Nikolaustag - Switzerland

Samichlaus leaves presents in Swiss children's shoes for them to find on the morning of December 6th. I forgot to leave my shoes out, but I did go to a get together with some Swiss friends where we drank glühwein, ate lebkuchen, an baked Grittibänz.

The table was set with clementines and chocolate coins.

 I was the glühwein cook; it turned out a little sour, but I was just working with the citrus I was given.

Lebkuchen is much more cake-like than the German versions I have tried.
Warm with a bit of butter, yum!

 Grittibänz or Stutenkerle (sweet-dough guy) are (possibly) meant to be in the form of a bishop and are similar to gingerbread men, in the sense that they are human shaped.


Stutenkerle (+belly dancer kerlette) before...

and after. Delish!

Since Samichlaus already made his rounds, I was wondering if the consumer-Christmasness that has engulfed the city would subside, but it looks like Züri is in it for the long haul. Three Santas tried to give me fliers on my way out of the train station this evening.

Store display on November 5th.

 Much of the city is done up quite tastefully with white lights, dangling, draped, stars, and icicles. But each evening I get a taste of tacky lights on my bus ride:


It isn't so clear, but there are white, purple, and green lights. Some of them are chasers.
The lit trees on the overhang are there all year.
I can only assume that the man reflected in the bus window is aghast at the sight!

 I think that those are the only colored lights I have seen, with the exception of my own balcony. There is a single strand of multi-colored lights running from the plug, up to the awning, down the edge of the building, around the corner and halfway along the length of the railing. This leaves it looking a little incomplete, if  you ask me. There is even cord to spare, so lights needn't be wasted on going up to the awning.

The main design flaw with the lights is that there is not a plug on the end to chain stands together!

 

taste of home

Last week was great, but a little stressful. At work, we organized a one day course on Thursday concerning how water and sanitation businesses are evolving. Initially signups were a little low, then all of the sudden it jumped up to fifty people. The course went really well (connections and progress were made + people want more, but with more specific topics), but by Friday I was exhausted and a little down (I had not been sleeping well and had to deal with trying office politics). I was looking forward to an evening in front of the TV with a good snack. On the way home, I stopped at the grocery store and while looking for filo happened upon pre-made cookie dough! One of the quintessential drown your sorrows foods! I am all for baking your own chocolate chip cookies, but it involves so much extra effort here (conversions, calibrations, substitutions, making your own chocolate chip sized bits of chocolate, dealing different types of flour and baking soda...), which ordinarily I enjoy: The experimentation! The Challenge! The (occasional) triumph! I just didn't have it in me on Friday.

The dough was great. The chocolate:other stuff ratio was great. The finished cookies were great. The third season of Suburgatory was good.

It is made by a nestle subsidiary, so I'm guessing it was pretty close to the tollhouse recipe.

Also on the americanish food front I found, but did not buy these:

also coors light...

Swiss Sweets

I have been thoroughly impressed with the desserts here in Switzerland. I had expected their cakes to be like German cakes, which can be pretty dry and rely on Schlagahne (whipped cream) for moisture. A co-worker brought in "cake" for his birthday yesterday, but it was more like a super dessert, drawing from many dessert categories.

Starting at the bottom there is a nice layer of flaky crust, as if the baker started out making a pie. This is covered in a generous layer of  dense vanilla pudding, which seems to be a fairly common cake component here. Next comes a thin layer of cake, strewn with strawberries and encased in jello.

Essentially this cake is the union of 5 other dessert categories. It reminds me of the time I tried to bake an apple pie into a maple cake, except this was successful, simple and delicious, and my attempt just turned out to be a big, tasty, mess.

Have you had any interesting sweets lately?

New Jersey, USA

After Grandma's party dad and I drove to Raleigh, where we spent the night at an Uncle and Aunt's place then took off for New Jersey Monday morning. Dad and I have spent a lot of time together in the prius (see all the excitement of out journey from Breckenridge to Charlotte near the end of this post) and I have gotten really good at navigating the satellite radio stations.

