TwoFools in Zürich

Sleepless in Seefeld: Razzia Party oder Krawall?

2011-10-23T15:58:00.002+02:00

I was all set to write a post on Friday about my renewed appreciation for Switzerland when the "activists" occupied the Razzia on Seefeldstrasse.

Still a fairly jolly scene at 11.45 on Friday, although extremely loud. The crowd got uglier as the night wore on.

A fig leaf of concern for the displaced former residents of Ledermann's Kino Razzia-Mainau House project dressed up the occupation, which consisted primarily of loud music and drinking––quite a lot of drinking going by the volume of supplies going in each morning and the sound of glass bottles breaking throughout the night.

From 22.00 until well after dawn each day, deep bass house music blasted out of the open doors of the theater and through the open windows and doors of the adjacent building on Mainaustrasse (they had been industriously removed by the activists). We could feel the vibration in our floors and our windows rattled as the music was cranked progressively higher through the night. My favorite bit each morning was the slow, sonorous, deep bass chords that reverberated through the neighborhood starting at about 7.00.

Here's video we took at 4.30 this morning. Check out that distortion on the bass. Nice, right?

Apparently, the owner (Urs Ledermann) okay-ed the occupation early on Friday evening, and the police in turn said that they could not respond to noise complaints. I guess Urs carries a lot of weight with the city, since the police abandoned all concept of law enforcement on his say-so. I hope he's very happy with the results, since his property now looks more ghetto than Gold Coast.

Doesn't look like Urs won any fans among the activists.

Despite calls from us and many in the neighborhood, the only time we saw the police was about 9.00 on Saturday morning as they did a slow cruise by the scene.

People in this neighborhood had better not kid themselves. There are four more months until the scheduled start of demolition. Urs didn't lose any sleep this weekend, and he won't the next time this happens. And it will happen again.

Organize now to stop illegal parties at the Razzia. Contact Urs and let him know what you think of his illegal agreement to condone this party and deny the police access to his property.

urs.ledermann@ledermann.com
+41 44 396 15 85

Fight for Your Right to Party

2011-09-11T15:13:00.003+02:00

Don't ever let anyone tell you Zurich is a sleepy town where nothing ever happens. Last night a full-on riot happened on Bellvueplatz, culminating in rubber bullets, tear gas, broken shop windows and trash cans on fire.

Johannes Dietschi, newspicture

Things got hot, literally, around midnight, and the action extended from Bellevue to the Stadelhofen train station. Apparently responding to 20 protesters who climbed on top of the tram shelter, police took action and things went downhill fast.

According to 20 Minuten, the street party was staged as a form of "revenge" for recent police actions against other illegal (un-permitted) parties. The rallying cry of "No Party is Illegal" (Keine Party ist Illegal) brought over a thousand young protesters to the Bellvue in an action that ended with 6 police injured and one man taken to the hospital for a head injury. Only one arrest has been reported and damage to vehicles and surrounding businesses has not been tallied.

Okay. Seriously? The right to party? That's the best we can do for a protest movement around here?

I'm pretty sure the right to party was not one of the anti-WEF slogans from earlier this year. Not much in common with the peaceful antiwar marchers dragged off to jail across the US in 2003 either. Last night was not exactly on par with the 1999 Seattle WTO protests and the violent police repression that accompanied them. I'm not sure it can even be fairly compared to the anti-bougeois protests in Zürich in the 1980s, even if some of the language and imagery seem to recall it.

Maybe I'm missing something? But where is the oppression here exactly? It's not like these youths traveled in from dystopian suburbs that surround Paris. There are young people in Switzerland who get the short-end of every stick, but I'm pretty sure they weren't the ones at the party last night.

Dudes, fight for your right.

Living in Zurich Program for Newcomers

2011-09-11T14:08:00.000+02:00

If you've just arrived in town (or even if you've been here a while), you should know about Living in Zurich, a long-running and excellent program for newcomers. Hosted by the not-for-profit American Women's Club of Zurich, it's comprehensive––covering everything from finding a doctor to opening a bank account––and it's taught in English.

Actually, I recommend this course every year, but this year I am even more enthusiastic about it because, unlike previous years, the program this year is scheduled over just three days. I don't know about you, but I am busy: I need time to study, to ~~work~~ volunteer, and once in damn while have some fun. This year, I might even be able to attend the whole thing.

You can find out more and register here.

Here's the invitation from the President of the AWCZ.

Join us for Living in Zurich, beginning on Wednesday, September 28, for an evening reception: the guest list includes Zurich community representatives and former LIZ participants. Interactive workshops and seminars follow on Friday, September 30, and Saturday, Oct 1. You’ll hear presentations by representatives from UBS, SBB, Zuricher Kantonal Polizei, My Switzerland, and Swiss Post, just to name a few. Course registration includes the 400-page Living In Zurich Handbook.

Visit www.awczurich.org for more information or to register online.

With Kind Regards,

Gretchen Du Peza

AWCZ President

Story by Kathy
Photo: AWCZ

New York Moments

2011-08-14T18:16:00.000+02:00

It was my first trip to New York. My chance had finally come in the form of yet another business travel ride-along with my husband, and I took it.

Photo by tylonbrew

So? How was it? Big. Really damned big. Skyscraper canyons, massive crowds surging down the avenues, taxis jammed up for blocks. Coming from tiny little Zürich, with its old world, low-rise buildings and narrow streets just wide enough for two trams, the Big Apple was a big shock.

New York Moments

Taxis, I loved hailing taxis, learning along the way that rain and rush hour mean that no taxi will stop. Ever. But I loved them anyway: so cheap, so ratty, the drivers almost entirely indifferent to their passengers. I loved taking taxis through Central Park, usually in another futile effort to make it to a museum before the crowds. I even loved riding through Midtown and got all verklempt as we passed by S&S and McGraw-Hill on Sixth Avenue. Seriously. There was a bit of a flutter, and my heart beat a faster.

Photo by Kathy

Walking. It rained most of the time but walking downtown from Chelsea to Washington Square Park was a good moment. Walking Midtown––not really so good. I even ended up ducking into a B&N just to find a place to stop moving. Central Park––would have been great, except for the light rain that turned into a drenching downpour.

Photo by tylonbrew

Foodie Americana. Bagel with a schmear, Jacques Torres "chocolate chip" cookies, brunch at Pastis, perfect medium rare hamburgers at The Green Table (topped with kimchi), farm-to-table goodness at Cookshop.

Photo by tylonbrew

Of course I totally failed to plan ahead and therefore failed to book the really cool spots like Momofuku Ko, but we still managed to find the fun. A late lunch at the bar of Gramercy Tavern gave us the kind of laid-back gourmet indulgence we hadn't had since Bouchon, while taking refuge from the rain one afternoon at the Boathouse in Central Park offered a chance to observe the middling bourgeoisie in their native habitat along with our lobster roll and champagne.

Sights. I've mentioned before that I really suck at making it to the sights. This trip was no different. Museum trips were mostly failures as I alternated between mixing up opening times and losing heart at the length of the lines. Best museum moments: the Kandinsky at Bauhaus exhibit at MoMA and the Fricke Collection, where I spent most of the time trying to figure out the family narrative that old robber baron Fricke was trying to create with the lush excess of portraiture he collected: all those eighteenth-century notables painted by Gainsborough, Reynolds, and Romney. And how do Holbein the Younger's portraits of Moore and Cromwell fit the story?

Density with cars
I often try imaging living places I visit, weighing the pros and cons of relocating. I could not decide about about Manhattan. It's a demanding place to live. It's densely packed with people and with cars (and the car dominates the city in a way I didn't expect––horns around the clock, fumes, motors). The city overwhelms; it's too much. The humidity, even in May, is fierce and unrelenting. There's an intense energy that sometimes feels like a threat. But for all it demands, I can also imagine the rewards.

In any case, it was a nice place to visit.

A Belated Spring Cleaning

2011-07-31T15:49:00.001+02:00

We live in a city apartment. It's not huge––we have one big closet and one tiny storage locker in the cellar––which means we just have to get rid of a bunch of stuff every once in a while. Currently, I'm trying to cope with the results of shipping far too many clothes to Zürich when we first moved here. They've got to go.

A couple of times of year we get collection bags from Texaid, a Swiss organization that collects, recycles and reuses used clothing in support of charities like Caritas Schweiz and the Swiss Red Cross. The bags are too small--clearly designed for smart shoppers who buy judiciously. My closet always seems to fill up with clothes so big or so small or so odd that I wondered why I ever bought them.

Happily, I discovered that there are drop-off containers right in my neighborhood. All I have to do is bag it up and dump it in. The instructions don't even specify that you have to use those tiny Texaid bags.

Texaid also has a handy search tool so that you can find the nearest collection point. Neat.

Story by Kathy

Living in (Red-light) Seefeld

2011-07-31T15:47:00.002+02:00

Fair warning: I am about to seriously rant and prove myself irretrievably cranky and unhip.

I've just learned that I live in a former red-light district, the now gentrified and quite pricey Seefeld. That actually explains a lot, especially the presence of lots of late-night hangouts and the tendency for for people to loudly and drunkenly make their way down the street at about 3:00 in the morning.

But our little corner of the neighborhood is about to get a bit more gentrified. The Seefeld-Razzia has closed its doors. Oh, sweet Schadenfreude!

All summer long we've suffered through the Razzia's last days, as night after night––and often all through the night––events were held to honor the passing of this hipster venue. The street below our windows was clogged each weekend night and many weeknights with the fabulous and the freakish, smoking, drinking, and chattering until the predawn hours. But now it's over.

Groovalicious Zürcher need not fear, however. Apparently the Razzia team is scouting for new space and plans to reopen.

I spotted a surveyor at one corner of the building a few days ago, and various sketchy individuals have gathered to drag tattered bits and bobs away throughout the week. My guess is that this building is slated for teardown. I hope, actually, that the old theater that housed the party venue will be renovated rather than torn down, but I don't see much evidence of a preservationist sensibility in this neighborhood.

I haven't found out what comes next. Could it be worse than living next to hipster heaven?

Story by Kathy

The Sounds of Coming Home

2011-07-31T14:57:00.007+02:00

I posed a question to the readers of a magazine I ~~work on~~ volunteer for: What do you love most about coming home to Switzerland? I got lots of great answers. Expats, frequent travelers that they are, are always coming home.

For me, it's the multilingual chatter of everyday life. The local Swiss German (Züridütsch) dominates the soundscape, but it's mixed with dozens of other languages: other Swiss German dialects (not that I can always be sure which ones), high German (quite often), Russian (more than I would have guessed), French (less often than I would have guessed), Portuguese (Brazilian and European), Italian (sometimes), and English. Once I even listened to an African man talk on his cell phone in a language I'd never heard.

But the primary sounds are the sounds of Swiss German, especially the local version. I really love its lilting rhythms, its many ü's and drawn-out, rounded a's, and of course its distinctive "ch" sound. These days I sometimes think I am catching a few words, almost understanding what people around me are saying. It's an illusion, of course, as taking this excellent online quiz proved. I did get one right, because I know that der grosse Kanton is Deustchland.

Try it yourself. Verstehen Sie Schweizerduetsch?

Story by Kathy

Stargazing in New York

2011-06-21T06:00:00.001+02:00

I wouldn't have even looked up of it weren't for the voice, a familiar voice, climbing and falling over its ever so slightly roughened edges, saying, "Oh, no thank you. I'm not allowed." Yep. It was Sarah Jessica Parker, turning down a flight attendant's offer of champagne as she headed farther back into the depths of business class to confer with her two personal assistants. Tiny, of course, and much better looking in person without the excesses of television makeup, she tucked herself into the gap between seats across from her mini-entourage.

I watched the moment of recognition dawn on the last of the boarding passengers' faces as they realized that, yes, a Famous Person was just ahead. Women spotted her first of course: a sudden stilled expression, a quick half-turn and clutch at her traveling companion's arm, a hissed demand, "Look, look, look. Oh my god, it's her." One woman managed a quick flurry of compliments, but most just smiled and moved past. Only a very few showed no sign of recognition.

It occurred to me that in fact I was headed to New York, a place where lots and lots of Famous People live. This could be good. Also very blog-worthy. I began to plan my itinerary to enable maximum star spotting. Literary stars would count too, I decided. I would haunt the Village, the Upper East and Upper West sides, camera at the ready.

As with most of my New York plans--an afternoon at MoMA, a dinner at Momofuku Ko--the stargazing plan came to nothing. At least I can console myself with the knowledge that, unlike all those silly fans, I was the picture of nonchalance and cool in The Presence. Yeah. Right.

Story by Kathy

Maybe I Should Explain ....

2011-06-21T05:00:00.001+02:00

Some of you have asked why I haven't been blogging more often. Wait. No. Maybe that was just my husband. Okay, maybe you've been wondering but were too shy to ask. Here's what happened.

I fell down the rabbit hole. I volunteered to help out with a local expat magazine, and now I'm running it. What the hell? How did that happen?

I really just wanted to copy edit. There are three kinds of dashes, and all of them were being abused. That's how it started, and along the way I've learned the hard way about some of the pitfalls of working with others' words. Too bad I didn't find the Subversive Copy Editor sooner.

I had this great little story from Basel Fasnacht to post ....

In the last few of months, I've merged our three house style guides into one and am now working on its umpteenth revision. I've written an editorial calendar. I've launched a reader survey and worked with a rather brilliant marketing director to build a new ad sales kit. I've spent the first week of every month in an intense copy editing grind to meet deadline. I've been cheerleader-in-chief for a rethink of our layouts and print design, something that will hopefully result in a new look for early fall. I've recruited endlessly: copy editors, sales people, writers. And I've gone back to school (online) to refresh my decade-old editing certificate and to get at least a basic InDesign competence.

Am I crazy?
Clearly.

Has it been worth it?
Sometimes. I do like a challenge.

Am I good copy editor?
Not yet.

I'm still going to blog about La Patatina.

I've got a month off from the magazine (can you talk about time off if you're a volunteer?), and I want to get my balance back. I want to blog. I want to answer personal emails in less than three weeks. I want to get paid to copy edit. That last one is tough nut to crack here, but if there's method in my madness (see above), then that's the goal I'm working (for free) for.

Story by Kathy
Photos by tlyonbrew

Pfingsten in Luzern

2011-06-20T17:21:00.001+02:00

Every year I promise I will remember that there are two religious/bank holidays here in June: Ascension and Pentecost. I forgot again this year, and I failed once again to make advance travel plans.

Photo by tylonbrew

Luckily, there's always somewhere worth visiting in Switzerland, even on short notice. We picked Luzern because it sits at the foot of some of the best-loved peaks in the county, and because it stands on the shores of a lake we've now fallen in love with: the Vierwaldstättersee. I like the German name: the "lake of the four forests." Much less prosaic than Lake Luzern. Thanks to the steep mountain walls that surround it, the lake has wind. Lots of wind. And sailboats. And the sailboats are actually sailing. Because there's wind. Neat.

Photo by tylonbrew

We don't have a boat here or even a boating permit. So we did the next best thing and spent the afternoon cruising the lake on one of SVG's boats. The lake is huge, with multiple arms bending out of sight and lots of little coves to anchor in. Now we're really determined to find a way to sail in Switzerland. Keep your skis and your snowboards; it's a (lake) sailor's life for me.


Photo by tylonbrew

Story by Kathy

The Wait Is Over

2011-05-17T15:08:00.000+02:00

The waiting game is over, and we finally received our new residence permits, the longed for B permits. After all these months of uncertainty, I felt foolishly happy. It's still not a guarantee that we can stay (although the annual renewal, rumor has it, is rarely denied), but it is a kind of provisional stability that lets us think past the end of our permit validity date.

While my L permit stated I was not allowed gainful employment, my new permit includes the words "mit Erwerbstätigkeit" (with employment). If I understand this correctly, I can now seek employment legally, and my employer will be able to apply for a work permit for me. Pretty exciting news!

Of course that means I no longer have a convenient excuse not to look for work. Dammit.

Ginger: Pacific Rim Modern in Zürich

2011-05-16T15:23:00.001+02:00

Photo by tylonbrew

We sit at one end of a curved peninsula of the oak bar that fills Ginger’s front room and wraps around the sushi chefs’ station. We watch the chefs’ deft motions and meticulous cuts as they assemble the little plates that will be gliding towards us in just moments. Will it be some fantastical concoction sea vegetables layered with sashimi and topped by a barely poached egg? A tian of king crab meat? A classic hamachi nigiri? It will be fresh. It will be perfect. This is conveyor belt sushi taken to a new level.

The restaurant’s aesthetic is what I call Pacific Rim Modern: oiled oak with an understated matte finish, muted eggplant walls, simple metal and glass fixtures, bright pops of single-color accents frugally applied. The effect is cool, sophisticated but never cold. A down-tempo jazzy beat keeps the mood chill but sociable.

We toast, “Kampai!” and down our complimentary sake, which appeared almost as soon as we sat down. We call for a bottle of Prager, an Austrian Reisling that's our favorite with sushi. We comment (once again) how much an evening at Ginger is like retuning to Vancouver and settle in to enjoy.

And we start to pull dishes from the conveyor belt. It pays to go slow here. The menu changes throughout the evening, with entirely new dishes appearing hours after service begins. Our dinner ends––chopsticks at rest; the wine bottle empty. We watch a new temptation slide past and with a little shrug of regret call for the bill.

Story by Kathy
Photo by tylonbrew

A Tad Overweight But Color to Die For

2011-04-22T08:00:00.000+02:00

I've been searching for a good Coiffure (hairstylist) since I moved to here. You wouldn't think it would be that difficult to find one. Much like Bern, Zürich is chockablock full with hair salons. But until yesterday, I've had no luck in finding one I liked. (To be fair, maybe that's because I really wanted an Aveda salon.)

I'd been going to a just-okay-costs-too-much place for a while. My hairdresser was kindhearted and let me practice my atrocious German. But, frankly, she didn't do that great a job. Happily, she moved on to retail sales, and I was forced to move on too.

I got a tip on a salon just a few blocks from my house, and it turned out to be a winner: Reto Holzer Coiffure. Reto handles the shears with confidence, and he reconstructed the shaggy disaster that was all that remained of my last cut into something I quite like. He also had the confidence to create a color without much instruction from me (I'm not really good at hair-speak in any language), and came up with a natural look that actually works with my skin tone. He speaks English too, although he chided me a bit for not trying to continue in German.

