actually. To my surprise, the pancake had an almost meaty texture, similar to the soft-but-not-quite-spongy mouthfeel of portabella mushrooms. The bits of stem I encountered were crisp, bright, and slightly sweet, like a flash-cooked green bean, only sharper. Even on its own, it was a satisfying dinner.

Kale was delicious. How could I have ignored it for so long?

Well, no more. Tomorrow I'm going to make my oven-"fried" chicken and braise some kale to go alongside. For Thanksgiving, I'll try this potato and kale galette. And on Friday...

Well, on Friday, I'll be on a plane. But I'm sure I can find kale in Switzerland, too.

Is Swiss food really that expensive?

2006-11-17T01:22:00.000+01:00

I've just finished reading The Omnivore's Dilemma, by Michael Pollan. While the book is an eye-opening account of the state of the American food chain, the analogies that have been made to Upton Sinclair's The Jungle are not entirely fair. Not only is Pollan a more engaging writer, the issues he deals with are far less stomach-turning. (Nor is he a communist, as far as I'm aware.)

The book is divided into three sections: one that explores the corn-based industrial food chain, one that follows the organic and sustainable food movements (they're not quite the same thing), and one that recounts his adventures as a hunter and gatherer. It is impressively researched, and full of interesting (sometimes shocking) tidbits. While I knew corn in this country is absurdly overproduced, I didn't realize the ramifications of that. Nor did I realize that fertilizing our crops consumes fully one fifth of the crude oil that the US uses each year. That's the same amount that we use for driving, and more than most countries, even other industrialized ones, demand. But as mainstream consumers, we don't have many alternatives: organic products, though marginally better, have gotten quite industrialized too. Whole Foods in particular comes under criticism for not buying from local farmers - something that the company has moved to address in recent months.

I enjoyed this book partly because it was a pat on the back for me. Pollan advocates "local" and "sustainable" agriculture over the not-very-meaningful "organic" label; I've been approaching my food this way since long before it was fashionable. While I do buy organic products (Muir Glen has excellent canned tomatoes), I'm usually more concerned with buying local. I pass on Horizon's organic milk from Whole Foods in favor of the non-organic but better tasting Ronnybrook dairy at the farmer's market. I mostly buy fruits and vegetables that are in season. Not that I'm perfect - far from it. As if my willingness to purchase yogurt from Switzerland weren't enough, I love avocados, and I only splurge on organic meat for a special occasion. But I do feel like I'm on the right track.

The book also got me thinking about the vast gulf in food prices between the US and Switzerland. One of the conclusions that Pollan draws is that as American consumers, we don't come close to paying for the true cost of our hyper-industrialized food: prices don't reflect the billions in subsidies the government pays for corn (which goes into much of our food supply, either as food additives such as corn syrup or xanthan gum, or meat that's been corn-raised), or the cost of pollution from artifical fertilizer that's dumped onto the fields.

The Swiss, on the other hand, don't have an industrialized farming system at all. I used to think it was merely quaint to see (and smell) the farmers spraying their fields with manure in the autumn, or workers mowing the grasses on particularly steep hills by hand. It was charming to cycle past cows chewing their cud, lambs out to pasture, and goats grazing next to the autobahn. (It was also irritating to get stuck behind a herd of cattle that were being moved from one field to another.) Now I think they're on to something. The food does taste better over there, after all. And where else can you interact so directly from the farmer? For example, you can purchase a lamb (or pig, or cow) when it's born. The farm then raises it for you; you can visit it whenever you want. I can't imagine most farms in the US doing that.

Food in Switzerland is expensive, no doubt about it. But that's a whole lot different from overpriced. And now, at least, I don't mind paying for it.

All quiet on the Western front

2006-11-16T02:40:00.000+01:00

Today I went to the yuppie supermarket down the street and discovered that not only did they stock good Swiss Emmi yogurt, but that it was on sale as well! For a mere $0.99, I could imagine - via the Proustian powers of a creamy spoonful of pink grapefruit - that it was August in Bern again, and that I was sitting on the terrace of Swissy Pie's home, admiring the early snow that had descended overnight upon the Alps.

A bout of homesickness has seized me. And Switzerland has never even been my home.

The whole situation is ridiculous. I've spent a total of 4, maybe 5, weeks in that country. How can I possibly miss it? But I miss it all the same.

Most of it, of course, is because I miss Swissy Pie. That comes and goes. Sometimes, I have so much to do that the whole day passes without me thinking about him. Other times, it feels like I'll never make it over there. The companies that ought to hire me without thinking are incommunicando; and while the interviews I do have are for jobs that I'd love to land, I'm horribly afraid that I'm entirely underqualified to do them, and that this will become very apparent during my interviews.