We arrived safely and spent the next few days preparing for the upcoming festivities: grocery shopping, getting mani-pedis (the upselled us to gel manis... quite the rip off), accessorizing our wedding outfits (this means buying warm things, as it was an outdoor evening ceremony in November). Dad and I even hit up the local fishing hole, but had no luck -- even though they had stocked the pond that morning. It was the most miserable fishing experience of my life, and I didn't even fall in-- cold, rainy and no bites. We also ate at Jim's Lunch, a south Jersey institution with a special sauce.

My cheeseburger

with onions and sauce. Tasty!

For Thanksgiving I made a coconut ganache pie. It had pressed and toasted coconut for the crust, a layer of homemade carmel, and dark chocolate filling. I might get disowned for saying this, but it was too rich. Thanksgiving spread covered the basics: turkey, mashed potatoes, mac and cheese, sweet potatoes, and stuffing. All delicious! I was able to talk my dad into making some broccoli, so there would be some non-starch veggies. My Uncle Todd's plate was filled with all white food! Dessert was great: pumpkin pie, apple pie, my pie and reese's pieces cupcakes. Plus we went over to my dad's cousin's house where his extended family had gathered where there was spice cake, more pies and cookies.

My pie

The sugar caramelizing!

The Fam around the table!

After all that food, we had to get up the next day and get all fancied up for my cousin Megan's wedding. It was so cold at the ceremony, but they had a hot coco station, so there was a little bit of warmth. The ceremony was celebratory and casual, with lots of clapping and wooooo-ing. We were able to get a full family shot during the cocktail hour and several informal photos during the reception. The food during the cocktail hour was, as Meg would say, slammin'. They were so impressive that there was some scandalous discussion about if there would be a dinner to follow. Apparently, dinner is standard at northern weddings. There was dinner and it was tasty as well. My little sister also taught me how to order a martini -- she is so fancy and cosmopolitan. My family hit up the photobooth and we even got my dad out on the dance floor. His lack of moves made me feel better about mine, but also worried that I looked like him :)

All of the cousins!

Happy family!

Saturday we said goodbye to my mom and sister and went fishing with some of my dad's college buddies (for being a small southern school, Pfeiffer sure had a lot of kids from New Jersey). It was so cold, but a pretty day nonetheless. It is the only time I have ever outfished my dad! We fished for about four hours without a hit. Then I pulled in a little sucker fish-- it's not a trout, so doesn't usually count, but we were just happy to have gotten a fish. On my next cast, I brought in a 14 inch rainbow. A few minutes later, my dad caught a rainbow. Not long after, it was getting chillier and we hadn't gotten any more strikes, so we headed back to the car. That little suckerfish turned out to be the tie breaker! Dad usually out catches me 2:1 (or worse), so I need to celebrate the little victory!

The tie-breaking fish!

Sunday we joined one of dad's cousins and her husband's family to make grave blankets out of evergreens and holly to place on relatives' gravestones. Apparently, someone will probably steal these pretty soon, but I really like the new-to-me heard lots of good stories about my family and those of the others who went with us.

Sweden Semester I: A look back

Written in January, but just never posted! It's interesting to look at my expectations for this semester and how things are panning out. (pretty spot on)

Just a few weeks after arriving, I was invited to a teammate's summer cottage to close it down for the season. It was down a dirt road that was off another dirt road, which was off a gravel road neat Kopperberg. The cottage was powered off of a single solar PV panel and has a composting toilet. We went mushroom and lingonberry picking (very swedish activities), rowing on the lake and played lots of board games. It was a nice, relaxing introduction to the country outside of Stockholm.  

The crew rowing

Shortly afterwards, I went to Swedish mixed nationals with the Syndromes. They let me play in the less important pool play games. We ended up getting the Bronze (out of seven teams) and I think everyone was a little disappointed, but we'll get 'em next year!