You bet I made second appointment on the spot.

Falling in Love with Venice

2011-04-20T11:40:00.002+02:00

On our first night in Venice, I wondered if we'd made a mistake. I had been so sure it would be our kind of city, but then we got lost. And very, very wet.

Getting Soaked

Photo by tylonbrew

Hungry after missing breakfast and lunch, we grabbed the umbrellas our host had provided (but not, unfortunately, the wellies) and searched for the grocery store that was supposed to be just around the corner from the apartment. The grocery appeared not to exist. (We did find it on our second to last day.)

Already wet and cold and still hungry, we went with our fallback plan to head to a hotel bar on a waterfront boulevard for a quick spritz. Surely once we were oriented, we would easily find our way to some charming osterie or enoteche where we could make a meal of ciccheti (Venetian "tapas"). Right?

Not quite. We did find the bar of the Hotel Danieli, and it was a lovely, elegant little room. But we stayed too long. And soon we were unwilling to to continue our first night's giro d'ombra though the flooded streets and unending downpour.

Photo by tylonbrew

High tide was coming; we had no choice but to fight our way back to our apartment. Of course we got lost, completely turned around in the dark and driving rain. We sloshed through water that rose up to our ankles (best not to dwell on what exactly had washed into that water) and hung on to our umbrellas as the freezing wind kept trying to snatch them from our hands. Finally, a sheltered church portico gave us a chance to get a GPS fix that led us home.

I know it sounds awful, and it was, but we had managed to stumble into our first key to Venice: we got lost and we got wet.

Getting Lost

Photo by tylonbrew

The weather improved but we kept getting lost. Streets dead end into canals, double back, twist and turn. There are no grand boulevards or grid pattern, just narrow cobbled walkways, sometimes not even wide enough to pass another (lost) tourist without turning sideways. There is no visibility, no way to look ahead––just the strip of sky between the houses lining the street and blind corners that lead to dead ends.

We walked for miles: morning walks, late afternoon walks, evening walks. And Venice kept changing before our eyes. During the midafternoon break the back streets empty, doors are shut and windows shuttered. Shops and cafes that marked our morning route disappeared. A few hours later awnings unfurled, tables and chairs reappeared, and people began to gather at their local watering holes for the early evening ritual of drinks and small plates.

We rode the vaporetti up and down the Grand Canal and along the waterfront to our (temporary) neighborhood, Arsenale. Now we could look out, see ahead, take bearings across the water. Now we could appreciate the quality of the light. And now we could begin to get the feel of the tidal rhythm of the city, grasp the relationship between water and stone and wood.

Falling in Love
Venice has been here forever. Venice has always been sinking. At a distance, buildings rise from the water, sharply defined boundaries between land and sea. Up close, the boundary appears mutable and easily overrun. By turns the city is shabby and grand, secretive and welcoming, powerful and fragile, changeable and eternal. How we could we not fall in love?

Photo by tlyonbrew

Story by Kathy
Photos by tylonbrew

It's an Honor Just to be Nominated (Vote for Me)

2011-04-19T20:00:00.001+02:00

Dear Mom,

I know you've been worried that I haven't really got much to show for my two years in Switzerland, frittering away my life in foolish pursuits like tasting Swiss wines and inventing macaron contests. Worry no more! TwoFools in Zürich made the short list for Expatica's Best Blog in Switzerland.

Wouldn't it be cool if I won? I know you'll vote for me (right?), but maybe you could forward this email to all of your friends and ask them to vote for me. I think your church group might lend a hand. Okay. I know I haven't really written about the churches and monasteries and stuff, but I did write about the bells once and Fasnacht is a religious holiday.

It's an honor just to be nominated. Blah, blah, blah.

Anyway. Here's the link to vote for me.

Your loving and always thoughtful daughter who calls every week,
Kathy

Foodie Delights in Stauffacher

2011-04-09T13:56:00.000+02:00

I spend far too much time in the Stauffacher neighborhood these days. Happily for me, the neighborhood is home to some foodie gems that make up for all those thankless hours of editing. Here are some of my favorites, most of them good for either a quick bite or a long mellow afternoon, depending on your mood.

The choice of dishes and the decor at the Restaurant Hallwylerhof have a kind of artful simplicity that is the trademark of Frick sisters' approach to the regional cuisines of Switzerland. One of my favorite lunches is the daily Wähe (a quiche-like savory tart), which is something you can find all over the city. Unlike other places, however, the Wähe at the Hallwylerhof it is never heavy or oily, and the crust is perfect.

Photo: www.wurstunddurst.com

But if I miss the lunch hour (strictly 12:00–2:00 in most places in Zürich), I know I can still receive a warm welcome and a bit of nosh at Solazzo Caffé Bar Zurigo. A smiling Buon giorno. the dishes of the day presented in a rapid mix of German and Italian, and an even bigger smile when we order wine with lunch: Salvatore has a natural gift for hospitality that is hard to resist. The food is good and the coffee is outstanding. The wine––also good. Bravo, Salvatore, for choosing a good-value wine from the Tuscan Maremma for us, which helped stretch out Friday's lunch hour until 5:00.

The riverside terrace of the the "Helvti" Bar is a perfect place to enjoy a spring afternoon, and quality ingredients mean it's not just about the sun and the view. I did a little dance when I saw the cheeses were from Rolf Beeler, and the goat cheese salad dressed with acacia honey and truffle oil (and liberally sprinkled with crispy Speck) was to die for. We tried a round, full-bodied white Merlot from Ticino, which I quite enjoyed (and was not at all like that "white" red-grape horror from California).

Photo: www.wgheuberger.ch

My last neighborhood gem is not a restaurant but one of the strangest food retail ideas I've across: Heuberger Wein & Gewürze (Wine and Spices). The owner, Beat Heuberger, sells only what he likes and he really likes hot spices. The stores boasts a staggering array of spices and hot sauces (Cholula sauce, anyone?).

He also considers Austria the home of "the best white wine producers in the world." When I described our Thai menu to him one afternoon, he guided me to an Austrian Chardonnay that I would have never considered which paired wonderfully with dinner. If you're looking for hot spices or the wines to go with, try Heuberger.

Story by Kathy

The (Swiss) Taxman

2011-03-10T16:26:00.000+01:00

The deadline for our Swiss tax return is March 31, and I'm not ready.

Luckily we live in Zurich, and we can file for an extension (Fristerstreckung) online. We just need the PID and code from the front of our tax return form (Steuererklärung), which we've already received in the mail. The Steueramt ("tax bureau") has even helpfully circled the correct numbers on the online form, so that we can easily find the corresponding numbers on our paper tax return form.

I just entered the numbers and clicked "Send" (Abschicken). The next page gave me a choice of two extension dates (September 30 and November 30). I selected a date, continued, and immediately got a page that confirmed our filing deadline had been extended until November 30 (of course I picked the later date). I also printed the confirmation (as the site advised).

Now that I've filed for an extension, I have plenty of time to find a tax adviser. Or I might to try to figure out how to use the tax software that's also available from the city. The city provides tax software (for free!) as a CD for Windows, Mac, or Linux operating systems. (It doesn't say which versions, however.) You can also download the program from the website. I've been told it's challenging the first time through, but the process is much easier the next time around.

By the way, as I understand it, the extension is just a filing extension. If you owe money, that's still due by the deadline.

One last note: This post in no way constitutes tax or legal advice!

Story by Kathy

Venice Sunset

2011-03-09T17:01:00.000+01:00

Venice is absurdly romantic, and we fell in love with the city almost immediately.

Photo by tlyonbrew

I want to write something lyrical, something worthy, but I am too tired. Tony's pictures will tell the story right now.

Photo by tylonbrew

Photo by tlyonbrew


Photo by tylonbrew

Story by Kathy
Photos by tylonbrew

Savory Chocolate Dish from Laughing Lemon

2011-02-26T14:25:00.000+01:00

Here's the recipe for the excellent braised wild boar dish we had in the Chocolate and Wine Class with Laughing Lemon. The boar is cooked until it's meltingly tender, and the aromatic gravy is perfect with polenta. It's a great dish for a chilly weekend: we're sure to have a few more of those before we get to see the Böög's head explode.

Laughing Lemon's Wild Boar with Balsamic Vinegar and Dark Chocolate

You can also substitute other types of meat for the wild boar. Try with water buffalo, lamb or beef––just make sure you get a cut from the shoulder. Serve with polenta. Makes about 6–8 servings

1,5 kg wild boar (leg or shoulder), trimmed and cubed in 3–4 cm pieces
1 onion, halved
4 bay leaves
1 Tbl. fennel seeds
1 Tbl. sea salt
2 carrots, sliced thick
1 bottle red wine, medium-bodied
3 cloves garlic
olive oil
2 Tbl. flour
1 dl. balsamic vinegar
25 gr. 100% dark chocolate

Prepare the marinade by combining the onion halves, bay leaves, fennel seeds, salt, sliced carrots and wine. Add the wild boar pieces and mix well. Cover with plastic and refrigerate for one night.

Prepare the stew: Remove the wild boar pieces and pat dry with paper towels. Remove the onions and spices. Strain the liquid and reserve. In a hot, non-stick pan, brown the wild boar pieces, and then remove to a separate dish. Add the olive oil to the pan. Add the garlic and cook for three minutes. Then add the flour and coat well. Add the marinade and balsamic vinegar. Then bring to a boil and reduce by one quarter. Add the wild boar to the pan and mix well. Add all contents to a large baking dish, cover with aluminum foil and bake in a 180°C oven for about two hours (the wild boar should be soft, but not falling apart). Remove the wild boar pieces from the liquid and refrigerate, covering with a wet paper towel. Strain the liquid into a clean pot, discarding the spices, then add the wild boar again to the liquid. To serve, heat the stew in a baking pan covered with aluminum foil in a 180°C oven for about 30 minutes. Remove and add the chocolate, stirring until the sauce thickens and coats the meat well.

The Waiting Game

2011-02-24T14:33:00.001+01:00

Over the past couple of months I've been alternately anxious and serene, up and down from calm to worry. Will we be allowed to convert from an L (short-term) to a B (annually renewable) residence permit, or will we be sent packing?

On anxious days I worry about whether we will have any time at all to organize a move if we are rejected. Where exactly will we move to? New York? San Francisco? How can we hire a relocation company if we don't know when (or if) we're moving? Will my husband's company pay for the moving costs (and can we get that in writing)?

On serene days, like today, I am sure it will all work out just fine. We'll get our permits, and life will go on as before.

Last year, we weren't that worried; we were sure we would get at least an L. This year, however, is make or break, stay or go. There's no third year on an L permit.

I got very nervous about this and insisted doing a very American thing––we consulted a lawyer. That turned out to be good thing, because he was able to confirm that we had indeed unearthed the original work permit and that it would expire in just two months. The work permit, of course, comes first. No work permit, no residence permit.

Okay, I know this is deeply dumb, but I just never really thought about checking the expiration date on the work permit. It was just one of many incomprehensible pieces of paper that we collected when we first arrived. I put it in the this-could-be-important-one-day folder and forgot about it. Like I said, dumb.

The lawyer made a few calls to confirm there were no problems with our files, told us how to proceed with the work* and residence permits, and assured us that all should be well. No guarantees of course. But almost certainly, all would be well. After that meeting, it was just a matter of getting HR on the case.

Last year the application to renew was a bit of a black-box process. We handed in our paperwork and our permits and waited. The woman at the Kreisbüro was very nice but didn't seem to have information on how long it would take or who we should call. Just wait and see.

This year is different, not just for us but for all foreign residents. In January, Switzerland introduced biometric permits. Now, in addition to turning in a completed application and paying a (higher) fee at your local Kreisbüro, you must also make an appointment with the cantonal Migrationsamt (Immigration Bureau) to have your photo and (digital) fingerprints taken.

Maybe it's the new process, but the employees at our Kreisbüro were much more forthcoming this year, telling us exactly what each step would be. The man who took our signed applications even made an appointment for us with the Migrationsamt. Bless him; he also slowly and patiently explained everything in High German. Similarly, the Migrationsamt employee was very pleasant (Tony even got a laugh out of her).

I'm feeling pretty sanguine about the outcome right now. Still, as our appointment letter from the Migrationsamt states, "The recording of biometric data does not entitle the applicant to a permit."

We will just have to wait and see.

Story by Kathy

*In Zürich, the work permit application is made by the employer to the Amt für Wirtschaft und Arbeit (Bureau of Economics and Labor). The individual generally applies for the residence permit at his or her local Kreisbüro (district office), and the application for residence is then processed by the cantonal Migrationsamt (Immigration Bureau). The data appears to be shared across these agencies. For example, the Migrationsamt employee could see the status of the work permit at the Amt für Wirtschaft und Arbeit on her monitor.

Chocolate and Wine with Laughing Lemon

2011-02-23T17:21:00.001+01:00

Photo: TwoFools

I was dead tired. Another hellish week of deadlines and little dramas had just about done me in. But I was determined to soldier on. Two of my favorite things were waiting for me at the Laughing Lemon kitchen: chocolate and wine.

I like chocolate and I like wine even more. But the two don't always marry well. I wanted to learn how to make the combination work.

Photo: Twofools

I began to perk up as soon as we got to the class. Our hosts, Jack and Silvia, have a gift for hospitality. Jack passed around gougère (yummy, cheese-y little choux pastry puffs), and soon we were introducing ourselves to the other students and chatting away like old friends.

The class began with an introduction to chocolate production, moving from farm to factory, learning along the way that the best varieties come from Venezuela and Brazil. Next we learned the right way to taste the chocolate, using all five senses: feel the texture of the bar, look at the shine, listen to the snap as you break it, inhale the aroma and, finally, let it melt on your tongue.

Chocolate really is some pretty sexy stuff. So sexy, in fact, that the Church banned it in Switzerland during the 18th century. That didn't last long, and soon the Swiss were busy applying their technical and marketing acumen to cacao––developing chocolate bars, discovering how to combine chocolate and milk (not as easy as you'd think) and marketing the results to various key segments like the women and the Swiss military. Today, chocolate is big science at ETH.

Photo: TwoFools

We moved on to the wines, tasting them with chocolate bars so that we could get a direct feel for the pairing. We learned that matching chocolate and wine means pairing for intensity and sweetness, while also balancing chocolate's unctuous, mouth-coating quality with the high alcohol or acidity of the wine. Aha! That's why port and chocolate work together.

Silvia assured us that she was pairing wine with chocolate bars for educational purposes only. Instead, it's really all about pairing with dishes that include chocolate as just one of many ingredients (whether sweet or savory). I believe her. It's just that I'd be happy with a glass of herbaceous Vino Aromatizzato and a dark 85% cacao bar almost any day of the week.

We could have stopped right there, and I would have felt I'd gotten good value for money. But there was more. Jack guided us in making chocolate-dipped pralines and then onto the mud-pie fun of finishing chocolate truffles with chocolate glaze. Silvia sent us home later with our creations beautifully wrapped. This made a great consolation prize for my husband, who had to work that night instead of play.

Photo:TwoFools

Next up: a four-course dinner, with chocolate in every dish, savory and sweet. The combination of braised wild boar in a sauce finished with 100% cacao chocolate (no sugar!) and the deep black fruit of a Ripasso was heaven. The breaded, fried prawns served with a spicy, white chocolate dipping sauce were pretty damn good too, especially with a vendage tardive (late harvest) Pinot Gris from Alsace.

Feeling tired again––but much happier––I declined Silvia's offer of even more wine and chocolate and headed for home.

Story and photos by Kathy

A Quick Trip to Strasbourg

2011-01-30T12:57:00.000+01:00

Why are all the men here so good looking? I keep sneaking glances around the bar. Dark hair, dark eyes, dressed in that just-so way that French men have. Lean but muscled. Huh. I shrug a not-at-all Gallic shrug and turn back to my traveling companions.

Photo: Bars Les Berthom

We are in the Bar Les Berthom, which sits on a cobblestone corner of the Grand Île, Strasbourg's compact, medieval center. We're here for the beer: Belgian and quite unlike the beer back in Züirch. We're also in luck; it's happy hour with large beers the price of a small. We keep smiling because the beer is so good and laughing out loud because the house is spinning yet another amazing bit of music history (Jimi, Pink Floyd, Iggy Pop, The Commodores, Wild Cherry, Nirvana).

We went to Strasbourg to see the Christmas markets, but it turned out these didn't really matter at all. Instead, we were utterly captivated by Strasbourg's Franco-Allemanic charm.

Photo: tlyonbrew

On the Grand Île, surrounded by the River Ill and the Canal du Faux-Rempart, skinny townhouses shoulder their way between the wider, half-timbered facades that line the cobbled streets. Dominating the island, and visible for miles across the surrounding countryside, is the rose and gray stone spire of Notre Dame de Strasbourg. At street level, the massive doors still induce the awe that the Gothic cathedral's makers intended.

The Grand Île is also chock full of Winstubs (wine taverns), as well as Michelin-starred establishments. Its winding streets are perfect for mellow walks interspersed with long lunches or quick coffees, depending on your mood and the weather.

If you go, as we did, right before Christmas, you will find Strasbourg is indeed the Capital of Christmas. The city has twelve Christmas markets. We went to four of them. Sadly, the market around the cathedral was full of the same mass-produced junk found everywhere during the holidays. We did finally find a small market (just two short rows of stalls) that stood not far from the walls of our hotel and offered the wonderful, quirky little ornaments we love. Our first mission accomplished, we could turn our attention to our second––good food and drink, of course.

Photo: tylonbrew

Wait. Actually, our first mission had been to check out a hotel that looked irresistibly good online. It is indeed a very good hotel. Located on Place du Corbeau, the hotel has been recently renovated and reopened. The clean white walls and uncluttered decor allow the architecture to speak for itself: exposed beams and odd angles define the generous rooms. The bathrooms are luxurious and huge. The staff is unfailingly polite and helpful. All of the expected amenities are on offer, as well as some quite unexpected ones, such as a complimentary bottle of late-harvest Gewürztraminer and an elegant breakfast served in the room. All of this comes for a quite reasonable rate, on par with what we've paid for cramped spaces and hideous decor elsewhere in Europe.

