Boris_A

If I could afford cleaning staff, it would be much more functional Cleaning can be a pain. We knew that. So no complaints. In June, weather is usually rather wet and cool for summer time. Around 70 F right now (nicely converted, eh?) But it could easliy be 85-88 F now. The elevation is an impressing 1200 (in ft., however ). 410 m. Lowland Yes. Less meat, more vegetables, less of "thick" red wine. Cold dinners, sometimes just "Bircher-Müesli" (Swiss Müesli?) on hot days. Visiting garden restaurant and "Beer-gardens". And grilled sausages with salad, of course and sitting outside with friends and neighbours.

That's Greece, I guess?. Probably very similar. There's a Turkish variant also: "Börök". It's all from the time of the Osmanian imperium in the Balkan region. You find my detailed recipe at the end of page 1 of my blog. If you take pyhlo, a lot of butter to "paint" the foils and if you create several layers, you've got the original. Be careful when using Feta only. It can be too salty, so need to place it in bowl of water for several ours. I always had sensational succes with that simple dish. Really. A a side note, it is difficult to give a precise recipe when critical products (feta, phylo, puff pastry) vary from continent to continent. I suggest you do an aditional google with "Banitsa". All I remember when I visited Bulgaria some 40 years ago that the process was simple and the result great. And I was around 6 years old then.

There is a bistro version of the "Grand Livre"? Man, the guy is really prolific. I think this one is definitely haute cuisine only. Of course, there are the useful sub-recipes I mentioned, but it's not bistro at all. I didnt' know that when I bought it (and I didn't know that there's going to be a 80 E paperback version), so I'm not among the true target customers. In that respect, it's rather useless for me expect the inspirations. But now I have it and I'm going to keep it.

Oh please! The whole stove (metric, ok?) is 140cm large and 70cm deep. And about 420 kg. Obviuously, I was not clear about the heating source. The two open burners and the (hidden) burner under the dark cast iron cook top are gas burners. The oven is electric (optional, instead of gas). So no wood at all. I think 6 pots should be possible. You can try on a piece of newspaper: the cast iron top is 85 x 50 cm. The open burners have enormous output, but you can lower the flame to simmer heat as well. They have a pilot flame just performant enough to keep a pot of soup hot. You can heat the cook top to very high temperatures and then go fortissimo: you can sear your steaks in no time if desired. Of course, then you need to adjust the pots at the edge. And you need a performant ventilation, because when running at full power, splattering fat from the pans is burning on the top. There are smaller models as well with smaller cooktops and from different manufacturers, but you need to think of the price of 2-3000 dollars upwards, I guess. I'm driving a crappy old second hand utility car now for 5 years. I invested the difference in our stove.

Just started with preparing dinner. It's going to be boiled beef, a very versatile dish. It's an Viennese signature dish. The French think its barbaric to eat boiled beef, and the last emperor of Austria loved it more than anything else. As we have strong connections to Austria and Vienna, it's an absolute standard for us. We like it hot, with vegetables and cooked potatoes, cold in slices for the office sandwich for lunch, and cut to stripes for salad or for smilar garniture. The broth is always welcome of course. The piece was frozen and is about 3 pounds, and when studying American beef cut, it's from the outer top of the round (does that make sense?). I should have had some crunched bones (preferably with red mesh structures inside the hull), but I was too timid to go to the butcher and ask the butcher just for some bones. I should have boiled them shortly, replaced the water and boiled again. Now I have a casserole with boiling water (about 1/2 gallone for evey 2 pounds), then I let the piece slide in and add a garlic clove and some pepper grains and a bit of salt. From now on, it should never, never boil again, but just simmer for on hour, almost covered. After that time, we add some celery, celery root, a small parsley root, and an unpeeled ognion cut in half and slightly roasted at the cut sides. Add more salt. All will simmer for another hour, and afterwards left wihtout heat for another hour. The color of the meat should be a dark brownish red and never grey. It should be not salty, as we like to add some fleur de sel later. For dessert, I try to get some strawberries (preferrably Wädenswil Nr. 600, but these are very delicate for pressure damage and in general not suited for supermarket/groceries logistics and thus rare to find.. Their taste is that of the tiny "forrest strawberries". Just wonderful). We have some Crême de Gruyère left (like Crême frèche) for the strawberries, and thats' it. Wine will be a local Pinot Noir. BTW, for breakfast, we had the almots invariably coffee with croissant or a brioche. We love Italian style breakfast, you see. For lunch, there was a leftover from the banitsa of yesterday and some boiled veggie salad.

