Autumn. The ‘Time of Plenty’. I really love that season. Not only for the foggy and cool weather after a hot summer. But also because the variety of fresh food is bigger than at any other time of the year.
Here’s a recipe I’ve tried out just recently. Sorry for the missing pics: Normally I cook alone and then I don’t think of taking pictures as well...
This is what you need:
800g Pork Sirloin, whole pieces
Salt
Pepper
Hay
600g mixed Mushrooms
2 little Onions
Butter
2dl Cream
1dl White Wine
500g fresh Pasta
Prepare as many sheets of aluminium foil as you have Sirloin pieces, big enough to wrap the pieces. Cover each of the foils with hay. Preheat the oven up to 180° C.
Spice the Sirloin pieces fairly with salt and pepper, then sear them for 3 minutes in a cast iron pan with little olive oil. Wrap the pieces in the hay and the Sirloin pieces and roast them in the oven. After 25-30 minutes take them out and let them rest for another 10 minutes. Then unwrap the Sirloin and wipe off all the hay.
Brush the mushrooms and cut them into pieces. Peel and chop the onions. Melt the butter in a cast iron pan until it boils, then put the mushrooms in. Stir gently, so they don’t get burnt. After two minutes put the chopped onions in and wait until they glaze over. Now pour the wine, and when it’s boiling pour the cream. Let boil until the consistency is right.
Prepare the pasta, then serve all together. Decorate the table with fresh grapes and figs. You can add leaves and maroons as well. Enjoy the meal.
Some advice from my side:
You can get hay from a local farmer, they feed the cattle with it. Normally they can spare one bag of it, a cow eats a lot more of it every day. Also pet shops have hay, but there you have to pay for it. If you want to take fresh grass and dry it, lay it in the sun. Don’t store the hay in a plastic bag, paper is ok, fabric is perfect.
Depending on the size of the pig, a piece of Sirloin is roughly 400-500g. So you should be fine with it. If you can get Sirloin of wild pork, that’s even better. But don’t go hunting a boar yourself unless you have a hunting licence...
Get mushrooms that grow in the temperate climate zone. Shi Take don’t match the general taste of this meal. Porcini, chanterelles and Champignons de Paris are ok. If you dare collecting the mushrooms yourself, please show them to someone who’s familiar with them. In Switzerland there are approved mushroom-inspectors that tell you which ones are edible when you show them what you’ve got. And don’t take the red ones with the white dots, they can make you see funny colours and scary faces if you eat them. Also you might get tummy aches...
Some of the ideas I took from this website - all in German...
Sonntag, 4. November 2007
Samstag, 27. Oktober 2007
Amy Winehouse
I'm a music-lover. If you take a look at my profile you can see I know a band for every letter in the alphabet. I like most styles of music, from heavy metal over rock, pop, blues, electro... Mostly I like singers who really can sing, who have a very distinctive voice. Amongst my favourite singers are David Coverdale (Whitesnake, ex-Deep Purple), Fredy Mercury, Joss Stone - and Amy Winehouse.
Exactly that artist played at the sold-out Volkshaus in Zurich lately. Tickets were hard to get, and I considered going to Zurich just to see if there's a chance to get a ticket on the street.
Fortunately I didn't go.
Amy Winehouse is a 24 year old British soul singer with a 'golden voice'. In the song 'Rehab' she sings about being told to go to a drug-rehabilitation, which she refuses to do. She should better think again, otherwise she'll end up like Janis Joplin, whom she's being compared with: JJ died in 1970 at the age of 27 because of drugs.
This is - in broad strokes - what newspapers and radiostations reported about the show:
Amy Winehouse was completely caned and only able to perform 4 (!) songs in Zurich, before she was taken off stage by her worried husband. After the first two songs she left the stage for some treatment and only came back after some 10 minutes. Her band must have been very embarrassed that the show already ended after 50 minutes.
This is Amy Winehouse performing 'Back to Black' at the BBC Sessions:
And this is her performance of the same song in Zurich, totaly deranged:
A spokesman of 'Good News Entertainment', the organizer of the concert, stated that they won't invite her to Switzerland again, unless she's got herself - and especially her handling of alcohol and other dangerous stuff - under control. In my opinion that's a fair deal, since the audience must have been really upset after that 'concert'.
If you read this, Amy: I won't have a drink on you, but I really hope you're changing she lyrics of your song soon:
'They try to make me go to rehab
And I said yes, yes, yes!'
And then I'll come to your next show here in Switzerland.
Exactly that artist played at the sold-out Volkshaus in Zurich lately. Tickets were hard to get, and I considered going to Zurich just to see if there's a chance to get a ticket on the street.
Fortunately I didn't go.