I look toward Thanksgiving with a mixture of dread and anticipation, because the day after, I fly out to face my fate. I can't help but think of the last meal of the condemned.

I'm going to have to stop being so melodramatic. After all, the Emmi yogurt I just ate was made in at Plant No. 36-9865 in Valley Cottage, New York. And I'm just an un-Swiss Miss.

A loaf of bread, a jug of wine, and thou

2006-11-13T01:55:00.000+01:00

Mark Bittman is a genius.

Actually, not Mark Bittman - Jim Lahey of the Sullivan Street Bakery. But Mark scores points for having spread the joy.

In the last Dining In/Dining Out section of the New York Times, Mark shared a recipe for the easiest bread you'll ever make. On the simplicity front, it beats the bread from King Arthur's Flour by a long shot, though it results in a very different loaf than the dense, satisfying round that previously claimed the title. Jim Leahy's bread requires no kneading (although this my favorite part of making bread), only a smidgeon of yeast, and a lot of time - 14-20 hours. But since most of that time can be spent doing something else, there's no reason to complain, unless you're very, very hungry. (In which case, you won't be baking your own bread anyway.)

Here's the recipe:

Recipe: No-Knead Bread
Adapted from Jim Lahey, Sullivan Street Bakery
Time: About 11⁄2 hours plus 14 to 20 hours’ rising

3 cups all-purpose or bread flour, more for dusting
1⁄4 teaspoon instant yeast
11⁄4 teaspoons salt
Cornmeal or wheat bran as needed.

1. In a large bowl combine flour, yeast and salt. Add 1 5/8 cups water, and stir until blended; dough will be shaggy and sticky. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let dough rest at least 12 hours, preferably about 18, at warm room temperature, about 70 degrees.

2. Dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles. Lightly flour a work surface and place dough on it; sprinkle it with a little more flour and fold it over on itself once or twice. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rest about 15 minutes.

3. Using just enough flour to keep dough from sticking to work surface or to your fingers, gently and quickly shape dough into a ball. Generously coat a cotton towel (not terry cloth) with flour, wheat bran or cornmeal; put dough seam side down on towel and dust with more flour, bran or cornmeal. Cover with another cotton towel and let rise for about 2 hours. When it is ready, dough will be more than double in size and will not readily spring back when poked with a finger.

4. At least a half-hour before dough is ready, heat oven to 450 degrees. Put a 6- to 8-quart heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex or ceramic) in oven as it heats. When dough is ready, carefully remove pot from oven. Slide your hand under towel and turn dough over into pot, seam side up; it may look like a mess, but that is O.K. Shake pan once or twice if dough is unevenly distributed; it will straighten out as it bakes. Cover with lid and bake 30 minutes, then remove lid and bake another 15 to 30 minutes, until loaf is beautifully browned. Cool on a rack.

Yield: One 11⁄2-pound loaf.

I started mine late last night when I came back from meeting friends. It took less than five minutes to pull out the ingredients (King Arthur bread flour for the bread, oat bran for the coating) and mix them together in my KitchenAid. By 3 pm today, the dough was bubbly, and when I poured it out of the bowl, it elongated into gorgeous, elastic strands that weren't too sticky. The trickiest part was getting it into the hot Corningware casserole without either missing or burning myself, but I managed. 45 minutes later, I had a lovely deep brown loaf.

Flavorwise, it doesn't quite achieve the heights scaled by the Poilâne bread it resembles: it doesn't have the same wonderful sourdough tang. That being said, it certainly beats most of the bread that's available in this country. It's got a fabulously crackly crust and a hole-y, chewy interior. Slathered with butter fresh out of the oven, it's heavenly. It's also fantastic with preserves, Nutella, slices of roast chicken... well, pretty much everything.

No surprise that, along with a glass of intense red wine, it ended up being my dinner. This is happiness, pure and simple. All that's missing is Swissy Pie.

Power to the people

2006-11-11T01:40:00.000+01:00

I've decided: no matter what happens with the job situation, I'm going to Switzerland at the beginning of the year. If I have to, I'll stay for 3 months on the tourist visa. If I'm still not gainfully employed by the end of that period, I'll either leave for a month and return, or apply for a long-term residence permit.

So the past few days have been occupied with headache-inducing move-related tasks: finding a mover that isn't sleazy and unreliable, for one, and trying to figure out whether to take my beloved kitchen appliances - into which I've invested a minor fortune - over to Europe, for another. Swissy Pie may have lots of dishes and knives, but as I recall, he doesn't have much in the way of Hausgeräte. (Today he couldn't even find a can opener, and had to resort to a Swiss Army knife.) Besides, have I mentioned that I really, really love my KitchenAid mixer?