Photo: tlyonbrew

In search of Alsatian food and wine (and of course having failed to book anything in advance), we followed our hotelier's recommendations. Au Petit Tonnelier looked perfect but was, sadly, complet (fully booked) for the night. Next on the list was a traditional Winstub, Le St. Sépulcre, which also turned out to be complet. Thankfully, the last on the list, Chez Yvonne, still had an open table.

Chez Yvonne turned out to be a curious little place. The menu is in three languages––English, French, and German––which, as all good Rick Steves' fans know, is a danger sign that screams, "Tourist trap, tourist trap, get out while you can!" Yet, seated as we were in a less prime location by the door, we witnessed an apparently unending parade of distinguished guests enter and greet the proprietor (Yvonne?) like an old friend. And the food was good. The house-made foie gras was to die for and the onion tart so deep in umami that I melted along with the onions. The mains were a bit of a let down, but I suspect this is because we'd gone off the path by failing to order a classic choucroute garnie or jamboneau (pig's knuckle). The wine was gorgeous–-a grand cru Riesling from Kaysersberg.

Our postprandial stroll took us to Bar Les Berthom. It was a perfect ending to our introduction to Strasbourg.

Story by Kathy

Resolutions: Die Neujahrsvorsätze

2011-01-05T11:34:00.000+01:00

It's a new year and, more important, it's a sunny day here in Zürich. Maybe that's why I feel optimistic about accomplishing all kinds of things this year. Here are my New Year's resolutions for 2011.

See more of Europe. Venice. Rome. Copenhagen. Moscow. Bruges. We really slacked off on the short-stay and weekend trips last year. Enough with lounging around the house on weekends! We will get on trains and (Oh, the horror of it!) planes and see the places we've talked about for two years.

Find more cool things to do in Switzerland (and do them). Here's one: learn to distill Absinthe in Neuchatel. Here's another: study Romansh, the fourth national language of Switzerland.

Study German (again). If I'm going to study a language, it really should be German. I stopped taking classes last Spring and have been slowly losing ground. It's shocking how fast it fades. I was reminded of this in the dentist's office today as we each struggled to find words in the other's language.

Brush up on those job skills. Write more. Take a copy editing class or two. Rebuild my atrophied Excel muscles. The frustratingly indeterminate status of our permits may mean a move back to the US this year. There could be an upside for the unemployed Hausfrau.

And last but never least, the classic resolution: Lose weight–save money–exercise more–be more organized. This is the one, of course, that is most likely to be broken.

What are your New Year's resolutions?

Story by Kathy

Mad New Year

2010-12-28T13:12:00.001+01:00

If you're in Zürich and you're still wondering what to do on New Year's Eve and you just can't take another round of fireworks and you're one of the legion of Mad Men fans, then the Seefeld-Razzia has the party for you: Mad Men on New Year's Eve. Cocktails, DJs, dancing: it looks pretty damn fabulous. (Doors open at 22.00. Reserve online.)

If that's a little too fabulous for you (and it may be a little too fab for me), you can still throw your own Mad Cocktail Party, using this handy Cocktail Guide. Then grab your guests and a bottle or two of your favorite champagne and head down to Lake Zürich in time for 20 minutes of of ear shattering, eye popping fireworks. (Fireworks start at 00.20. More info here.)

Here's wishing us all a fabulous New Year!

Story by Kathy

Service with a Smile?

2010-12-12T17:36:00.000+01:00

Should the clerk at the grocery store smile at you? Share a little small talk? How long should you have to wait for the server to bring a menu (Speisekarte) or a drink, and shouldn't he smile too?

No subject brings out cultural prejudices and brings on rants like the question of good service. For Americans, good service means above all friendly service: service with a smile and perhaps a few pleasantries exchanged. It means a chatty, down-home style that dresses up the fundamental inequality between customer and clerk.*

Here in Switzerland, and generally in Europe, friendliness is not the epitome of good service––professionalism is. At the same time the open, autobiographical talkativeness that marks much American service, runs counter to the more reserved Swiss style of personal interaction.

I'm an odd American, and I actually don't mind the lack of chit-chat with the grocery store clerk and bagger. At home in fact, it had actually gotten to the point where I dreaded going to my local supermarket, where I would be forced to choose between the job-destroying, automated check-out machine and the grocery bagger who would immediately launch in the most appalling personal stories. So it was something of relief to get away from that, even if it meant bagging my own groceries. (There is no such job as grocery bagger or "bag boy" in Switzerland.)

Now that I'm a regular at my neighborhood COOP, I find that a small smile, a direct look in the clerk's eye and a Grüezi get me a quick smile in return and maybe some extra Merkli (the Swiss version of S&H stamps). The clerks are fast, and I've never caught them in a mistake either. Good enough service for me.

On the other hand, compared to Paris, restaurant service in Zürich is a bit of a disappointment. Not because of the lack of smiley-ness (they two cities are pretty equal on that score), but because in Paris restaurant service is so often executed with precision and care and a high level of professionalism, while here service is almost American in its inconsistency, ranging from abysmal to perfect with no apparent correlation to price or formality.**

Maybe it's because cuisine isn't really the passion here that it is in the city of light. But I think it might also be that there's something very un-Swiss about personal service. It smacks of inequality and the kind of bowing and scraping before artistos that the Swiss rejected so long ago. It means the service interaction is pretty ambivalent at best, and quality can suffer as a result. This shows up not only in restaurant service but also in all kinds of body services (such as haircuts and manicures).

In American, the customer is always right. The customer is king. Here, the customer is rarely right and certainly not king. America may be democratic politically, but it is only relatively socially democratic (relative to France or the UK, for example). Switzerland, on the other hand, is quite radically democratic, both politically and socially.

Regardless of my speculative fancies on the Swiss culture of service, in Zürich I've learned not expect service with a smile and am no longer so confident of my royal status. I am American enough, however, to be sure that (as a customer) I am always right. It's just that I'm not fluent enough in German (or Swiss German) to argue about it.

For more thoughts on Swiss and European service, try Adam Gopnik's Paris to the Moon, One Big Yodel and The Connectors.

Story by Kathy

*Having worked on both sides of the service interaction in retail and in restaurants, I can tell you that, in America at least, the service interaction is not one between equals.

**I've had a number of Swiss people tell me that they found the service terrible in Paris. I'm not what cultural miscues are happening there, but it is definitely the opposite of my experience.

Top Five Gifts for Newcomers

2010-12-11T10:23:00.000+01:00

In the spirit of the season, I've been thinking about gifts, especially gifts for newcomers to Switzerland. I've looked for gifts that will give newcomers a head start on learning the lay of the land (and learning the language) and gifts that will help them make the most of their new lives in this amazing country. If you know someone who has just arrived or is on the way, here are five gifts––from thrifty to extravagant––that will help them feel at home.

Give a book. A little knowledge can go a long way, and there is a lot for the newcomer to learn. Get your newcomer a copy of Swiss Watching, by Diccon Bewes. This wonderfully readable book turns the clichés of Swiss life inside out––from chocolate and cheese to banking and military service––and introduces the reader to a Switzerland they might otherwise take years to understand.

Why stop with just one book? Give your newcomer the inside scoop with the AWCZ's Living in Zurich (LIZ) handbook, which covers every aspect of life in Zürich and offers great recommendations for all kinds of services and shops. More information about the handbook and the seminar on which the book is based can be found on the AWCZ website.

While you're at it, throw in a copy of Living and Working in Switzerland from Survival Books. This all-around, eminently practical handbook covers everything from entry visas to radio and TV taxes.

Give a bargain. Everything is expensive in Switzerland (except, oddly enough, saffron). Help ease the pain by getting your newcomer set up with a complete set of free loyalty cards. COOP, Migros, and IKEA all offer these nifty little cards, and the points really do add up to some good deals. I'm still pretty jazzed about the immersion blender I bought with COOP points last year.

Give an organizer. Okay. I know it sounds boring, but managing paperwork is an important part of expat life. From mandatory health insurance to work contracts to residence permits, there's a lot to keep track of. A two-ring binder and hole punch are actually great gifts. Not very sexy but really useful.

Give a language class. According to a recent MLA survey, only six percent of US college students studying a foreign language choose German (Modern Language Association, 2007). It's not surprising then that many Americans arrive in Zürich without any knowledge of German. Nothing opens doors like learning the local language, but language classes are expensive, and it's tempting to delay. Get your newcomer started on the right path with a prepaid language course.

For a rigorous, intensive course in German, check out Bellingua, one of the best language schools in Zürich. If you want to learn the real local language of Zürich, Swissing offers "Swiss German" classes, even for students that have not studied High German.*

Give travel. Switzerland is an extraordinarily beautiful country, and the trains are the best way to see it. There are a range of travel passes available from SBB, but the top of the line is the GA (General Abonnement), which covers travel but all public trains (and many private ones), as well as boats, post buses, and local transit on trams and buses. For a less extravagant gift, go for a combination of the Halbtax (Half-Fare) card and nationwide travel passes. You can order online or go to the Hauptbahnhof, where helpful, English-speaking agents will help you sort through the options.

Happy holidays!

*I haven't studied at Swissing, and would love to get feedback on its programs. If you've tried their programs, let me know.

Story and photos by Kathy

Flying Time and Roasting Turkey

2010-12-11T10:22:00.000+01:00

Time has flown. Where have I been? Not far.

I've been consumed by a new volunteer job as an editor, which has demonstrated (to me, at least) that it's time for me to find a job. Now, if only the powers-that-be cooperate and give us our B permits in the New Year, I might find a way to be paid for my obsessions.

We did make time for Thanksgiving––a large feast for a small crowd this time, but marvelous all the same. I found fresh cranberries for sauce, and we got a really fresh turkey through Tony's connections. Our friends provided the rest of the traditional goodies and were wonderful company. It was a homely celebration for people far from home. Thank you.

Story by Kathy
Photo by Tylonbrew

Christmas in Zürich: My Favorite Time of Year

2010-11-22T18:54:00.003+01:00

My favorite time of year in Zürich starts soon. Officially the season starts on December 6, St. Nicholas Day, but signs of Christmas are already popping up everywhere, from holiday decorations in the shops to the just-opened Weihnachtsmarkt stalls on Sechseläutenplatz.

While most Americans are still focused on Thanksgiving, here in Zürich November 25 is the day the new Christmas lights will be switched on along Bahnhofstrasse. The new LEDs will replace last year's widely panned and rather severe, modernist tubes of light with what is described as "moving clouds of light and gentle showers of luminescence."

Here are a few of the things that make this time of year so much fun.

Decking the Halls. Every year the city of Zürich offers fresh-cut trees and evergreen boughs from its own forests in the Frisch Baum program. Order online or go to designated sites to cut your your own.

In good Swiss fashion, you may want to light your tree with actual candles. You can even make the candles yourself (or buy them) at the Weihnachtsmärkte (Christmas markets, see below). However, if you are an open-flame–averse American like me, you'll want to stock up on electric Christmas lights as well as other decorations at a local COOP, Migros, or Manor. For the best prices, head to IKEA.

Christmas Markets. My favorite part of decking the halls is to add one or two unusual ornaments each year. Since our collection from past years is in storage in the States, we get the fun of starting our collection again here.

The best place to look for handcrafted ornaments is the Weihnachtsmärkte or Christmas markets, which can be found all over the country and in surrounding countries as well. In addition to Christmas ornaments and candles, markets offer all kinds of handicrafts from toys to jewelry, as well as the traditional holiday-warmer, Glühwein (mulled wine).

It seems that everyone thinks their own hometown Weihnachtsmarkt is the best, so it makes sense to start where we live. Zürich has five market locations: the Christkindlimarkt in the Hauptbahnhof, the City Market on Bahnhofstrasse, the Weihnachtsmarkt in Old Town, the small market on Werdmühleplatz (where the singing Christmas tree concerts are held), and the Bellevue market on Sechseläutenplatz.

I also like to get out of town and see some of the other markets. I really enjoyed visiting the Basel Weihnachtsmarkt last year, and I think we'll venture further afield this year to Konstanz in Germany, Strasbourg in France. There are also lots of other Swiss Christmas markets to choose from.

Santa Sightings. Santa Claus or St. Nicolas, aka Samichlaus, is everywhere in the coming month. In many Gemeinden (communities) parents can arrange to have Samichlaus visit their children at home, and in others the kids can visit Samichlaus and his scary sidekick Schmutzli in their forest hut.

There are lots of other chances for the kids to see Santa, including the big parade along Bahnhofstrasse on November 28 (the Samichalus-Umzug), the Santa Boat on December 4, and the Santa Tram (or Märlitram), which runs through December 23.

The Santa sighting I'm going for this year is the Klausjagen or "Santa Chase" on December 3 in Küsnacht am Rigi. This one's not just for kids. Christian and preChristian traditions are combined in a nighttime procession of hundreds of men ringing bells, blowing horns and cracking whips––making enough noise to chase the evil spirits away. The noisy procession is lit solely by men wearing elaborate lighted bishop's miters. Now that's holiday spirit.

Music. I love a little Weihnachtsmusik, and I'm looking forward to some special concerts this year. First up, by special request from the Musical Fool, a Händel's Messiah sing-along at the French Reformed Church on November 28 at 17:00. Next up, Bach's Weihnachts-Oratorio (all three parts) will be performed by the Tonhalle-Orchester on December 19 at 17:00. Somewhere along the way we'll want to stop and see the Singing Christmas Tree on Werdmühleplatz, which features youth choirs from around the region, daily from November 25 to December 23. Finally, on Christmas morning the Amadeus Choir will perform Hayden's Grosse Orgelsolomesse (Great Organ Mass) at the Church of St. Peter and Paul.

Holiday Events. To round out the month there are lots of holiday events. The Santa Swim, or Samichlaus Schwimmen, must be seen to be believed. Hundreds of brave souls line up and strip down to festive swimwear and Santa hats for the 111-meter swim across the Limmat River. This year it will be on December 5 at 14:00. If you want to take the plunge, there's still time to sign up.

On December 16 at 17:00 head down to the Limmat to watch hundreds of candles float down the river from the Stadthausquai in the annual Lichterschwimmen. For somewhat more meaningful candlelight, join the crowd waiting for the arrival of the Peace Light (Friedenslicht) at the Bürklipltz docks on December 19.

The holiday season is also circus season, with three to choose from in and near Zürich: Salto Natale, Circus Conelli, and the St Galler Weihnachtscircus.

The biggest and best event is on New Year's Eve, when some of the best fireworks you'll ever see will explode over Lake Zürich. For more info, click here.

Story by Kathy
Photos by tylonbrew and Kathy

A Great Martini? Try Räbechilbi Richterswil

2010-11-17T09:37:00.002+01:00

St. Martin's Day––called Martini around here––is celebrated in all kinds of ways in this part of the world, and we finally managed to see one of them: the Räbechilbi in Richterswil.

tylonbrew

Apparently the modern-day event is descended from an Alemamic peasant custom in which women carried lanterns made from turnips (or possibly beets?) down the the mountain paths to the village church in order to give thanks for the last harvest before winter.

Nowadays it's mostly kids carrying the candles, and the turnip lanterns have become large, elaborate floats rolling through the center of town. It's also become enormous, with thousands of people converging on the small lakeside town in time for the street lights to be doused at 18:30 and the parade to begin.

tylonbrew

The Räbechilbi is now so big that 25 tons of turnips are grown just for this event. Every window in the center of town is lit by rows of turnip lanterns (each apparently a homemade project), and turnip lanterns line the steps and stoops as well. The floats are huge, some of them barely able to squeeze through the narrow streets, and covered in turnip lanterns as well.

tylonbrew

We had no real idea of just how big this event was. By the time we had paid our 6 francs for a badge (the proceeds go to support schools) and made our way into town, the streets were already jammed. We literally could not push our way through to reach our primo viewing spot in a friend of friend's apartment.

tylonbrew

No worries. The floats were big enough to see from the back of the crowd. Also the tall Fool was able to reach up and shoot over the crowd, getting some pretty decent pics.

tylonbrew

Räbechilbi: bring your camera, arrive early, stake your spot on the route, and enjoy the Glühwein.

Story by Kathy
Photos by tylonbrew

Die 57. Zürcher Wein-Ausstellung: The Wine Ships have Docked!

2010-11-13T11:46:00.000+01:00

It's that time of year again: the wine ships have arrived at the Bürkliplatz dock. Twelve boats, hundreds of wines, and tasting is 100% free if you arrive before 13:00 on a weekday.

Sunshine and wine, 2009

We went last year and discovered the most important fact about the annual wine show (Wein-Ausstellung): it's too damn big. So this year I've got plans for two visits: one serious shopping trip with the Other Fool and one just-for-fun trip with a group of friends.

Rainy-day show, 2010

For the shopping trip yesterday, we went over the list of exhibitors very carefully and mapped out a route with just three stops, using the online map of the ships (Lageplan). Of course, I then forgot my map and list of exhibitors as we rushed to get there before 13:00.

No matter. We found Reisling & Co. right away. Herr Schönau may actually be the only distributor of German Rieslings in Switzerland, and his wines are the main reason we go to the show. We really love these low-alcohol, food-friendly wines, but it seems that most Swiss do not.

Go for a Chäschuechli or get even cheeseier on the Panta Rhei.

After tasting about a lot of Rieslings (and ordering quite a bit of wine on the 10% show discount), we moved on. We knew there were exhibitors from the Vaud and the Valais, and we eventually found them.

We tasted some wines from the Badoux winery (Vaud), liked the price on the Aigle les Murailles and loved the barrique-aged white from Yvorne. But we saved our francs for Provins from the Valais, tasting just from the premium lines, since Provins is a cooperative and quality ranges from just okay to excellent. Using a bit more restraint, we picked just three red wines this time (and got the 10% discount).

Our last stop was at the completely unexpected exhibit of Croatian wines. The bargain of the show was the Portugizac (CHF 13.90), a simple red meant for early drinking that I found reminiscent of Hungarian Bull's Blood but with softer tannins. There was also a bio wine from the island of Hvar that I found pretty awful but the Other Fool quite liked.

We ended our tour on the fondue ship, getting some much needed ballast after all that tasting. Perfect.

I'm looking forward to our return next week. For sociable fun, the Rioja ship looks like a good bet. There are Argentinian wines to try on the Linth and French wines on the Säntis. There is more sociable fun to be had on the fondue and raclette ship, and I think we'll book a table there to end our tour.

