out and about : sisu, café und bar

While I wait for film to be developed I thought I'd start a little something new on the blog, an out and about in Zürich section. Slowly, as I've settled in and become more accustomed to life abroad what I blog about (mostly food) could be done from anywhere, from New Haven or New Zealand or New Dehli. Unlike an expat living in Paris, eager to grasp the techniques of French cooking, I have no real desire to conquer Swiss cuisine. It's too rich and too creamy. I know, maybe that sounds good, but imagine alternating between fondue and schnitzel every night, and then perhaps you'd change your mind.

Anyway what I'm trying to get at is that I want a Zürich-specific section. I want you to be able to visit the blog and if you live here or travel here be able to find a few spots to hang out on a rainy day. I also want to do it as a reminder of places I've been and places I like to go.

so here we go....

Sisu Café und Bar

Meinrad-Lienerstrasse 1

8003, Zürich

website

Sisu won me over with the iittala owl cups, but the big brown leather couch that I sunk into and could barely get out off didn't hurt either. The owl 'taika' (meaning magic) reflect that fact that Sisu is a Finish café. They also serve sweet pulla, a Finish cardamon-cinnamon spiced sweet bread, and Karhu, a Finish beer. And they serve it all in a very relaxed, low-key, atmosphere, where you could comfortably hunker with your computer and a coffee for a few hours (they have free wi-fi).

I discovered Sisu because was noted in a New York Times travel article about the gentrification of a previously seedy area of town.

It's taken me awhile to get the hang of European coffee. Drip American coffee has no place outside your own kitchen, the exception being Starbucks, so it's important to get comfortable with the coffee menu. My current favorite is café crème, a long espresso or americano with cream on the side.

I hope you like this new installment. And if you live in Zürich and have any favorite spots, I'd love to hear about them.

awe and wonder

A lot of posts have been about adventures or discoveries, and others strictly about recipes or the atmosphere, but this post, this teeny tiny magical post, is about a feeling. I haven't pinned down what that feeling is exactly, perhaps it's more of an aura than a feeling anyway, but I'd have to say it's along the lines of awe and wonder (and those might be the same thing, but they bring up different emotions so for now let's just say they are different).

I think it's important that we start from the beginning, the beginning of our journey as expats. Being an expat is a truly unique experience, out of the realm of moving to a different city in your home country or traveling abroad for a semester. When you begin life as an expat you are starting from scratch, from just you and your husband and a city that you've never visited before and an apartment that you can't quite envision. This is your life, this is where you begin, without friends, without a clue, but with a whole lot of unknowns.

My biggest concern was that we wouldn't have friends. In my whole life I've never just up and moved somewhere where I didn't know a soul. 'Home' is the place I have lived sine I was two years old. I went to grade school then to high school and then to college and finally to graduate school and along that journey there were always familiar faces. And then we moved to Switzerland, just us, just me and Zach, no friends and no familiar faces. Just us. It took a little while and a bunch of first friend dates, but now we have a truly wonderful group of friends.

They are our friends, but they are also our family - our Zürich family.

If you've been/are an expat then you can understand this type of family. In some ways it was automatic, we were all reaching for the same thing, a friendship we could hold on to, a friendship that would calm the uncertainties and highlight the excitements of life as an expat.

And to think we've only known them for six months! These are the friends we spent Thanksgiving with and the friends that delivered take-out (no such thing as delivery in Zürich) when I was sick. These are also the friends that we were lucky enough to visit in the hospital just one day after they welcomed their little baby boy, Sam.

And that is where all that awe and wonder come in!

She has a baby. I mean I knew it was coming. As long as I've known her, Laura was pregnant. He was in there the whole time. But now he's out here. He is here. He was in and now he is out (this is where I begin to state the obvious, but I can't help it - awe and wonder people, awe and wonder). Isn't it amazing?

Perhaps all of this awe and wonder hit me like a freight train moving at warp speed because Laura was (he is out, he is here, incredible) the first pregnant woman I had spent a good amount of time with. I knew she was growing, I knew he was coming (obviously, he had to arrive at some point), but now he is here, and I have held him in my arms, because he is here to be held.

There simply aren't words, just an aura composed of awe and wonder and a whole lot of other magical feelings. Magical feelings that make a nonbeliever believe, believe in big lofty intangible things.

But with all of this happiness I can't help but think that this time and this Zürich family of ours is fleeting. One of the key components of expat life is the reality that this is just temporary, whether it be two, five or ten years, we will all eventually go back home. Of course as some go, others will arrive, but someday, probably shortly after he turns one and a half, Sam will leave. That little boy I held in my arms at just one day old will be able to walk onto the plane with his favorite stuffed animal in hand and fly away. Magical.