My recommendations: - "Restaurant Alpenrose" for modern-traditional dishes, run by youngsters. - "Restaurant Hirschberg" for semi-traditional food. - "Zeughauskeller" is a big, crowded, popular eatery with great sausages, rösti and similar. Immaculate service., moderate prices - "Hinterer Sternen" at the Bellevue place for a perfect "Bratwurst"-sausage with a traditional piece of bread and a beer. - "Grossmünster" church to climb the tower. Spectacular view. all over the town and the lake. - the nearby "Bodega Espagnola" for some simple tapas and an afternoon beer after the climb. Interior pracitcally unchanged since 1880. - "Kropf". Established around 1900 when Bavarian "beer houses" got popular in Zürich. - "Sprüngli" for some of the best pralinées avalaible iin this world. Try "truffe du jour". - "Petermanns Kunststuben" for high end, expensive star rated dining. - "Kronenhalle". Expensive. Good food only, but great art at the walls.

Here's a better image of such a thing: Basically, it imitates a wood burner cook top as they have been in use from 1800-1950. Here, under the the rings, there's a gas burner, avoiding ash and smoke in the kitchen. After some minutes, the whole dark rectangle becomes warm. Pretty hot over the rings, much less at the left edge. So you regulate heat by just shifting your pans. It's an incredible device for low temp, slow cooking. I think partially this kind of cuisine was invented when such cook tops got available. It's an insane piece of a stove, an we bought it out of different reasons than usability. Most of the time, we use the two open burnes at the right, one convection oven and if needed one aditional large static oven. When cooking large style with more dishes (somtimes just a lot of different vegetables, mushrooms, small pieces of different meat etc.), the whole cook top is in use with a lot of pans. Last year, we had for 4 days a small open air restaurant in front of our home (village festivities), and we cranked out about 100-120 dishes every evening. BTW, when I was searching for useful stove-top copper cookware (almost a must here), I found slkinseys great culinary-institute course. And after reading Chad's knife course, I was convinced having made an outstanding find with eGullet. So everything started here for us in front of this stove.

I promised to get back when this link: Arte-Vitis is working again. If you click on one of the text lines, on the next page you find the names of the 12 producers (column on the left). Maybe you just email one of them and ask if they export to the US. "Cave Cidis" (an ex-cooperative) could be a candidate because of it's size. And oh, the "Roc de Cambes" 1990 was a surprise. After two bottles of somewhat tired and over-the-top bottles from the same case, this one had healthy colour, a great plummy nose and was still succulent with round merlot-fading-away-fruit, not much acidity and completely melted tannins. Could have been a crowd-pleaser, but fortunately the only crowd was Beatrix and me.

After 100 lines of food writing and as long as nobody watching closely here, let's grasp some internet bandwidth: Its a semi-industrial Danish design from the 50s designed by Nanna Ditzel. No longer in production. It's one of the most elegant desks we've ever seen. It's of excellent quality and was not more expensive than a contemporary renowned design. The "organic functionalism" of the mid-century Danish is hot, hot, hot (at least for us). And dont' forget "Smorrebrod", the Danish national dish. (Now food relation is established )

Swiss Cheese part II The next two are the famous Vacherin Mont d'Or (and his French counterpart) and Vacherin Fribourgeois, which is completely different despite the similar name. The Fribourgeois makes an excellent fondue cheese when used equal part with Gruyère: the fondue Moitié-Moitié (half and half). My preferred fondue variant. Finally, the marekt is on the move (after years of stagnation due to guaranteed prices) and there are a lot of small, rural producers developing new products and trying to establish a renommée with oustanding quality. Most of them sell locally, but some aquired regional brand status. This is a highly interesting developement offering nice surprises. Most of them are little, artinasal factories cooperating with severtal small milk producers and can protect their investments in quality and branding with an AOC-status. Some of them are really successful. Some of this development is reflected here: Swiss Cheese Awards I'm watching out in speciality-shops, supermarkets and farmer markets all the time for such produces. Of course they offer a tasting sample, but I prefer to buy a small amount (say 3 oz) to taste it at home with a piece of bread and the possibility to compare. Sbrinz and Gruyère are the only standard buys.

