Minor Successes

Last night's plan to divide the babies up was a smashing success! In this smashing success we all got a small amount of sleep! At one point I slept for more than one hour consecutively!


After a long day of baby-minding, and napping, I snapped to work in getting dinner together starting with a tomato salad with a yellow tomato from the Greenmarket, red tomato from the farm share, rice vinegar, salt, pepper, and my mother's basil.


For the main dish I cooked up some garlic, onion, summer squash, broccoli, cauliflower and cauliflower then tossed in some cooked rigatoni with fresh basil.


For a drink I poured this Snake Dog IPA from Flying Dog Brewery. After having their Wildeman Farmhouse Ale I was anxious to try another of their brews and this was was nice. It was a slightly chalky-tasting IPA which went nicely with tonight's light dinner.


For the ladies I made Aperol Spritzes, a drink that was on Jen's list of drinks she wanted to have after she gave birth. It had been such a long time since I made this that we had to look up the ingredients which sent Lisa and I walking to the wine store in town to pick up some Prosecco. The drink was met with a warm response from Jen's sisters.

The babies' response was more tepid. Once they figured out we were taking a ten minute break to have dinner they both started fussing until we attended to their needs which seemed to be nothing more than holding them and making sure we were not enjoying an uninterrupted meal.

With the success of last night I'm excited to try these new sleeping arrangements again this evening. However, if there is one thing I've learned so far it's that what works today does not necessarily work tomorrow. With all the fussing they've done at various points throughout today I'm sure things could change pretty quickly overnight. Especially after we treat them to another bath this evening.

I've also learned that things are much easier with two live-in helpers.

Go figure.

Remembering Switzerland

At this time last year we were at the beginning of our amazing Swiss vacation. It strikes us particularly hard today knowing that it will likely be a long time before we ever have a vacation like that again.

We made the most of today by watching the beginning of the Tour de France, going for a scenic drive (so that Jen could see some sights and still mostly follow the rules of her bed rest), and dining outside. Each time we have a dinner outside we appreciate that it may be our last for some time. Yesterday I left work early after Jen had to take an unexpected trip to the hospital for more monitoring. This is so routine now that neither of us really voiced any concerns about it at the time. After her monitoring where everything was determined to be fine (once again) we ended up just ordering take out burgers and scarfing them down before watching a few episodes of Eureka and going to bed.



Tonight, however, we made the most of what could be one of our last outdoor dining experiences as a childless couple. I started by making this salad with red leaf lettuce from the farm, sliced radishes, tomato, and green onion with a little olive oil, salt, and pepper.



After our drive this afternoon I stopped by the local butcher shop and found these veal sausages, very similar to the many veal sausages we had during our stay in Switzerland last summer. I grilled them up and served them with a nice grilled Berkshire pork loin chop, caramelized onion, and grilled summer squash from the farm.



For beer I chose this Latitude 48 IPA from Sam Adams. It's made with German hops which sort of goes with the veal sausage/Swiss theme so I thought it would be appropriate. It was a very nice, slightly malty, IPA, another from the Sam Adams Hopology variety pack.

Sam Adams, I never gave you the credit you deserved until very recently.

By the way, I'm loving drinking beer out of this amazing glass. I don't know what it is. It could just be that I love a novelty glass.



Jen is at thirty-five weeks now which means the guys could be here any day now.



She looks a bit different than she did a year ago. However, she probably feels more comfortable today. Don't let that picture fool you. That was the most miserably hot highway overpass on planet Earth.



To round out the evening I poured myself a little of this Grande Gruyère Liqueur de Marque that I got on our trip to Gruyère last year. It was actually far better (and less medicinal) than I'd been expecting.

It made it totally worth the experience of dealing with the wretched French shopkeeper in town.

Now it's time for a little culture and a viewing of National Lampoon's European Vacation to complete the European experience before calling it a day.

Salut!

Cold Remedies & Leftovers

We returned home to New York only to find that I was stricken with a terrible cold, the kind of cold that makes me even more cranky than normal. I had most of the early part of the day to kick around, grumble, and drink ginger, lemon, and honey tea so by the time Jen got home I was only mostly insufferable.



As I've mentioned many times it is nearly impossible to pair beer or wine with soup. Since I'd planned to make soup I decided to have a beer about two hours before the soup to make things easier.

Tonight I selected this Hibernator from Long Trail Brewing Co. As we roll into the near winter months it will be all about Christmas and winter beers. There are probably 400 different varieties that I will see this year so I'll need to be extra selective about what I choose to pair with dinner and what I don't get around to sampling at all.

Given my love for Long Trail I thought this was a good way to kick off the winter season. And by winter season I mean winter beer season, not actual winter.



With my cold lingering I decided soup would be a good move. I took some of the remaining turkey from Thanksgiving and spent most of the day making turkey stock. With some of the stock I made this turkey soup with garlic, ginger, onion, carrot, celery, egg noodles, parsley, and lots of black pepper.