The hours between when Sam arrived and when we were able to visit him were long. I was so excited I could barely see straight. So I baked Laura and Paul some cookies. It's a recipe I learned from Laura around Christmas time (Sam was there) and it's "bangin" as Laura would say. These cookies thrive on the marriage of peanut butter and chocolate. And considering I don't think there is a better combo out there, not even mint and chocolate, I adore these cookies and their soft chewy texture with the chocolate plopped on top.

Sam's Peanut Butter Blossoms

makes about 4 dozen.

ingredients

- 1/2 cup (113g) unsalted butter at room temperature

- 3/4 cup (185g) peanut butter, smooth or chunky (if you are in switzerland Migros makes a much better peanut butter than Coop)

- 1/3 cup (70g) light brown sugar

- 1/3 cup (70g) granulated white sugar

- 1 large egg

- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

- 2 tablespoons milk

- 1 1/2 cups (195g) all purpose flour

- 1 teaspoon baking soda

- 1/4 teaspoon salt

- granulated sugar for coating

- chocolate pieces for topping - I used hearts but hersey's kisses are the standard.

With an electric mixer or hand mixer cream the butter until smooth and creamy. Add the peanut butter and sugars and continue beating until light and fluffy. Follow with the egg and vanilla. Beat in the milk.

In a separate bowl whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt. Add to the butter mixture and beat until incorporated. Place the cookie dough in the fridge for an hour or until hard enough to roll into balls.

Preheat the oven to 375ºF (190ºC)

Roll the batter into 1inch (2.5cm) round balls. Place the granulated sugar in a small bowl and roll each ball lightly in the sugar, coating the outside. Place on a baking sheet, spacing about 2inches (5cm) apart.

Bake the cookies for about 8-10 minutes, or until the cookies are lightly browned. Right after you take them out of the oven put the chocolate piece on top of each cookie, pressing down gently until the cookie just starts to crack. Let the cookies cool completely on a wire wrack (you want the chocolate to re-solidify)

sleigh bells riiiiiing...

"Sleigh bells riiiiiiiiing...." - that is the subject line of the email chain that is buzzing around amongst my girl friends. I jump on the new emails as they come in, loving the good tidings they bring - mostly about life, love, Christmas plans and pictures of new nieces and nephews - and sending my own right back out on the gmail sleigh. It really is almost Christmas. I'm heading home on Wednesday to deck the halls with my family and then Zach arrives just in time for Christmas Eve dinner and then we head to Providence on Christmas Day to celebrate with his family.

Before we jet off for the States we are actually heading to Paris, in about 2 hours, for the weekend! I wanted to post these festive photos before I head to the airport. My fingers are crossed that 1) Zach will make it, he's cutting it close with work stuff and 2) that our flight isn't cancelled with all of this wind and rain. Maybe you could cross your fingers too, the more the better. Danke!

The Swiss really now how to make a city feel festive. In the center of town, on the Bahnhofstrasse, there are lights hanging from every possible spot imaginable. The ones hanging above the streets are called 'Lucy', I believe in reference to Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds. They really are quite spectacular. Then there are also Samichlaus and his sidekick Schmutzli. Schmutzli, who paint his face back and dresses in a dark brown cloak, is pretty much the idea of coal personified.

Since so many people commented on our tree I thought I would post some close-ups. The ornaments are from the Christmas market in Germany and they remind me of the ornaments we use to trim our tree at home. My mom has always loved little wooden ornaments, so I guess I inherited that from her. Although I can't imagine anyone who wouldn't like a nutcracker rocking horse ornament. Oh, and I made the bird on top. Zach's family uses a bird on top of their tree and we've always used an angel, but I thought a bird was really a good combo of both...in it's own way. And then there is this amazing almond cookie recipe that I want to share with you that can double as Viennese Crescent cookies or Linzer cookies, depending on how you roll the dough. I have to rush to the airport in about 5 minutes so I will share the recipe with you when I get back from Paris....

Okay back from a wonderful trip to Paris. We almost didn't get there because our flight was canceled on Friday night, but thankfully we zipped off on an early Saturday morning flight, which gave us plenty of time to shop for breakfast croissants.

