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Posts Tagged ‘Food’

Starbucks In Baden

29 Nov

Yes in fact hell has finally froze over and Baden now has a Starbucks.  The shop opened in the middle of November and is located in the train station building right on track one. There was some press for the opening, a small article in the local Baden newspaper, but besides that it has been quiet.

I was disappointed in the layout from what I say.  I guess I am used to these vast, expansive North American Starbucks shops where there are loads of comfy chairs where you can sit, enjoy a cup of joe, and maybe surf around on you mobile device thanks to free wifi.  What we have in Baden is yes indeed a Starbucks branded store, but the scale of the place is very European.

By that I mean I probably could have counted all the tables on my 10 fingers.  They do have some additional outdoor seating, but that is a bit useless at this time of year.  I just don’t image myself going to hang out for an hour or two in the Baden Starbucks, it’s just a bit small for my liking.

That said I did see a sign advertising some tasty looking holiday hot chocolate drinks.  Even if I don’t feel like hanging around the shop I think I’m still going to have to stop in for a hot chocolate to go and a little taste of home.

 

 
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Posted in Food

 

Roasting Chestnuts At Home

26 Nov

The Christmas season brings with it our local roasted chestnut vendor.  Every year there is an article in the paper about the elderly man, now in his 80s that sets up his stand on the main street in town for about 2 months starting in early November.  I do enjoy chestnuts and it is not uncommon for me to pick some up maybe once a week or so.

After watching him for so many years I decided it was time to give it a try at home.  We had made a charcoal fire for cooking dinner and I had purchased some chestnuts a few days before.  If seemed like a perfect chance.  I ended up using a metal basket for cooking vegetables on a grill for the roasting.  The basket turned out perfect, the chestnuts, well, they need some more work.

I have to admit they looked pretty, but I think I let them sit a bit too long in a sealed plastic bag.  The moisture from the nuts caused some strange stuff, probably mold to grow inside a few of the nuts.  Those were a very unpleasant surprise when I popped the first one in my mouth.  The nuts that were cooked well, and not gray inside were rather tasty.

The trick seems to be to ensure you have a good quality nut, and you keep it in a cool, dry place with lots of circulation.  Makes sense when the package the big bags of them in burlap, for air circulation I suppose.  I’ll have to give it one more shot before Christmas to see if I can improve my technique.

 
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Posted in Food

 

Fireworks Over the Castle

03 Aug

 

We had a great party and a great show for the first of August this year.  All to celebrate the 720th birthday of Switzerland.

Our annual party turned out to be one of the better ones this year.  So a run down of the ‘cultural contributions’ for our pot-luck buffet.

  • Miller Genuine Draft Beer (US)
  • EKB Beer (DE)
  • Swedish Meatballs (SE)
  • Salsa (US)
  • Banana bread muffins ( US)
  • Tortillas ( ES)
  • Watermelon ( US)
  • Sierra Nevada Beer (US)
  • Root Beer Floats (US)
  • Bison Grass Vodka ( PL)
  • Brownies (US)
  • Bread Pudding (UK)
  • Pretzels (DE)
  • Pear Schnapps (DE)

I am sure I am missing a few things.  In the end we had plenty of beer , and plenty of food and lots of fun.

 
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Posted in Festivals, Food

 

Old Food

19 Jul

Sometimes you just need to do some cleaning.  This Sunday was one of those days.  With a gray cloud hanging over Baden and what looked like rain that would never end we decided it was time to clean out some closets and the pantry.

We found some great stuff.  Meaning junk that just needed to be thrown away.  But the winner has to be a box of pasta salad mix that had an expiration date of 2003.  Wow, 8 years past it’s prime.

Thinking about it, I moved to Switzerland in 2006, so we must have shipped this across the ocean.  Even more scary is that kind of stuff usually has a long shelf life so I wouldn’t be surprised if I bought it in 2001 or 2002.

With time tastes change, so I was not disappointed to be chucking the pasta mix in the garbage.  There are still a few more cabinets to clean out.  I wonder what I’ll find in there.

 
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Posted in Food, Moving

 

6 Hour Hike and Ice Cream For Dinner

24 Apr

Banana Split For Dinner

We went for a hike yesterday with the intent of grilling a few sausages in the woods at one of the local fire pits.  We packed a couple of cervela sausages some potato chips, grapes, strawberries and a bottle of water.  We started our hike and about an hour in found the first of many grill locations along the way.  Unfortunately there was a disappointing sign waiting their to greet us.

Due to the fact that it hasn’t rained in a couple of week the local Kanton had banned open fires.  Darn.  While you can technically eat an uncooked cervela, I would say it is about as appetizing as eating a cold U.S. hotdog.  Yeah, if your in a tough spot of course you eat it, but me, I prefer mine cooked.

So plan B.  We decided to stop at a grill spot and wolf down all the other stuff, and agreed that we would head to the local berg resturant, which shouldn’t be do much farther along the trail.

Well, fast forward from our potato chip lunch about 4 hours and we finally reached the berg restaurant.  Tired hot and hunger, something to eat sounded.  While I could have easily had a nice schnitzel and pommes ice cream sounded better.  My wife and I both opted to have huge dishes of ice cream for dinner.  In my mind after 6 hours of hiking I felt like I deserved to have a 3 scoop banana split and not feel the least bit of shame.

It was darn good, at the price it should have been.  Where else in the world would you pay about 28 Francs (28 USD) for 2 large ice creams and a half liter of bottled water.  Sometimes the prices in this country still scare me.

