It hasn't been easy, but I've gotten use to life without peanut butter, Annie's Mac & Cheese, Goldfish and Kashi cereals. I've basically replaced my love for the aforementioned foods with my new love for bratwurst and muesli. However, I will never, for as long as we are living in Zurich, be able to get use to life without bagels. You read that correctly, there are no bagels in Zurich. No bagels in the grocery store, no shops dedicated to the perfectly toasted and cream cheese topped bagel and no little bodegas cooking up the perfect bacon egg and cheese and sandwiching it between the chewy halves of an everything bagel, because like I said, there are no bagels in Zurich.

Bagels bring me back to certain places. There were the plain bagels with peanut butter and jelly that I use to pack for school trips in grade school. Always toasted and always pb&j because I didn't like cream cheese and I use to have a fear of cold cuts (I sort of still do). There were the bagels in college, which were at first toasted with cream cheese and then took on a new role as sandwich bread, stuffed with veggies and cheese. Then there are the bagels of Architecture school. Wow. Bagels use to be a treat, something saved for brunch on the weekends, but in architecture there was a long, three years long, stretch where I had one every morning. I never strayed from my order of an everything bagel with cream cheese. Bagels are truly the ultimate comfort food. A bagel and a coffee from Book Trader on Chapel Street became the only way I knew how to start a morning in the studio. A bagel and a coffee and at least 3 hours procrastinating by wandering around the internet.
My brother sent me this photo of the view from his apartment on seis de mayo, the day after cinco de mayo. If cinco de mayo is known for corona and corn chips then seis de mayo is known for bagels slathered in cream cheese or topped with eggs and bacon, anything to combat the too- many-strawberry-margarita headache. It wasn't his intention, but I took it as a form of email torture. Just think of all of the bagel shops on the streets below, there must be hundreds, thousands if you count the ones on the Upper West Side, which is shockingly visible from his apartment. Admittedly my first thought was of bagels, but my second thought was 'holy ***, look at that view" and my third thought was 'is it too early to look at apartments in the West Village?' and my forth thought was 'there better be a good bagel shop/bakery on our block and ooo I hope there's a terrace or roof deck in our new apartment".....the though train went on like that for a long time...you get the idea.
Desperate for a bagel I searched the internet and found this recipe for cinnamon raisin bagels on smittenkitchen. The dough bagels need to sit in the fridge over night so unfortunately I didn't get to eat them on seis de mayo, but they were ready just in time for Saturday brunch.
We stayed in Zurich this weekend and ate bagels. A whole lot of bagels. There were brunch bagels, lunch bagels, I need a snack bagels and certainly dinner bagels. I had at least four and Zach had three or four yesterday alone. This baking project got a firm stamp of approval from Zach who found it both delicious and entertaining. All of the different steps, especially the ones at the end, make for a visually exciting process.
I will be the first to say it so you don't have to sit there and wonder about it - these bagels are lumpy and weird and not perfectly round and puffy. I know. I'm embarrassed, but unlike my episodes with this cake and with this one, I couldn't start again because the steps are so spread out and the dough needs to rest overnight in the fridge. So please excuse these lumpy bagels, which I promise are just as scrumptious as non-lumpy bagels. I mean once you put cream cheese, a tomato slice, some scallions and a dash of salt and pepper, does it really matter that they are lumpy? The approximately 10 bagels we ate between us this weekend would say not. Although maybe that is just bagel deprivation speaking.

Okay so fine I admit that the lumpiness irks me and the perfectionist in me has done a lot of research on why my bagels might have turned out lumpy. I think it's because I didn't use high-gluten flour, which is apparently a must. I used all purpose flour, but according to smitten kitchen and expatchow the gluten content of the flour is especially important for bagels. That is why when my parents come next week I am having them pack some vital wheat gluten flour in their suitcase along with the brown sugar and blocks of cheddar cheese.
This was bagel-feast #1, which little did we know would be followed by 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6.
One bagel condiment that I can't get on board with is smoked salmon. I just can't do it. The smell and texture really throw me. I'll leave the salmon and the capers to Zach.I prefer my bagels with a healthy coat of cream cheese, a thin slice of tomato, some scallion rings and a good amount of salt and pepper. This is actually one of the few instances in which I like plain, uncooked, tomato. I've never been a huge tomato fan, but on a bagel and with fresh buffalo mozzarella and balsamic in the heart of summer, those are my two tomato love anomalies.
Our bagel brunch was followed by stroll and lounge in the park, which then to more bagels and then ultimately to a great night out with new friends. We went to a couple of places that we hadn't been yet, including El Local, which we absolutely loved and will likely become regulars at.
so lumpy....and these ones don't even have holes. These are the the Sunday morning, bagel feast #4, bagels. At this point we just wanted more bagels and didn't care that the ones that had sat in the fridge for an extra night came out extra funky, but still delicious.
I was reading an old issue of Saveur and on the last page there was this picture from the late 1800s of a Jewish bagel vendor in what was Kishinev and is now Moldova. It might be time for a trip to Moldova to sample bagels!!
Too. Many. Bagels. Time for a nap on the couch!
The nap (during which I ate another bagel) was followed by a walk around the city. We've gotten in the habit of going for both pre-dinner and post-dinner walks, where we inevitably find ourselves by the lake and then up in old town.