I knew that Europe (and the rest of the world) runs on a higher voltage than the US - the 220V range instead of the 100-120V range. I knew that some electronic goods, like laptops and cell phones, can run on both - those just need a plug adapter. But how can I tell what items can accomodate both voltages? What to do about my computer, which has a grounded (3-prong) plug, when all the travel adapters I've seen only accept 2-prong ones? And what about the rest of my stuff?

Once again, Google came to the rescue. As I discovered, Europe is not only on a higher voltage than the US, it's on a different frequency as well. The frequency doesn't make that much of a difference - motors run slightly slower, but that seems to be about it. The voltage, though, is critical. Some electronic devices that are designed to be portable, such as my laptop, automatically detect and switch between the two voltages. Other (generally electric) devices, such as my travel hair dryer, need to be manually switched. But the vast majority can't use the higher voltage at all.

So, depending on the device, there are several solutions of varying expense and unwieldiness.

Plug adapters - These don't change the voltage, only the shape of the plug, so they only work with things that can run on both. Both grounded and ungrounded adapters are available, though travel stores only seem to sell ungrounded ones.
Converters - These somehow reduce the voltage electrically and can only be used with electric devices - ones that don't have computer chips inside, such as hairdryers. Furthermore, they can only be used for short periods of time, and I've yet to come across one that accepts a grounded US plug.
Transformers - These are the most robust solution, and can be step-down only (for using US devices in Europe), step-up only (vice-versa), or step-up/step-down. The transformer's power capacity should be the total power needed for all the devices that will be simultaneously run off of it, plus some slack.

After a few fruitless minutes of wondering - and cursing - whoever came up with such a harebrained scheme, I got down to business. Each electric or electronic device has a UL label which specifies voltage limitations and either wattage or current requirements. All I had to do was make a list of all my devices, track down each item, find the label, and record the information. Then I could figure out what kind of adapters I needed.

The job proved more difficult than I expected, partly because I couldn't remember everything I owned, and partly because those UL stickers hide in the most unobtrusive - and therefore inconvenient - spots. Some were on the plug, which would be behind the desk. Others were on the back of a difficult-to-move object. But the one for my flat-panel iMac was the worst: it took me three attempts and a magnifying glass to make it out, because it - along with a bunch of other information - was engraved in tiny block letters that formed a ring on the metal bottom of the computer.

By the time I finished, I was dusty and sneezy, but at least I knew: only my computer and my hair dryer can run on high voltage. If I want to take the rest of the stuff - like Swissy Pie's wireless router, or my laser multifunction machine - I'll have to spend a good chunk of cash to purchase some heavy-duty step-down transformers.

Something to think about over the next few days. In the meantime, it's back to The Ripoffreport and the Better Business Bureau to weed out more about those dodgy movers. At this point, I can't imagine how I'd have managed before the internet.

After all... tomorrow is another day

2006-11-03T21:07:00.000+01:00

Not that it necessarily improves matters.

Yesterday, while trying to find out more about Swiss residency permits, I'd come across a company that specializes in obtaining them. "You don't need to be a movie star to live in Switzerland," they claimed. "Call us for a free consulation."

So, first thing this morning - 6 AM! - I rang them up and explained my situation.

"I'm sorry," the lady with the not-quite-French accent said. "For you, it's impossible. Switzerland no longer gives permits to Americans."

"None at all?"

"Non."

"But my boyfriend is Swiss."

That earned me an impatient tsk. "If you are not married, that does not help."

"Isn't it possible to start a business, or something along those lines, the way your website suggests?"

"Non," she replied with grim finality. "Not for Americans."

A hurry-up-you're-keeping-me-from-lunch tone had crept into her voice. So, realizing that I wouldn't get any more information out of her, I hung up.

After moping around the apartment for a couple of hours while the rest of New York woke up, I plodded out to engage in some retail therapy at the farmer's market. By the time I got back, it was after 9, so I tried the Swiss consulate in New York. No love there, either: yes, someone was available to answer questions Monday through Friday, but only between 2-4 PM. By that point I'd started wondering if anyone in the country worked. No wonder they were so keen to keep everyone else out.

By the time the clock read 2:00, I'd gone through a pot of coffee and an enormous cheese danish from my favorite stall, and I'd worn down the floorboards in my hallway from all my pacing back and forth. When I called again, I half-expected to get the answer machine. But to my surprise, someone picked up immediately. I was even more surprised when that someone proved sympathetic.

"I know how you feel," the Swiss lady said. "I've been doing the reverse arrangement for years."