Story by Kathy
Photos by tylonbrew

Down and Dirty: Revisiting the Opern Haus Dig

2010-11-09T07:00:00.000+01:00

Back in August we took a tour of the Opera House dig (in Swiss German), and we finally got a chance to see it again in a small-group, English-language tour. I'm glad we did, not only because this time we could understand a lot more but also because the tour was during the lunch hour, making it possible for us to actually climb down into the dig.

The dig is cold and damp and quite muddy. But it is also remarkable to stand so close to Neolithic Zürich and learn how settlements moved as the shoreline moved inland and receded over time. One of the most remarkable finds––and one that was quite amazing to see (if only a small corner of it)––was a complete wooden door from the Bronze Age.*

Because many of the recovered materials remained under water for millennia, an amazing amount of wood has been preserved, well beyond what would be possible in a dry site. This enables quite accurate dating by dendrochronology, while other biological materials from the site (bone, pollen, seeds) will allow for genetic analysis. A complex picture of environmental change, food ways, and material culture over a very long period should emerge from this analysis.

The archaeological undertaking itself is also remarkable. Financed by the city of Zürich (as required by law), the dig is on an incredibly compressed time table––just nine months to map the site and and remove materials for later study. In fact, the city funding is only for this initial stage and does not cover any analysis or support publication of findings. That funding will have to come from the canton.

One of the goals of the dig's communication outreach program (that is, in part, the dig tours) is to gain public support for further funding for analysis of these finds, as well as support for more intensive survey archaeology along the lake shore and river side, which have been shown in this dig and the previous (when the Opera House itself was built) to offer an incredibly rich archaeological record.

If you'd like to see the dig yourself, weekly tours will continue through December, and you can book online. You can also arrange a small-group tour in various languages. To contact the city about a small-group tour, go to the tour website and click on Kontaktformular.

Story and photos by Kathy

*My notes are somewhat lacking, so I'm not sure it was Bronze Age. Maybe it was later than that. It was really damn old, okay?

Care Packages and Excess Baggage

2010-11-07T09:54:00.001+01:00

I swore this would never happen to me. I wasn't going to be one those Americans. But it did. I am.

I was walking past McDonald's yesterday, and I really wanted to go in and get a McBurger. Here's the thing: I don't even like McDonald's and basically consider it a greed-machine producer of nonfood. The last time I had McFood, we were were racing the clock, traveling across the northern tier of the US. We ate at McDonald's because there is literally nothing adjacent to vast stretches of I-90 except McDonald's, its fried-alike cousins and some really scary independents.

I don't what biochemical imbalance triggered this yen for McFood yesterday, but it did get me thinking about those tastes of home that, unlike the global arches, aren't available here in the CH. At the top of my list are chilies. We've hand-carried dried whole and powdered ancho chilies back from California and dried whole espelette peppers from France.

Actually, my list is pretty short. Just the chilies, although I sometimes wish that baking soda came in the big boxes found in the US. In addition to baking, it's eminently useful for all kinds of non-toxic cleaning and deodorizing (especially of the fridge).

Here, baking soda comes in teeny-tiny packets, while, oddly enough, Aromat––the all-purpose fundamental seasoning for Swiss home cooking––can be found in giant boxes that are pretty much the same size as those of baking soda in the US. Perhaps I could arrange an exchange of big boxes of Aromat for the equivalent of baking soda with a homesick Swiss in the US?

Baking soda appears on lots of wish lists (and in the baggage) of expats, as do peanut butter, chocolate chips, and––especially this time of year––canned pumpkin puree. If we can't fit it in our bags, we ask a loved one to send it in a care package from home. The most interesting and probably the heaviest baggage was carried by some beer aficionados who packed their bags with as many bottles of their favorite craft brews as they could haul through the airport.

You could argue, and I have, that most of these foods have good or even excellent replacements here in Switzerland. But, like my brief desire for lunch at McDonald's, there's no accounting for what foods we'll miss.

Then there's the American drugstore and its cornucopia of health and beauty supplies, which have either no equivalent or are very, very expensive here. Advil and similar pain meds cost something like 1 CHF per tab and come in a teensy blister pack. Some things, like our favorite one-pill-does-it-all cold remedies, aren't available here at all.

I've never seen what we call rubbing (or isopropyl) alcohol in the shops here (it's quite useful as a topical antiseptic, for swimmer's ear and for sterilizing thermometers). I got a very strange look when I asked for it at the apotheke and, after a discussion of what I was going to use it for, was given a very small jar of very high proof alcohol instead. Hmm. Not quite what I was looking for.

I'm not going to be carrying rubbing alcohol home in my bagagge––it's highly combustible and it's not a particularly green product––but my excess baggage and care packages are almost entirely devoted to my favorite health and beauty products, from facial cleanser to jumbo economy jars of ibuprofen. And chilies, of course.

What's in your bag?

Food TV from the Suisse Romande

2010-10-13T10:44:00.000+02:00

I'm a food TV junkie. I'll even watch Come Dine With Me, the ghastly reality show that features five unlovely Brits who compete to cook and host the best dinner party, despite their apparent inability to cook or entertain. French and German TV have their own versions. Interestingly, the French version tends to have more attractive people, quite a few of whom can cook. (For a great review of this and other anglophone food TV shows, check out The Evening Hérault.)

Leave it to the Swiss to take this ugly little format and turn it into a charming and quirky original: Dîner à la Ferme ('Dinner at the Farm'). Now in its second season, the show features seven contestants, each a farmer from the Suisse Romande. The weekly host offers a tour-de-force locavore dinner for the other six contestants. The meals are elaborate, with multiple courses, and the host (assisted by family) spends days gathering ingredients (from their own fields, from local purveyors) and cooking: veal braised overnight on a bed of straw, a stock made from a just-killed rooster, goat cheese made from the farmer's own herd.

Part of the charm of Dîner à la Ferme is that it just seems so Swiss. The sniping, catty remarks that are the hallmark of Come Dine with Me are right out, replaced instead by a charming earnestness epitomized by the somewhat formal apéro ceremony, which begins with everyone standing in solemn appreciation of a regional musical performance (there were tears at the alphorn performance).

Rather than rooting about in the host's closet in an effort to unearth something embarrassing, which is the requisite and bizarre interlude between the greeting-aperitif and dinner on Come Dine, guests on Dîner are treated to a tour of the farm: acquaculture on Lac Neuchâtel, tobacco growing in Vaud, a cattle competition in the Valais.

In the end, after the fabulous meal, the dessert, the coffee and a final eau de vie, the guests all rate the dinner and the host, just as on Come Dine. However, on Dîner, the the guests very rarely award less than nine points (on a ten-point scale). I'm not sure if this is a Swiss thing or if it's just that everyone is really doing a great job.

The final episode will air this Friday on TSR, and the grand champion of the competition will be announced. I'm rooting for Michel-Joseph, or Mountain Man as I call him. Cooking over an open wood fire? The alphorns? Goats roaming the high pastures? Oh yeah. He's got my vote. Check out this season's episodes online and decide for yourself.

Story by Kathy

Signs of Autumn: The Heissi Marroni Stands are Back!

2010-10-11T16:54:00.000+02:00

For me one of the most exotic Swiss foods is the chestnut. I know it's hard to believe, but I grew in a chestnut-deprived world.

In the US, the chestnut tree largely died out by the middle of the twentieth century. So even though Nat King Cole's version of The Christmas Song remained popular, it was less and less likely that children growing up after 1960 would ever actually see "Chestnuts roasting on the open fire." (Not impossible, just less likely.) All that it to say that it's not so odd for an American to be unfamiliar with the chestnut.

In Switzerland (and much of Europe) chestnuts are everywhere in the fall. Last year I enjoyed them in various wild (game) dishes, in pancakes and in some desserts. I have to admit that I did not fall in love with Vermicelle (strands of sweetened chestnut paste used to top many desserts), although my reaction was not quite so strongly negative as some.

For some reason I shied away from getting a sack of roasted chestnuts from one of the ubiquitous Heissi Marroni (Hot Chestnut) stands. This year I decided to change that.

I did not fall in love with that first chestnut. But the second time I tried them, I liked them a little more––they seemed a little sweeter, a little less dry. I kept going back to the sack for just one more. I think, after all, that roasted chestnuts might just grow on me.

Story by Kathy

Life is Too Short for Bad Hotels

2010-10-07T09:23:00.000+02:00

I love visiting new places. I hate trying new hotels. Obviously, that contradiction causes problems for travel planning. We can't keep going back to the same place just because I like the hotel.

It's the gamble of it all that I hate, especially when trying to economize. What will we get for our Euros/Francs this time? Scary, dirty bathrooms that make you glad you brought your flip-flops to wear in the shower? Assaultively floral decor but otherwise clean and okay? Sullen teenagers at the front desk? Or a wonderful surprise, where everything is just fine?

I learned this summer that there is one category of hotel that I will never again try: the sleep pod. (Thanks to mlis for that great application of the term.*) The pod consisted of a concrete block room that was partially below grade with no natural light, a definitely mildewed atmosphere, and a really filthy bathroom. The metal-framed bunk bed screwed into the wall above the double bed was a nice touch, somewhat reminiscent of reform school or a really awful summer camp.

We were out of there in ten minutes. Keep your 40 Euro. Who cares?

Our travelling companions have a better sense of humor and also got a slightly better room. They stayed, which was great because otherwise we would never have learned of the burping sink. Here it is. Enjoy!

mlis

* Yes, I am aware that there are other sleep pod hotels that may actually be acceptable. I am, however, unwilling to take a chance at this point.

Story by Kathy

Ein Prosit, Ein Prosit: A Fool at Oktoberfest

2010-10-06T19:25:00.002+02:00

One of the TwoFools went to Oktoberfest in Munich––the Beer Fool, of course. He reports that it was an awesome, completely fermented, excellent time.

Photo by tylonbrew

Here are the Beer Fool's tips for enjoying Oktoberfest.

Photo by tylonbrew

Pace yourself! It's going to be a very, very long night. People who swill down too many Mass (one-liter mugs) too fast will find themselves very quickly face down or possibly escorted from the tent by one of the numerous security guards.Try not to let your friends egg you on and get you into one of those showy, tent-pleasing chugging contests. Just don't do it.

Photo by tylonbrew

Eat something! And not just a giant Bretzl. Try a Händl (half a roast chicken), which the Beer Fool says are the best he's had since Paris, or some Schweinshaxen (roast pig knuckle) with Knödel (giant potato dumplings). Weisswürste (veal sausages) make an excellent breakfast food, in case you were wondering.

Photo by tylonbrew

If you feel a little foggy, try the weird peppermint snuff. The Beer Fool said it was good. It sounds pretty doubtful to me.

Pick your tent(s) carefully. Don't go for the Hofbräu tent full of screaming teens on Saturday night, unless you like that sort of thing.

Photo by tylonbrew

Drink lots of beer, sing really loud, have fun. Ein Prosit der Gemütlichkeit!

Story by Kathy
Reporting and Photos by tylonbrew

An American Look at Sunday's Vote

2010-09-29T13:13:00.001+02:00

On Sunday, Swiss voters ratified the Federal Council's measures to reduce unemployment benefits. The actual reductions are not radical, although it will be hard luck to be childless and under 25 or a pregnant woman who has only recently entered the workforce and then been made redundant.

One of the most significant changes was the removal of the option for the Federal Council to make special provisions for high unemployment regions. Now such provisions will have to be passed by Parliament.

The significance of this change becomes clearer when looking at the map and comments provided by M'dame Jo. The percentage voting against the change was highest in Western Switzerland and in Ticino. These are minority language areas--as M'dame Jo points out--but also areas with the highest unemployment. While the national unemployment rate is at 3.6%, in western Swtizerland it is 6-10%.

I hate to see this kind of erosion of social benefits.

My perspective is American, of course, not Swiss. The Right has spent the last 30 years dismantling our social programs and has very successfully promoted an ideology that rejects any notion that government can or should solve social problems.

Right-wing ideology is buttressed by the often admirable and very American ethic of self-reliance. The self-made man is an American icon. With sufficient native talent and hard work, each of us should be able to succeed--without anyone's help. Just as success is an individual achievement, failure to prosper is equally an individual fault.

In a globalized economy, there is a kind of willful naïvité about this position. Structural unemployment, global shifts in capital: these are not problems individuals can solve.

Sunday's vote leaves me to wonder: is there a family resemblance between the Swiss and American visions of self-reliance? Or is it more a matter of a near-sightedness that can't quite see across the Röstigraben?

Story by Kathy

Rainy Day Market: Markthalle at the Viadukt

2010-09-28T09:56:00.001+02:00

Saturday I had very good intentions of either (a) seeing the cows come home or (b) going to the Oerlikon farmers' market. But it was raining an all day kind of rain: not the light, misty barely-rain-at-all of Seattle but the cold, drenching rain of the continent. Plans A and B were right out. Today was definitely the right day to check out the new Markthalle im Viadukt.

If you read NZZ or keep up with MyKugelhopf, you'll already know that Zürich now has a covered market that's open six days a week: the Markthalle im Viadukt. A very cool urban renewal project in Kreis 5 (including both the Markthalle and numerous retail shops built into the old viaduct arches), the Markthalle is a foodie's hunt-and-gather delight. From the locally produced (organic, raw-milk butter from the Zürich region), to the unexpected (popcorn from Ticino), to the irresistible (the British Cheese Center), the market rewards a leisurely examination.

Plus, you gotta love a place that has a oyster stand set up in front of the fish market, complete with friendly shucker and sparkling wine on ice. If it's too early for oysters (the market opens at 8:00), there's also a very decent restaurant at the other end of the hall that serves breakfast all day. (It also offers a lunch/dinner menu starting at 11:30.) It was still early in the day, so I tried the Speigeleier mit Rösti (fried potatoes with sunny side up eggs): perfectly cooked eggs and potatoes, along with fresh bread from the market bakery (St. Jakob Beck). Wonderful!

The Markthalle still has the shiny new on it, with more more of a bo-bo atmosphere than older outdoor markets, and it has the prices to match. However, I found a some decent coffee (Stoll) at a very reasonable price, about half of what I normally pay for my favorite brand.

Even more exciting, the wine shop, südhang (or 'south-facing slope'), offers a great selection of wines from Switzerland and elsewhere in Europe at very reasonable prices. I found a gorgeous Chinon under 20 CHF and an equally yummy Pinot Noir from Graubünden, also under 20 CHF. There were some interesting wines on special for 12.95 CHF. In addition, you can try the wines at the shop's wine bar (for a higher price) or at the Markthalle restaurant, which get its wine from südhang.

Easy to reach by trams 13 or 4 (it's right at the Dammweg stop) and perfect for a rainy day, the Markthalle im Viadukt is definitely worth a visit.

Story and Photos by Kathy

A Walk on Cap Martin

2010-09-21T14:04:00.002+02:00

We invited our friends to join us for a week in Villefranche. The idea was to relax. Just enjoy the sun and sea. It worked out pretty well.

Photo by mlis

Late morning, three of us emerged and walked the hundred meters or so from our waterfront apartments to the quai for a quick jump in to swim or snorkel. The fourth (that was me) took an energizing climb up the stair-stepped hill to the good bakery to resupply bread and croissants. After breakfast, it was time to settle in to read, to surf (the net) or to nap. A balcony siesta might follow lunch which in turn would be followed by a village walk, a leisurely dinner and drinks back on the balcony. Pretty damn relaxing.

Photo by tylonbrew

After four or five days of this we felt we ought to do something. We gathered up sun hats, sun screen, water, and cameras and headed for Cap Martin. We took the train to the Roquebrun-Cap-Martin stop, just east of Monte Carlo. This turned out to be a good way to go, since the start of the walk along this part of the Sentier du Littoral gives a good view of Monaco across the bay, which was about as close as we wanted to get. We spotted the mega yacht Maltese Falcon heading into the harbor and that seemed at least as exciting as a bunch of expensive cars and casinos.

Photo by mlis

The rest of the walk was all about nature. Blue sky, sparkle on the blue sea, surf and tidal pools. The smell of rock and a scrub of pine and cactus starting to bake in the sun. A touch of salt spray. Climbing up and down the sometimes shaded path through the jagged rocks, we made our way slowly around the point.

Photo by tylonbrew

Rounding the point and heading toward Menton, we could see Italy in the distance. Theoretically, the Cinque Terre is only three hours by train from here. (It turns out that, according to a local, the two countries have some dispute about how to manage the trains, so the route is actually prone to delays and requires additional connections.)

Photo by tylonbrew

Not much further and we spotted a beach side cafe near Menton. Perfect. A late and leisurely lunch was followed by a quick walk down to the water and then the train back Villefranche. A very nice day indeed and quite relaxing.

Story by Kathy
Photos by tylonbrew and mlis

La Crise de Foie: A Tale of Eating (Too) Well on the Canal du Midi

2010-09-21T12:18:00.008+02:00

In her autobiography, My Life in France, Julia Child refers from time to time to suffering from la crise de foie, a uniquely French complaint resulting from overindulgence in food and drink. Symptoms include the wonderfully evocative and imprecise "heavy liver" (le foie lourd), as well as other more hangover-like symptoms.

Photo by tylonbrew

Having been to France many times and having certainly overindulged--there can be no other word for spen
ding four to five hours at table consuming multiple courses--I still had never experienced this peculiar malady. Not, that is, until we spent a week on the Canal du Midi.

Eating Well Along the Canal

The four of us (my husband and I and two friends from California) love food and wine, especially French food and wine, and we love boating. Why not, we thought, combine it all into a week-long cruise along the Canal du Midi?

It turned out to be a great idea, not least because we ate very, very well.

It began, quite auspiciously, with dinner at Le Petit Comptoir in Narbonne the night before we picked up our boat. The menu is clever and inventive and focuses on regional products. The wine list likewise represents the region and at reasonable prices. The winning starter that night was the foie gras bonbons, little medallions of mi-cuit foie gras capped with tiny disks of jellied apricot. My lamb main (cooked pink or rosé) was meltingly tender, probably the best of the of our two weeks in France. A second bottle of wine, a cheese course, a desert, a digestive to follow. Well-fed and well-watered (arrosé), we congratulated ourselves for successfully setting the tone for this adventure.