and now for the recipe which I'm posting at the end because it's long.

Cinnamon Rasin Bagels - 16 large bagels - from smittenkitchen

sponge

- 1 tsp instant yeast

- 4 cups unbleached high-gluten flour

- 2 1/2 cups water, room temp

dough

- 1 tsp instant yeast

- 3 3/4 cups unbleached high gluten flour

- 1 tbsp ground cinnamon

- 5 tbsp sugar

- 2 3/4 salt

- 1 tbsp honey or brown sugar

- 2 cups raisins, rinsed.

This is a multi day baking adventure so I'm going to break it down by day

Day 1: make the sponge by mixing the yeast into the flour and then adding the water. Stir the dough only until it comes together as a smooth, yet sticky batter. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let it sit for two hours, during which the sponge should double in size and become foamy and bubbly.

Once you have your sponge, add the additional yeast and stir. Transfer to your standing mixer and proceed to add 3 cups of flour, cinnamon, sugar, salt and brown sugar or honey. Using the dough hook, turn the mixer to low speed and continue to combine the ingredients until the dough begins to form a ball and pull away from the bowl. Add the remaining 3/4 cups of flour, slowly, to add stiffness to the dough. Once the flour is integrated add the raisins. I had to add a little water at this stage because the dough was too stiff.

Knead the dough for 6 minutes with your mixer or transfer to the counter and knead for 10 minutes by hand. Adjust the flour/water content of your dough until you get a dough that is neither sticky or dry, bus is smooth and pliable.

Once kneaded, divide the dough into 16 pieces and roll into balls. Place the balls under a damp kitchen towel for 20 minutes. After the 20 minutes begin to shape the balls into bagels by using your thumb to poke a hole in the center and slowly working into an evenly stretched donut form. Place the bagels on a sheet of parchment paper that has been lightly greased with olive oil to prevent the dough from sticking. Place the bagels on the sheet, with room between them for growth, and then cover the sheets with pastic wrap and let sit for another 20 minutes.

Now for the "does it float" test. Place one of your dough bagels in a bowl of water. If it floats within 10 second then your bagels are ready to go into the refrigerator. If not then you need to check back every 10 to 20 minutes and perform the test again. Once they are ready place them on a sheet of parchment, on a sheet pan, and cover them fairly tightly with plastic. I placed mine inside a plastic bag.

Day 2: preheat the oven to 500 and put a large pot of water on to boil. Once the water is boiling and 1 tablespoon of baking soda. It's bagel time! Remove the bagels from the refrigerator and with a slotted spoon transfer as many as will fit into the boiling water. After 1 minute flip the bagels and boil for another minute. Take them out of the water and place them back on the greased parchment lined baking sheet. Place the sheet pan in the oven. The bagels should take somewhere between 5-7 minutes. In the middle of the baking time rotate the sheet pan. The bagels are done when they are a nice toasty brown. Remove from the oven and let cool for at least 15 minutes. Then slather with cream cheese and devour.

* * *

PHEW! long post, but hopefully it will keep you entertained for the next few days. I am heading back to Tuscany to visit a bestie who is traveling there with her mom! I am just so excited I can barely wait. I jump on the train tomorrow at 7am and you can be sure that I will be packing some bagels with me!

ciao!

summer is for swimming

If I told you to go for a swim in the nearest body of water, would you? The New Yorkers out there just shuddered at the thought. Swim in the East River? Actually put my body in that flowing waste that is curiously called water? Oh the horror! Those of you considering Long Island Sound, the brown body of water of my childhood, don't have it much better. So then if I told you that the water in Lake Zurich is crystal clear, would you believe me? Because it is. Crystal clear, see-to-the-brown-ooey-gooey-moss-on-the-bottom type of clear.