Cool looking shroom (not for consumption

Then came lots and lots of school and The Royal Institue of Technology or Kungliga Tekniska högskolan (KTH pronounced Ko-tay-Ho) My courses were Renewable Energy Technology, Energy and Environment, Sustainable Power Generation and Sustainable Energy Utilization. That last one was particularly rough... dry early morning lectures on complicatedish material. I'm glad it's behind me... No more classes! Just a 30 page paper and a 20 minute presentation stands between me and my master's degree.


My friends Dani and Anders hosted an american thanksgiving for some of the north americans. Check out the sweet potatoes that I made (L) and my plate full of goodness (R). I took some photos of the people there, but we were all stuffing our faces and they didn't turn out very attractive

Right before exams, I went to Lapland with a few classmates to attempt to see the Northern Lights. We were successful! More photos can be found here. We also did some hiking in the snow and saw some reindeer. Since I would have been procrastinating and not studying for exams anyways, that seemed like a good way to spend the time.

Right now I am playing the indoor season with the women's team Swedish Fish. We went to København for Kung Volmer. After I got used to the necessity of throwing hammers, it was lots of fun, but super tiring (we had three handlers and the other two were sick, so I only rested about a point each game). We ended up 11th/14 had some close games, but are still figuring out team dynamics and lost our last match to some rude young girls, which was a little embarrassing. We have a big tournament in Göteborg/Gothenburg the weekend after I get back from Bangladesh, which I am really looking forward to, we are getting some player back who had taken off the first half of the season. 

That said, I'll be staying at KTH next semester for my thesis. I start the semester off (early) with a 3 week trip to Bangladesh to do a field study relating to identifying/developing good/effective/sustainable business models for rural electrification. I'm really excited about this opportunity and the flexibility that writing an academic thesis (rather than working for a company) should afford me. 

For the upcoming semester, I'm looking forward to getting to know Stockholm a little bit better, my dad visting for a soccer extravaganza, traveling to european tournaments with ultimate, and ya know... figuring out the next few steps in my life (maybe).

Tortilla

We had a brunch with the ultimate squad this weekend and while I was looking for recipes, I kept being drawn to frittatas. The one I wanted to make called for goat cheese, but the grocery store I visited did not have any, so I changed course mid-shop and decided to make a tortilla (the Spanish variety).  This is a thick, dense potato and onion omelet that is served at all hours in Spain.

It's been about a year since I left Madrid and this seemed like a fitting marker of that milestone. After consulting several recipes and Alberto, my Spanish course-mate, this is what I came up with:

After adding the mixture of egg, fried potatoes and onions to the pan. 

After the flip. It was not very graceful.

Finished product. Super oily.

I ended up not taking it to brunch (I opted for scrambling eggs and baking some spare peanut butter chocolate chip cookie dough). It tasted fine and had the right consistency, but it was just sort of underwhelming. Like it's hearty, substantial and nice, but wasn't really impressive. It also took a really long time to chop all the veggies and cook through, so I don't know that I'll make it very often, but I'm really glad that I tried. I have been snacking on it all weekend and will continue to enjoy it with lunch this week.

canadians know how to throw down on columbus day

As there are two Canadian's in my master's program, we recently celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving. It was a delicious warm up for actual Thanksgiving. Boy, my classmates can cook! Emily, our hostess with the mostess roasted some beautiful chickens {finding a whole turkey will require some effort, but is something I hope to accomplish for 'merican t-giving}.

People generally brought things from their home country. {the Mexicans made guac and refried beans, the italians made tiramisu, not pictured: there was indian food, mashed potatoes, tortillas, taziki, sweet red bean balls and loads of other deliciousness [but no beaver, as was promised])}

In order to canadianify my favorite fall staple, I made maple pumpkin pie (seen below to the left of my second plate of the evening).

I also made an all canadian playlist, which can be found here for your next canada themed partay, to start off the evening, but by dessert we were dancing to indian and latin music (there was the mayonnaise song & dance), and apparently busted out something cancanesque.

So that was delicious and fun! And we will hopefully get to do it all over again in about a month!