Photo by tylonbrew

Next day we stowed our gear on the boat and headed to the real reason for starting our canal cruise in Narbonne: Les Halles. This covered market is open every morning, even Sundays(!), and hosts 70 sellers offering every kind of food. The fish was gorgeous, clear-eyed and very fresh. Heading towards a boat with potentially uncertain refrigeration, we skipped the fish and stocked up assorted cheeses, dry cured meats, breads, croissants, a quiche, and a narbonnaise, a pine-nut-studded pastry that we found at L'Epi d'Ovalie. The wine seller at La Bodega was wonderful as he guided us (in rapid French with the twanging accent of the region) to the best of his rosés and Corbières reds. These ended up being some of the best wines we found on the whole cruise.

Photo by tylonbrew

We hauled our goodies back to the boat, took the charter base manager's advice and headed to En Face for Sunday lunch. In these parts Sunday lunch is a big deal, and we were surrounded by French-speaking families as well as a sprinkling of tourists, all in search of that elusive but earnestly sought goal of bon rapport qualité prix (roughly, 'value for money'). En Face did indeed deliver value for money. The cassoulet turned out to be the best of the cruise, with a flavor so deep as to make us think it was enriched with demi-glace, as well as a crusty top and perfectly cooked beans. The gazpacho was also the best we found on our travels, bursting with fresh, clear vegetable flavors.

That night we feasted on a picnic from our Les Halles shopping trip as we waited at the Gailhousty lock for the lock keeper to arrive the next morning. (That's another story.)

Foie gras, lamb, cassoulet, cheese, more cheese and sausage. I think you begin to get the idea. The trip continued pretty much in this vein. Not every stop offered memorable food, but every stop offered some kind of delight at the table, if only the entertainment of inventing the back story for one proprietor's sullen teenage daughter.

Photo by mlis

One other restaurant was a standout: L'Ô à la Bouche in Le Somail.

Mooring in Le Somail we asked the important question: Where should we eat tonight? Easy. L'Ô à la Bouche was just a few meters away, right on the canal. We walked over and checked out the menu. Oh yeah. This is our kind of place. And it was. The service was lovely and very patient, given that we were starting to look like we lived on a boat and also that our level of boisterousness was a bit above the norm for the French. The food was an expression of a true culinary métier, where everything the kitchen does matters (the knife work, the sauce, the seasoning, the presentation), and it showed in the results. In terms of progress towards our crise, the standout dish was the oysters with foie gras. Actually, I was a dissenter on that one. (I thought the foie gras overwhelmed the oysters.) But we all loved the Comme à Cayenne, a rich, spicy St. Chinian.

Photo by tylonbrew

Drinking Well Along the Canal

The canal offers many opportunities to tie up and head to a winery for a degustation (tasting). Actually there are too many of these stops (we did need to make our return point after all), and we only tried two. Chateau Ventenac turned out to be pretty forgettable as a winery visit, being staffed by indifferent wine wenches, just like any other winery across the world. (To be fair, the vendage had just started and perhaps these were stand-ins for the regular staff.)

Photo by tylonbrew

However, just a little farther west on the canal we found Domaine de Maels at Argens-Minervois. This is the kind of winery visit you always hope for and never seem to find. We rang the bell and peeked in, but all we could see was one man at work cleaning some equipment. Where was the tasting room? Should we interrupt him?

Before we could decide an older women stepped out of the house next door and led us into the winery to the small tasting area off to one side. When my French failed me (as it did so often that week), the woman called her son, the winemaker, over.

The wines were a revelation. Nothing like these Minervois had ever made it to the West Coast of the US (that I had found) and certainly we would be unlikely to find them in Switzerland. Perfumed with garrrigue and built on fine tannins with black fruits that never overwhelmed, the AOC wines were a joy. We especially liked the single-vineyard bottling, Le Clos de Pech Laurié. We also liked the Carignan and the white blend. The winery is a cash-only operation, so we bought as much as we had cash to cover.

Home Again

Back home now, we're drinking lots of water and dining on poached chicken with steamed veg. It's not the typical French cure, which seems to be either Vichy water or a vile-looking concoction called Hepatoum, but it should do the trick.

Photo by mlis

Story by Kathy
Photos by tylonbrew and mlis

Moving to Switzerland: A Little Unsolicited Advice

2010-09-17T12:30:00.004+02:00

A little while ago a friend said he was thinking about moving to Zürich. Really? That's wonderful! We sang the city's praises; we gushed; we cooed. It was a little like a couple confronted by a single friend who may have finally met his future bride. Yes, yes! You should absolutely marry! You two are perfect together!

I'm not sure what kind of psycho-social glitch causes this kind of join-our-club reaction, but a little later in the evening we moved on to the giving-practical-advice stage. We got rolling pretty quickly, practically shouting a rapid-fire list of Do's and Don't's. I could see his eyes start to glaze over and realized we were losing sight of the mission (in a sotto voce sing-song: Join us, join us...). We stopped giving advice. But ever since then I've had the urge to offer unsolicited advice about moving here.

Here it is: a short, messy, incomplete list intended mainly for those moving to Switzerland on the basis of a work contract. If you're moving to be with the love of your life, that's a whole different set of advice.

1. It's ungodly expensive to live here. Food is expensive, rent is expensive, health insurance and health care are expensive. Transportation is expensive. I think you get a lot for your money here, and the quality of life is very high. There is a lot to love about living in Switzerland. But if you're not moving from an expensive city like New York or London, you will need to figure just how much more expensive it's going to be to live here and negotiate hard to get that salary.

2. Your spouse is not going to able to find a job right away. Okay, of course that's not universally true. I can think of two exceptions right away. However, if you are not coming from the EU/Schengen Area (basically the EU plus some non-EU European countries) and you do not get a B permit (which automatically entitles the spouse to a work permit), your spouse will need to have the skills, languages, and experience to convince an employer to go to the hassle of sponsoring a work permit. Adding to the challenge: gender and age bias in hiring are not illegal here. Can your spouse find a job? Absolutely. But think about getting a job in terms of 12-18 months, not three to six. Alternatively, it can work really well for both of you to line up work contracts before moving. (That's how the two exceptions I know of did it.)

3. Expat taxes are a pain. Get tax advice before you sign the work contact. Line up Swiss and home tax advisers as soon as possible. If your employer is offering to pay for tax advice, inquire closely as to the limits of that contract. (For example, our US employer's contract with a tax firm did not include filing the FBAR.) If part of your compensation is in equities, understand how your company handles taxes on these transactions. If you're an American and you've negotiated that comfortable salary to meet the high cost of living here, you will almost certainly have to pay some US taxes. Quarterly. In cash. You will have to file an annual US return, regardless of money owed, and you will have to file an FBAR. And you also have to pay Swiss taxes and likely file a Swiss return. It's a pain.

4. It's takes a lot of paper to make a village. Americans especially may not be used to the level of paper documentation needed for everyday life, especially for getting visas and permits. You will need everything from university diplomas to work history records to marriage and birth certificates. Tax records too, of course. And your will. Children's records too. You will need to bring this with you. Digital copies may or may not be okay depending on the agency you're dealing with. You'll get lots more paperwork to keep track of once you're here. Get started organizing your life on paper as soon as you think you might want to move overseas. You'll be glad you did. By the way, a two-ring binder and hole punch (they don't use three-ring here) make a great welcome gift for newcomers.

5. Sell it all. If you can sell your house and anything you don't want to ship, you will make your life here so much easier. We moved at the beginning of 2009. Not a good time to sell. That means lots of stuff to keep track of and pay for back home. The larger the time difference the harder it is to do this. Definitely, definitely not the ideal scenario.

6. Make an exit plan part of your moving plan. It really is the same process in reverse. Think about it. You needed a work contract to move here. Unless you're independently wealthy, you'll need a job when you go back. In the ideal world, your return to a position with the same company in your home country would be part of the initial agreement. But in the Darwinian world of corporate life, I wouldn't assume that's a point you'll win. So make a job search (internal or external to your current company) part of your plan. How long is your stay here (short-term or renewable permit, open- or closed-contract)? How long do you think it will take to find the new position? Decide where you want to go next. Another international posting? A job in your home country but in a different city? Back to your home town?

If you're returning to the US, both partners should try set up jobs that start upon return. Otherwise, one of you could get caught in a preexisting condition gap. This is especially important if you have a chronic ailment (even a minor one) or might become unexpectedly and inconveniently pregnant while uninsured.

Thinking about when and how you will leave Switzerland will also help you decide things like how much of your own furniture to bring. Just like when you moved here, you'll have to decide what to ship and what to sell. If it's an heirloom or beloved keepsake, you are probably going to have to pay to ship it back. Here's a hint: Bring as little as possible and learn to love ersatz modern. (I heart Ikea!)

So there it is. A bunch of unsolicited advice.

You're thinking that was way too long and most of it didn't even apply to you. You're young, single, have a six-figure work-contract offer, have no attachments, no mortgage, no debt to speak of. Well, hell. Sign on the dotted line and get on that plane. Switzerland is awesome. You're gonna love it!

Story by Kathy

A Nice Day: Cooking with Rosa Jackson

2010-09-16T13:51:00.004+02:00

I'm concentrating on the dough and following Rosa's instructions. Push out with the heel of the hand, fold, quarter turn, repeat. This is the dough for our starter, a classic Niçois dish called pissaladière, which is reminiscent of pizza but with a thicker more cake-like crust. The others in our class of four are slicing the onions, which will be slowly cooked on the stove top until very soft and lightly caramelized and will be used as the main topping for the pissaladière. We'll add olives and whole anchovies as well.

Photo by mlis

I'm having a blast. We all are, now that we've shaken off our strangers-just-met inhibitions. We're spending the day with Rosa Jackson, learning to cook some classic Niçois dishes. In addition to pissaladière, we will also prepare petits farcis, wonderful little roasted vegetables stuffed with a mixture of diced vegetables, ground meat (veal in this case) and bound with bread and egg. We'll round out the meal with a cheese course, even though, as Rosa points out, cheese is not an important element in the cuisine of the region. To finish: some beautiful summer berries in custard.

Photo by mlis

Our class that day begins in the Cours Saleya market, where we meet Rosa at a cafe at 9:30. Happily we're early and the fourth student is late. Plenty of time for a coffee and croissant. It seems absurdly early to us tourists, but it is almost the middle of the market seller's day. Perhaps that's why the two old gents next to us feel it's the right time to take a glass of something (prendre un verre).

Photo by tlyonbrew

The tour of the market is our introduction to Niçois cooking as Rosa leads us from stall to stall, pointing out the varieties of olives, describing the various oils, noting the best salt (gray) and uses for many of the flavored salts, and explaining the difference between zucchini flowers and zucchinis with flowers still attached. To find the best seasonal products, we learn to look for the local producers selling their own wares by spotting the stands with smaller, less elaborate displays.

Photo by tylonbrew

Our tour moves from the market into the narrow, twisted streets of old town Nice, where we visit a cheese monger, a butcher, a traiteur, and a wine shop. The last two stops really slow us down, since we know we want to try the combination of tiny fresh ravioli with house-made daube as soon as Rosa mentions it. (This ends up being dinner and the next day's lunch back at the Villefranche apartment.) And then the wine shop! Tired of the rosé selection at the village grocery, I get Rosa to point our her favorites. I buy one of each, as well as a couple of reds. (These go with dinner that night and with our train picnic on the way to Narbonne that Saturday.)

Photo by tylonbrew

Shopping done (after one last dash for a gift bottle of Elixir Végétal de la Grande-Charteuse), class begins in Rosa's beautifully renovated apartment with it's cook's kitchen (five-burner cook top and two ovens) opening onto a light, airy, high-ceilinged dining room that serves as our classroom.

Photo by mlis

The class is pure fun, absolutely accessible to any skill level. Each dish is broken into simple steps and each step is demonstrated. Rosa lends students a hand as needed. In the meantime she manages the hardest part of cooking, which is of course keeping track of all the various components, making sure everything comes together as it should. She does this with grace and good humor, all the while relating food history of the region and cooking techniques.

The other hard part of cooking (the cleaning) is taken care of by Rosa's able and charming assistant, Christine, who also assists with prep and setup for the class. This leaves the students free to enjoy the task at hand, to learn and to socialize.

Photo by mlis

Cooking done, we are rewarded for our efforts with a gorgeous meal. We toast our success and our host with a lovely rosé. It has been a truly wonderful day and the perfect introduction to Nice.

Santé, Rosa!

Story by Kathy

Five Things to Love About Living in Switzerland

2010-08-24T17:51:00.000+02:00

To be an expat is to be ambivalent. Some days it seems there could be no better place than your adopted home and other days it feels as though the best thing would be to pack it in and get out. There is, however, an awful lot to love about Switzerland. But for everything I love here, its opposite exists and sometimes drives me mad. Hence, the ambivalence.

To celebrate the sun coming out and the humidity dropping, I'm going for the positive this time. Here are my top five things to love about Switzerland.

1. The grace and civility of daily life. I absolutely love the custom of saying hello and goodbye in the shops. A lilting Grüezi when you enter, a light Schönes Wochenende or Uf Wiederluege when you depart: the custom wraps each minor transaction in a little confection of good manners. I still get a kick out of saying Grüezi mittenand to fellow hikers. I love the custom of offering your fellow diners an En Guete when the meal arrives.

I'm always impressed as well with the thoughtfulness displayed when a stranger holds the door open for someone running those last few meters to catch the tram, or when others help lift a baby carriage on and off the tram.

2. Trust. Switzerland in general affords individuals a very high level of trust. Most newcomers find the custom of billing after mail-order goods are received delightfully old-fashioned. In Switzerland it's assumed that the customer will pay in a timely fashion, just as a matter of course. Because that is the right thing, Because that is what people do.

To trust that others will do the right thing is to accord them a level of dignity that we could all wish for when moving through the metal detector at a high school in the US or when passing though security at any airport.

3. Trains. I love Swiss trains, and I think I fell in love with Switzerland traveling by train. Basel, Bern, Geneva, Lausanne, Luzern, Lugano, Interlaken, Mürren, Zermatt, Sion, Sierre, Chur, Davos. The Swiss countryside rolls by and I can't help but fall in love. I know the pitfalls of the pastoral: the locals that we pass have all the problems everyone else does––mundane to dreadful––but I still can't resist the magic.

The trains are comfortable, clean, quiet, efficient. They go almost everywhere and they get there on time. We've never even used our car share here. We just take the train.

Of course you knew the trains would make the top five. Everyone loves Swiss trains. There's even a show on the Travel Channel (in the UK and US) called Swiss Railway Journeys.

4. Kantonligeist and Direct Democracy. I love Kantonligeist (allegiance to one's own small region) and the way that it reinforces the Swiss practice of direct democracy. It's infuriating, impractical, and shouldn't even be possible to sustain. Why in the hell can't the whole country just have the same rules for smoking in public or recycling or taxes? Why can't Swiss Germans just speak one language? Because they don't and that's how the Swiss like it. I like it too, because it's the exact opposite of our ever more standardized world.

5. Natural Beauty. Switzerland is just absurdly beautiful. The Alps. The lakes. The forests. The improbably neat fields and farms. The Alps. The more sporty and outdoors-y you are, the more you'll love this aspect of living here. For us, just walking through this landscape is a thrill and a privilege.

Those are my top five. What are your favorite things about Switzerland?

Story by Kathy
Photos by Tylonbrew

Why I Blog

2010-08-23T15:30:00.001+02:00

Last week my Dad sent me a link to Andrew Sullivan's 2008 essay, Why I Blog and it got me thinking about my own answer to that question.

Unlike Andrew Sullivan, I don't blog in the context of other kinds of writing, in his case journalism. I don't keep a diary; I don't write essays or short stories or novels; I don't even do much in the way of emails. The last serious writing I did was in grad school (Well, it seemed pretty serious to me).

So why, when I landed in Switzerland, did I suddenly start to blog? And why do I still do it?

To answer the second question first: I'm like a runner who can't bear to miss a run. I find I get antsy, out of sorts, or even depressed when I go too long without blogging. I'm not sure what kind of deep, twisted psychological need blogging addresses, but it's real. So I keep going, posting as often as I can but never as often as I would like.

Early on, if I'd had to answer the first question (why did I start), I would have said to share the experience of living overseas with friends and family back home. It's still true, and in the end it's really the best reason for this particular blog.

But the blog quickly became something else as well. Even before my first post, I read other Swiss expat blogs and very quickly got a sense of the community and conversation that already existed. Right away I felt less alone, a little less lost. Here was this group of smart people who had already found out all kinds of things I needed to know as a newcomer and took the time to share them.

I decided that I would like to join that conversation and started to post items I thought might help other newcomers. From the first reader comment, I was definitely hooked. I wanted to stay in the conversation and keep talking.

Even better, writing about Switzerland had the effect of forcing me out of my little homebody comfort zone. If I didn't go and try new things, what the hell was I going to write about? It's a great side benefit of blogging and I'm always looking for new stuff. (I cannot believe I was away for the Frauenfeld Schwingfest last weekend. Bummer.)

So that's it. A little indefinable something that keeps bringing me back. A chance to meet people. And it gets me out of the house. What keeps you blogging?

Five Thousand Years of History: The Zurich Opera House Dig

2010-08-15T18:06:00.000+02:00

Dig a hole anywhere in Zurich and you're likely to find some really old stuff. That's what happened when construction began last year on the new Opera House parking garage. Now a team of 40 specialists have just nine months to discover and catalog everything they can about this very large site.

In turns out that the lakeside has been a desirable location for 5000 years, and lakeside settlements (Pfahlbauten) have been identified in what is now the Seefeld neighborhood. The moist soil is ideal for preserving not only tools and other items made from stone and ceramics, but also textiles as well as botanical and other biological remains that will allow archaeologists to build a detailed picture of the environment and foodways of the Ur-Zürcher.

You can actually take a tour of the site and get a hands-on look not only at the painstaking process of archaeology but also at some of the finds, ranging from stone and bone tools to ceramics and animal remains. The tours are free and can be booked online. Held each week on Wednesday and limited to 45 participants, the tours book fast. Happily, dates in September and October are still open.

Here's the bad news for non-locals: the tour is conducted in Swiss German. We went anyway and had a great time. However, it is possible to book an English-language tour, and we're thinking about doing that with some friends. A little history, a little nosh after. Fun, right?