Let's start with the most famous: Emmenthal. Its' produced all over in Sitzerland, not only in the Emmenthal itself. (That's one of the reason why there's no AOC). I prefer it in the very ripe state, when it develops a distinct nutty taste. Usually, you'll find then some sweated juice (salty warter drops) in the holes and some cristals (which are NOT salt, but coagulated aminos. You can taste those tiny, salt-grain like pieces, and they are not salty at all). The most popular is Gruyère, where I already explained the different qualities. Next is Appenzeller, which is made by constantly rubbing in of a spicey, semi liquid paste during maturing time. That's why Appenzeller has a such distinct taste and can be a malodoruos guest in your fridge. Finally (among the popular ones) is Sbrinz. His exact origin is unknown. Its's called sometimes "Spallen-cheese" (from Italian "spallo" = shoulder), because when transported centuries ago from it's origin northern Switzerland (around Lucerne, maybe) to Italy, they had to take it on shoulders, because parts of the "road" over the passes didn't allow for horses or mulis. It's said to be the ancestor of Parmigiano. Because of terrible marketing and disrespectful quality controls (sold sometimes much too young, like rubber), it is terribly out of favor today and lost much business to Parmigiano. But if one can find decent quality (let's google for "Swiss Cheese Award" later today), it's a unique, alomost creamy hard cheese for grating. It's an excellent aperitif cheese when served "plained" (?) (sliced in ultrathin slices and rolled). Uhohuhoh, got to run, so wait for an update and a part II, ok?

I return every year to the Crota. I don't visit that place in search for highest culinary delights. Food is good, occasionally very good, and sometimes there's a really excellent dish. But the Crota is more than a restaurant. It's the meeting point of Calosso and surroundings, ther's people who come to eat and people to have a drink at the bar. It's a hard to define place, but it's somehow the Big Relax in the circle between Asti and Canelli. The first time I was there (they just started) I was irritated. Luckily, I returned.

Right now, I'd say we are out once a week. There had been times when the ratio was 3:4. It was a habit then, and we visited a lot of different restaurants. For no specific reason, we once gradually lost interest and spent much more time at home. This could revert anytime. Eating at home can be most simple of course. We love soups. Together with some veggies and a piece of good cheese and a bottle of wine, we don't miss anything. I remember of Epicur (our ancient grandfather in matters of pleasure) once saying that he was in paradise with a piece of goat cheese and some particular wine. We should all stay Epicurian, I think.

The shopping facilties can be vary hugly from suburb to suburb and from village to village. The local bakery is still very popular. Most of them are running a small "cafeteria" business sametime. OTOH, you have to realize that about 60% of the croissants sold by local bakeries are in fact produced by a single one producer of pre-fabricated croissants. So the the idea of nice little independent bakeries selling mainly their own stuff can be misleading. But in all fairness, they do a good job with bread. There is variety, and even wihtin families, some prefer the bread of this one bakery and others of that one. This is always a good sign for individual products and variety therefore. Many of the butcheries and almost all cheese/milk shop lost tremendously against the chains. Those have succesfully expanded their speciality offerings. OTOH, some of them are cooperating with local shops. You can find the local cheese shop running the cheese corner in the superamarket a little outside of the town. In general, I suspect a strong correlation between parking-lots and revenue. Most people I know say they would by at local speciality shops. But once they are in a supermarket, it's practical to shop everything there. This schem seems to be universal, I guess. Years ago, I was familiar with a baker in Zurich city. He had 3 parking possibilties (lots) in front of his shop. Once he lost one for three months due to road repair work. He suffered a loss of 30%, he told me. Our personal habits are about 60% speciality/farmermarket, 40% supermarket. We are mostly interested in quality and buy wherever we find a superior offering. We are constantly reflecting and discussing what we are buying, even if it is everday stuff. I don't care much about price. I simply buy somewhat less, if it's more expensive. For instance, If I watch shopping baskets (what else do you do waiting at the cashier) I regularly see people buying huge amounts of price reduced emmental. It0s not bad, but for 20% more money you get far superior quality. I'd cut back anytime on quantity and go for the better one.