Before our little foray into the middle of Europe, I was someone who would never consider living away from the coast, I never wanted to be too far from a vast body of water. And now here we are, sandwiched, tightly, in the heart of Europe, without a view of the Atlantic or the ability to escape to the beaches of Little Compton on a summer weekend. That's where the lake comes in. People escape to the lake, whether they are there for the whole day or just their lunch break, everyone is at the lake. They aren't just strolling and staring at it either, they are doing some serious laying out in teeny weeny bikinis and speedos (oh europe) and swimming!
These shots are of the lake during the winter, when it sits somewhat abandoned and regarded only as the separation between the city and the alps.
And then summer comes along and the boats, bikinis and beers are broken out and it's an all out Spring Break Daytona Beach type of scene in Zurich. Just kidding, but only about the Daytona Beach part, the three b's are in full effect!
Like I said, crystal clear. It's a bit unnerving to think about swimming when you can see all the fish around you, but so far I've only seen little fish, not big toe-biting fish, yet. It truly blows my mind that a lake that sits on the edge of a major city and possibly be this clean, crystal clear clean. Do I sound like a broken record yet? Think about it though...clean water in a city. whoa. I'll stop repeating myself out loud and just continue the conversation in my head.
The lady in the top right cracks me up. Sunny weather, warm temps, just de-robe. No need for a bathing suit when you can just take your shirt off and sit in your bra.
Zurich doesn't really have a Central Park-Hyde Park type of park, but rather little parks that are scattered through the city and along the lake. Each park has it's own crowd, there is the "meat market" where all the singles go, and then the artsy park up on the hill and this apparently old peoples park (upper right photo) which I found today on my walk.
No need to buy a mop when I can just take this fellow home with me. I want a dog. That swims.
I had to test out the water. brrrrrrrr. Not quite toasty enough for Talley, but hopefully in a few months it will be warmer and I'll take a full on dip. I love how the second photo makes me look like I have six toes on my left foot. It's a good thing you can't really see my toes, I need a pedicure desperately. Did you want to know that? Probably not, but it's too late, already typed it. So if you are in Zurich reading this and staring down at your newly painted toes, please do advise on where on earth I can go to get a decent and cheap mani-pedi in this city.

Okay signing off and twiddling my thumbs until Zach gets home so we can go for a walk to the lake and then to Vorderer so I can get a bratwurst, which I will eat by the lake!

Happy weekend everyone!

cinco de mayo en mi terraza

I can see you sitting there in front of your computer, a curious expression growing over your face as you contemplate the title of this post. Your thinking, 'I thought Talley didn't have a terrace...just yesterday she posted about wanting a terrace...what is going on?' You caught me. Eeek. I do, I have a terrace, an itty-bitty-teeny-tiny-could-maybe-hold-three-people type of terrace. It looks out on the interior courtyard, where thankfully there is a large tree that provides a bit of privacy. I guess what I really meant to say yesterday is that, yes please I would like a terrace that is as large as my apartment and has an incredible view of the city-lake-alps. Perhaps I will just print an enormous photo of the city-lake-alps view and tack it to the unfortunately mustard yellow wall of our terrace. Then again maybe I could hang the photo we used for the photobooth at the wedding...did you see it? (click link and scroll down) Although without all of our funny friends in front of it, I'm just not sure I'd like it as much.

I'm still out here on the terrace enjoying the late afternoon sun that eventually finds it's way here. It is hot. It might just be time to give in to this incredibly summery weather and stop convincing myself that at any minute the skies will turn grey and stay that way until mid June. It is certainly a perfect day to celebrate Cinco de Mayo, the day of guacamole, margaritas and coronas. I've eaten my fair share of guacamole already, but I'm saving the margaritas and coronas for later.