Amy Winehouse is a 24 year old British soul singer with a 'golden voice'. In the song 'Rehab' she sings about being told to go to a drug-rehabilitation, which she refuses to do. She should better think again, otherwise she'll end up like Janis Joplin, whom she's being compared with: JJ died in 1970 at the age of 27 because of drugs.
This is - in broad strokes - what newspapers and radiostations reported about the show:
Amy Winehouse was completely caned and only able to perform 4 (!) songs in Zurich, before she was taken off stage by her worried husband. After the first two songs she left the stage for some treatment and only came back after some 10 minutes. Her band must have been very embarrassed that the show already ended after 50 minutes.
This is Amy Winehouse performing 'Back to Black' at the BBC Sessions:
And this is her performance of the same song in Zurich, totaly deranged:
A spokesman of 'Good News Entertainment', the organizer of the concert, stated that they won't invite her to Switzerland again, unless she's got herself - and especially her handling of alcohol and other dangerous stuff - under control. In my opinion that's a fair deal, since the audience must have been really upset after that 'concert'.
If you read this, Amy: I won't have a drink on you, but I really hope you're changing she lyrics of your song soon:
'They try to make me go to rehab
And I said yes, yes, yes!'
And then I'll come to your next show here in Switzerland.
Sonntag, 14. Oktober 2007
I'm alive!
Yes, of course I am. The reason for my long absence wasn't holiday - it was actually work. As we have put up the new product range for next year we had exhibitions at our company, which lead to many weekends on duty. The whole thing is over now, and I will have time to write again. Stay tuned!
Mittwoch, 5. September 2007
Don't smile!
No, really: You're not allowed to smile. Not on official identification-items such as passports and identity cards.
My old identity card was out of date and so I had to make a new one. And of course it's not enough to just ask for a new one - you have to go to the photographer's to make new pictures on which you don't smile.
Mine looks like this:
I thought there's much more potention in this little picture of which I got eight pieces on paper. So I scanned it into the computer and played around a bit.
For example: How do you like the fake smile?
And that's not enough. Take a close look at the following picture - what's wrong with it?
This is how it should be:
My old identity card was out of date and so I had to make a new one. And of course it's not enough to just ask for a new one - you have to go to the photographer's to make new pictures on which you don't smile.
Mine looks like this:
I thought there's much more potention in this little picture of which I got eight pieces on paper. So I scanned it into the computer and played around a bit.
For example: How do you like the fake smile?
And that's not enough. Take a close look at the following picture - what's wrong with it?
This is how it should be:
And here's upright - see what I did?:
As if the fake smile wasn't bad enough. Horrible, isn't it? I'll stick to the first one - and that's what I got on my identification card as well. Otherwise I might not be able to leave the country anymore. Let's see it once more. Or twice...
Sonntag, 26. August 2007
Eidgenössisches Schwing- und Älplerfest 2007
Traditional Swiss sports are somewhat down to earth. It’s nothing like chocolate-eating competitions or cheese-rubbing time-trials. Traditional Swiss sports are wrestling (Schwingen), rock-throwing (Unspunnen-Stone, 83 kg) or maybe Hurnussen (hornetting).
The latter is rather a flatland-sport, where as Swiss wrestling and rock-throwing come from the mountain areas. There are several happenings throughout the year with these sports, but the federal alpine-festival (eidgenössisches Schwing- und Älplerfest) only takes place every three years. This year it was in Aarau.
Swiss wrestling has got nothing to do with the dumb and perverted show-off fights of American wrestling. As already pointed out it’s very down to earth, and it’s not professional.
Here are some basic rules of Swiss wrestling:
- There are two types of wrestlers: ‘Sennen-Schwinger’ (shepherd-wrestler) and ‘Turner-Schwinger’ (gymnast-wrestler). The Sennen-Schwinger is one who only does wrestling and no other sports. The Turner-Schwinger is one that is in a gymnast-club and wrestling is only one sport he does. Turner-Schwinger have to be dressed in white, Sennen-Schwinger have to wear dark trousers and preferably a blue shephard’s-shirt without collar. Both types have to wear wrestling-pants with handles.
- During the fight, both wrestlers have to hold the opponents pants with at least one hand, otherwise the fight is being stopped.
- The wrestling-field is round and covered with saw-dust. Both wrestlers wipe the dust off the other ones back after the fight.
- Wrestling is a non-professional sport. No prize-money is given. At normal events the first prize is a cow-bell, at national events the winner gets a wreath.
- The winner of an event will further on be referred to as ‘bad guy’ (ein Böser) or ‘evil wrestler’ (böser Schwinger).
- The winner of the annual national Schwingfest and the even more important federal Schwingfest (every three years) is called King.
- The athletes are named the ancient Swiss way: Family name first. So this year’s King isn’t Jörg Abderhalden, it’s Aberhalden Jörg.