 
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Posted in Daily Life, Food

 

Cleaning House At Manor

12 Feb

This week one day after work I ran over to the Manor Supermarket on my way home to grab something to eat.  I had about a hour before the store closed and thought that should be plenty of time to get a few items for a meal.  On the top of my list were a few items from the diary section.

Much to my surprise when I entered the store the entire dairy section was not there.  The shelves were completely empty.  There were employees scurrying everywhere throwing butter in one shopping cart and yogurt in the next.  There were others cleaning the shelves, and even others readjusting other shelves.

After about 30 seconds of observing the situation I realized first, I would not be getting my yogurt that day, second there were obviously in the process of restocking and arranging things, and finally the Swiss still have no concept of customer service.

Why in the world would you basically shut down about 20 percent of you entire shopping store at a prime shopping hour to clean shelves?  Not only does it surely impact sales, but it pisses customers off.  I saw more than one person including myself with a look of total disgust because of an apparent wasted trip since we weren’t going to get what we had come for.

I talked to a Swiss friend later in the week and explained the situation and she mentioned that stores like that can’t do such work outside of work because they can’t pay overtime.  To me, that is just another sign that the Swiss labor system including the unions are extremely powerful.  These stores are closing at 7:00 in the evening and are opening at 8:30 in the morning and they can’t find a way to work with the unions to do such work as major store layout changes outside of opening hours.

I however don’t think that is really the root of the problem.  The easiest explanation is that the store managers just don’t care. Customer service doesn’t matter here.

Unfortunately I went back to the store today.  I had no choice, it is the closest.  Wow, what a difference the new layout makes.  The frozen pizzas are now closer to the fruits & vegetables, which really has improved my life.

 
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Posted in Food, Shopping

 

January Hole Cake

24 Jan

January Hole Cake

I was introduced to a new Swiss tradition this month, the January hole cake.  As the story goes the Swiss are used to getting 2 paychecks in December.  Thank you very much for the concept of the 13 month salary.  That means everybody gets double in December.  The only problem is that with all those taxes, Christmas gifts, and the year end invoices all of a sudden you are left with nothing in your bank account.

Enter what is known as the January hole.  No money, and since there is no money, there is not enough ingredients for an entire cake, so you get a cake with a hole in it.

This is a bit interesting when I think about it because cakes with holes in them are common in the U.S.  There is angle food cake, upside down cake, lemon cake.  It is common to have holes in all of them.  But here in Switzerland there aren’t so many cakes with holes. I guess you wouldn’t really want a cake with a hole in it over hear since it is a sign of economic hardship of sorts.

I for one really enjoyed the hole cake.  This particular cake from Adelboden had a nice chocolate flavor and was rather moist.  Which by Swiss standards (moist + cake) is a rare combination.

 
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Posted in Food

 

Fall Hike In Apenzellerland

25 Oct

A Small Creek Along Swiss National Hiking Route 44

Last Saturday we took a hike along the Appenzeller Weg hiking path number 44.  My wife and I had thought this would probably be on of the last weekends to enjoy the fall colors so we got up early, and I sue that term loosly and boarded the train to Urnäsh.

The hike was billed as a 3.5 hour easy jaunt through the fields and woods between Urnäsh and Appenzell.  Knowing my obsession with the camera and the fact that we hit a detour or two we ended up taking about 5.5 hours to complete the hike including a lunch break.

The hike was beautiful and something I would like to try again in the summer.  While the fields were filled with trademarked swiss milk cows, the trails were strangely deserted.   I didn’t even see any of the now famous naked Swiss hikers associated with the region, how disappointing.

We ended the day in s’ Tübli resturant in Appenzell where I order one of my favorite versions of Alpener Macaroni.  The dish is called Tüblimaggarone.  It is a house special and the secret is substituting the traditional bacon (speck) with small slices of Cervelet sausage.

I highly recommend s’ Tübli.  They have a great menu, great food, and reasonable prices.  My wife and I escaped with drinks and dinner for two for 39 CHF, which is a steal in this country.  Most dishes are priced between 18-25 CHF if you eat off the daily menu.

 
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Posted in Food, Swiss Day Trips

 

Sunday Hike Through The Woods

10 Oct

Sunday afternoon we did a section of the Aargauer trail between Wildegg and Aarau.  The relatively flat hike runs along the banks of the Aare river.  Most sections of the trail are wide and flat and this hike is not strenuous at all.

We left just before lunch and had packed small lunches to eat along the trail.  We found a nice bench along the river and plopped ourselves down about an hour and a half into the hike.  As we started to eat I was just waiting for someone to hike by and say “en Guete” (Bon Appetite). Of course not too long into my first course of a ham and cheese sandwich a group of hikers uttered the obligatory phrase and I final felt like I was enjoying a properly blessed Swiss lunch.

As we finished our meals and went on our way we stumbled along a few other groups snacking on lunch, and of course I returned the “en Guete” favor.  Some how the longer you are here you develop a knee jerk “en Guete” response.  When food is in sight one must utter those magic words.

 
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Posted in Food, Swiss Day Trips

 

Europeans Have No Concept of Wintergreen

08 Sep

Today I was in a meeting with a Spanish woman and an American that was visiting Switzerland from the U.S.  As we started the meeting the American pulled out a container of Ice Breakers wintergreen flavored mints.  As my American colleague offered a mint to both of us I exclaimed, “I love those, and we don’t have anything like that in Europe.”  My Spanish colleague confirmed, nodding her head and saying that she has never tasted anything like it.

So why hasn’t the ‘Wintergreen’ flavor ever made it to Europe?  Is there some sort of cultural issue with wintergreen?

The things we ponder when there is nothing else to think about.

 
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Posted in Daily Life, Food

 
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