The terrace was the last 'room' to get any attention. I shipped the chairs and ottoman from the states with the rest of our furniture, and although they are looking a little worse for wear after a winter in our garden in New Haven, what's left of the the white paint looks nice against the dingy colors of the terrace - grey, icky yellow, more grey and black. Thank goodness for the leafy green of the trees in the courtyard. I bought a couple cushions for the chair and a little table cloth for the mini table that we have out there, which helped make it feel a bit cozier. I'm going to keep my eye out for an outdoor rug and of course a grill. I think Zach and I are going to buy a gas grill - whoa - such a grownup purchase. Really it was just the thought of pouring lighter fluid all over the grill that will sit right outside our bedroom that was less than exciting. Now we just need to figure out where to buy the gas for the grill that we don't own yet.
I love guacamole as much as the chips used to scoop it out of the bowl. Once again Switzerland befuddles me with their lack of basic groceries, like tortilla chips. There is usually a lone bag or two hiding in the chip aisle, hidden behind the Nature Paprika chips (bizarre flavor that tastes like bbq), but there is only ever one brand to choose from, and none of the ones I have found are as good as the thin and salty American Tositos. If you are reading this in your home or office that happens to be close to a grocery store, please, for the love of me and guacamole, go buy some Tositos!
Speaking of Tostitos, I'm toasty! I just had to move into this chair, which is still in the shade for a little bit longer. How is the weather at home? Are you having an unusually warm spell as well? What is really interesting about Zurich, is that although it has a similar climate to NYC (we didn't get nearly as much snow as nyc though), it is much farther North, so it is already staying light until around 9pm. At this rate there will be nights in the middle of the summer where it will still be light out when we are trying to go to sleep.
If only I could relive this bite over and over again. Well in truth I did. I relived it for as long as the bowl was full, but now it's empty and I'm stuck snaking on the peppers that are left.
Water now, margaritas later. I'm hydrating. Putting a lemon in my water is a way I trick myself into drinking the entire glass, it just tastes better with lemon.
Who says salami isn't part of the traditional Cinco de Mayo spread? This is my little Swiss twist on the holiday. I mean after all, how can you really have Cinco de Mayo without cheddar cheese? No cheddar in the land of cheese! We've talked about this I know, but I'm just making sure that you buy a block of cheddar when you go to the grocery store for your Tostitos and that you shave it over those new chips and put it in the oven and ta-da nachos! Cheddar cheese and nachos are not something to be taken for granted, I've learned my lesson. Zach can barely talk about cheddar. The mere mention of it and he gets the shakes and then consumes an entire round of Boursin in an effort to somehow drown his cheesy sorrows.
On my way back from the market today I came across a little plant stand and bought a variety of herbs for our terrace. I bought two little basil plants, one mint, one asian mint and one large rosemary plant. The next step is finding something to plant them in. I need to find some window boxes or just simple planters, but after looking around briefly today and coming up empty handed I'm worried the search will be more extensive than I was expecting. Perhaps a trip to Ikea is in order. I dread going, but it might be the only spot with a variety of options in an agreeable price range.

Happy Tostito eating and margarita drinking!

a summer snack

I seem to be in a cake place, I don't think it's a funk, yet, but it is definitely a place, a place that involves lots of butter and a good amount of flour and these days some chocolate too. I decided that the big, heavy, oh-so-dense-and-delicious-cakes of last week, needed a little, light and fluffy companion - say hello to Madeleine. Madeline and I met around 1pm this afternoon, when after pouring melted butter over a fragrant lemon zest batter, she sprang to life, a gooey and sticky life, but a life none the less - I know she was there because I tested the batter (a few times - I've convinced myself that Swiss eggs don't have Salmonella - which inevitably leaves me with less batter, but I'm okay with that) and I could sense the wonderful future ahead of us. We then met again around 2:30pm when she and her eleven other madeleine friends popped out of the oven, and I ate one of the dozen (even numbers upset me). We met once again after each of the three subsequent baking rounds (again the even numbers issue) and we finished our day of meets and greets (eats) around 5 pm at the park where I ate three (I brought three, ate one, which meant uh-oh I was left with 2, the worst of all even numbers, so I ate another, and then it was like the lone sushi roll which you can't just leave there, you have to eat it, so I did). So if you've been wondering where I've been all day, not posting until now, well, I've been with Madeleine.

