off we go

Off we go. The two of us, in one plane, sitting next to each other, heading to the states. That's a big deal, that together part. Since beginning the cross Atlantic flights a year ago this is the first time we are traveling to the states together, as in we will be fighting over who gets the window seat.

I've made this trip eleven times by myself. I could probably fly the plane at this point, well maybe not, but at least I could tell the pilot what route to take, and maybe ask him if he wouldn't mind getting a little closer to Greenland this trip because I love gazing at the icy coastline (just another reason why I should get the window).

We are looking forward to seeing friends and family. There will also be a little celebrating as we pop some bubbly in honor of Kerry and Alex! Remember Kerry, she was just here in early September before she went to Kenya? Well, anyway, when she got back to NYC, Alex popped the question and now we all get to celebrate! Hooray.

pumpkin pasta + pumpkin pancake = fall

Consider this post a brain/photo/recipe dump. These past few weeks were busy so instead of taking my time with recipes I rushed through them, only snapping photos when I remembered that I have a blog where I like to share things like food, and travel and life and pictures of the Alps. Oh Yeah, THE blog. Whooopsy daisy. My mom (and #1 fan) was wondering what happened to my posts, and I told her not to worry, that she should think of it as she would a little kid at sleep away camp who is not calling home. Not hearing from someone can actually be a good thing. When I wasn't locked to my desk cutting and gluing little house models I was out spending time with new friends. So blog silence, a bit like radio silence, can be good, every once and awhile. The only bad thing, for me, is that it results in a serious backlog of photos and discussion points, so many that I inevitably forget what I was going to say and look at photos and wonder 'hmmm where the heck did I take that.'

Anywaaaaay back to the photo dump at hand, fall pumpkin cooking. I bought a pumpkin slice at the farmers market a couple weeks ago and went to town, first roasting, then mashing, mixing and pureeing, and finally stuffing. It was my first time working with pumpkin and I must admit I was a bit clueless and definitely a lot experimental, but everything came out okay, if not exactly what I had planned or expected.

pumpkin ravioli with ricotta

the dough (or you could buy wonton wrappers)

from Alice Waters The Art of Simple Food

2 cups all purpose flour

2 eggs

2 egg yolks

Mix the eggs and the egg yolks in a bowl. In a separate bowl add the flour and make a well in the top. Pour the eggs mixture into this well, and with a fork combine add the flour to the egg bit by bit. When the dough becomes too stiff to mix, turn out on to a lightly floured surface and knead by hand. You can also do this in a standing mixer, adding the eggs to the flour while mixing at low speed. If the dough is dry and crumbly (mine was) you can add a few drops of water until it comes back together. Shape the dough into a disc and refrigerate for at least an hour

Roll out by hand on a lightly floured surface. You want the dough to be fairy thin. Roll as thin as you can and then begin to stretch the dough by pulling the edge over the rolling pin, anchoring your forearm on the rest of the dough, and pulling the rolling pin with the dough on it away from your forearm. Do this about six times, working clockwise around the dough. Roll out again. And then stretch again. When you hold the pasta up you want to be able to see through it. You can always test the thickness of the dough by dropping some in boiling water and testing it. If it's too thick, keep rolling.

When the dough is thin enough cut into strips about 3 - 4" wide, or big enough for you to drop some filling and then fold the dough over. Place a damp paper towel over the strips until you are ready to use them.

the filling

this is where the guess work comes in

10 oz/300 g pumpkin slice, roasted until soft

1/2 cup ricotta cheese

1/4 cup parmesan cheese, grated

8-10 mini Italian amaretti cookies pulverized (place in a plastic bag and roll over with a rolling pin) 2chf at Migros...

a few sprigs of thyme

salt and pepper

sauce

2 tablespoons butter

parmesan cheese

to roast the pumpkin, place it on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper, drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with brown sugar and fresh thyme, stab it with a fork in a few places and then roast it at 400ºF/200ºC for about 30 or until it is soft. Let it cool to just about room temperature. Once cool remove the skin and mash with a potato masher or with a fork until fairy smooth.

In a large bowl mix the mashed pumpkin, cheeses, crushed cookie, thyme and salt and pepper. This is your filling! Taste it before proceeding and add anything else that you might fancy.