I also put in a dash of Worchestershire sauce at Jen's recommendation and I'm pretty sure all of that added up to clearing out my sinuses nicely.



Jen's not a huge fan of soup as a main course so I also took the remaining stuffing and added an egg, some Gruyere, parsley, and a little milk before baking it in the oven to make a savory bread pudding.



I was going to go straight back to tea and add a little brandy but then I decided that leaving the tea out may be a better idea. I did cut the brandy with a little Bénédictine for the herbal and medicinal qualities of the drink. Then I sipped it over the course of about two hours. Bénédictine is made by monks so it has a long tradition and closely guarded recipe.

Besides, I just like anything made by monks.

Swiss Recap Dinner

Before we went to Switzerland we had a Swiss dinner to prepare for our trip. In Switzerland we consumed as many classic Swiss foods as we could. This meant eating a large number of veal sausages on a daily basis.

However, we didn't get a chance to have everything we had planned on. I planned on remedying this when we returned to the States by making a Swiss dinner as a sort of recap to our travels. Mostly the German part.



For an appetizer I put out these crackers which had been given to us by Gregg and Ross in Switzerland. I paired them with some Gruyere we'd stolen from the plane and some wine we'd also stolen from the plane. I think the cheese and the wine did not benefit from the sweltering trip in our backpacks from the plane but the crackers aged remarkably well. Those little toasts are fantastic!



For tonight's dinner I started off by making this light salad with some of the spinach, slices of orange, and thinly sliced fennel with a light drizzle of cider vinegar, olive oil, red onion, salt, and pepper.



The main course was probably the most traditional of Swiss dishes: rosti potatoes with veal scallopini in a mushroom cream sauce. I tried to recreate our our dinner in Zurich at Terrase by lightly grilling the scallopini first. I made the sauce with some olive oil, butter, onion, crimini mushrooms, white wine, flour, cream, and salt.

I haven't really made rosti potatoes since the five minutes my culinary school devoted to our learning the cuisines of Switzerland, Germany, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and The Ukraine. I was also surprised to not really encounter them in Switzerland or on any menu. Therefore it was time to make some!

They're extremely easy to make. Just bake some potatoes, peel the skin, grate them into a bowl, add some finely diced onions and salt, then fry them in a pan.

And there you have the most typical Swiss dinner as told to me by my culinary instructors during my 45 second training on Swiss cooking.



This winter I had the worst beer I've ever had. It was called La Dragonne. It was Swiss and it was awful.

While in Switzerland this summer I tried a number of Swiss beers, all lagers, and they ranged from okay to good. I was eager to try all these beers that, to my knowledge, are not available in the U.S.



The other day Jen came home from work with a beer called La Meule from Brasserie des Franches-Montagnes. I recognized the lizard on the label and knew this was from the same brewery as La Dragonne. The strange thing is that I was really excited by this. Jen gasped when she found out it was by the same brewery but I was elated.

I knew that this beer could be anywhere near as bad as the La Dragonne. In fact, I was certain it would be quite good. And it was! Jen liked it in particular because she said it had a grapefruit taste to it. It did have a slight bitterness to it but, thankfully, not to the extent of La Dragonne.



For dessert I made a recipe based off of the Lucerne cookbook's apple pancake recipe. Instead of apples I used the Red Clap pears. The batter consisted of flour, egg, brown sugar, salt, white wine, and grated pears.

I fried these up in short little stacks and topped them with whipped cream and cinnamon.



As one last reminder of our trip I poured out a little bit of this Meginrat liqueur I'd purchased on our trip to Einsiedeln. I wasn't sure how to serve it as apparently there is no information at all on the entire internet about the existence of this liqueur.

I started by just pouring a small shot of it and drinking it straight. It reminded me a bit of Galliano except in a much, much shorter bottle.



I also tried it on the rocks with a little water. I think I like it better straight up but the ice does help to mask the cough syrup like taste to the liqueur.



This blog entry has now become the world's greatest archive on the history, preparation, and serving of Meginrat liqueur from Einsiedeln.

You're welcome.

Tummy Jet Lag

Today we woke up around 5:00 AM, ready to go. I wasn't really that ready to wake up but I was starving. I think I have jet lag of the stomach after this trip. My sleep hasn't been all that disrupted.



I made Jen some waffles with the farm apricots and blueberries. The apricots aren't quite as good as the ones we'd gotten in Switzerland but they're pretty good. This left us with only currants left from our fruit portion of the share this week. Still not sure what to do with those.



Later this afternoon, for a snack, I made a spread by throwing some garlic, and Thai basil into a mortar and pestle and smashing them together with some almonds and canned pinto beans from the pantry. Without any additional oil this was a great spread for some sliced baguette.