Viennese Crescent Cookies/ or Raspberry Linzer cookies

adapted from Irma Rombauer

- 8oz / 1 cup unsalted butter

- 3 oz / 3/4 cup powdered sugar

- 3 teaspoons vanilla bean powder, or 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

- 4 oz / 1 cup ground almonds

- 10 oz / 2 cups all purpose flour

- 2 oz / 2/3 cup powdered sugar for sprinkling

- raspberry jam if using

Preheat the oven to 350ºF / 180ºC and line baking sheets with baking paper

In a medium bowl beat the butter until it is creamy and light in color, then sift in the 3oz of powdered sugar over the butter and beat until incorporated

Add the vanilla and mix until smooth. Stir in the ground almonds. Follow with the flour, adding slowly, until mixed. Knead the dough until it is well blended. If the dough is very soft place it in the refrigerator for 30 minutes. You want the dough to be workable in your hands so make sure it is malleable when you take it out of the fridge.

For crescent cookies, take about 1 tablepsoon of dough and shape it into a crescent and place on the cookie sheet.

For the jam filled cookies, roll the dough between two sheets of parchment paper until about 1/4" thick. Using a cookie cutter cut an even number of shapes out of the dough. Using a smaller cookie cutter, such as a star, circle or heart, cut the center out of half of the cookies. Move to the lined baking sheet.

Bake the crescent cookies for about 13-16 and the linzer cookies for about 10 minutes, or just until the edges have lightly browned for both. Cool the cookies on a wire rack. When completely cool dust the crescents with powdered sugar. For the jam filled cookies, take the cookie without the hole and spread raspberry jam on it and then top with the hole-cookie.

This photos is terrible and blurry, but I had to share it with you because this my friends is The Santa Tram, or Märchentram (fairytale tram). Santa drives the tram while his angles read fairytales to the children in the back. Only children are allowed on the tram, no parents allowed. I absolutely love this little Zürich Christmas tradition. I guess the theory is that parents put their kids on the tram for thirty minutes and then they can run off and buy that last minute toy while the kids listen to The Night Before Christmas while zipping around Zürich.

okay time to run! remember, fingers crossed...

chasing the light...and a little sugar

Let's set the scene. It is 4:30pm and night has fallen, already. The air is cold and your cheeks are red and ready for some time indoors, as is the rest of you, which has been chasing the light all day. You are tired. It is time to go home. Rest awaits you, and so does an apple-streusel cake that you baked earlier that morning while you were waiting for the grey and the fog to lift. It was easy to make and heck the apartment still smells like cinnamon when you walk in. Job well done; afternoon snack and cozy-seasonal-scented apartment all in one. Pat yourself on the back, put some tunes on, press the button on the espresso machine, cut a slice of cake, put your feet up, and relish the little perks of a cold fall night.

Check out the kitty in this photo....I caught him jumping for swallows that were flirting about in the leafy vines. Admittedly I'm jealous of his house, if this is indeed his house, all leafy and colorful.

I know I just recently posted another apple cake recipe, but I didn't really have an option when it came to baking this cake. I had to do it. Ali and Jess both made this cake within a week of one another, both raving about it's hearty, moist, deliciousness while cooing over their new babies. How can I resist new babies and apple-cake? I can't. Hence today's featured cake. And since I don't have a newborn to coo over I added a little extra sugar in the form of a pecan streusel filling.

Teddie's apple cake, adapted from the NYTimes

* cooks note - I followed Ali's lead and left the walnuts and raisins out, but then of course pretty much replaced them with the streusel filling. Just do what feels right. It will be good

- butter for greasing the pan

- 3 cups flour, plus more for dusting pan

- 1 1/2 cups vegetable oil

- 2 cups sugar

- 3 eggs

- 1 teaspoon salt

- 1 teaspoon cinnamon

- 1 teaspoon baking soda

- 1 teaspoon vanilla (I used about 1/4 tsp vanilla seeds, which are cheeper and easier to come by here in Zurich)

- 3 cups peeled and cored and thickly sliced tart apples

streusel filling (you might have extra, that's okay)

- 3/4 cup pecans, chopped

- 3 tablespoons brown sugar

- 1 teaspoon cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 350ºF/180ºC. Butter and flour a 9" tube pan.

Beat the oil and sugar with a mixer (fitted with a paddle attachment) while assembling the remaining ingredients. Add the eggs and beat until creamy, about 5 minutes

Sift together the flour, salt, cinnamon and baking soda. Stir into the batter. Add the vanilla and apples.

Make your streusel by combining the chopped pecans, brown sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl.

You are going to place the streusel filling in the middle of the cake so spoon about half of the dough into the tube pan. With a knife create a little well for your streusel filling. Sprinkle as much of the filling as will fit, making sure it doesn't touch the sides (it will burn). Cover with the remaining dough and smooth out with a spatula

Bake for an 1 hour and 15 minutes, or until a cake tester comes out clean. Cool in the pan before turning out. Serve at room temperature for breakfast or dessert.

