Survivor Basel

French Wine Tasting

Wed, 18 Mar 2009 09:54:32 +0100

Last night I went to the monthly wine tasting event for American Women's Club Basel. There are actually two groups now; I attended the "Conversational Wine Group." It was hosted by two ladies in the club and presented at Paul Ullrich Wine Shop on Schneidergasse. We had a large group, 17 ladies, but the shop manager handled the evening very well. The wines were great, and I even brought a few bottles home for my collection. He served a red wine that will age very well in my cellar. Those are the little treasures that I love to find.

First Wine: Sparkling Chardonnay that uses a combination of new and old grapes. It was dry, but not terribly so, and the bubbles were small with not much foam. If I am in need of a bottle of sparkling, I will definately go and get this one.

Second Wine: 2006 Marcel Deiss Reisling, Alsace. This is basically the perfect dry Reisling. I brought a bottle home... its a good thing I don't have a car because I probably would have ordered a case.

Third Wine: 2006 Chablis ac Premier Cru Fourchaume, Burgundy, Domaine du Colombier. Another good white, and a Premier Cru at that. If it had been served without the Reisling for comparison, everyone would have raved about it. For the taste and quality, it's an excellent value. I brought home a bottle and will cellar it for a special occasion.

Fourth Wine:

The web site kicked me out and deleted everything else that I had already typed. I'll fix this, but I'm going to need a cup of hot chocolate and a cupcake first.

Jonesin' for Bagels - part 2

Wed, 04 Mar 2009 15:32:03 +0100

I received a very nice email from Randy Adams at www.American-Bagel-Company.de based in Hamburg and he sent me links to a fine foods distributor and a BAGEL SHOP in Switzerland who order his products. So I contacted the distributor and asked if they resell to anyone in the Basel area. I will post any updates as a comment to this post.

The Bagel shop is located in Zurich and is called mybagel.ch. The photo below contains a link to their page. It looks like it is a carry-out place, but I would love confirmation. You can bet I'm headed here soon. Do they know about the Expat Expo? Do they have Hummus and Sundried Tomato Pesto? ...Does it matter... Its a bagel for god's sake! I think I need help.

Food Issues

Wed, 08 Oct 2008 17:35:29 +0200

You could say I've had a few food related issues lately... Let me tell you a few quick stories before I loose the internet connection AGAIN and throw the computer out the window :0)

Cindy's Diner
Cindy's Diner is a 1950's American Style diner with your typical Burgers, Fries, Coke (Curry Chicken Sandwich). Anyway, I was being cranky, so My Wonderful Husband took me for some comfort food. You can see that I was so excited that I paused to take a photo of the food, but I was in for a suprise... Gomer Pyle style "Sur-prise, sur-prise, sur-prise!" Mind you, the food isn't bad, it's just different. The meat had been seasoned to taste like a very strong "wurst" and I was only able to get through about 3/4 of it. We gobbled up all of the fries and they didn't even charge us extra for the Ketchup!

Apple "Pie"

This might look like an Apple Pie, but trust me, thats about as far as it goes. The filling turned out like apple sauce. Apparently I need to work on the German word for "crisp" so that I can more accurately describe what I'm looking for at the market. There is also a difference between American style vanilla extract (as called for in the recipe) and European style vanilla-bourbon... and I stubbed my toe with the salt. I also need to skip refrigerated dough section at the grocery. Torte crust seems to be tougher than pie crust.

The next one will be MUCH better!

Schoggiweggli
My friends, this little delight makes all food issues a NON-issue. Mike and I saw a toddler walking down the street yesterday trying to cram the whole thing in her mouth at the same time... and it was a big as her face! Her eyes were sort of glazed over and she had no idea what was going on past the sweet roll. Of course she had a chocolate grin that stretched from ear-to-ear! This makes everything O.K.!!!!! If you want to know how to make them, follow this link.
http://rhid-baked.blogspot.com/2008/04/chocolate-studded-swiss-sweet-buns-from.html
The photo is from my favorite Schoggiweggli stop, Sutter Bakery http://www.sutterbegg.com/.

It's Friday!!!

Fri, 05 Sep 2008 08:40:23 +0200

I woke up at 4 this morning with a stomach ache and am still not over it. Mike and I both ate Thai Red Curry that I fixed and he is fine, thankfully. I think that eating spicy foods and having a cup of coffee caused heart burn. I don't have time to get old.