Though she couldn't tell me the odds that I would receive one, she encouraged me to apply for a visa, and include all the documentation to show that Swissy Pie and I are in a serious, long-term relationship. Get affidavits, she suggested, and copies of his passport, as well as any other evidence of your life together.

Dating 5+ years would have been ideal, but factors like co-habitation, his Swiss citizenship, etc. are all supposedly helpful. It's also nice to know that if I'm turned down, it doesn't affect my chances of getting a work-related permit. (Though she didn't know whether it was possible to convert this residence visa to a work one.)

Ultimately, she didn't really tell me too much that I didn't already know, and my odds of getting the visa are probably still close to zero. But it was nice to hear advice from someone who acted as if she cared.

Guess what I'll spend the weekend doing?

A nasty surprise

2006-11-03T01:49:00.000+01:00

Since I've been back in New York, I've been busily looking into moving-related issues - getting quotes, figuring out how to sublet my apartment, etc. Until today, when it occured to me to double-check Swiss residence requirements. And boy, was a nasty surprise waiting for me.

I'd assumed that Switzerland's requirements for residence permits would be similar to Germany's: show that you can support yourself, and you're good to stay (though not necessarily to work). Boy, I couldn't have been more wrong. To get a residency permit, one should:

Be at least 60 years old and very, very wealthy. (I'm guessing on the private banking level, not merely "mass affluent.") Or
Marry a Swiss national or someone else with a Class-C permanent residence permit. Then one is courteously exempted from the foreigner quota restrictions, though one can still be denied permission to live. Or
Get a job, apply for a Class-B temporary residence permit from one's home country, and pray. Or
Invest lots of money into a Swiss business, or into starting up a Swiss business.

Damn. Not married, not old, and not feeling very entrepreneurial. I guess I have to land a job. This could take a while. As the website of the Swiss embassy in Washington states:

"The very restrictive immigration policy of the Swiss Government has made it extremely difficult to obtain residence permits for employment. As a rule, only individuals who have been offered jobs which cannot be filled by Swiss nationals have a chance of obtaining residence permits." (emphasis added)

They might as well have said, "Americans, don't bother." Even better, it's recently gotten even more difficult to get a job, because due to a treaty with the EU, that bit about "Swiss nationals" has been changed to "Swiss or EU nationals." What's more, it takes 6-8 weeks to process an application once it's submitted. And did I mention that each canton has a quota for foreign residents?

It could be a long, long time before I get to move in with Swissy Pie.

WAHHHHH.

Now what?

I could go there without a job, but I can only live there for 3 months at a time, 6 months out of the year, with at least 1 month in between exits and re-entries. After the first month of each visit, I have to register with the police. This sucks, but I suppose it's better than nothing.

Tomorrow I'll call the Swiss consulate to make sure I understand this all correctly. And then I guess I'll start applying as fast as my little fingers can type.

And we're in...

2006-10-30T23:00:00.000+01:00

As it's been a very long day, and I have to catch a plane back to New York early tomorrow morning, this will be a short public service announcement.

Swissy Pie has moved into our new apartment!

At the moment, our furnishings are rather sparse. No bed, no clothing armoire - in case I haven't mentioned it, few apartments in Switzerland have built-in closets. We had to borrow a rug and a tiny clothes rack from his parents, who also helped us unpack the kitchen. And boy, was there an awful lot of it to unpack! He has about a million coffee mugs, dozens of wine and beer glasses, knives and kitchen gadgets by the handful, and several gorgeous sets of tableware. (Not metrosexual? Yeah, right.)

I don't know how I'll manage to get my stuff in there too. What to take? What to leave?

But that's a problem to consider when I'm less tired.

Rheingold!

2006-10-29T21:54:00.000+01:00

For two weeks, Mainz, a city in the famous Rhinehessen winemaking region of Germany, is celebrating its grape harvest. Hotels are serving special menus centered around riesling and truffles. And in the farmer's market this past Saturday, stalls serving up glasses of white, rosé, and red wine, as well as champagne (called sekt in Germany), were mixed among the ones selling the usual gorgeous array of red peppers, purple beans, golden mushrooms, lettuces, various fruits, and cheeses.

Since Swissy Pie had to attend a weekend conference there, we landed right in the midst of this unexpected indulgence. We took the train up on Friday - my first experience with the luxurious ICE, the high-speed "inter-city express" - and while he was at his seminar, I explored the old city, from St. Stefans, a church whose stained glass windows were designed by Marc Chagall, to the Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum, which had a special exhibition on a "Heldengrab in Niemandsland" (Hero's Grave in No Man's Land), to shops in the Altstadt and along the Augustinerstrasse.