I love this last photo. The trees were given a haircut, just enough so that the leaves hover over your head. And while you are wandering under the leaves you can have some water. I don't think I've mentioned them before, but there are a whole network of water fountains in the city which are completely safe to drink out of. I like to think of it as my own little Evian spring, right from the Alps.

zurich wine boats

Red in fall-winter-spring, white in summer, not too fruity, not too bold, fairly smooth. That's what I like in a wine. Descriptive huh? Ha! I know nothing about wine, just that I like most of it and that I like sharing a bottle with friends.

I've been to the wine boats twice. I first went last week with some girlfriends for lunch and tastings, where the highlight was definitely the group of old men with mustaches, donned in plaid, having lunch next to us (see picture above). After lunch we tried some champagne and then moved quickly to Chilean, Spanish and South African red wines. I think I pegged a Spanish Rioja as my favorite, but now I can't remember.

Last night Zach and I went back with some Swiss friends who knew a lot about wine and we staked out the Movenpick booth (where one of our friends was working) and we sampled a whole variety of reds. Our favorite was a malbec from Mendoza which was upwards of 100chf a bottle. Zoinks. Won't be getting a case of that one, or a bottle for that matter.

For those unfamiliar with the boats, they tie up all of the commuter lake boats right at the Zurich dock, set up a gazillion wine booths inside, and open them up to the public for two weeks of tastings. The boats/booths have a cozy atmosphere, which can be great or just really crowded.

There are only two more days - Wednesday and Thursday - to visit the boats. If you go before 12:30 you can get in for free. Zach and I were thinking of going back tomorrow so I might even wander over there sometime before noon so I can get in for free and then walk right back out with a bracelet that will let me back in for free all day and night. Sneaky, aren't I?

it was sunny

I pretty much ran to the camera shop to pick up my first roll of film. It was a test roll, full of mistakes and over/under exposed/whoops photos, but thankfully amongst the mistakes there were some keepers.

There is a meditative quality to taking 35mm photos, especially with an older camera. You have to manually focus the lens, adjust the shutter and aperture dials, depress the shutter and then advance the film. It's slow, but thoughtful and determined. I like it.

We spent the entire day yesterday outside in the sunshine. At one point I was even hot. It felt good. I'm going to miss it. Today was an inside day. It was grey all day, but we ate bacon so everything was a-okay.

dusk and dawn

These days seem to disappear into the dusk. They also seem to creep out of the dawn. I'm usually not a witness to the changing morning light, preferring to wake up when the sun's already up, but considering it doesn't rise until almost 8, I've become uncomfortably familiar eating my breakfast in the dark, wrapped in a blanket. I've actually been getting up early enough to have breakfast with Zach, which is pretty much unheard of in the history of our nine years together. He's an early bird. Always has been. He get's anxious if he sleeps past 8 on the weekends. Not me. I inherited my mom's night owl tendencies. She's always up past midnight, creeping around the kitchen, lurking on her computer, flipping between Letterman and Leno. And I'm up too...creeping, lurking and flipping. But not this week. This week I've been trying to shift my clock by getting up early and not snoozing the morning away. Getting up early means that I'm pretty much ready for dinner by 5, but Zach still doesn't get home until 7 or 8 so I have to keep myself busy and out of the house so I don't eat everything in sight. Generally I walk along the lake, but today I wandered to a little cafe called Piazza (Idaplatz 2, 8003 Zürich) that a friend pointed out when we were out walking on the other side of town. I brought a sketch book, ordered a cafe creme, and pretty much just stared out the window for a while. It was nice, a good change of scenery.

This was my type of cafe - my cafe creme came with a cute little mug of cream instead of the typical individual plastic containers. It also arrived on a silver platter with a glass of water and a little chocolate. And it was actually one of the cheaper coffees I've had in a cafe, 4francs (for all my American readers, that is actually cheap).

So I'm not sure how long I'll be able to keep this early morning thing up, but I will say that it feels really good to have accomplished two hours of work before 9. What doesn't feel good is feeling exhausted and starved by late afternoon. Zach are you home yet? Only about twenty more minutes until he gets home and we eat leftovers (beef stew).

warm apples in caramel

This is not your typical celebratory dessert. It's not a cake, there are no candles, it's not complicated, but rather it's simple and seasonal and warm, just what we needed for our little celebration of sorts. The marking of time is always interesting with time feeling like it moved quickly or slowly and all based on an event in the past and the tracking of the little moments in between that event and the day that bears some significance - the year mark, the decade, the it's-too-long-ago to count backwards mark. Within the past week Zach and I stumbled upon two of these markers - he has lived in Switzerland for one year and we have been married for 6 months. These aren't must-toast type of occasions, but we recognized them none the less, reflecting back on last October when Zach started his new job and was eager to fill me in on every little detail of our new city and apartment. And then there is the 6 month anniversary. Zach commented that although we've been married for 6 months we've probably spent at least two of those months apart. With my visa issues and traveling back and forth it's probably true. But I'm here now, and thinking towards the year mark in April seems like a long way away. What will change? Will Zurich feel more like home? Will I have a steady routine or a job? It's too much to think about, better I just think about today, one day at a time for this expat.