So I was intending to tell you a long story about going to the store to buy toilet paper and a compost bin, but I think I'll just get to the point. I learned how to rent a shopping cart at the store yesterday... I have the pictures to prove it.
The bizarre overview of the situation is this...

I rented a shopping cart for 2CHF in downtown Basel, Switzerland and took a picture of myself with my iPhone while riding the "Rollband" (which is like a specialized conveyor belt) between the floors of the store.

What?
No wonder I have heartburn!

What else? I think we are going to Bern tomorrow for a change of scenery. I'll take some pictures.

I forgot to pack an extra deoderant for Mike; it is all in the shipping containers. So, I'm off to the store. This should take me at least 2 hours!!!

Ciao!

Am I on a Reality TV Show?

Wed, 03 Sep 2008 10:14:10 +0200

First... Thank You Miss Brittnee! The tip about the Language Tools available through Google has been very helpful... even helped me figure out how to bake the "gipfle" dough I bough yesterday.

And that brings me to recount a series of events that I would rather just forget. You see... I have no clue what the hell is going on around me, and I just have to chuckle and shake my head. Yesterday was my first serious trip(s) to the Migros grocery store. Let me set the stage...

1) No car, no bag-lady cart

2) No baggers at the check-out stand

3) No Comprendo!!! Everything is written in German, French, and Italian.

OK... so I spent the morning looking for permenant housing and realized at about noon that I was starving because there was no food in the house save a Kashi granola bar. I composed a list of what I absolutely needed, got the new bank card and headed to the tram stop. There I bought my tram ticket and headed to MarktPlatz to get some cash and a SchokkiBrotli. Uh, Oh! I forgot the shopping bags!

Back on the tram to the apartment to get the bags then back to MarktPlatz to the Migros. If I go to this one, it is close enough that my cold stuff stays cold and I don't have to change trams. Then I realize that this is a small store... how small? um... 1500 square feet?

I grab what I can find.. *No cheddar? OK Manchego it is*Milk will be a whole seperate story*Thank god they put pictures on the Yogurt containers* and head to the check-out. I only got 100 CHF out of the bank, but I should be safe, right? Ya! Guet... Total is only 70... Let me refer you back to point number 2 above. I should have gone the larger store. There was only one lane open and I felt like I was in the middle of one of those check-card commercials where the whole place comes to a screaching halt while I loaded all of my food into bags. Lesson learned... the small Migros is kind of like the 7 items or less check-out lane in the U.S.

Once I finally had everything in the bags (2 large totes, a Target bag, a hot/cold thermal tote) I went out to get on the tram. Can you say heavy? OK this is where a car would have been good. I missed my stop and had to walk an extra 50 yards to the aparment past one of the old city gates pictured above. When I got back to the apartment, I was hot and tired and my feet hurt, but I still needed to get some things that the small store didn't have.

Back on the tram to the large MMM Migros on Reingasse. This store is huge! Think Super Target in downtown New York City. Escalators and elevators, restaurants, clothes, appliances. 2nd floor has household goods and I needed Dishwasher Tabs and Laundry Detergent. Doesn't sound difficult until (refer to #3) I need to get fabric softener. 15 minutes of staring at the bottles and finally I broke down and asked a young lady if she speaks english (of course she speaks english, duh!). She helped me. Thank God!!!

Oh, plastic wrap and some little zipper baggies for the food. My hands were sort-of full, but I thought I would be OK until I got to the grocery area in the basement. Apparently a very helpful, loud Swiss man who doesn't speak english thought I needed a hand basket. Lets go back to #3. I'm pretty sure he was telling everyone in the store what an idiot I am while I unloaded my arms into the basket. A humble "Merci" and I was on my way to the basement.

Lime... hot pepper... instant coffee (another 15 minute #3 moment)... OK back to the check out. Oh crap... I was supposed to weigh my produce downstairs. And again the American holds-up the line. Another lesson learned. Huh... it was obvious my remaining 20 CHF wasn't going to cut it. I held up the new bank card and ask "werk?" "Ya" replies the cashier. *sigh*

Back on the tram to our aparment...

I made home-made salsa and Fajitas for dinner. They were sooooo good. I'm looking forward to left-overs. I don't know that I have ever worked so hard mentally and physically. No wonder I was ready for bed at 9:30 last night!