Getting A Bit Of Cider

We are off to Spain. Asturias to be precise. We will visit SICER the first international trade fair for quality cider.



We will be back in a week...

Early Bird

It's only April but I've already found the salad that correlates just perfectly with the vibes of this summer:



It's roasted Buckwheat on a bed of freshly cut Mango with a Grape Pip Oil Vinaigrette. Preparations take less than half an hour and it tastes superbly refreshing.

I still suffer from an overdose of mango pulp, which I received in the summer of 1980. I usually turn away in disgust from anything remotely mango like. However, this is different and I absolutely love it.

Summer May Come

You thought this was bad?



It's getting worse!



Yes, we bought ourselves some brand spanking new matching plimsolls.

I loath shopping clothes. Buying shoes is even worse. But the ultimate torture is buying summer shoes. However, we somehow managed to buy these lovely pairs within 5 minutes between a latte and jumping onto a train. We tried them on and kept them on. My old ones landed in the next trash bin.

We went for Navyboots. We've cast a covetous eye on them for quite some time. Finally yesterday, we seize the day.

I love all about them. How they gently hold my food, how the texture of the canvas pleases both body and eye, and specially the tag line on the tongue: produced to fit feet in action. And last but not least, we received the best give-away you could wish for on a hot spring summer day: bottled Navyboot mineral water.

My Fine Food Brother

It's hard to bury the hatchet, but I might have to change my views on Swiss supermarket chain Coop and their Fine Food product group (read about digging up the hatchet).

How could events evolve that far? Everything has started at my clan's residence:



Here lives my brother, who happens to be a farmer. Besides of producing milk, he grows all kind of crops, such as apples, tobacco, sugar beets, wheat, corn, potatoes, and gherkins. Actually he is among the last four (4!) Swiss gherkin farmers. He was close to give up this labour intensive product, when last year Chirat, one of the two pickle producers in Switzerland, decided to use only foreign gherkins and the other factory could not make up his mind.

But imagine, an odious retailer like Coop comes as the white knight in shining armour and saves this old trade. Starting this summer, original Swiss gherkins will only be available as Fine Food Gherkins. I might have to alter my shopping and occasionally denigrating behaviour a tiny little bit.

Time for Bruce

I live in a tenement building at the edge of Zürich. It's a nice place, although our area has had the reputation of being probably the most boring place of town. But that is over, thanks to a shocking teenage gang rape case we are now the synonym for urban street credibility. I fear the rents will go up in due course with all the trendy folks flooding in due to the newly gained reputation.

As I said, it's a nice place, despite the close airport, seven railway lines in close range, tram turning place in hearing range, open air traditional folk music on early Sundays mornings from the restaurant nearby and the noisy allotment gardeners. There is lots of green in my view, grocery shops are in walking distance and my neighbors are nice (almost deaf or extremely tolerant).

The only problem is the lacking patio. Where do you want to make a proper barbecue?

But there is hope, as my dear friend Tina has informed me:



This balcony barbecue grill is called Bruce. It looks a bit silly, but what a name. I immediately think sweat-stained die-hard style wifebeater. The perfect setting for dead meat roasting on hot coals. There is only one problem. You can't drink wine to meat grilled on something called Bruce.

[Get Bruce]

Bellyaching Weekend

We've just faced another of theses perfect weekends with warm but not hot temperatures and almost never ending sun. My plants on the balcony are sprouting like there is no tomorrow. It was one of those weekends that shouts at you: Get up! Get out! Enjoy me! And what was I doing? Bellyaching every bleeding day of it.

It started early Friday evening. A pain was building up in my abdomen. Slightly but steadily. It was at it worst between 10pm and 2 am. I took a painkiller and sipped tea but it seemed not to have any effect.

In the morning after I finally found some sleep. My stomach still ached but not that bad. My health insurance has this call service where you can consult a doctor. I was not the only one who was seeking advice. I took more than an hour until the telephone doctor called back. I explained the nature of my pain and he advice me to see a doctor immediately, because it could be my heart!

Of course, I obeyed and rushed with my caring Toño at my side to a doctor that is open even on weekends. Again, I was not the only one in pain. The waiting time lasted two hours. The nice female GP took it again very seriously, touched me all over my belly and asked for my blood and urine. After they drained both of my arms and my pee shines did not get in the way, she presented me the results: every thing is fine (even my heart), only a value called C-reactive Protein (CRP) indicates inflammatory disease. She reckoned I could be experiencing a beginning Appendicitis and referred me to the hospital.

With a letter in my hand and Toño at my side, I drove by tram and bus to the hospital where I was put in a cubical and given one of this hospital shirts without spine coverage. The doctors were all good looking, made a competent impression and made again lots of test. I learned that my stomach, pancreases, gall bladder, normal bladder, both kidneys, intestine and liver seem all in perfect health. They could not entirely rule out the Appendicitis, but claimed that I look a bit too healthy for that sort of thing. Because they found no better explanation, they reckoned it could also be a Gastroenteritis, despite the missing diarrhoea and vomiting.