I must admit that I'd never heard of Aperol until our dinner in Zurich with Gregg and Ross. Ever since that dinner Jen was on a quest for Aperol asking in every restaurant we went to for the rest of the trip. Sadly no one ever had it. The only thing we really did today was to go out in search of Aperol and we finally found it at a liquor store down the street. We made these spritzes with Aperol, lime, ice, and some Sophia Coppola champagne that Jen's sister brought back to us a few weeks ago. We'd given this to her at our wedding as a gift over three years ago and she had just decided she didn't want it. Her loss, our gain.

Our sort of expired gain.



For a salad I used tossed some tomato wedges with mint and Thai basil then served them over the Solix Red Sail lettuce with some cucumbers, olive oil, salt, pepper,and lemon.



In a sort of replay of last night I cooked up some farro and tossed it with sauteed garlic, onion, carrot, summer squash, tomato, Thai Basil, mint, salt, pepper, and olive oil.



We spent much of the day watching the highlights for all the Tour de France stages we'd missed while (ironically) we were in France. During dinner (and long after) we watched the Tour on our laptop. The All Access Pass is not perfect but it's great for those of you out there that don't have cable and want to watch the Tour de France.

In America I suspect we may be the only two that fall into that very narrow category.

The Journey to the West

We woke up yesterday at 6:30 AM in Paris and went to bed at 9:30 PM in New York. This wouldn't have been such a big deal if it weren't for the six hour time change and the harrowing one hour connection in Zurich. In Zurich we were made to throw away some beautiful bottles of Bordeaux thanks to the "Special American Travel Only" checkpoint where they are dutifully make America safe by ensuring everyone arriving in our airports is dehydrated.



The food on our trip to Europe (via Air Canada) was barely edible. I don't mean that in the sense that it was simply bad. I mean that it was actually barely edible. They had asked me if I wanted chicken or pasta. I selected pasta because I didn't want meat and they gave me a horrendous microwaved cardboard tub with penne and some sort of beef on it. Even though I was starving I couldn't finish more than a third of it.


Kathy says: "Finally something we agree on! I had to call the flight attendant to give him my muffin back because it was as hard as a rock!"

Air Suisse was something else all together. The food on our 45 minute flight from Paris to Zurich was more plentiful and was actually quite delicious: a nice tomato and pesto sandwich on fresh bread with your selection of just about any drink imaginable.



On the eight hour flight to New York we were served an unthinkable amount of food: a snack pack to get started, green salad, a lovely toretllini in cream sauce, a fresh roll with butter, a slice of Gruyere cheese, some sort of apple cake, a delicious pizza bread, ice cream, and a small chocolate bar. They must have served drinks every hour on the hour with your choice of water, tea, coffee, juices, beer, wine, and just about any spirit or liqueur you could think of. Except for Advocaat. I only know this because the woman beside us asked for some. I would have thought this crazy except for how wide their selection was.

I take that back. It was still kind of a crazy request.



After arriving in New York in the sweltering heat and finding our car we arrived home and I immediately rushed out to pick up the farm share. This week was a pretty good haul with summer squash, cucumbers, scallions, Solix red leaf lettuce, Encino green leaf lettuce, cilantro, Thai basil, eggplant, red currants, blueberries, and apricots.



We also sorted through all the various souvenirs we were able to get home. At least the ones that weren't confiscated by the TSA. If we are allowed to return from Europe with tiny sausages stuffed with walnuts the terrorists win.

What we were able get home includes, but is not limited to: bags for candles with German words on them, liqueur from Einsiedeln, wines from Beaune and Bordeaux, peach liqueur, walnut stuffed sausages from Gruyere, Lucerne Market Cookbook, wine stoppers, a terrible neck pillow from Toronto, leftover picnic napkins and utensils, liqueur from Gruyere, French pens, some sort of pork pate, foie gras, maps of medeival Europe, Swiss Air wines, Swiss Air chocolates, coffee from Burundi, peach lotion, mustard in a tube, a tacky wine opener, a small metal wine-tasting thing from Beaune, Jordan almonds, an African basket, and canned truffles.



To beat the heat we started off by making a drink with limeaid, chopped basil, and sparkling water, a nice refreshing drink after sixteen hour of travel.



After nearly two straight weeks of butter, cream, and booze we were ready for a light dinner. I, however, was not ready to clean salad greens as that is my least favorite culinary task. Instead Jen sliced up some basil, apricot, almonds, and scallion and I made some quinoa. With the quinoa I tossed in the chopped up summer squash straight into the pot and cooked it up with a little lemon juice, hot sauce, salt, pepper, and a drizzle of olive oil.

We had some great food in Europe but this was one of the best dinners I can remember. For dessert we had just fresh blueberries and did our best to fight off sleep before finally giving in at 9:30 PM.

So another grand adventure draws to a close. The blog entries from here on out will probably consist of some lighter eating featuring predominantly what we're getting from the share each week. Now we'll be able to eat a little healthier to counteract the excess of the past two weeks.

But mostly because we won't be able to afford additional groceries for at least four or five months.