Trip to Santa Cruz

Yesterday, the hubs and I took a wee road trip down to Santa Cruz. Along the way, we stopped at a favorite cafe of ours in San Jose & enjoyed a few fancy coffee drinks before making our way over HWY 17.

HWY 17

During the day and in pleasant weather the trip over the mountain is scenic and easy, but at night or in the rainy season HWY 17 is best skipped entirely.  Halfway between San Jose and Santa Cruz is a town nestled in the hillside called Scotts Valley. I often wonder how the residents make due when 17 is invariably closed due to flooding come the rainy season. I'd feel trapped out there, if I were them. 

Once in town, the hubs and I did some window-shopping along downtown's Pacific Ave. before finally stopping in at an Italian deli for lunch. The temperature outside was mild, but not cold. We actually sat out front and ate our sandwiches & did some people-watching. Santa Cruz attracts international students to its UC Santa Cruz campus, tourists from far and near, and rag-tag Deadhead types from who-knows-where. As a result, there's never a shortage of interesting folks to see while in the city center.

The moon is almost full. Our view from Pacific Ave., Santa Cruz.

Old bank building, ca. 1895. 

As it was nearing dusk, we shot up Highway 1 toward home. HWY 1, from Santa Cruz to Pacifica, is not well-lit. Without the tail-lights of cars to brighten the road in front of us, we would have seen only the dark outline of trees along the roadway. From Santa Cruz to Half Moon Bay, Davenport excepted, it's mostly just open land, a few farms here and there. During the day it's a peaceful sight, but at night it's a bit eerie.

Our route, mostly, up the coast.

New Year's

'Well, she should just have a glass of wine to warm up, but she won't do that!'

This is what my mom said aloud to no one in particular after I mentioned that I was a bit cold at a small New Year's dinner function at a family friend's house last night. The above sort of complaint-rant would have been fine, if I hadn't quit drinking last December. It's not that I won't have a drink, like some obstinate child. It's that I feel I currently should not drink. I didn't make a big show of stopping drinking, but did mention having quit at a party--where all these New Year's revelers also were-- I had given at my place this past August. The guests were well-stocked with beer and wine, but I wasn't partaking. The question 'why aren't you drinking?' came up a few times, so I answered.

Just before midnight it seemed to be thought that not drinking didn't include a toast with Sekt & someone tried to pour me a glass. 'Just a little bit is okay to ring in 2017, right?' 'Oh, no thank you.' One of the party hosts also doesn't drink, so we two toasted with juice. -quite nice.

I wasn't too phased with what mom had said although it bugged a bit. And I imagine that many who don't drink are faced with the whole 'won't you have a little glass of champagne?' on Dec. 31st. What did annoy, to be honest, was my mom's Trump-voting husband's commentary. He'd managed to squeeze in a few pro-Trump/pro-Russia opinions over the dinner table that no one cared to hear. He also apparently thinks that any car sticker identifying him as having been in the Navy in the 60s would make him a target for 'terrorists'. Such ID got him 'out of more speeding tickets' than he could count, but now it could kill him. All mom could do in response was to verbally jab at her husband in a really ineffectual way that wound up making everything feel just a bit worse. After he'd managed to gamble away their savings on a stupid house-flip scheme back in 2009, thus relegating them to renting in one of the most economically depressed areas in No. California far away from friends and family, I'd begun disliking him a great deal. I think that dislike has now spilled over into hate.

Oh, and the neo-Nazi brat that raged at my German group for not being right extremist a-holes like he is sent a mail to all the German club organizers on New Year's stating 'Das Reich kommt wieder'. From what I recall, he lives with his grandma. -wonder if she knows what's percolating in that head of his.

So how was your New Year's? Better than mine, I hope!

Christmas time

We closed early at the shop yesterday. I have never worked anywhere that allowed for early closure on the 23rd, but I'm not complaining. Potential customers coming to the shop after 1.30p were the only ones upset by the change in schedule. As I was counting the till, I could see a lot of unhappy people peering through the shop window. Sorry!

A dear, sweet co-worker left me a wee gift at work on Wednesday. She's not made of money by any stretch, so I was touched she thought of me. The boss also 'played Santa' a bit. She spent a large part of the short day writing out Xmas cards for various and sundry people. Many of us at work received a gift along with our cards. -thoughtful, but re-gifting is imminent, if I'm honest.

Christmas will be a sleepy affair. The hubs went on a 100 mile ride today with a buddy. Their destination was somewhere around Point Reyes. I heard the trip was good, but windy. At least it didn't rain. Anyway, he'll likely not be up for much tomorrow. I figure I'll take a walk in Golden Gate Park or visit Ocean Beach. Maybe I'll do both. Who knows?! It's all very exciting...NOT.

It'd be nice if at least one decent coffee house were open tomorrow, but I'm not holding my breath.

Rosemary salt/DIY gift idea

My personal stash

I've been wanting to make herb salt ever since an old boss whipped up a batch to sell for the Xmas holidays.  And sell they did!  While out on a walk yesterday, I gathered a bunch of rosemary growing 'wild' along the ped-path by my house.  I already had a sack of sea salt in my cupboard for just such an occasion, and, this morning, I hopped online in order to find a decent rosemary salt recipe.  There seem to be as many recipes as there are cooking enthusiasts, so I took bits from one recipe and combined them with another figuring that it couldn't be too hard to create a decent salt.