However, I did not complain and went home with a full day of medical experience to stay the rest of the weekend mostly in a horizontal position and endure the bellyaching of unclear origin. All the time Toño took perfect car of me, except when he put the hot chilli pepper in the oatmeal soup. I have to agree, it gave it the extra touch and I can highly recommend it, when the belly is far from aching.

Super Ready/Fragmenté

Today, The Young Gods released their new album Super Ready/Fragmenté. It's again a flabbergasting experience that pushes the edge of the envelope. It's my new drug.

[check out the songs]

Tasting Spring

I almost gave up on Migros, my favorite grocery store. Innovation seemed to have dried out. They kept repeating themselves. But just before Easter I discovered that Migros have resurrected themselves by butting the brand spanking new Spring Season Yogurts on the shelfs:



Still disappointing, though, is that they are not able to spell strawberry in German. It's Erdbeer, stupids. Never mind, what really counts is, how they taste:

Strawberry and Lemon Balm
Very refreshing. The strawberry flavour is subtle and well bonded with the bitter-fresh lemon balm. Uplifting as spring should be.

Elderberry Flowers
Tastes like Flauder and nothing else. One dimensional, boring and far too sweet.

Rhubarb
Also very refreshing. The acidity of the rhubarb is well bound with the yogurt. Even better than my rhubarb cake.

Nueva Helvetia Is Calling

I just has been confirmed that Toño and I will go to California* in July to participate in a Quinceañera, the most important day in the life of a Mexican woman besides of her wedding. We are very exited! Californians, put away the hippies, we are coming!



Wow, this year, we will cover 18 time zones.

* Nueva Helvetia in Spanish, meaning "New Switzerland", was a Mexican-era California settlement (read more)

Happy Fecundate Resurrection Day

If you're neither an Easter Bunny, Easter Egg nor a tender Easter Lamb, I wish you a happy and fecundate Resurrection Day.

(Click to enlarge)

Otherwise, I'm probably to late anyway.

Late Bloomer

To be honest, I think I've never cooked fish in my entire life* until today. Although we did not obey Lent, we tried to be good Christians by eating fish on Good Friday**



I decided to go for local perch (perca fluviatilis) on an onion and orange bed. It was surprisingly easy. I definitely have to pay more attention to the fish counter in the future.



* Expect some trout grilling as a boy scout on the open fire.
** We obeyed only an lacto-ovo vegetarian diet today, which I think is within the Christian tradition, isn't it? Butter isn't. But can one cook without it? No way. I think beaver would have been allowed too (thanks to Pierre-Francois-Xavier Charlevoix), but they are so hard to find.

Powerful With Style

The BBC claims that front crawl is the fastest stroke and gives you the feeling of being powerful in the water. Sadly, I can only emphasize the section gives you the feeling. I heavily neglected both swimming and cycling in the first quarter of the year I will turn forty. Things have to change big time and fast. This evening we have swimming class again and I haven't done a single stroke since last week's class.

Now it's too late to practice in the water, hence I've decided to get some style inspiration by the best, since not only in swimming, the perfect style is the key to success.

Ian Thorpe



Alexander Popov



Mark Foster

We Were Scissor Sisters

I'm happy to tell that Ms.Mac recovered just in time and showed up with the perfect boots to shake to Scissor Sisters' tunes.



We could not have asked for a more pleasant company to groove.

On The Prowl

My former flatmate and former labour union activist Tigresa is heavily on the prowl. When she's not shopping at Walmart in Atlanta (1 watch for 4$ and a float bag for further trips to Siberia), she's supervising the movement of a fridge in the Swiss mountains in a centers for Girl Guides and Girl Scouts. I reckon, Tigresa still has many surprises in store. We are happy to receive word.

Lack of Spice?

As revealed yesterday, Zurich, Geneva, Vienna, Vancouver, and Auckland remain the top scoring cities on Mercer's Quality of Living index. Flipping through the survey, I found some fine print at the bottom, showing that there might be an other side of the medal:

Quality of Living vs. the quality of life

The Quality of Living index is based on several criteria used to judge whether an expatriate is entitled to a hardship allowance. A city with a high Quality of Living index is a safe and stable one, but it may be lacking the dynamic je ne sais quoi that makes people want to live in world-renowned cities such as Paris, Tokyo, London or New York. Sometimes you need a little spice to make a city exciting. But that "spice" may also give a city a lower ranking.

What makes one person's quality of life better or worse cannot be quantified in an objective index. Therefore, Mercer's Quality of Living report reflects only the tangible aspects of living in a city on expatriate assignments, and leaves the question of the quality of one's life to those living it!

Fasten Your Stockings, Please!

There is only a week left till Easter and it's about time to produce some of those Easter Eggs that even Martha Stewart made green with envy.



All it takes is:

• sufficient white eggs
• grasses and herbs
• onion skins
• a dash of vinegar
• fully-fashioned stockings
• thread
• a big pan

Cut the stockings into squares. Take one and place it flat onto the table. Choose some leaves and place them nicely on the piece of stoking. Take an egg, put it onto the leaves and wrap the stocking carefully around the egg. Fasten the stocking really tight with a thread.