The Bederhof

2010-08-09T10:37:00.001+02:00

Ever since Restaurant Mund + Art closed, we've missed having a neighborhood place where we could get our favorite Swiss dishes. Sometimes you just feel like a little schnitzel or some Älpler Magroni.

But now we've got a new favorite neighborhood joint: it's the Bederhof in the Enge neighborhood. OK. So it's not in our neighborhood, but it is a neighborhood place (Quartierrestaurant). And it's really good. The food is good. The wine list is good. And the service is good. Make that excellent.

Big windows, lots of wood and muted earth tones make for a relaxed atmosphere. The place is completely without pretension, from the simple lighting fixtures to the sturdy tableware. The main room is small enough to feel intimate, but the tables are reasonably well-spaced, keeping things from being too intimate. Altogether the Bederhof engenders that indefinable feeling of ease and good fellowship: it is very gemütlich.

The menu is all about Swiss comfort food and offers plenty of trad dishes, including Wienerschnitzel, Züri-Geschnetzeltes, and Gehacktes und Hörnli, but also splashes out in other directions, offering old-school French dishes like Robespierre and steak frites.

As much as possible the kitchen sources ingredients locally, and everything is made in house. The matchstick fries (pommes allumettes) were clearly house made and were perfect. The fillet was a just-right medium rare and was a deep umami treat with those fries. We loved the Wienerschnitzel too, pounded out very thin to the size of the dinner plate and fried just so. The potato salad with its vinegary dressing was a nice contrast to the rich veal.

The mains were good enough to bring us back, but the real standouts were the starters and the desserts. A local, incredibly fresh goat cheese served with figs poached in port and balsamic vinegar was a knockout as a starter. The molten chocolate cake was luscious, while the pear sorbet (made with Poire Williams) offered a lighter but no less wonderful way to finish.

Not every dish was perfect. The sauce served with the steak was a touch too sweet for my taste and the artichoke starter looked better than it tasted. But these are minor quibbles and were more than made up for by the service, which was completely professional. Extra points for the wine service, both for offering good suggestions and because––unlike so many Zürich restaurants––the Bederhof does not follow the absurd custom of holding the wine hostage at the waiter's station, instead leaving the bottle on the table where it belongs.

The Bederhof is a winner, and I'm so glad we found it just in time for the arrival our next visitor from home.

Restaurant Bederhof
Brandschenkestrasse 177
8002 Zürich-Enge
Reservations by phone only: 044 285 15 00

Story and photo by Kathy

A Walk in the Vineyards: Heidiland and Wine

2010-08-05T11:10:00.004+02:00

Another Saturday and time for another walk in the country. This time we headed down to the vineyards of the Bündner Herrschaft, where they make some of the best Pinot Noir wines in Switzerland. Since this is Switzerland, there are of course excellent trails in the area, including the Weinwanderweg.

The plan was to begin in Malans, walk to Jenins and finish up in Maienfeld, the world headquarters of all things Heidi. I know it's heretical or un-Swiss or something, but honestly we don't care a fig about Heidi. We ignored Heidi.

Instead we reveled in the fact that we'd chosen the perfect sunny day: not too hot and plenty of cooling breezes, the same breezes that keep the vines healthy and happy. The sharp, granitic edges of the ridges above us gave this otherwise lush, green spot a wild edge, a feeling of something lurking just beyond. Then there was the romance of walking among the vines with postcard pretty villages in the distance and castle ruins sitting high on the valley wall. Wow. Sometimes I really love living here.

On the practical side of the walk, things didn't go quite as planned. First of all, we got a late start, arriving in Landquart after 1:00. Then we failed to realize that there is a train from Landquart--the main transit hub for the area--to Malans. The cute little red cars of the Rhätische Bahn at the Landquart station do in fact go to Malans. Still the walk to the village was easy (just a couple of flat kilometers) and pretty (Look! Cornfields!) if a bit fragrant (from the eau de campagne, manure).

The village of Malans is completely charming and is, as advertised, a wine village, with over a dozen winemakers in residence. We wandered a bit through the twisty, medieval streets and then headed to the Weinstube Zum Ochsen at the family-run Donatsch Winery, located just off of the Dorfplatz.

The place is a gem: truly hospitable staff, beautiful Pinots made in the Burgundian style, and a simple menu featuring local specialties. We sat on the balcony looking out over the village and beyond to the mountains and drank a glass of very decent sparkling wine while we waited for our Bündnerplatte, a huge plate of local cheeses and cured meats. The bündnerfleisch (thin slices of air-dried beef) was excellent but the salsiz (a type of air-dried meat similar to salami) was the to die for.

We followed the sparkling with a glass of the Passion Pinot Noir (I had the 2008 and Tony the 2007). The wines had an earthy animal note topped by bright red fruits and a wonderful silky texture. Tony liked it enough to get two bottles to go, even though this meant carrying them the rest of the way. Good man.

From Malans we headed towards Jenins. Along the way we admired the vines, wondered if this year will be too wet, and generally got all wine geeky. And of course we kept stopping to admire and photograph the place.

The trail is good and it's an easy walk, but with all this stopping, admiring and geeking-out, it took a while to approach Jenins. At some point we decided to just head to Maienfeld and home, bypassing Jenins. It's too bad, because Jenins is supposed to be even lovelier than Malans.

No worries. We decided we would just have to come back, getting an early start the next time, maybe even beginning from Maienfeld and working back towards Malans. After all, it's just an hour by train from Zurich.

Story by Kathy
Photos by Tylonbrew

Trivial Fun with Beobachter

2010-08-04T11:56:00.000+02:00

Here's a good way to practice your German, test your trivia skills, and even win a camera: play the online Beobachter Wissenspeil. Three Olympus Mju Tough 8010s will be given away this month.

The questions range from general trivia (How tall is the Eiffel Tower?) to Swiss divorce law (Who keeps the apartment in a divorce?) to trivia about myths and fairytales (What was Ali Baba's profession?).

Harder than Jeopardy but easier than than BBC's University Challenge, it's good rainy day fun. Sad to say, but I'm still trying to break out of level one. I'm playing as guest for now. It looks like the score to beat this month is 170.

Viel Glück! Send me a photo from your new camera if you win!

Top Five Cocktail Bars in Zürich

2010-08-03T18:05:00.000+02:00

Here's something you might not know about Zurich: you can get a great classic cocktail here.

I know, I know. I didn't used to believe it either. Sure, everyone knows the Widder Bar (number two on the top five list below), but most bartenders seem to think a Martini is a glass of vermouth, and asking for a Vesper or a French 75 only gets you a blank stare. What's a thirsty expat to do?

Easy as a lemon twist. Just check out our top five cocktail bars below.

1. Kronnenhalle Bar. If you only visit one bar in Zurich, this has to be it. Mahogany panels hung with Miró and Klee, comfortable leather banquettes: the room is intimate without being stuffy. The service impeccable. And the drinks! My French 75 was the best I've had since I left my favorite watering hole behind in Seattle. The Chocolate Martini was not the icky-sweet concotion I expected. Instead it had an appealing, slightly dry but still chocolate-y finish. Yum.

Seeing that the bartender makes his own infusions and is always tweaking the classics, I decided to skip the house specialty, The Ladykiller (invented at the Kronnenhalle Bar), and go off menu. I asked for a Sazerac. Switzerland is the home of absinthe after all. This turned out to be one the bartender hadn't tried for a while, so we were treated to an series of experiments, none of which he charged us for, because he felt none really hit the mark. The real fun though was getting to share in the process, geeking out on which rye is better, which bitters works best. Inventive and experimental. A bartender who likes a challenge. If you want a great cocktail in Zuri, this is the place.

2. Widder Bar. I admit it. The Widder was number one in my heart for a long time. Mainly because of the whisky. That's right. I mean the no 'e' whisky, the good stuff from Scotland. The single malt list (actually a small book) has to be seen to be believed. Even better, there are two-decaliter pours available, so you can try some insanely old, insanely good whiskys without breaking the bank.

But the Widder has cocktails too, including whisky cocktails like the Blood and Sand and the Foreign Correspondent. Don't you just love cocktail names? The list is long and inventive, the bartenders professional. In fact, sit at the bar and you can do some real cocktail geeking out here too, comparing the qualities various gins for slings versus martinis, for example

The Widder has the added bonus of live entertainment of the kitchiest kind. Some nights there is real jazz, but most nights it's just a guy with a keyboard and drum machine crooning something like The Girl from Ipanema. How cool is that?

3. LaSalle Bar. We made this happy discovery while at a concert in Moods, also located in the Schiffbau in Züri West. The space is clean and modern, with a large glass wall overlooking the Restaurant LaSalle; the tunes are cool; and the vibe is relaxed. The drinks are excellent, with the classics well represented. The Mai-Tais went down a treat during intermission. Capiriñhas? Also great. Plus, there's outdoor seating for summer nights.

4. Terrasse Bar. We love this place as a stop on the way home for a night cap. On a hot, summer night the outdoor tables along the Limmatquai are best. Inside is a high-ceilinged space with comfortabe seating and smple decor. Nothing to distract from the drinks. I like the classic daquirirs here, but the cocktail list is long and has something for everyone.

5. Onyx Bar. The bar is inside of the Park Hyatt Hotel in central Zürich and has a hip see-and-be-seen atmosphere during the early evening/apero period. If competitive posturing is not your scene, you can still enjoy the excellent drinks by arriving a little later and sitting at the bar. The cocktails can't be faulted. The awesome Capiriñhas? Perfect with that Cuban cigar. Oh yeah. The whole space has been turned into a fumoir now that the smoking ban is in effect. That's why this one is down at number five now. But, hey, it's still an awesome bar.

There are probably over a thousand bars in Zürich: dive bars, neighborhood bars, swank uptown bars, wine bars, pubs. You can enjoy a decent cocktail at a neighborhood bar like the Bederbar (one of our new faves) or get your drink on at a dive-y bar like the Totalbar (popular with the denizens of a certain tech company).The Top Five above represent the best we've found so far for cocktails, but there's still lots more to try. What's your favorite?

Story and Reporting by Kathy and Tylonbrew
Photos by Tylonbrew

A Walk in the Woods: Rehalp to Küsnacht

2010-08-03T14:45:00.003+02:00

One of the best things about living here is the hiking. The scenery is always beautiful; the trails are exceptionally well maintained; and there are often a couple of restaurants or cafés for stops along the way.

It's also a very Swiss activity––hiking is a Swiss national pasttime––and it's one of the few Swiss outdoor activities that I participate in, even if Swiss octogenarians can easily outpace me. I love the way getting on the trail (or wanderweg) almost immediately takes you out of the hustle-bustle of the city. Before long the omnipresent construction noises of the city fall away and you're spotting wildlife: raptors, deer, foxes and, of course, cows.

Close to home we can choose from the lakeside, Zürich's home mountain, Uetliberg, and the Zürichsee-Rundweg, a series of trails that encircle the lake. On most weekends we pick one of these routes. A couple of Sundays ago, it was cool and a little cloudy but no longer raining, so it seemed like the perfect time to try another leg of the Zürichsee-Rundweg.

This time we were feeling lazy and started from Rehalp, which can be easily reached by the S18 train or the number 11 tram. From Rehalp, the trail is already at about 500 meters and there's not much elevation change until the steep, stair-stepped descent into the Küsnachter Tobel (or Küsnacht Ravine), making this one of the easiest legs of the entire route.

Like most trails in Switzerland, this one is beautifully maintained, and like most it also offers it's own little quirks and pleasures. One of my favorites is the fields of selber schneiden (or self cut) flowers. Not only are the fields covered in lilies, sunflowers, and dahlias beautiful, but the whole thing is such a lovely example of the Swiss principle of trust. At stations around the field, garden shears are provided as well as a basket for unwanted trimmings. Just take your cuttings and leave the payment in the box provided. It's all on the honor system.

This Zürich-Küsnacht leg of the Rundweg is mostly forested, occasionally opening up to a panoramic view of the lake and mountains. For most of the route, however, trees block the sun and breathe out cool oxygen, making this a wonderful hide-out on a hot day.

Along the way, there are a several places set up for grilling (Grillplätze)––grilling along side the trail is also a Swiss national passion. A full picnic area, including grills can be found beside the Schübelweiher Pond and another inside the forest, just north of the climb down into the Küsnachter Tobel.

Even though this leg of the trail is short, taking less than two hours (including our frequent stops to snap photos), it still offers a great way to relax and recharge before the rush and worry of the work week return. Hiking really is one of the best things about living here.

Story by Kathy
Photos by Tylonbrew

Summer Afternoon on Lake Zürich

2010-07-20T11:15:00.000+02:00

Summer in Zürich is all about the lake. You can walk (or cycle) along it, watch a movie by it, enjoy an apero while looking at it, sail (or paddle) over it, and of course swim in it.

But on a sleepy Saturday morning the best choice is a ride on a lake boat. Find a spot on the deck, settle in, take in the view, and just chill. Food and drink are optional, although the crowd of white-haired diners in second class seemed to feel otherwise as they attacked their lunches with gusto.

This Saturday we took the boat all the way to Rapperswil (we were headed to the British Cheese event at the Rappi Bier Factory), and the ride was absolutely perfect. The hum of the engine, the water sliding by, the pretty shore all made for a gentle glide upwards to full alertness by the time we reached Rapperswil.

Along the way we passed a sailboat regatta. (Pause for general boat envy and then to take some snaps. Because the boats are very pretty.) We then passed the Halbinsel Au and later Insel Ufenau, both of which looked worthy of active exploration on a later trip.

The big payoff is arriving in Rappi by water. The view of the medieval town–with its huge gray schloss (castle) rising above it and the monastery walls dressing its shore–is picture postcard perfect. Ashore, the waterfront is lovely, crowded with terraced restaurants overlooking the tiny marina. One jetty lined with plane trees looked like the perfect summer place to sit and relax with a book.

We might have lingered and wandered a bit through the twisty streets of the old center. Instead, eager for a Ploughman's lunch, we followed the Seestrasse through the old town and into the new, all the way to the old arsenal where the Rappi Bier Factory stands.

I'm sorry to report that we never did get our lunch. The crowds waiting for theirs at the Bier Factory were just too thick. We did get to drink a lovely Rappi stout and to meet two congenial expats. But it was Saturday and having refused to give over any time on Friday afternoon or Saturday morning in preparation for the weekly sabbath, we were forced to rush back to Zürich in order to hit the grocery store right before the 6:00 closing time.

Perhaps next week, we'll take a boat to Ufenau, or to Rapperswil again. Maybe Richterswil? Or we could just take a round trip tour. It's all about the lake.

Story by Kathy
Photos by Tylonbrew

Get Your Tickets Now: Orange Cinema is Back!

2010-07-12T13:34:00.000+02:00

What's better than a summer movie? Watching it by the lake, of course. Every summer Zürich screens premiers and summer blockbusters outdoors by the Zürichsee. Movies range from classics like Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times to summer fluff like Sex and the City 2 to weightier fare like Dessert Flower.

It's called Orange Cinema and it's a great way to while away the hours in the cool(er) evening air.

The doors at the Zürichhorn open a couple of hours before the screening so that you can take full advantage of the drinks and snacks provided by vendors like Hiltil and Vinothek Brancaia. Your ticket also includes a free ice cream cone.

Tickets went on sale on the 6th and are selling out fast, so don't delay. Many shows are already sold out. Tickets are available online or at Orange Cinema ticket stands around town.

See you at the pictures!

Story by Kathy
Photo http://www.orangecinema.ch/

Züri Fäscht!

2010-07-06T10:31:00.000+02:00

It only happens every three years, but it lasts for three days. It's big, it's loud, and it's all about summer fun along the lake. It's Züri Fäscht.

The streets along the lakeside from China Garten to Mythenquai and along the river up to the Bahnhofbrücke are closed and the entire area is transformed into a giant carnival. There are classic concessions offering everything from rides to games, food stands serving street food from roast pig to pizza, and bar tents pouring summer drinks from capirinhas to mojitos. Plus over 60 stages for live acts and DJ shows. And watersport competitions like dragonboat races, diving, and (cable) wakeboarding. And there are the fireworks. Two nights of fireworks. With music These were some of the best fireworks I've ever seen, and on these two windless nights all of the patterns set perfectly.

It's like Mardi Gras, the state fair, and July 4 rolled into one. It's brash and it's kinda cheesey. And it's a lot of fun.

It's actually almost too much fun, and we took it in small doses. Friday night fireworks were followed by Saturday's bright, hot weather, which was perfect for a stroll up to the cable-wakeboard event. We stopped along the way for capirinhas. Yum. And then fireworks again on Saturday night. Beautiful.

Story by Kathy
Photos by tylonbrew

Buenos Aires in Züri!

2010-07-04T17:14:00.000+02:00

Combine a warm summer Züri evening with the nuevo tango beats of the Gotan Project and for a few hours you'll be transported to Buenos Aires. When Gotan came to the Volkshaus this past week, even the normally shy Swiss crowd couldn't help but sashay and sway a little to the music.

I stumbled across the Gotan Project eight years ago in a collection of remixed jazz classics put out by Verve (Verve Remixed Volume 2). The Gotans (a jumble of the word tango called a Vesre that is very common in Lunfardo, a dialect of Rioplatense Spanish) had done a remix of Whatever Lola Wants and I found the combination of Sarah Vaughan's vocals with a deep dub groove and the mystery of the bandoleone absolutely mesmerizing. And addictive–I went on a mad search for anything I could find from this band and impatiently waited for every new release. Having missed their stop in Seattle a few years ago, and then listening to their Live double-CD release (part of which was recorded at a music festival in Switzerland), I despaired of ever being able to see them live. This past Wednesday, the despair ended.

I think the combination of various trip-hop, dub and house rhythms and the romantic, tragic and absolutely heart-rending tones of tango makes a combination that moves you in the soul and in the seat. You've more than likely already heard their music–the beat and tango combo is used in a lot of advertisements now to communicate sophistication and quality (especially Epoca).

