Monday, December 11, 2006

Meeting the Family...........drum roll please.


My honey has a huge family, his mom has 13 brothers and sisters, and his dad 12. WOW!! I think I have 12 people in my entire family total.


We have never been to a family function before, he is not real keen on large family functions. Eventually, in life, there is a family event you must attend. It was his godfathers birthday party. I was really excited because I love meeting new people and I love families. They tell a lot about people, whether we like to admit it, or not.


The excitement wore off for me, really quickly when I started thinking about how I can't speak the language and I have a lot to live up to since his sisters Egyptian husband, learned Swiss German and spoke Swiss German with the Grandmother.


It turned out great!! The scariest part of the whole night was the car/truck ride there. First when Honey told me that I was the first girlfriend he had ever introduced to his grandmother.(anxiety mounts) Then we were driving in a small work truck from Honeys company, 3 of us were crammed in the front cab of the truck. Our driver, a traveling carpenter whom we found a few days previous, was a fabulous driver but there was snow on the ground and we were swirling through these tiny little Swiss village country roads with only one lane for all traffic. No guard rails, only mountains and big drop offs. As I dug into Honeys leg, they were wondering what my problem was. I just said my usual reply, "I come from flat land, don't mind me."


We arrived at a beautiful location tucked in the middle of nowhere. We had to walk down a winding road, the first part of the evening was spent outside. Where we enjoyed, typical Swiss music ( you know that funny sounding music, that you don't know if its politically correct to laugh, or if the musician is doing that on purpose). Honey assured me that we would have that kind of music at our wedding. (and i think he was serious) We enjoyed Gluh Wein (hot spiced wine), Rum punch, and wine. Thank god for the hot drinks, these Swiss are crazy, hanging outside for 4 hours in the freezing cold rain.


The setting was beautiful, there was a huge waterfall right behind us. Eventually, once everyone got frost bite on their toes we went inside. It was a big cabin style building. The story was told that Honey's great grandfather used to own the property. It was a really famous mill, where huge logs were brought to be sawed in half using the waterfall as power. Then, it became to costly to transport the huge logs up the hill and the city bought the place, now you can rent it for events.


Most importantly. THE FOOD. The food was great. I could have stopped at the appetizer it was so yummy, lachs, a few varieties of shrimp, fois gras, pate, and many other delicacies. The food continued, and was all great. We had a really interesting soup, the English translation, wine foam soup. YUM!! I will have to look that one up.


Oops, another Most importantly. THE GRANDMOTHER. Mutti, she was beautiful. I love grandmothers. My grandmother was my favorite person on the planet. Mutti looked fabulous. She is 80, has raised 13 children and gets along wonderfully. She always has a huge smile on her face. So we just smiled and grinned at each other and it was perfect.
The picture is me walking down the windy road to the event. If you squint your eyes in the background you can see the waterfall!! The first time I saw snow in Switzerland, besides when we were high up in the mountains.

Monday, December 04, 2006

Seafood Love

We are taking a small break for a moment from love, man to woman. And changing genres to Food Love, man to food, woman to food.

I am currently in Zurich, working (just wanted to type that for a minute, instead of saying dog sitting). Dog sitting is ....... Well atleast I get to wander around town, and stare at all the lovely shops and most of all, all the great food.

My new favorite place is the food section of this really fabulous swiss department store. Its called Jelmoli. Anything you could ever possible want, gourmet everything.

What does a Florida girl go for? A person who insists on always traveling to a place with a beach!

SEAFOOD!! Thats right.

I know I know, I am in Switzerland. A landlocked country. No Ocean. Its kind of tough for me at times. But love conquers all, right?(don't worry, my love is a seafood lover as well!)

Sunday marked a special occasion. My Swiss love, left the village and came to the big city with me. Its Christmas time, so lucky us, the gourmet food land is open.

My love says, " Lets just buy whatever Seafood we want, we will cook it up, and it will be better than going out to eat."

I said,"hmmm... ok."

#1: We purchase 1 kilo of mussels = 25 chf ( i thought this was a pretty good deal, considering)
#2 We purchase 1 filet of red snapper = around 250 grams =21 chf (gulp)
#3 We purchas a salmon steak= 9 chf

Then we were off to buy the essentials for cooking, lemons, garlic, onion, and white wine.

Mussels w/ white wine, a squeeze of lemon, garlic, onions, and a dash of thyme.

Fish cooked in a pan w/ sauteed garlic, onions, and the juice of 3 fat lemons.

We ate it one item at a time and enjoyed every bite. It was all so scrumtious. I can't remember the last time I had salmon. The last time I had red snapper was earlier this year when we were in Nicaragua.

That was the hard part for me, buying seafood in a landlocked country. The prices are just different. Of course, it makes sense.

My love had to keep chanting, as I babeled," Kiara, its ok, we are not in Nicaragua, remember in Nicaragua, even the red snapper was more expensive, it was $4 per fish there."

I miss the ocean, but atleast w/ modern technology. The ocean can come to us! (I am usually one that prefers to eat locally, however one can't live on sausage alone.)