Here’s a close up of tonight’s harvest: 10 zucchini, 2 tomatoes and some magical purple beans.

We’ve chosen the stove/oven block (similar to this one from Germania, but a slightly different model) and last week picked out the wooden flooring for the hallways, bedroom and one bathroom (see pic).

We probably won’t be moving until next year – no hurry as we love where we live now – but here are some sneak previews (click for bigger pics):

Unfortunately there were a couple of snafoos along the way – it should have taken only 4 hours to drive to Zurich, but there was roadwork and ended up taking 8 hours.

When we finally arrived, our hotel was nice, on the top floor overlooking the river Limmat and positioned  literally 10 feet away from a church bell tower that  rang the hour every hour, conveniently reminding us (and the rest of Switzerland) what time it was –  even at 5 in the morning.

Nonetheless, we were hardly ever in the hotel and enjoyed ourselves exploring the city, taking a boat tour of Lake Zurich, shopping on the famous Bahnhofstrasse , etc.

The concert was on Sunday evening and we mistakenly took the wrong train in the complete opposite direction of the stadium.  Incredibly stressed that we were going to arrive too late and they wouldn’t let us in (we still needed to pick up our reserved tickets at the box office), we ran around asking for help and finally found a train engineer whose grandmother was Italian and could explain to us which train to get on.  Sweaty and hot, we arrived at the stadium a half an hour late to find the entire place deserted.

The concert had been cancelled.

Vacation from hell, right?  Happy birthday Luca!  So we went back into town and had dinner at a Spanish restaurant where the waiters were mean and openly discriminatory towards tourists and to top it all off they charged us $28 for a dinky plate of unsavory grilled vegetables.

All in all it was an educational experience and we laugh now looking back on the trip (though at the time it really wasn’t funny).  Here are a couple pictures of the highlights.  I wish I had one of the empty stadium!

P.S. I started writing this post on June 7, 2004 and figured it was about time to finish it…

Short dough with cognac pastry cream, strawberries & bananas.

Artichoke Pasta

Pasta with artichokes

Orecchiette with sundried tomates, toasted pinenuts, basil, capers, olives, mozzarella

Directions:  toast pinenuts in a dry frying pan, swirling frequently.  Add a little oil, garlic, onion and sweat till transparent.  Add finely sliced artichokes, chopped sundried tomatoes, olives, capers and a couple ladles of pasta water.  Cook on low till desired consistency and artichokes have cooked through.  Add more olive oil if sauce seems dry.  Stir sauce into cooked, drained pasta and add diced mozzarella.

Artichoke Risotto

Slice artichokes finely and cook in a pan with garlic, onion, and olive oil, adding a cup or two of stock or water as onion starts to brown.  You can use whatever kind of rice you prefer and either prepare it separately, or add it to the artichokes and cover with stock or water until rice is cooked.  Serve with plenty of grated cheese.

Pan Roasted Artichokes

Prepare as above, adding pinenuts and olives if desired and serve as a vegetable side dish.

Steamed Artichokes with Hollandaise Sauce

Steamed Artichokes with Hollandaise Sauce

Steam whole artichokes, almost covered with salted water in a large pot for 30-40 minutes or until soft.  Meanwhile, prepare hollandaise sauce.  I know that seems like a lot of butter, but trust me, it’s worth it!  I like my hollandaise extra lemony.  The real fun of this dish is in how  it’s eaten:  Dip artichokes leaves in sauce and scrape the meat off each leaf with your teeth.  To die for!!

Cold Artichoke Salad

Hard boil eggs and separate the yolks.  Slice raw artichokes on a mandolin, add crumbled egg yolks, flakes of parmigiano (parmesan cheese), dress with lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper.

Here are some of the eggs I colored this year – couldn’t find any white eggs, but the brown eggs actually worked just fine, and they have neat dark specks that white eggs don’t have. I also blew the insides out of three eggs and made Christmas ornaments out of them. The red didn’t come out in the picture below, it’s really an awesome red and I painted it with clear nailpolish to make it shiny.

It was a good thing I tried this trick with a bunch of the seeds because about half of them were duds!  This is a good technique to use on old seeds of dubious expiration date.  It’s so disheartening to plant and water and sun your seeds and have nothing pop out of the ground.  This method speeds the sprouting up and eliminates those days of heart wrenching worry.

I’ve now got a new batch of purple beans in my mini-greenhouse.  I secretly think these are magical beans – because they’re purple, the beans are a special glossy red, and the box says they grow really tall.  My suspicions were further confirmed by Weed Woman Herself, who assured me that they turn green when you cook them!  I’ll keep you posted on further magical properties as I discover them…

For the inaugural run of the blender, we made crepes – and I can assure you that it was a liberating experience.  Since then, we’ve been experimenting with a variety of crepe recipes, and our favorite so far is one adapted from the King Arthur Baker’s Companion.  (Julia Child‘s was too heavy – too eggy and too buttery for our tastes).  This version makes plenty of crepes for two people craving something sweet and satisfying.  It’s quick and easy (though the cooking part can be a bit stressful, but after the first couple, you get the hang of it).  We like to fill our crepes with nutella or lemon and sugar.

Ingredients

1 cup AP flour
pinch of salt
6 oz milk
2 eggs
1/4 stick of butter, melted

Method

1. Dump all ingredients into blender and blend until smooth.  Let batter rest 30 minutes.
2. Heat a small pan and lightly grease with butter.  Holding the pan in one hand, pour in just enough batter to barely cover the surface of the pan.  Make sure to rotate the pan as you pour the batter in to evenly distribute the batter.  Allow to cook until the edges start peeling away from the sides.  Using your fingertips, quickly flip over and cook for another minute or so on the other side.
3.  Slide your crepe onto a plate, fill and roll or fold into quarters and voilà!