The Gotan Project combined their impressive stage presence–dressed in 1930s deco-esque pinstripe suits, fedoras, and two-tone oxfords–with a multimedia presentation of various film pieces and homages to classic Spanish directors with perfect effect. There was a seamless collaboration with the rappers Koxmoz on film with the live band in Mi Confesion. Then a strange and haunting game of chance with a woman with a stag's head on the big screen while the band played their mysterious soundtrack. Add the masterful light show and that, my friends, is entertainment. It was an especially joyful moment when Christopher Müller, keyboardist and electro-wizard of the band, shouted "Grüezi, mittenand!" and welcomed the crowd in his native Schweizerduetsch–a surprise to many, including me. (The seminal members of the band are Philippe Cohen Salal of France, and Eduardo Makaroff from Argetina, along with Müller.)

The band is touring their newest release, Tango 3.0, and the band managed to include a number of the tunes from this release in the play list. One of the more memorable tunes of the evening was a medley of Panamericana–almost US western but with a distinct pampas flavor–and the smooth incorporation of Triptico from their earlier La Revancha Del Tango album. This is not your average soulless techno, or the mostly boring acid jazz that dominates many of the categories that Gotan might fall into. Rather the band has created a whole new genre in electronic tango or "electro-tango," and while there are other dabblers in the mix–Dr. Rockit, Tchen Tchen, Akimov–Gotan Project has defined the boundaries and filled them up with an original, emotional, danceable and totally satisfying form of music.

If you were there in the Volkshaus Wednesday night, it was a huge pleasure to share one of my favorite bands with you. If you couldn't be there, you owe it to yourself to grab a dance partner, a bottle of Argentine Malbec, turn down the lights and put on a copy of the Gotan Project Live double CD. It's OK if you cry a little, it's tango.

Partial playlist - not in order

Diferente
Lunatico
La Viguela
Criminal
Arrabal
Mi Confesion
Queremos Paz
Epoca
Santa María (Del Buen Ayre) (Live)
Nocturna
Tango Square
Panamericana
Amor Portno
Sola
Vuelvo Al Sur

Story and photos by tylonbrew

You Say Luxemburgerli, I Say Macaron

2010-06-22T17:19:00.000+02:00

I remember falling in love with the macarons at Ladurée in Paris. These ethereal cookies made with a layer of ganache sandwiched between two almond meringues are magic. I'd never had anything like them before.

When we moved to Zürich I was thrilled to see that there was a local version called Luxemburgerli available at the landmark confiserie Sprüngli. On our first visit to the city I made a beeline for the shop on Paradeplatz just to try these little delights. I liked them, but they were not the really the same thing. A drier shell and a sweeter, heavier ganache. Good but not magic.

Since then I've tried the ones at Péclard, which took over the venerable Café Schober in the Niederdorf and based its macaron recipe (and its chocolat chaud) on Ladurée's. And last year Ladurée itself opened an outpost in the Old Town as well. More recently I tried Vollenweider's macarons and was very pleased that they were good enough to convert some naysayers who had previously just tried Sprüngli's version.

With four possible versions to choose from in Zürich, it seemed like it was time for a taste test. I got a sample from each shop and tasted the chocolate from each and then the pistachio from the best two as a tie breaker. In the end, the winner was still Ladurée with Vollenweider a very close second, followed by Péclard, and then Sprüngli.

They're all lovely little treats, and I love to give them as gifts, especially since they all come so beautifully packaged in tiny little boxes. It's just fun to order them and watch the selection be put together and wrapped.

My tasting notes are below, but half the fun is really in trying them yourself. The shops are all fairly close together and the walk will at least partly make up for indulgence. Give it a try. Which one is your favorite?

Tasting Notes.
Ladurée. The meringue shell is delicate, almost ethereal, but it holds together against the chewy inner meringue and has a light but distinctive egg-y note, while the ganache is not as dense as the Swiss versions. The cookie is also not as sweet as the Swiss versions. The three elements (meringue shell, inner meringue, and ganache) are perfectly balanced. The pistache was perfection, with the nutty creamy filling beating all competitors. One quibble: the chocolate macaron I got was not as perfectly fresh as it should have been.

Vollenweider. Much smaller than Ladurée's (more the size of Sprüngli's Luxemburgerli), the balance between shell and inner meringue is not quite as perfect as Ladurée's but still quite good. The ganache layer is also thicker and denser. Vollenweider's macarons are basically a perfected version of Sprüngli's. A delicate shell but not too dry or too sweet. The pistachio was every bit as good as Ladurée's.

Péclard. Since this shop has intentionally followed Laduree's style, I really expected it to win. The balance of the meringue shell and inner chewy meringue was as good but the ganache layer was too thin and quite a bit sweeter. Points off also for kelly green as a color for the pistachio macarons.

Sprüngli. These are the sweetest of the four, almost sugary. The cookie shell is quite dry and basically shatters into crumbles on the first bite. The ganache filling is relatively thick. I do like the tiny size of these, which allows more than one to be sampled without inducing sugar shock.

Story and photos by Kathy

Schoggi Mail!

2010-06-21T12:26:00.001+02:00

You gotta love a country, where the post office sells chocolate bars already ready wrapped with address blanks for mailing. They're called Schoggi Mail and they're in the greeting card rack at the local Swiss Post office. Excellent!

Story by Kathy
Photo by Kathy

Watching the Swiss: New Essential Expat Reading

2010-06-20T16:02:00.002+02:00

We wanted to move to Europe for a long time. Instead we moved to Switzerland, an odd little corner of not-quite-Europe, deceptively located in the middle of Europe. We kept thinking it would be like moving to France or Italy or Germany. But it wasn't.

Switzerland shares lots of traditions and (some of) its languages with its neighbors. But it's different here. Sometimes in little ways, like greetings or the almost obsessive punctuality of trains (and people). Sometimes in a bigger ways, like the Swiss practice of direct democracy or the oddity of a nation made up of so many different languages and traditions. The differences all add up to something that's a little hard to get hold of. What makes the Swiss, well, Swiss?

That's why I love the newly released Swiss Watching: Inside Europe's Landlocked Island, which explores the difficult-to-grasp intangible of Swissness. In an engaging and witty voice, expat author Diccon Bewes moves from the formative impact of a geography of mountain barriers and critical passes, to the history of Switzerland's emerging identity in the face of repeated invasions and threats of invasion from surrounding empires, to the creation of the modern, decentralized federal state. Against this history, Bewes suggests that "it's the myth of Switzerland, be that Tell or Heidi or the wartime experience, that is as important as the reality." If all nations are imagined, then surely Switzerland stands out in its self-conscious willingness to co opt the best available images to fuel national unity coupled to its simultaneous reluctance to impose uniformity on that unity.

The book is structured against the clichés that mark the limits of most outsiders' knowledge of Switzerland. In the process, Bewes turns these old stereotypes inside out, from cuckoo clocks to chocolate to hyper-clean cities. He also upends the stereotype of the Swiss banker and banking secrecy, a big issue for Swiss foreign relations of late, arguing persuasively that the Swiss make a distinction between privacy and secrecy and that this distinction emerges from core Swiss organizing principle of trust. The Swiss simply assume that others will do the right thing and that means that without some clear sign of rule-breaking there should be no need to intrude on individual privacy. It's not a concept that translates well beyond Switzerland's borders.

The book is also structured so that it can be read not just as an introduction to Swiss history and culture but also as an excellent guide to everyday life in Switzerland. The numbered Swiss Watching Tips are especially helpful in highlighting the pitfalls of Swiss social life (and how to avoid them), such as No. 1 on proper greeting etiquette at parties, something I utterly failed to get right at the last party I attended. (At least I realized immediately where I had gone wrong.) Be sure to also check out tip No. 8 (The Perfect Guest) and No. 9 (Table Manners) before heading to your next dinner with Swiss friends or colleagues.

If you're planning to visit or move to Switzerland, or even if you've been here a while, Swiss Watching is essential reading. Bewes is touring the book in the UK now and in Switzerland this Fall. But why wait? Get your copy now.

Story by Kathy
Photo by tylonbrew

Remembering the Sun

2010-06-18T13:49:00.000+02:00

I'm remembering the first June weekend, when it was so hot and sunny that we just stopped and stuck our feet in the lake for some relief.

The sun will come back. Maybe not until July. But it will. And then it will be all about the boats, the badi, sunbathing and sunset strolls. Until then.

Story and photos by Kathy

New World Magic: BFE at Moods

2010-06-17T18:29:00.000+02:00

Last Tuesday a very lucky, very smart crowd of about 200 got to jump and shout and dance with Brooklyn Funk Essentials at Moods im Schiffbau.

And dance we did, start to the finish. This was the dancing-est crowd I've ever seen at a Zürich show, and no wonder with songs to make you move like the opening Make Them Like It and Mambo Con Dancehall though to the finale Kick It/Wanna Take You Higher and in between with songs like the mad, frenetic ska of Dibby Dibby Sound off the 2008 album, Watcha Playin'.

I Got Cash also got in the mix, although we were some of the only ones who seemed to recognize this scathing indictment of yuppie pretensions. Interestingly the final verse was cut, as well as my favorite one: consumption as multiculturalism (And on Wednesday, Caribbean. Not too spicy, please.)

The groove, the musicianship, the energy: it was New World magic. And the tiny venue was the perfect place to experience it. Just us and the lucky few.

Story by Kathy
Photos by tylonbrew

A Walk on Cap Ferrat

2010-06-08T13:31:00.002+02:00

We had this idea to see the Riviera our way. We would find a space in between shiny, mega-wealth and package tour grind. We succeeded, mostly by not doing much at all.

On the last day, however, this seemed wrong-headed. We should take a long walk and see something, we thought. We should go out to real a restaurant. We should do both. That's how we ended up walking halfway around Cap Ferrat, from the start of the path just at the edge of Beaulieu to the lighthouse at the tip of the cape.

The Cap is peppered with villas of the wealthy and the famous. (Ooohh! Look! David Niven's villa. Did you know it belonged to Charlie Chaplin?) After a long absence the Russians are back too, spending time at the Royal Riviera Hotel.

Oddly democratic, a public path winds along the Cap just above the shore, passing at one point though the front drive of a grand private villa. Up to and through the chi-chi little village of St Jean Cap Ferrat, the path is paved and quite lovely. The scent of honeysuckle and oleander perfumes the way. It's an easy walk with a bit of company from others out for a bit of exercise.

After the village, however, the paved path disappears as it passes through what appears to be a construction dump. The pavement picks up again shortly, but now it runs well below the level of the villas. Suddenly it feels a little less democratic. We start to feel like intruders sneaking below the walled villas looming over us at the top of the ridge. Happily, this section is short as well, and soon we started to climb as the path twists through the tumble of jagged black and white rocks that form the point.

The point is just spectacular and the climb invigorating. Perversely we had chosen a humid, windless, and overcast day for this walk, so the horizon was limited. But it was still beautiful. It would have made a great picnic spot, but we had other plans.

web-provence.com

We headed up and around the lighthouse and inland toward the Grand Hotel du Cap Ferrat, arriving just a few minutes before our lunch reservation. We paused outside the gate to catch our breath and cool off, taking in the passing scene of various service vehicles going in and out of the surrounding villas. I was a little intimidated by the prospect of entering the grand lobby, as I was sporting Freitag not Ferragamo. But come on, this was going to be worth it.

The hotel was completely renovated and reopened in 2009, while the restaurant reopened this year, earning a Michelin star under chef Didier Anies. We were booked for La Veranda, so that we could enjoy a little haute cuisine at the relative good-deal price of the midday menu along with a view.

I'm glad we did. The meal was one of the highlights of the trip. The food was so good that I failed to take any notes, but I can say that the sea bass was perfectly grilled, the potatoes fondant sinfully good and the suggested white wine from Porquerolles was a great pairing and had a really intriguing bitter orange note on the finish.

The service was flawless, from the wine suggestions to the proffered stool for my bag. (Yes, my Freitag bag made out of recycled truck tarps sat proudly and delicately on its own little throne.) We enjoyed, we dawdled, we had a digestive and then a coffee. It was a very nice day at the beach.

Photo Grand Hotel du Cap Ferat

Story by Kathy
Photos by tylonbrew except where otherwise noted

Saturday at the Oerlikon Market

2010-06-07T16:00:00.001+02:00

Saturday was one of those days that make me fall in love with Zürich all over again. After a long rainy spell the sun had returned. Hurrah! Even better, we were headed to the Oerlikon to meet our guide to the farmers' market, Jack McNulty from Laughing Lemon.

The market was huge, bursting with gorgeous produce, and as we walked Jack kept a running commentary going about the vendors and the products, as well as offering with great recipes to try. We learned loads of practical things: the best time to arrive at the market is between 8:00 and 9:00; the best butcher, fish monger, and bakers; which are the best produce stands; which things are in season now and which are coming soon, how to find good stuff from Italy, and how to identify who is selling products from their own farm (look for the word "eigener"on the price card).

But I also got a better understanding of Swiss food culture, something that has really puzzled me since got here. I had been told that Swiss prefer fresh, seasonal, and local products. You can see this easily enough in the supermarkets, where in-season, local produce is prominently displayed. At the same time supermarkets are part of a gloabalized supply chain offering (relatively) cheap prices on out-of-season foods from distant lands (potatoes from Isreal, green beans from Morocco, strawberries from Spain). They also work hard to market the exotic, two-packs of sweet corn from Florida being a particularly absurd example from COOP this week.

But standing in a section of the Oerlikon market filled with potted herbs and other plants I realized that supermarkets tell us more about the economics of the food business than Swiss cuisine. Like so many restaurants in Zürich, which offer style over substance and sociability over fine food, supermarkets serve a specific purpose: convenience. It all clicked while listening to Jack explain how potted plants are big now that the much delayed Spring has finally arrived. People are filing their balcony planters with herbs and planting their garden allotments.

Good food is very much a DIY project here. People grow their own; they visit farms where they can pick their own vegetables; they pickle, can and preserve; and above all they shop at the farmers' market.

And shop we did. We bought gorgeous, peppery rocket (rucola), new potatoes, and cherry tomatoes. Those went into a salade composée topped with thin-sliced, grilled steak. We bought super fresh asparagus and smokey Kochspeck. That was for a pizza. And we got eggs from the farmer along with some pecorino stagionato in fossa, which made for a great omelette topped with this crumbly sheep's milk cheese.

As much fun as the food was, we also loved how sociable the Saturday market was. Lots of smiles. The vendors were really relaxed and friendly. It was altogether a wonderful Saturday morning. Thank you, Jack!

Story by Kathy
Photos by tylonbrew

La Vie Quotidienne on the Riviera: To Market in Beaulieu

2010-06-02T10:30:00.000+02:00

We didn't have a car in Villefranche, which was good. But that meant we didn't have a car on the Riviera, which was bad. We realized this as we watched our long delayed bus to the next town roll by with a "Complet" (full) sign in the front window, leaving us just under an hour to get to market before it closed at noon. Too late to walk there now and potentially too late for a train, unless the trains run on time.... No, we thought, that's not really likely.

We decided to solve this whole transportation problem another day and headed back through town, foraging along the way. A green grocer offered some decent mesclun and new potatoes. Good. The tiny little Spar grocery store yielded some decent goat cheese and some great Provençal wines for 5-10 Euro. Wow. That is just unbelievably cheap after Züirch.

And then the boucherie. Cue choir of angels. The spit roasted chickens were just being pulled out of the roaster as we arrived right before noon. The tantalizing aroma said pick me, pick me. Clever butcher. That's a lunch (or two). For dinner, we chose a dry-aged, grass-fed entrecôte. Yum.

Note for future visits: The butcher just off the Place de la Paix is really, really, good. So is the baker just across the place.

All that foraging and we were back at the apartment by noon with plenty of time for lunch, a siesta, and ramble around town. Then an apero on our balcony. Then dinner (a perfect steak). The good life.

The next day we started early and caught the train to Beaulieu, which has a small daily farmer's market in addition to the big Saturday market. The train, by the way, was not a bad way to travel along the coast, although it did tend to run late (5-30 minutes). It actually does make the stretch from Nice to Ventimiglia pretty accessible without suffering the pain of Basse Corniche traffic.

The Beaulieu market, on the Place du Marché just up the from the train station, was small but wonderful. We got some green and cloudy olive oil, fresh broad beans, green beans, and cranberry beans, more mesclun, herbs, asparagus, some lumpy, bumpy lemons from Menton still on the stem, a small, ripe melon from the Var, and strawberries.

There are actually many great markets in the region, and the biggest are usually on Saturday. We're really looking forward to visiting the Cours Saleya market in Nice on our next trip and taking a market tour/cooking class with food writer Rosa Jackson.

Back at the apartment we realized we'd gotten a pretty odd assortment of products. What the heck. We put most of the vegetables together with some red rice from the Camargue and chorizo. A little weird but tasty. Provençal jambalaya, anyone?

Story by Kathy
Photos by tylonbrew

Best of Schwiizerdütsch

2010-06-01T10:01:00.001+02:00

One of the first things you learn about (standard) German is that this isn't what you'll hear on the streets of Zürich. That's because people here speak Schwiizerdütsch (Swiss German), not standard German. It's not easy to find references or textbooks to help you learn either. There are a few and some classes, but mostly you just have to learn as you go.

Pretty early on I got that Öpfel was Apfel (apple) and Chääs was Käse (cheese), but why did all the shopkeepers keep nagging me about an öpis? (I finally found out it was etwas, something, as in would I like something else.) I find I like the Swiss Velo more than the German Farhrrad for bicycle, and who doesn't like to cheerfully say Grüezi, Mittenand to a group fellow hikers on the Wanderweg?

But I know there are just tons words to learn, and lots of them have no obvious relation to standard German. That's why I was happy to see the results of the "Best of Schwiizerdütsch" vote. Brought to you by Swissboox, publishers of the Swiss German phrase book Chuchichäschtli, nominations for the 'Word of the Day' (Wort vom Tag) were taken and now the voting for the top 50 has begun. The voting is still in process, but you can already see the current result.

I don't speak Swiss German, so I am abstaining from the Abstimmen (vote), but here are my favorites so far.

Chrüsimüsi Durcheinander (chaos, clutter, muddle) This perfectly describes the current state of my home office.
füdliblutt splitternackt (stark naked) There is a notable minority of hikers in Switzerland who prefer to hike the trails in the buff, which is kind of charming in a weird way. (They do wear boots, however). The folks in Apenzell Inner-Rhodes don't think it's charming and banned it in 2009. One of füdliblutt hikers was recently acquitted in an Apenzell Outer-Rhodes court.
He? wie bitte? (What? Implies you didn't hear or didn't understand something.) Now that's useful, because that happens to me all the time. I'm not sure what the difference between He? and the separately nominated Hä (was or what) is though.