I'm not sure what I would do without seasons. Seasons for me help mark the passing of time. If it was sunny and 75º everyday, would it feel like the same day over again? Would you notice the ebb and flow of the days and your life as much? Do you mark the years by new years day, which would likely be the same as every other day? I adore seasons. I don't think I could live without them. I wouldn't want to live without them. The weather here has shifted, it is cold and rainy and grey. The mountains have snow on them again. These are the things that allow me to grasp the fact that Zach really has been here a year. And that a lot of things have happened between then and now. That's how it goes I guess.

So on to the dessert - warm apples in caramel over toast (with ice cream if you wish). The apples themselves are super quick and easy and barely take any time at all. Easy as pie. Actually much easier than pie. No crust to make or roll out, no fancy designs, no baking, just apples with butter and sugar on the stove. And that's it.

Of course I made it a bit more complicated by making the bread too. I had seen this Easy Little Bread recipe and decided that easy bread went well with easy apples so I best make them both.
I've recently fallen in love with my kitchen scale. It's incredible. Of course it's much easier to use when recipes note the weights otherwise I have to search around the internet for the approximate weight of a cup of this or that. It really makes things easy. You just clear the scale before each new ingredient, allowing you to use one bowl for everything instead of nine-hundred little spoons and cups and measuring thingys. Try it. It's kinda fun and it's especially helpful if you live in metric land, stuck between grams and ounces.
It was one of those weekends where it was okay to stay inside. It was rainy and grey all day on Saturday and spotty on Sunday. Zach and I have recently become addicted to 'Words With Friends' the scrabble app. Sure we play with friends back home, but we also play with each other, sometimes two games at once. Zach has won almost all of the games (grumble) managing to eek out over 40 points on most of his words, while I'm excited if I get anywhere over 20. Have you ever seen one word get over 80 points? Me either, until Zach played 'cronies' for 87 points in a game against our friend Perrin - Per good luck coming back from that one. Oh and it's the perfect thing to do while you're waiting for the bread to rise (I place the loaf pan over the pre-heated oven since our kitchen is fairly cold).

Early Autumn Apples on Toast

from Nigel Slater - Tender Volume II

4 small dessert apples

3 plums (optional, I used them because I had them lying around)

a little lemon juice

50g/ 1/2 stick of butter

2 heaping tablespoons of golden caster sugar or superfine sugar

a handful of raisins

a knifepoint of ground cinnamon

Toast slices (1 - 2 per person depending on the size of your bread) made from hearty whole wheat or nut and raisin bread

Quarter the apples then core them. Leave the skin on. Slice the apples thickly (8 slices per apple) and the toss them with the lemon juice, which will help keep them from browning. Do the same for the plums and add to the apples.

Melt the butter in a shallow pan. Before it froths stir in the sugar and leave it to bubble for a minute or two. Add in the apples/plums and let them cook for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally, until soft. Stir in the raisins and cinnamon

Have the toast ready. As soon as the apples are soft and lightly coated in caramel, tip them over the toast. A dollop of ice cream is never a bad idea!

easy little bread recipe from this book

1 cup plain flour

1 cup whole wheat flour

1 cup rolled oats (not instant)

1/2 tsp salt

1 1/4 cups warm water

2 tsp dry yeast

1 tbsp honey

a handful of raisins (my own addition)

oil and butter for greasing the pan

Preheat your oven to 350ºF/180ºC

Mix flours, oats and salt together.

Mix yeast into warm water until dissolved then stir in honey.

Pour wet mixture into dry mixture and mix well. Grease an 8cup loaf pan (9x5x3) and pour dough into the pan. Cover with a damp kitchen towel and let it rest for thirty minutes or until it has doubled in size. Bake for 35-40 minutes.

We ate it all. There were no apples left. I'm actually not sure how many people it was supposed to serve, but it served us just fine!

The season of eating is upon us, and I love it! Dreaming of turkey and stuffing already. I hear it's beautiful on the East Coast so perhaps you don't feel the urge to bundle up and stay inside and eat warm apples...but you will...soon enough! Enjoy the last of the sun while you can.