The high point of the trip was, unsurprisingly, centered around wine. On Friday night we dined at Bellpepper, where we had a lovely 2005 Von der Fels riesling from Weingut Keller. It was nicely balanced between fruit and acid: bright and citrusy with just a hint of sweetness to round it out. I spent Saturday traipsing around the city to try to find it. Though I didn't manage to track down the Von der Fels, I did find an ordinary QbA trocken riesling, also from 2005. Of course, I managed to acquire two additional wines along the way. One was a 2005 Silvaner feinherb, also from Rheinhessen, bottled by Edith and Norbert Kessler. The other one, which we've already consumed, was a 2004 Kerner Spätlese trocken (Westhofener Kirchspiel) from Helmut Geil. It is very good - and in the States, would have cost at least twice as much as it does here.

In Mainz, I was also initiated into the European sauna experience, one of the best legacies of the Roman empire. Initially I was a little surprised to see that men and women shared the space, and even more surprised that most people nevertheless lounged around in their birthday suits. But the shock wore off quickly. It probably helped that there weren't many people using the facilities.

The sauna in our hotel was very nice. It was in the basement, but was built aroud the old city wall and had lots of natural light streaming down through the former defensive pits, so it was bright and airy and felt quite modern. The scent of oranges wafted through the space. Lit candles in the entry made it feel like a spa.

I began with the familiar. After rinsing down in the shower and indulging in a footbath, I entered the heated cedar room that I've always considered a sauna. It was hotter and darker than the others I've been in, so as soon as I began to sweat, I fled, to cool off by dunking myself in a tub of cold water. Then I tried the steam room, cooled off again under a waterfall-style shower, and moved into a "Ruheraum," a relaxing room, to finish cooling down. There was also a fresh air room, which was open to the outside. It was a nice way to finish on a brisk autumn day.

Some people wrapped up with time in the tanning bed, which I skipped. But on the whole, I found the experience really relaxing.

Good, inexpensive wine and saunas. I think I'm going to enjoy living in Europe.

Be vewy vewy qwiet when hunting wohnungs...

2006-10-26T00:56:00.000+01:00

We have an apartment!

No, it's not the one we originally wanted. When we went to meet the owner last week, we discovered that two other couples had also applied for it. The next day, Thursday, we learned that we would not be its next occupants. (How did he decide? Were we supposed to bribe him at the meeting?) And thus began our foray into the bizarre and dysfunctional world of Swiss real estate.

I have to confess that I wasn't exactly heartbroken about losing the place: when I visited it, I had mixed feelings about it. Though the neighborhood was really charming and central, the apartment itself was not on one of the prettier or quieter streets. And while the place featured plenty of nice old details, like leaded glass panels and herringbone hardwood floors, the light was mediocre, and the layout wasn't the easiest one to work with. Doors led everywhere, so that all the rooms were connected. (Not a convenient arrangement for guests!) The balconies looked their not-inconsiderable age, the bathroom was cramped, and the kitchen was blue. Not blue tiles, mind you, but blue cabinets, covered with the sort of sponged-on pattern popular among Italian restaurants with Tuscan pretentions.

One of my old bosses liked to complain that people never did things the way he would have done it himself. In the case of that apartment, it was definitely true. The place was more than livable, but... I was exchanging my beloved pre-war in New York for this? I was almost relieved when we didn't get the place - and the only reason I put in "almost" was because Swissy Pie needed a place to live by November 1, when he starts work.

Eleven days to go. Not a lot of time. What to do?

Hit the web, of course.

We spent Thursday night going through online listings, culling them down to a list that looked promising. But to our dismay, when we contacted the brokers on Friday, only two were actually in! Obviously, if they weren't working on Friday, they certainly weren't working on Saturday. And no one in Switzerland works on Sunday. (Coming from the City That Never Sleeps, it's a shock to find out you can't even go grocery shopping, unless you're at the train station.)

So. Three days wasted. Eight days left, and Swissy Pie was not happy. No early bird, he - he even overslept the day he was supposed to pick me up at the airport, and left me stranded for two hours - but for this occasion, he got up extra-early to call the realtors. That in and of itself was a miracle, but even more miraculously, he was able to chase them down and cram our Tuesday full of appointments. He even ferreted out one particularly elusive lady who didn't seem to want to show us her apartment at all.

"This place is special," she warned us. "Most people just turn around and walk right out."

I couldn't help thinking - with little sympathy - that Manhattan would eat the whiny girl alive.