Put the onion skins and the eggs in a big pan with enough cold tap water to cover completely by 1 inch. Add a dash of vinegar. Bring to a rolling boil over high heat. Once the water is brought to a rolling boil, promptly reduce heat to a lower medium boil and cook an additional 10 minutes for a "hard boiled" Easter Egg.



Remove from heat and immediately place eggs under ice cold water or in a bowl of iced water to chill promptly to help yolks stay bright yellow. Chill for a few minutes in the cold water until the egg is completely cooled.

Now you can cut open the stockings and the absolutely naturally coloured eggs reveal their beauty.

(click to enlarge)

Enjoy them within a fortnight. If you don't shock cool them, they will stay fresh for a month but will be harder to peal. The onion skin brew can be reused several times. Just let it cool down and start again.

The Fall of Man

Migros is Switzerland's biggest retailer. This year, it's customer loyalty scheme Cumulus is celebrating its tenth anniversary with a Rolling Stones concert exclusively for its Cumulus members.

Yesterday, I reported this to Ms. Mac, who is - contrary to me - a Cumulus member. She replied:

That's a bit exciting, isn't it? Sadly, even though I'm a card carrying
member of Migros Cumulus, I never really shop in there so there will be
little chance of me winning any tickets.
Why are you not a Cumulus member?

Well, because Cumulus is just another blatant violation of the principles of Migros founder Gottlieb Duttweiler.



For the ones who are not that familiar with the history of Migros and Gottlieb Duttweiler, I have to get a bit verbosely:

Die history of Migros is a real adventure and the most felicitous example of creative imagination, guts, and subversion Switzerland has ever seen. The fight started right at the beginning, when Gottlieb Duttweiler began in 1925 with 6 products and 5 Ford trucks, which he converted into rolling shops. The small shop owners bait the police on him, factories refused to deliver supplies, and the Swiss Parliament passes in 1934 a special Migros bill to prohibit the opening of branches.

Duttweiler found ways to bypass the bill to open branches, agitated, founded his own newspaper and political party, and built own factories to get supplies. The success of Migros is the success against the cumulative resistance of the entire Swiss business and political establishment.

Absolutely unique was that he reserved a percent of the turnover to support the arts and culture, and that he refused to sell tobacco and alcohol. He definitely reached the apex of subversion when he gave away his empire to his customers in 1941. You can't buy or sell Migros, unless its customers agree. Migros is working outside of the classical business world.

So why do I refuse to become a Cumulus member? Duttweiler biggest opponents where the small shop owners, who tried to justify their high prices with incentives such as trading stamps. Duttweiler promised his customers fair prices without hidden discounts. For me, there is not much difference between a trading stamp and Cumulus points.

But Ms.Mac, if you really want so rock with those old men, Toño and I will shop on your Cumulus account, despite the heretical aspect of the entire scheme.

Undefined Fine Food

If there is something one is not supposed to pinch pennies about, it's cheese. Money spent on good quality cheese is hardly ever wasted. Of course, we all have our cheese dealer of trust, but we are also hard-working members of our society, and hence not always able to walk this extra mile. Fortunately, ordinary supermarkets started to introduce fine food products on their shelves, which they call Sélection or - to keep things simple - Fine Food, such as Coop does.

The other day, Toño had to make a such compromise. However, he did well by choosing Coop's Brie from the Kartause Ittingen, a former monastery of the Carthusian order.



As a so called company with a social conscience, Coop tries to justify the immorally exuberant price with a lavish packaging and a booklet, which praises the heritage of the cheese and its special position in the pantheon of food.

The booklet also mentioned that the cheese is at its best in both texture and flavour three weeks after production. Of course, I immediately checked the wrapper. But all I could find, was the latest date of sale and the one for consumption.

For heaven's sake! How I'm supposed to determine the climax of the cheese based on this flawed information?

Of course, I contacted Coop's customer service. They promptly asked back for the exact dates printed on package, but remained silent ever since. This was more than three weeks ago. We are now definitely beyond the pinnacle of both the cheese and a decent customer service.

Mashed Up Saturday

I have to admit that I usual prefer remixes to original tracks. Thus I had a fabulous time over at VJ Jaren. He rocks by letting The Killers' "Somebody Told Me" go with "Rock the Casbah" by The Clash. He moves by melting Kanye West's "Gold Digger" with Walter Murphy's disco floor-filler "A Fifth of Beetoven". He shakes my booties by crossing Missy Elliot's "I'm realy hot" with The Cure's "Hot Hot Hot!!!". He fuses Madonna's "Hung Up" & VHS or BETA's "Night on Fire" to a boiling track. And yes, I just can't get enough of this music:

Last Tantrum

Yes, it's spring, but winter just does not give in.



If you have no idea what this is: front wheel and front gear box of my bicycle and my left foot on the pedal (from left to write).