When do you ever come back from the grocery store with only the things on your list? I'm convinced the gummy bear packaging is magnetized, because I can't figure out how else they would end up in my cart trip after trip. I always welcome them with open arms (and mouth) when I find them stowed away in my shopping bag.
Butter and flour, butter and flour, butter and flour and SUGAR - those are the ingredients that are keeping haustohouse afloat right now. Speaking of grocery shopping, I don't think I've made a trip since becoming a housetohaus-frau without buying one of those three ingredients. You do not want to know how much butter I've bought since arriving in Zurich. No really. You don't. You'd probably disown me, send me DVDs of scary Jillian Michaels from the Biggest Loser (I miss TV and I almost miss her, almost) and suggest that perhaps it would be worth my while to get a job with the nearest weight watchers clinic.
After making one dozen of the basic recipe I decided to try and get fancy and add some additional ingredients. I'd love to tell you that I am a culinary prodigy and that my new take on the madeline has forever changed the face of French baking, but alas I'm just another American making a mess of another cultures food. My two new Madeleine versions were both bad, not terrible, but not good either. The first was banana-chocolate and the second was raspberry chocolate. With a little tweaking the banana one could be good, but the raspberry one was not good, I messed too much with the liquid ratios of the batter.

It appears as if Zurich has skipped Spring. It has been in the 70s almost everyday since we got back from the honeymoon. I think it's too good to be true. I'm waiting for some serious New Haven inspired grey and rainy days. They are coming, I can feel it.
Here is the banana chocolate chip batch right out of the oven
Notice the beauty of odd numbers in the above photos, 7 and 3. Lovely.
Have you read this book? My friend Tala recommended it and it's both hysterical and interesting. And yes you read the name correctly, Foreskin's Lament! Also note how portable Madeleines are, just the perfect travel companion.

Madeleine recipe

ingredients

- 3/4 cup all purpose flour

- 1 tsp baking powder

- pinch of salt

- 1/4 cup plus 2 tbsp sugar

- 2 large eggs

- 1 tbsp honey

- 2 tbsp light brown sugar

- zest of 1 lemon

- 6 tbsp butter, melted and kept warm

- confectioner sugar for dusting

In a small bowl sift together the flour, baking soda and salt and then set it aside. In a larger bowl mix together the eggs, sugar, honey, brown sugar and lemon zest. Once incorporated add the flour mixture and whisk until combined. Remove the butter from the stove top and add to the mixture, once again stirring until combined. Place the bowl in the refrigerator for an hour.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Drop a dollop of dough into each depression in your madeleine pan, filling it roughly 2/3 of the way. Place in the oven and bake until the edges are brown and the centers have risen, rotating the pan half way through the baking. Baking takes about 5 -6 minutes. Eat madeleine's immediately, especially #12

These few pictures are from yesterday. I'm feeling guilty about not posting anything (blog taking over? perhaps) and I wanted to fill everyone in on what I was up to. Once upon a time in the land of English speaking, cheeseburger eating, Jeep driving Americans, I had friends right in my backyard, literally (Hi Anne and Ed). Now in Zurich, in the land of Swiss-German and Ricola (which they need to sooth their throats after all the crazy guttural sounds their language requires) I don't have friends at my finger tips. But yesterday I spent six hours with three fabulous new friends! To be fair one of those friends has been living with Zach and I for the past two months so it was really two brand new friends and one semi-new friend. One of the brand new friends found me on this blog!!!! That is the whole reason I started the blog in the first place, to find like minded people, but I haven't made any contacts....until this week when I got a lovely email from a woman who moved from Kansas city and is trying to adjust to life in Zurich and would I want to meet for coffee to chat about life in the land of chocolate and expensive appliances?! Um. DUH! Of course I wanted to meet. And so we met with my semi-new, roommate friend, and one of her new friends, who is originally from Texas, but in Zurich by way of LA and NYC and is here with her boyfriend. They have the most amazing apartment with an incredible terrace, with the view in the photo above. swoooon. Talley. Want. Terrace.
And because I am trying to make up for a lost day and now a late post I thought I'd let you in on a little secret - you can make Indian food at home!! I did it and you can do it too. In the days of Talley-and-a-TV I use to watch The Next Foodnetwork Star. Last season Arti, an Indian girl from England won with her indian-food-for-the-home-chef theme, and I'll admit that even when I was watching the show I thought her meals looked complicated, but alas I've tried it and they are easy! I made chicken tikka masala and it was delish, rave reviews all around! There aren't many photos because I was a bit busy trying to calm my tongue after taking a bite from one of those peppers. I know you're thinking, what idiot just takes a bite?- well, me. I didn't know if I had bought spicy peppers or not, so I had to test. Thank goodness I had also bought an entire loaf of butter bread, which I quickly consumed along with a pitcher of water (I know water isn't good, but I hate milk and I had to have something!)

Phew okay, post complete and time for me to go eat a few more madeleines before bed. Where do these days go?