A remark wrt. recipes and ingredients: I use recipes as guidelines. I found that depending on certain ingredients which you wont fing in good quality a cumbersone thing. For instance, I replaced in my recipe for the cheese/egg/puff-pastry banitsa the filo. I find filo in the high end groceries only. But I wanted to have a recipe which allowed for a shopping list to be done nearby. It' works, and it works quite ok. It's not authentic, but carefully adapted. I can be a strange kind of extravagant on basic things. For instance, I'm buying different broth and chicken stock (cubes and instant, ) wherever I find new ones. I make a lot of comparisons. Most of them are rather bad stuff. But in the end, I found a personal blend which does a nice work for everyday consumption. I love seafood. Sometimes, I can buy seafood of excellent freshness but that supply is not guaranteed. So i changed almost all my fish consumption on local lake varieties which I can buy from a local fisherman. Of course, you can't compare them with sea fish. But for me, I found it more satisfying to use those local variants, where freshness is out of question. In that sense, I'm deliberately aiming low and I try to stay in the range of my possibilities.

Lucy. you know your stuff. Yes, it is a (iron cast) cook top. It was produced in St. Vallier, a bit south of Valence. I heard that the French call this plaque coup de feu an incontournable (a thing you can't get around) of their cuisine. And I'm sure, a "slow cook" like Paula Wolfert would love this thing immensly. Provided she hasn't one already.

Correct. "Celery root" contains (as most roots) the sugar to develop that natural sweet-sour. "Celery" is called "bar celery" here and is used mainly for or broth, stock and similar. Sometimes, I like to sauteée it.

Ok, dinner is ready and the game is starting: banitsa: In the backgorund, there's some sliced celery, hazelnut-roasted (poêlé in French) very slowly in EVOO and a reduction of very sour wine. So its' sweet sour just by the sweetness of celery. I'm still not mastering this primitive thing. Results are uneven. And I'll have to try that variant of celery in a tempura. As a starter byte. We had some chasselas as aperitif and after the salad of some cooked vegetables , we are going to sip a Côtes de Bourg "Roc de Cambes" 1990. This wine is for sure in decline now, but it should hold well against the banitsa and decently accompany the game of the Squadra Azzurra against Bulgaria starting RIGHT NOW. Forza Italia!

ImageGullet up again! My window to the world: and my window to the village: In the backgrund, you'll notice that they are remaking the roof of the tower of the church. One can climb up to the tip. That's a lifetime chance. I wasn't up there yet. It's forbidden. Let's hope there's no poison (cops, I learned). But they wont' chase anybody, the just refuse responsibilty. The ladder is no way closed. Sometimes, the Swiss are quite libertarian. It's going to be a spectacular view from there all over the lake to the alps. We'll do that together as soon as the weather is really fine, eh?

Unfortunately, it's not an error. Filo, of course, would be the real thing Caught in the act.

Now back to food. As I said: tonight a Banitsa. My recipe is here: Time's running now.

Bookmarked. Of course we do that. I'm waiting usually for the endgame. You shouldn't forget, the tournament is running for 3-4 weeks. You have to be careful and economize on your forces. Like the teams. I think beer is the only typical "food". Anyway - anything you can munch wihtout turning the eyes away from the screen is ok. Because the game can became so hectic and thrilling, you sometimes forget to chew.

It's a village. About 5000 inhabitants. A town needs to have 10'000 befor it's entitled to call itself a town. We are proud being a village. The smallest community around. Altitude is 410 m. We are in the hilly pre-alps. We can see the glaciers from here, (and if we climb our little hill, about 1000 ft higher, there's the Eiger to be seen) but we are low-landers. Definitely.

They guy is a one man show on tiny 3 ha (how many acres?). His name is "Pierre-Luc Leyvraz" and his "Saint-Saphorin Les Blassinges" is the most regular, award-winning Chasselas I've ever seen. I could convince wine lovers who never bought a bottle of Chasselas in their life. His wine costs around $11 here, but unfortunately I believe he will never export any because of the minuscule production. He is a member of the "Arte-Vitis" (web-site defunct right now, of course, arrghh). These are 12 producers deeply comitted to quality (really, I mean), and as soon as I can I give you those names. They all are sure values. Provided you like Chasselas. But Pierre-Luc is the only one who chose the hard way and to build up his renomée entirely on Chasselas alone. It's a long story of guaranteed prices, import prohibitions, chronic underachievers and outragous quantyties per surface why this variety got so bad-mouthed. But his Chasselas has splendid concentration and balance. He's going the "Per aspera ad astra" way and I have always admiration for people like him doing their things in their own way and against all odds.

I must confess, I didn't make them for almost 10 years now, but if there's demand and as pictures and language dont' transmit taste, I have to concentrate on optics only. Difficult enough!