If you think, throwing a guy on his back with nothing but grabbing his pants, you better think again: Most athletes are at least 1.9m tall and 100kg heavy (6-footers at 220 lbs)! An athletic sports-commentator of our national radio station got flipped over in less than a second in a fun-fight on Friday!
The rules for rock-throwing are even simpler: just throw it as far as possible. The rock is so big and heavy that hardly any athlete can really throw it…
The festival attracted 200’000 people. If you have been to Aarau before, you might be able to imagine what the city looked like over the weekend: The whole city was a huge camping yard, and every green spot large enough to put on a tent was occupied. But still the festival was very peaceful. Unfortunately one athlete died because of the heat and dehydration.
Hope you enjoy the videos.
Thanks to Swissinfo.org that they put some videos on youtube!
The latter is rather a flatland-sport, where as Swiss wrestling and rock-throwing come from the mountain areas. There are several happenings throughout the year with these sports, but the federal alpine-festival (eidgenössisches Schwing- und Älplerfest) only takes place every three years. This year it was in Aarau.
Swiss wrestling has got nothing to do with the dumb and perverted show-off fights of American wrestling. As already pointed out it’s very down to earth, and it’s not professional.
Here are some basic rules of Swiss wrestling:
- There are two types of wrestlers: ‘Sennen-Schwinger’ (shepherd-wrestler) and ‘Turner-Schwinger’ (gymnast-wrestler). The Sennen-Schwinger is one who only does wrestling and no other sports. The Turner-Schwinger is one that is in a gymnast-club and wrestling is only one sport he does. Turner-Schwinger have to be dressed in white, Sennen-Schwinger have to wear dark trousers and preferably a blue shephard’s-shirt without collar. Both types have to wear wrestling-pants with handles.
- During the fight, both wrestlers have to hold the opponents pants with at least one hand, otherwise the fight is being stopped.
- The wrestling-field is round and covered with saw-dust. Both wrestlers wipe the dust off the other ones back after the fight.
- Wrestling is a non-professional sport. No prize-money is given. At normal events the first prize is a cow-bell, at national events the winner gets a wreath.
- The winner of an event will further on be referred to as ‘bad guy’ (ein Böser) or ‘evil wrestler’ (böser Schwinger).
- The winner of the annual national Schwingfest and the even more important federal Schwingfest (every three years) is called King.
- The athletes are named the ancient Swiss way: Family name first. So this year’s King isn’t Jörg Abderhalden, it’s Aberhalden Jörg.
If you think, throwing a guy on his back with nothing but grabbing his pants, you better think again: Most athletes are at least 1.9m tall and 100kg heavy (6-footers at 220 lbs)! An athletic sports-commentator of our national radio station got flipped over in less than a second in a fun-fight on Friday!
The rules for rock-throwing are even simpler: just throw it as far as possible. The rock is so big and heavy that hardly any athlete can really throw it…
The festival attracted 200’000 people. If you have been to Aarau before, you might be able to imagine what the city looked like over the weekend: The whole city was a huge camping yard, and every green spot large enough to put on a tent was occupied. But still the festival was very peaceful. Unfortunately one athlete died because of the heat and dehydration.
Hope you enjoy the videos.
Thanks to Swissinfo.org that they put some videos on youtube!
Sonntag, 5. August 2007
Meeting a friend
Five years are a long time. Especially when you haven't seen one of your very best friends for so long.
It struck me thunder when my friend from Singapore wrote me an email not too long ago that she'd come to Europe to visit a friend in Germany and would like to spend the last weekend of her holiday at my place. I was at the ceiling!
So I took a 2-day leave from the job and drove up to Albstadt in southern Germany (Schwäbische Alb, for those who know the area) where she was staying with her childhood friend. On the way I got some chocolates at Zurich Airport, payed the beautiful town Rottweil (yes, that's where the dogs are coming from) a visit, and also the airfield Degerfeld with the infamous asloped runway that goes downhill in the western direction.
Of course, being Swiss I calculated the driving time and told her I would be there at 4 in the afternoon. And of course, being me some things didn't really work: The restaurant at the airfield, where I wonted to get a drink and maybe an ice-cream, would only open at 5 in the afternoon. So I arrived one hour early in Albstadt. So I stood there at the house, 30° C in the shade, with a bag filled with melting chocolates. I'll spare you the details about how they looked after that...
Anyway, Natasha and her childhood friend with kids arrived. Meeting a friend after a long time is something very special. I don't remember having been so happy in the past five years.
Meeting for the first time
We went out for dinner, local dishes of course, and back 'home' had a nice chat with the master of the house. The next morning hosted a very nice surprise for me: The lady of the house runs a Balinese Wellness-Studio in the basement of the house, and she offered me extensive treatment for a special "friendship-price". 90 minutes of total relaxation including a fullbody-massage!
After that we had some time to fool around a bit, take some pictures and in the afternoon we drove back to my place. After a light dinner at home we went to Lake Halwil with my parents for an ice-cream and a little walk at the lake.