As luck would have it, she was our first appointment. She turned out to be a petite youngish lady with thick, Liz-Taylor-as-Cleopatra-style eyeliner, bleached blonde hair, and a desperate wish to get rid of the apartment; the apartment turned out to be a bright duplex on a nicer street in the same neighborhood we'd looked in before. Perhaps because she'd been so aggressive in managing our expectations, we didn't walk out at all. The place was strikingly modern, with two walls upstairs made entirely of glass, and a lightshaft down to the bedroom below. Plus, it had its own washer/dryer. But the lower level was partially underground, and the space was laid out rather inefficiently, so that 100 square meters felt more like 70. Like the first place, it was workable, but...

Then we saw the next apartment, which completely annihilated the hopes of that whiny, desperate blonde.

From the outside, it didn't look like much. It was in a modern, concrete slab of a building that had recently been finished. In fact, it was so new that no one had ever lived in it before. The neighborhood was in the early stages of up-and-coming, and nicely kept buildings were liberally interspersed among uglier, more run-down ones. But when we got in to see it, it started to grow on me. There were so many well-conceived details. For example, there was a large bike room right next to the entrance, so residents didn't have to drag their bikes from the basement. The cellar storage was large and clean, and had electric sockets. Laundry usage was based on a sign-up system instead of a fixed plan. Private underground parking was available.

And when we finally went up to the apartment itself, the flood of sunlight that poured though a wall of full-length glass windows pretty much sold me on the space. Yes, I liked that there were movable room dividers to separate the gourmet kitchen from the living space, and that were 3 bedrooms and a storage room, and that there were 2 bathrooms, and that heated pipes ran beneath the floor to heat them in winter. I liked that Swissy Pie's Le Corbusier furniture would fit right in. But most of all, I loved that wall of south-facing windows.

Of course it wasn't perfect. The floor was covered with a light green tile, cheap-looking stuff that I would ordinarily disdain. And I wasn't sure about the neighborhood. But for the rest of the day, nothing came close to it in terms of price-to-quality. We did see one, another "altbau," or old building, with really nice plasterwork detail that almost made up in charm and location what it lacked in light and space. But it had no parking, minimal storage space, and was noisy to boot.

So today (after Swissy Pie came out on top in a protracted battle with the recalcitrant fax machine) we applied for the Windowed Paradise. To our shock - especially after our experiences with real estate brokers last week - we were approved a scant two hours later. The rest of the day blurred past. We raced up to sign the contract, and spent the rest of the afternoon shuttling paperwork between the bank and the rental office.

Now the place is ours! (Well, technically, Swissy Pie's, since I'm not on the contract.) We move in Monday, just before I return to the US. I can hardly wait.

Sunday drive

2006-10-22T18:14:00.000+01:00

Today was one of those days that one could easily mistake for early summer, if it weren't for the foliage, which clearly screams fall. Such good weather, as far as Swissy Pie is concerned, can only mean one thing: a nice, long bike ride. Though I think he'd have preferred to climb a mountain, I was tired from yesterday's ride, so we got into the car and headed off to Biel/Bienne for a tour around its lake (named, in typically creative German fashion, Bielersee).

We parked the car by the lakeshore, just outside the city, and headed west. Across the road, by the water, russet treetops peeked over the railings to remind us that a park clung to the strip of land below. To the south, the snow-coated Alps glittered, clear despite a soft haze that clung to the hills nearby. It seemed that everyone was outside to enjoy the day. Quite a few families were out for a stroll or bike ride. Boats with colorful wind-engorged sails skimmed across the surface of the lake. A single hot-air balloon hung in the sky. And cars kept whooshing past us, only to be brought up short at Twann, one of the towns along the shore.

It turned out Twann was hosting some sort of wine or harvest festival, so we stopped, threaded our way through the cars parked in the bike lane, and made our way into the crowded village. Stalls and oak barrels choked an already narrow main street. Some offered "degustations," or wine tastings, for about CHF 3-4 per glass. Others sold food, pottery, or jewelry. Between the silver rings (ubiquitous at New York street fairs) and the dodgy Chinese food, I almost thought I was back in Manhattan again.

Leaning against one of the old aging casks, we tasted a couple of local wines, one mediocre rosé and a pinot gris, which was pretty nice despite being a little warm. Then we continued around the lake for what ended up being a rolling 50 km ride. It was remarkable how abruptly the language went from German in one town to French in the next and then back again. More remarkable still was the variety of terrain packed into such a small area. Vineyards were carved into the steep hills on the north shore of the lake, while woods shadowed ancient cobblestoned streets in the west, near Erlach, and a patchwork of broad yellowing cornfields and cow pastures blanketed the rolling land around Ins.

By the time we got back to the car, my legs were close to empty, even though there hadn't been any serious climbs. That was a bit disappointing. I guess if Swissy Pie wants to ride tomorrow, he'll have to go alone.

