Easter: rabbit, eggs, basket, bonnet, chocolate, chickadees and for me woolly sheep and lambs. I don’t want to offend anyone but I am not religious and therefore my associations are not religiouseither. However I do appreciate religious music and “All we like sheep” pops into my head when I think of Easter. Having sung Handel’s ...
So far the weather this year has been fickle. Snow, melt, snow melt, 1 day cold, 1 day warm… even the birds’ chirping has been tentative as if they are unsure if they didn’t return north too soon. Local produce here in Germany remains decisively wintery except for the wonderful citrus produce from Spain and ...
Tartiflette, a delicious cheesy potato dish made with Reblochon from the Haute-Savoie region of France, sounds like a traditional dish that came into being centuries ago to fill the stomachs of ruddy and hungry mountain people in the Alps between France and Switzerland. Who would believe that this is actually a recipe created in the 1980’s ...
What do you take to a Christmas pool party that will not shrink like a violet in the chlorine air and which is small enough to lay out on a pool basin rim? Most participants are bringing champagne, juice, cookies, Lebkuchen (German gingerbread), chocolate Santas and other typical Christmas-y treats but I am always starving ...
Often when I can’t go to sleep after any exciting day, I write my blog posts or letters in my head. I compose and think of the words that inspired me about the event or the problem to be solved. When I was recently thinking about what words came to my mind when I thought ...
What kind of questions do you ask a Rose Queen? How do you milk a cow? What new mustard and vinegar combinations are available? Can you and your children recognize vegetables by their smell? Is Swiss cheese lactose-free? Did you know that you don’t need to travel to Italy to get good boar salami you ...
It’s new, new, new! New home, new kitchen, new pots! The move went like a whirlwind – 6 weeks from the initial apartment visit to actually living in our new place. It was exhasting, in parts frustrating, definitely expensive as moving can be. But the best part is: I LOVE THE NEW APARTMENT! I love ...
I don’t like soft-boiled, hard-boiled or fried eggs. But I adore poached eggs on a sandwich without béchamel sauce or spinach, but rather in a crusty roll, loaded with cheese and other delicacies. To make our poached eggs special this weekend we dug into our stash of Tuscan culinary souvenirs: the fresh pepper pecorino and ...
What do you write when you have longingly awaited a visit to an area that you have obviously underestimated? When it was better than your dreams? When you can’t find the words to say how inspiring it was and is? When you can’t capture the sounds and smells in a picture to share? Have you ...