What's your favorite Swiss German word?

La Vie Quotidienne in Villefranche sur Mer

2010-05-31T08:32:00.005+02:00

Seven bells ring very loud and close. Then three bells and a pause. Three more. Then seven bells again. We wake up reluctantly but completely. Earlier we heard the sound of running steps and the repetitive swish-slash of a broom vigorously employed just below our window. French voices echo off the stone walls now. The village of Villefranche sur Mer is waking up around us.

I head up a few steps and across the Place de la Paix to the boulangerie for a couple of croissants and a baguette, while Tony makes coffee. Madam accepts my 50 Euro bill and makes change with only the slightest grimace. Clearly she's used to the idiocy of tourists who offer large bills for tiny purchases.*

Back at the apartment we open the wooden shutters and floor-to-ceiling windows wide to let in the morning light. We look out from the balcony over rooftops and down to the water. The croissants are excellent. The baguette is heavenly.

Our apartment sits near the top of the Old Town, a jumble of 15th century buildings: ocher, pink, yellow and green walls topped by red, tiled roofs line the stepped cobbled streets that climb from the harbor to the Basse Corniche above. The apartment itself, Le Beau Balcon, is newly renovated and is a perfect mix of comfort and style: white washed walls hung with paintings by local artists, cool tile floors, the big comfy couch in the living room is set off by antique pieces. There is no shabby in the chic here.

Maybe we can just spend the day here, moving between the sunny balcony and the cool interior?

Like tourists for the past two hundred years, we're here to soak up the sun and relax. We want to revel in the light and color of this place. We want to sample the region's wine and food. Take a stroll. Take a few photos (paint the picturesque).

We began on our first night with an apero at the wine bar at the Hotel Welcome on the waterfront. We sink into the deep comfortable chairs on the covered terrace and sample a glass of rosé or three. It is a couple of hours before sunset and prime people watching time. All shapes and sizes pass by, on foot and on motorcycle, in big, shiny luxury cars and in dusty-rusty economy cars. Cruise ship lemmings returning from shore leave are packed onto shuttle boats to be carried back to their just desserts.

In fact, visitors here are more likely to arrive by cruise ship than mega-yacht. Happily, most of the cruise-shippers head immediately to Monaco and Nice.** A little boho, a little middle-brow, Villefranche is better known for artists like Jean Cocteau (whose bust stands outside the waterfront chapel that he frescoed in 1957) than for the glitterati. Billionaire and mega-celeb spotting is best pursued in Cannes and Monaco, not Villefranche.

That suits us fine, as we're more in the mood for a good meal than a good gawk. We head to Le Cosmo for dinner, which is reputed to be a locals hangout, although it seemed to be just us tourists that night. Despite an alarmingly large menu (pages and pages), the food turns out to be good. May is the season for lamb and the souris d'agneau turned out to be a great choice, especially with the Bandol rouge.

We trundle off for a waterfront stroll just as the sun sets. Lovely.

We turn to climb up the steps to our apartment. Oh my. Tall, irregular steps separated by sharply sloping landings twist up the hill. We're not the only ones struggling with the climb. We pass a gasping teenager, although the old ladies seem to manage well by taking it extremely slowly. I hit on the artful strategy of pausing on landings and turning to take in the view. At least there are no Swiss tourists, and we are spared the humiliation of watching them effortlessly bound up the steps ahead of us, chain-smoking and chatting the whole way.

Back at the apartment. Sigh of relief. Tomorrow we will continue with the small pleasures of daily life: the boulangerie, the boucherie, a bit of a walk, a trip to the farmer's market in the next town, a meal cooked for ourselves, a sunset stroll.

*We are not in Swtizerland anymore. Small bills and exact change are preferred here, and some shopkeepers will refuse large bills.

** If the mere sight of these floating monstrosities annoys, then it's probably best not to be in town on Friday or Monday, when the cruise ships arrive. The harbor is one of the deepest on the Riviera and that makes it the perfect spot for the big ships. The cruise ship tourists seem to appear only on the morning and evening as they are shuttled back and forth from excursions to Monaco and Nice. Most seem to skip Villefranche entirely.

Story by Kathy
Photos by tylonbrew and Kathy

Switzerland: Expat Retirement Haven?

2010-05-19T15:57:00.001+02:00

You might think it's too early to think about retirement, but I like to plan ahead. Actually my favorite part of planning is daydreaming about where we will retire. Back home in Seattle? A little slice of heaven on one of the Canadian Gulf Islands? The south of France? Or right here in our Alpine paradise?

Maybe I'm looking further afield than my hometown now that I've had "a taste of living abroad," as Kathleen Peddicord says in today's New York Times article,

Apparently I'm not alone in thinking about living our golden years overseas. According to the NYT article on Americans retiring overseas, top choices are clustered Latin America, especially Panama, Uruguay, and Argentina, where USD retirement accounts slashed by the economic crisis still have considerable buying power. In addition, many Latin American countries have fairly simple residency requirements. Malaysia and Croatia also make the top list for Americans retiring overseas for similar reasons.

Europeans look to Portugal and Eastern Europe to stretch their retirement Euro. However, the "more affluent retirees" like Switzerland, with its favorable tax climate (relative to EU and UK rates) and great health care services. We could also mention excellent public transportation, truly safe streets, and awesome natural beauty, as well as political and financial stability. Plus, keeping up with the sporty Swiss and their skiing/skating/curling/cycling/hiking ways, no doubt makes for a long and healthy old age.

Getting Swiss permanent residency is not as easy for Americans as it is for Europeans, but Bonnie Burns found a way, because she didn't want to live and retire anywhere else. She started her own business, got her residency, and even found that it's not as expensive to live here as you might think.

What do you think? Is Switzerland the perfect place to retire? Or is it paradise at too high a price?

Have you developed a taste for living abroad? What's the ideal place for you to retire? Will you live the expat life long after you've gone gray and started to think everyone under 20 looks like they're about 12 years old? Will you move back to (or stay in) your home country?

Story by Kathy
Photo by tylonbrew

The Garden of Wine, The Village of Wine

2010-05-17T09:19:00.004+02:00

One of the best things about living here is being able to make last-minute travel plans and in no time at all end up in a beautiful place.

This weekend the Caves Ouvertes was held in the Valais. I heard on the radio that the festivities included the Le Jardin des Vins in Sion and thought a stroll through a park filled with tented pavilions offering wines from over a dozen Valaisans winemakers sounded like a pretty good way to spend Friday afternoon, especially if the weather cooperated.

It did, just. As we pulled into Visp to make the change to Sierre and Sion, the clouds lifted to the tops of the closest hills and bits of blue sky shone. That was promising, and the rain continued to hold off as we dropped our bags and had lunch at our hotel in Sierre. Didier Courten's brasserie and wine list did not disappoint, and we were in a mellow mood as we headed off to Sion.

Standing in a temporary patch of sun just outside of Sion, we could see a rain shower on a distant hillside, but it never came any closer. Good thing. Thanks to some faulty research on my part, we decided to walk from the train station to the event, which was held at the Domaine des Iles and which is actually closer to the airport than downtown. My route led us through a industrial area filled with commercial warehouses and then along busy roads paralleling the highway, with a brief detour that dead-ended at a locked airport gate thrown in for fun.

On the way we saw a little trolley bus roll along the road ahead and realized that this must be the shuttle to and from the event. It turns out we could have taken this little navette bus to and from the train station or Manor in downtown Sion for free. We did take it back into town, sitting behind a happily inebriated group who waved and shouted at various passersby.

Late in the day and after a big lunch, we weren't tasting wine like the pros, but we did get our 20 Francs worth of wine, plus a nice souvenir tasting glass. We found wines both weird and wonderful, ranging from an unfortunate Dôle Blanche with a prominent banana aroma to a sexy Humagne Rouge with earthy animal notes backed by yummy black cherry.

All too soon it was time to head back to Sierre and the Chateau de Villa for dinner, where we had what may be the best fondue we've had so far in Switzerland. The place is famous for it's raclette, so we hope to return for that in the Winter.

The Chateau also has the Oenotheque, which offers a rotating list 8 wines by the glass and has an amazingly comprehensive selection of Valaisans wines by the bottle. We discovered this place last year, and it was my fallback plan in case the weather was too ugly for the outdoor festival in Sion.

Next day we had one more treat. It was market day in Sierre's old town, complete with acrobats and musicians, performing in honor of the holiday (Ascension). We sampled the saucisson (cheval fumé and beef with fennel), bought some dense Valaisan bread, and also found an artisanal chocolate shop offering the most amazing nougat. Lovely.

I'm glad we have so many reasons to return to Sierre. Great restaurants, a charming downtown, and oh so many more wines to taste. But there is also the Chemin du Vignoble, and we hope to cover the section from Sierre to Leuk on our next visit. Weather permitting, of course.

Story by Kathy
Photos by tylon

Tasting Swiss Wines with Laughing Lemon

2010-05-11T11:07:00.003+02:00

I Love Swiss Wine
Swiss wine? That's that watery plonk in the screw cap bottles, isn't it? No, not exactly. There is plenty of plonk around, but there are also good, even great, Swiss wines. Some of them even come with screw caps. Okay, I've been saying for a while that I love Swiss wine, but don't take my word for it. Just ask Silvia at Laughing Lemon.

Silvia, who handles all things vinous at Laughing Lemon, teaches Introducing Swiss Wines. She has done everything from working the grape harvest at fifteen, to getting her Level V diploma from WSET, to working her own row of vines in Landquart and bottling its product. Silvia definitely knows her stuff when it comes to wine, and she loves Swiss wine.

Rule Number 1: Get to to Know the Producer
Silvia talked about the "beauty and shyness" of Swiss wines, describing them as wearing "no make-up" (which reminded me a bit of of what I like about Burgundies), and she emphasized rule number one: when it comes to finding good Swiss wine, you have to get to know the producers. Nothing on the label (including the AOC designation) will tell you as much about the quality of a Swiss wine as the producer's name.

But how do you find which producers you like? The class itself is a great start, and I now know a couple of producers I'll look for in the future, including Château D'Auvernier for Oeil de Perdrix and Mauler for sparkling, both from Neuchâtel. We also got some recommendations on good wine stores in Zürich (yeah!). Silvia recommended buying directly from wineries, which is how most wine is sold in Switzerland. Many are open at least once a week and there are also "Open Cellar" events. Regional festivals like the Zürcher wine festival in Meilan are another great option.

Clearly, finding the best wine producers takes some work. But you can often bike or hike to the wineries. You get to feel all righteously healthy while indulging. How fun is that?

Lots of Fun and Lots to Learn
The class was absolutely packed with information, with something for everyone, whether you're a wine novice or a wine geek. As we tasted our way through eight wines, the thing that impressed me most was how getting to know the producers (and the wines) makes it possible to find great Swiss wines at really reasonable prices. I had pretty much reconciled myself to paying about 25 CHF for a decent wine, but now I'm inspired to keep searching out these great buys.

We also learned fun facts such as how the typically acidity-averse Swiss palate shaped wine-making styles here, why Swiss wines are relatively more expensive (good ones averaging 22-26 CHF) than many imports, and why Riesling X Sylvaner should be called Müller Thurgau, even though it isn't here in the CH.

The class ended with a gorgeous spread of traditional Swiss foods, fresh from the market and prepared by Jack, including a wonderful, local goat cheese, the ever-popular Bündnerfleisch, and a totally unexpected water-buffalo wurst.

Good food, good wine, good company, a little dash of inspiration and lots of learning equals big fun. I'm already looking forward to my next Laughing Lemon class.

Are the Swiss Happy? (Part II)

2010-05-06T07:37:00.000+02:00

At the end of Part I, I suggested that there was more to the story of Swiss happiness. Weiner's key factors (trust, envy, nature) are tied not only to happiness but also to some serious potential unhappiness.

Heimatort
Weiner emphasizes the importance of place for the Swiss. In fact, I think that trusting others, controlling envy, and a love of nature grow out of a Swiss sense of place, a sense of belonging to a specific place and community, and this is actually what secures happiness in Switzerland.

Heimatort, one's ancestral community, has a powerful cultural salience that carries over to the structural significance of one's community of residence or Gemeinde. These place-identities are reinforced as in-group identities in German-speaking Switzerland by the use of dialect, with each region or even community speaking its own variant.

Insiders and Outsiders
But if some are inside the small community, that means others are outside, lots of others. Not exactly a recipe for national cohesion or even, perhaps, happiness. The modern Swiss political genius, according to Jonathan Steinberg, has been to encapsulate difference and represent it in the political process, allowing different groups to flourish while living side-by-side.

There's one group, however, that can't be represented in the political process, can't be easily encapsulated and merged into the social fabric: immigrants. They have no Heimatort here, no community of identity with their Swiss neighbors. Perhaps it's because they aren't predictable. (Who knows how people behave where they come from?) Maybe that's why they seem somehow less trustworthy.

It is actually fairly common here to explain someone not hewing to the norm, making noise late at night for example, by saying that they are foreign. Absurdly enough, I've said it myself when confronted with a beer bottle left at my gate or noisy neighbors.

It's not that all Swiss are xenophobic (they aren't) or that individual immigrants never successfully integrate into their communities (they do), it's just that foreigners as a group just don't quite fit comfortably in Swiss society. They don't have a place.

Changing Circumstances

Circumstances matter, and a vague uneasiness about immigrants can sharpen into fear and resentment. It seems we may be in the midst of just these kind of circumstances.

According to a survey commissioned by Beobachter, the Swiss middle class is in trouble, especially the lower middle class. The cost of living, particularly rents and health insurance premiums, have rapidly outpaced salaries. 38% of middle-class families (45% of lower middle-class families) have nothing left over for savings at the end of the month and are living from paycheck to paycheck. More women have taken on part-time work and families are willing to consider limiting family size in order to maintain their standard of living. As the article suggests, it's the classic middle-class, background anxiety about losing one's class status.

At the same time the percentage of foreign residents is large and growing (over 20% of the Swiss population in 2008). In addition, the majority make-up of the immigrant population has shifted from low-skill refugees from outside of the EU who have historically taken low-wage jobs to highly skilled, highly educated EU citizens.

Beobachter suggests that a "fear of the free movement of persons" (of EU immigrants) has seized the middle class, and this is "politically explosive." The SVP has quite explicitly capitalized on this fear, perhaps also helping to inflame it in the process, in it's campaign against German immigration.*

Anxiety about immigration is highest amongst those feeling worst of the economic crunch, the lower middle class, although only 10% of the middle class a whole say they are concerned about their financial circumstances worsening in the next five years.

Ueli Mäder is less optimistic than the respondents and thinks that a trend toward increasing inequality is a real possibility. Certainly any rapid contraction of the middle class would mean a large group that was quite conscious of its loss, a certain recipe for social unrest.

Can Happiness Survive Change?
What does it mean for a society that is so strongly organized around place to make room for newcomers? How is social trust maintained if more and more people feel surrounded by (threatening) foreigners? How is envy contained if old ways of muting status (controlling envy) fall away in the midst of financial turmoil? Can (Swiss) happiness survive change?

*The Swiss are not alone in dealing with the challenges of immigration in tough times. Most of Europe and the US are facing the same issues. I have to say that so far the Swiss are managing immigration fears no worse than and probably much better than the US. The US has the advantage of its size as well as a pro-immigration ideology to call on (the melting pot) and still manages to pass some pretty awful laws.

Swiss Photo Award

2010-05-05T09:24:00.001+02:00

I had fun this morning looking through the online catalog of juried selections from the Swiss Photo Award. My goal today was to participate in the Ron Orp's Mail Community Award, voting for just one of the 18 series. Voting gives me a chance to win a free exhibition catalog and entrance ticket. Nice!

I'm having some difficulty choosing. As an American, Jonathan Heyer's America in Crisis, of course, leaps off the page for me. The image of a bereft Superman just works. But I also love the Swiss barn series, Wetterseite, from Patrik Fuchs, the images carrying unexpected emotional impact. The concept of capturing/critiquing change in contemporary Switzerland caught me, because change is the very topic that interests me most these days. I was nonplussed by the theatricality of Iraq in the American West, until I read the artist's description and understood that the series was set in staged Iraqi villages used for training US soldiers in California. The villages are populated by actual Iraqi immigrants. Okay. I get the whole Edward S. Curtis feel of the series now. And now I'm all creepified.

It's too hard to choose. Luckily I have until 14 May to decide on my pick for the Community Award.

The Opening and Awards Ceremony are this Friday night,7 May, and tickets may still be available at the door. Hedonist that I am, I'm off to a wine tasting seminar instead. Luckily the exhibit continues through the 16th. That means I still have a chance to balance all that vinous fun with the more cerebral pleasure of this exhibit.

Swiss Photo Award Exhibit 8-16 May, 12.00-20.00.
Entry 20 CHF
Selnaustrasse 25
8001 Zürich

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Are the Swiss Happy? (Part I)

2010-05-03T16:42:00.002+02:00

Are the Swiss happy? This may come as a surprise to North Americans, who judge happiness by the number of smiling faces, but according to Eric Weiner in the Geography of Bliss the dour-looking Swiss are indeed very happy.

Weiner points to three key factors that underpin Swiss happiness: love of nature, trust in others. and control of envy.

The Swiss are clearly avid outdoors enthusiasts, and Weiner points out that this gives them lots of chances to experience what E. O. Wilson calls biophilia, that feeling of happiness and peace engendered by being out in the natural world.

According to Weiner the Swiss also trust their fellows and are the happier for it. The level of trust here usually comes as a bit of a shock to North Americans. I was amazed and delighted the first time I ordered something online here and was able to pay for it after it arrived. I was less delighted but certainly amazed when my landlord suggested leaving a key with my neighbor as though it was the most natural thing in the world (It's not in big-city US.).

If the Swiss know and trust their neighbors, Weiner also suggests they avoid giving them cause for envy. Bragging about possessions or talking about money are considered unpleasant and ill-mannered.

I think there's a bit more to the story and I'll follow up in Part II, but I think Weiner is definitely on the right track.

Check out the World Database of Happiness results. What do you think? Are the Swiss happy? Are you happy? Does being Swiss (or not) have anything to do with it?