Spoon the filling onto the rolled out pasta dough, keeping the filling in the lower 1/3 of the dough. Keep about 1 1/2 inches between each blob of filling. Spray with a fine mist of water. Fold the upper half of the dough over the lower half, then starting at the fold coax the air out of the ravioli and press the two layers of pasta together with your fingers. When the sheet of pasta has been formed and pressed use a knife or a pasta cutter to cut the individual ravioiis. Use a fork to seal the edges if you used a knife. Lay them out on parchment paper until you are ready to cook them.

Cook the ravioli in salted simmering water for about 6-7 minutes, until the pasta is done. Melt the butter in a sauce pan and pour over the pasta with the grated parmesan cheese. Enjoy.

pumpkin pancake

recipe from Nigel Slater, Tender Volume I - he refers to it as a scone, but it wasn't very scone like in my mind so I'm going to go ahead and call it a pancake)

10 oz / 300g pumpkin

1 cup/ 140g all purpose flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

5 tbsp / 70 g butter

1 egg beaten

90ml milk (tough conversion to cups - about .4US cups - over 1/3 under 1/2)

2 tsp thyme leaves

a little butter or oil

Steam the pumpkin, cut into large chunks, until it is tender enough to mash. Preheat the oven to 400ºF/200ºC

Mix the flour, baking soda and salt in a large bowl. Cut in the butter, as though you were making pie dough, using your fingers to blend the butter into the flour.

Crush the pumpkin with a potato masher, then beat in the egg, then the milk, then the thyme. Pour this into the flour mixture and mix well. Season with salt and pepper. (at this stage I panicked that the dough wasn't stiff enough and I added an addition cup of flour. Of course this changed the nature of the scone to more of a muffin...I say stick with the recipe and see what happens)

Warm a heavy non stick 8-9" skillet with a metal handle over low to medium heat. Melt a little butter or oil in it then scrape the dough in and smooth it flat. Let it cook until the underside begins to golden.

You are going to need to 'flip' the scone so lightly oil a dinner plate, slip the scone out of the skillet on to the plate or flip it out of the skillet and then slide flip it back into the skillet with the uncooked side down. Cook for another 4-5 minutes.

Place the pan in the oven until the scone is lightly set, another 7 or so minutes. Turn it out of the pan, cut it into wedges and serve it warm with a slice of cheddar cheese and some bacon.

the new normal

Isn't it interesting how quickly unique and different become normal? I made my first trip to Switzerland just about this time last year. Everything was new, everything. All at once. Bam! We spent entire evenings recapping everything we had seen and done and everything we had put on our list to do and see next time. We were so distracted by all this newness that we barely noticed we were sitting on the kitchen floor eating out of plastic bowls and drinking out of plastic cups.

Since that first weekend Zürich has gone from new to almost normal. It feels so normal now that I forget to share it with you, and that's why I'm sharing our recent trip to Colmar, it's new, for me and for you, and it reminded me with its Disney Land-esq quaintness, that everything I see in this little slice of the world that we live in is different and unique, even when it begins to feel normal.

Zach's great-grandfather was from Colmar, so it has been on our to-visit list every since we moved to Zurich, but somehow we get distracted with other trips and weekend activities and we never quite make it there. We almost didn't make it last Saturday. Swayed by the changing leaves we almost headed South into the Mountains, but then we made a last minute decision and zipped across the Swiss-French border for a lunch date in Colmar.

I have to give credit to Zach for the last two photos. The one of me is a bit out of focus, but I love the lighting and the look on my face reminds me that just because things feel a bit more normal now doesn't mean that they aren't unique. And I love the second picture because it the pastels remind me of Easter and spring just as we are begin to grapple with with dark afternoons and snow (still cannot believe it snowed on the East Coast this past weekend, before Halloween, wow).

We've come to love traveling outside of Switzerland for the simple reason that the minute we cross the border to France, Italy, Germany, everything is just so damn cheap. This restaurant is advertising a three course meal for 11 euros. That is basically free in Zurich terms.

We were on our way to the train station when we spotted these waffles being made. We had to have one, obviously.

In all honesty I found Colmar a bit tooooo cute. It was so cute that it felt fake, like a blown up version of the little villages seen by children as they ride in little row boats through 'It's A Small World' at Disney World (which admittedly was one of my favorite rides when I was little). Can't you just imagine people popping out of these windows, dressed in period pieces, and singing?

Sorry about my little absence from blogging. I know some of you were curious/worried as to where I went. All is well. Things have been busy. I started working on a little architecture project that kept me away from cooking and photographing last week. Perhaps I'll share it with you in an upcoming post...

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).