An ordinary Saturday

2006-10-21T18:15:00.000+01:00

This morning we went to the farmer's market in downtown Bern. Though there's always a small one in the Bankenplatz with perhaps 20 booths, on Tuesdays and Saturdays it metastasizes, spreading into the back streets of the old city. The variety is astounding. Like in New York, there's lots of fruit and vegetables - sweet Concord grapes with translucent skins (as well as some champagne-colored variety), green and black figs, round little apples, fat green gooseberries and tiny red raspberries and dusty blueberries, ripe gold and crimson tomatoes, tangles of mushrooms that I've never seen before, crisp green beans, and bright purple eggplants little bigger than my hand.

But in Bern, there are also stalls selling haunches of wild boar, capons with some of their feathers still on, whole rabbits, and fish of all different sizes and colors. There are cheese and olive markets, and bakeries with wonderful specialties like gâteau de Vully, a beautiful golden risen yeast cake from the French-speaking portion of Switzerland. It's topped with butter and cream and sugar and sliced almonds, and as I later discovered, a slice is simply divine with coffee.

As is our tradition, Swissy Pie and I also indulged in nearly a kilo of goods at our favorite cheese market: green olives stuffed with preserved lemons, Roquefort, Pecorino Romano, and winzerkäse, which has a fabulous rich, nutty flavor that I adore. We also got a bottle of vinho verde from one of the wine stores downtown. We'll see how it compares to the much cheaper Casal Garcia that we like so much.

In the afternoon we took a bike ride through the Lindental, one of my favorite loops in the Bern region. It has many virtues: it's a short, 30 mile loop; the scenery is spectacular, particularly now, in autumn, when all the hills are aflame with foliage; and most importantly, it's flat. (At least, about as flat as Switzerland gets.) This is particularly critical at the moment, since I'm renting a bicycle for the trip, a classic black Cilo steel frame with really elegant lines and surprisingly nimble handling. Unfortunately, it's a little heavy, and has what Swissy Pie calls the "hero crank" double configuration. So hills are a little difficult, and steep pitches downright impossible, at least in my out-of-shape state. But I survived the final climb up to the house, and afterward felt surprisingly good. So maybe I'm not as badly off as I feared.

Off to Switzerland

2006-10-16T06:12:00.000+01:00

Heute fliege ich nach der Schweiz! Since I haven't seen Swissy Pie in about a month, I'm really looking forward to the visit. I'm also curious to see how this trip goes. The last time I went, in August, I was more or less a tourist, going to scenic places like Luzern and taking tons of photos. What will I think, now that it's not so novel? And how has my German held up, given I haven't spoken it in weeks? (Though I have done plenty of writing: Sehr geehrte Frau -----)

We'll still be cycling, though I'm not in any shape to go up mountains right now. This time I'm going to rent a bike there, since Continental charges $95 each way to ship a bicycle, and that's simply egregious. Instead, I'm using half my baggage allowance for my own clothes, and the rest for stuff he couldn't take on the plane with him when he left, like his fancy cameras, and some bulky coats. (That boy has so many coats that I sometimes wonder if he's gay. Then I remember there's a term for it now: metrosexual, though in other respects this doesn't apply to him at all.) All I can say is, this time I'd better not get stopped by customs, because it'll be a royal pain to get the bags closed again.

Of course, we'll have to take care of business, as well. On Wednesday we have a meeting with the owner of the charming apartment. Though he has complained about this - "Since when do the Swiss interview for apartments?" - it's actually nice, in a way, since now I get to see the space in person. (And maybe we can tour some German wineries while we're up there.)

I guess I should take advantage of the proximity to do some job hunting, too. If I can understand any of the postings...

Alpenmacaroni (or something like it)

2006-10-13T17:56:00.000+01:00

Since I'm about to go off to Switzerland for 2 weeks, I've allowed my refrigerator to get depressingly empty. Aside from the expected condiments, there's only milk, a handful of brussel sprouts and some random chunks of cheese: a slab of Gruyere, a scrap of some sort of blue cheese, and a block of cheddar. Not a very inspiring set of ingredients for lunch.

Fortunately, I almost always have dried pasta in my pantry, so I decided to make a version of Alpenmacaroni, only without potatoes, and without onions. (I ran out of those, too.) OK, so it was more like American mac 'n' cheese, only with fancy cheese.