Fooling around at Lake Halwil
Saturday was a surprise for my friend: One of my work-mates once spent a couple of days in Singapore, and my friend played tour-guide. And now we met my mate again in Zurich. The usual thing: Walking through the old town of Zurich (it's more beautiful than many people think!!!), souvenir-shops (travelers want to bring something home for their friends) and of course: Sprüngli!!!!! Switzerland's No. 1 chololate manufacturer, that runs several shops in town. The day ended with an italian dinner in a restaurant near my place.
Fooling around in Zurich
Sadly the next morning was departure. But only after a nice breakfast together with my parents and introducing my friends into walnut-trees and lime-trees - not the ones with the citrus fruits, but the ones where you make lime-tea from the blossoms. ;-)
Later on I drove her to the airport and we parted for the next year or so...
The sadest part
See more pictures here.
It struck me thunder when my friend from Singapore wrote me an email not too long ago that she'd come to Europe to visit a friend in Germany and would like to spend the last weekend of her holiday at my place. I was at the ceiling!
So I took a 2-day leave from the job and drove up to Albstadt in southern Germany (Schwäbische Alb, for those who know the area) where she was staying with her childhood friend. On the way I got some chocolates at Zurich Airport, payed the beautiful town Rottweil (yes, that's where the dogs are coming from) a visit, and also the airfield Degerfeld with the infamous asloped runway that goes downhill in the western direction.
Of course, being Swiss I calculated the driving time and told her I would be there at 4 in the afternoon. And of course, being me some things didn't really work: The restaurant at the airfield, where I wonted to get a drink and maybe an ice-cream, would only open at 5 in the afternoon. So I arrived one hour early in Albstadt. So I stood there at the house, 30° C in the shade, with a bag filled with melting chocolates. I'll spare you the details about how they looked after that...
Anyway, Natasha and her childhood friend with kids arrived. Meeting a friend after a long time is something very special. I don't remember having been so happy in the past five years.
Meeting for the first time
We went out for dinner, local dishes of course, and back 'home' had a nice chat with the master of the house. The next morning hosted a very nice surprise for me: The lady of the house runs a Balinese Wellness-Studio in the basement of the house, and she offered me extensive treatment for a special "friendship-price". 90 minutes of total relaxation including a fullbody-massage!
After that we had some time to fool around a bit, take some pictures and in the afternoon we drove back to my place. After a light dinner at home we went to Lake Halwil with my parents for an ice-cream and a little walk at the lake.
Fooling around at Lake Halwil
Saturday was a surprise for my friend: One of my work-mates once spent a couple of days in Singapore, and my friend played tour-guide. And now we met my mate again in Zurich. The usual thing: Walking through the old town of Zurich (it's more beautiful than many people think!!!), souvenir-shops (travelers want to bring something home for their friends) and of course: Sprüngli!!!!! Switzerland's No. 1 chololate manufacturer, that runs several shops in town. The day ended with an italian dinner in a restaurant near my place.
Fooling around in Zurich
Sadly the next morning was departure. But only after a nice breakfast together with my parents and introducing my friends into walnut-trees and lime-trees - not the ones with the citrus fruits, but the ones where you make lime-tea from the blossoms. ;-)
Later on I drove her to the airport and we parted for the next year or so...
The sadest part
See more pictures here.
Sonntag, 29. Juli 2007
I have a daughter - NOT!!!
Village talks. Living in a village, you can't really avoid that. Everyone knows everyone, and of course somebody will always watch you at whatever you do.
When Expatraveler was in Switzerland and visited me every couple of weeks / months, people started talking about my new girlfriend. Although we were and still are good friends, that kind of relationship was out of question from the beginning on. But because I always like to confuse people a bit I took quite some pleasure in leading things in a certain direction.
A couple of weeks ago things got even funnier.
But let's start at the beginning...
Several years ago one of my uncles moved to Poland and met a woman who had a young daughter. That daughter got quite attracted by my uncles tales about Switzerland and eventually came over here to work at a farm. And since we have a big house accomodation was no problem here. The young lady liked to go out at night, and as it happens when girl meets boy she got involved into some kind of romance. Two years and a couple of visits later he finally got her pregnant - and disappeared to Lebanon, where he actually came from and knew another woman that attracted him more. So there she was in Poland, with a daughter but without a father for the kid, and decided to return to Switzerland in order to try her luck again on Swiss men. Nothing really happened this time, except that she thrown out of the appartment she lived in and moved in our place again - with the baby this time.
I don't think I really have to go into details about the rest, but according to village talk I became the father of a 1 1/2 year old daughter within just two weeks... That's even faster than it happened in the bible! ;-)
Don't they look pretty? But believe me, I wasn't the only one who was exptremly happy when they finally left after almost 2 months!
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