1/2 box (8 oz) dried pasta, cooked and drained
2 cups grated cheese (ended up being about half Gruyere, half cheddar before I chopped up the blue cheese and mixed that in, too)
2 cups milk
salt
pepper
nutmeg

Cooking the macaroni's the most difficult part. Once that's done, just mix all the ingredients together in a big casserole and stick it in the oven for 20 minutes at 400 F. When the cheese is melted, give the whole thing a stir with a spoon and serve. If the sauce is too runny, wait five minutes. As it cools, it'll thicken.

Given how easy this is, and how good it tastes, I'm sure I'll make some variant again in the future. (Though I'll probably use a little less milk next time... with these proportions, it was still a tad runny for my tastes.)

Working girl

2006-10-13T16:31:00.000+01:00

I came across a job posting that sounded interesting the other day. One of the giants of Swiss banking is evidently looking for an Art Banker.

Art Banker? What on earth is that?

According to the job posting:

In this challenging role you will act as the single point of contact for internal and external queries with regard to the structuring of art financing and investment products, the structuring and development of Trusts & Foundations as well as any escrow transactions' demands. Your main responsibilities include:
Development, maintenance and monitoring of art oriented products and solutions
Carrying out feasibility studies of new art-related products and Implementation of new products' shelves
Continuous monitoring of developments in the financial and art markets
Conducting regular presentations and reviews with Regional Market Managers and Client Advisor teams on the art market and on UBS Art Banking solutions
As the ideal candidate you meet the following criteria:
Excellent knowledge of global financial instruments and banking products (Funds, Private Equity, Investment Products, Lending Products, etc.)
Passion for art and global art market trends
Charismatic personality with networking abilities
Excellent communication skills and fluency in English, French and German

This could be good, aside from my lack of fluency in German. And there's the minor issue that, after 13 years or so of disuse, my French isn't exactly fluent anymore either. Well, according to my resume, I've got "intermediate" German and "excellent" French. ("Beginner," "fluent," and "native speaker" were the other options.) I'll keep my fingers crossed.

Beginnings

2006-10-13T07:12:00.000+01:00

I first decided to start a blog to help my friends and family keep up with my life. Now, as I type, I'm wondering if I'm really using this blog so that I can keep up with my own life. Everything seems to be in flux right now; I feel gauzy and insubstantial, as if I'm just passing through. It's a bizarre sensation for me, since for the past five years, I've been solidly materialistic. I live in my cozy little apartment in New York City, eat cozy little meals, shop in cozy boutiques (and not-so-cozy department stores), hang out with my cozy, wonderful friends. I know where to buy what, and how things are done. I have a place this this messy, frightening, and exhilirating city.

And now I'm giving it all up. To go halfway across the world. For a guy.

I must be nuts. I never thought I would be doing something like this. And yet, instead of dreading all this change, I'm oddly excited.

Swissy-Pie, as I'll call said guy for reasons which I hope are obvious, is already back home. And much faster than I expected, things are starting to come together. We're going to be in Basel, Switzerland, right where France, Germany, and Switzerland come together, glaring at each other over the legendary Rhine River like members of some dysfunctional family over dinner. While I personally have dubbed it the Ugliest City in Switzerland, it's his favorite. Oh well. I suppose New York could be considered ugly, too, but I've gotten used to it. Hopefully Basel will grow on me as well. At least the Black Forest in Germany, which is really close by, is absolutely spectacular.

To be fair, there are some lovely neighborhoods. A few months ago, I spent a day in the area, and found a few pockets that I really liked. And during our apartment search (a virtual one for me), we've come across a few more.

One place in particular looks fantastic; I've posted the photo here. It's a big (over 1000 sq. ft) 4-room apartment in an old building, with lots of original plaster detail, beautiful herringbone hardwood floors, leaded glass doors, two balconies, a shared garden, and charm to spare. And the rent's quite reasonable, too! We both independently chose it as our top pick. (This bodes well, I hope, for future decision-making.)

At first I was nervous because it simply looked too good to be true. But today he went to see it in person, and reported that the photos don't do it justice. Even better, no one else has applied for it! Of course, he submitted an application immediately. Hopefully we'll find out within the next few days whether we get it or not.

Assuming we do, the only thing that's left is for me to find a job, so that I don't die of loneliness and/or boredom in this brave Old World. There are a few obstacles:

No EU work visa. I refuse to marry Swissy-Pie just to get one.
Not fluent in German. Given I've only been learning for 6 months, I'm quite good. But that's nowhere close to good enough.
Few finance jobs in Basel. That means I may have to commute to Zürich, 1 hour away. Yelch.
No skills relevant to pharma positions, of which Basel does have plenty.

Oh well. I suppose can always join Centrepoint, or whatever the American Women's Club of Basel calls itself these days. But I have to ask, if it used to be an American club, why do they spell Centre like the British?