The bounty and my cappuccino.

The rosemary salt activity went as follows: 
6 tbsp coarse sea salt
6 juniper berries (crushed)
approx. one half cup rosemary (chopped)

Combine salt, juniper berries and rosemary in food processor.  (I used a mortar and pestle to crush the juniper and chopped the rosemary by hand.)

Mix ingredients until the rosemary & juniper are finely integrated with the salt.  Pour contents of mixer on a baking sheet (with sides) and bake for 15 minutes at 225 F.  

Once removed from oven, lightly break up salt with either your fingers or a spatula, then pour salt into either one jar or a few smaller jars, as is your want.  Store jar/s in a cool, dry place. 

Juniper berries

Juniper crushed

Rosemary, juniper and salt combined

The finished product!

My 'foodie' friends should appreciate the effort, or so I hope.

Goodbye, Snow!

Well, if not 'goodbye', then certainly, 'farewell'!  Last year's winter saw two days of light snow.  -just two days.  I hardly wore gloves or a scarf and was able to ride my bike consistently throughout the months of January, February and March.  It was what I would call a 'Bay Area winter'.  So nice it was, really, all around.  This winter has started out completely different.  Today, marks the third day of mostly constant snow fall.  I love looking at snow, say, through a window, or briefly through a camera lens, but I don't like having to navigate my way through it.  I haven't really left the house in 72 hours save for a couple of trips to the store.  A girl needs milk for her hot cocoa, after all!

Come the new year I'll be back in sunny California.  There will be no snow as far as the eye can see and I'll be glad.  Snow is nice to look at, but I have a hard time living with the stuff.

Have a gander at today's snowy bounty:

Take a seat!

Outside my door.

Keeping the trams running.

Bird on a Branch

The enchanting European Robin

E ist für Eule

Bing says, 'Ho! Ho! Ho!'

Christmas may be officially over, but I'm pretending it isn't.  The first fall of snow outside is also helping with the illusion that it's still Yule-time.  I have decided to barricade myself indoors and away from the wet, white world beyond.  Doodling at the dining room table while snow falls outside seems a legitimate use of my time and it's yielded this:

Das deutsche Alphabet

Do you know your ABCs auf Deutsch?  My partner had a tough time figuring out what 'J' could possibly be.  I don't blame him!

Paris in Winter...

George Washington storming Paris.

I am fairly cold, but not the only one slogging her way through town, gloves and scarf firmly on hands and head.  The bonus of visiting Paris in Winter is that I don't have to share my favorite places with the world.  It would seem that the smarter folk have stayed home.  Either that or they are visiting other sites.  

Front

Back

Scratch what I said, I was just walking past the Picasso Museum at ten am this morning and saw a line down the block of coat-wearing art fans waiting patiently to be let in.  I think I'll skip it this time.

There were a few toughies trouping through Pere Lachais when I was there.  God bless 'em as it was freezing.  Finding the grave of 'Gyyym Morrrisson' was on the minds of some.   I did not have the heart to tell them that ole Jim had his head stone moved to keep over-zealous fans from burning weed in his honor and dumping roaches and empty booze bottles around his final resting place.

If only it gave off heat.

The Musée d'Orsay, always a must-see, did not have throngs in front of it when I arrived around 4.30 in the afternoon.  Getting past security, like at an airport, was something that I had not expected.  Things had changed since I last visited in 2005.  At least the man looking through my hand bag was pleasant.  Smiling, he offered me a tray on which I was to put my keys and loose pocket change.  All this just to see some post-Impressionists.

Cranberry sauce with a kick!

Cylindrical, good.

A quick search on the internet last night for a fast and easy cranberry sauce recipe to go with Christmas dinner yielded this beauty from the BBC Good Food blog.  A few minutes' preparation and then approximately ten minutes on the hob and presto, lovely cranberry sauce.  If I had known that making cranberry sauce were this easy, I would have done it years ago.  I blame both not having had access to fresh cranberries in my California youth and being a devotee of the canned cranberry 'log' for as long as I can remember for keeping me in the dark about the excellence of real cranberry sauce.  Not having done a proper shop before the stores closed for Christmas, I actually didn't have all the ingredients listed, so had to make do with a bit of improvisation.  What I came up with was oh-so-divine.  I can only imagine how tasty the original recipe must be.

Original ingredients:
250 gr fresh cranberries
100 gr light muscovado sugar
100 ml orange juice

Delightful, de-lovely, delish!

My ingredients:
340 gr fresh cranberries*
100 gr dark muscovado sugar
50 ml mandarin juice
50 ml pomegranite syrup
zest of one lemon

As per the recipe, I tossed the sugar, juice, syrup and zest in a pot and brought to a boil.  Then I added the cranberries, reduced heat, and let simmer for about ten minutes.  The recipe states one should let the cranberries simmer for five minutes, but I was enjoying listening to the cranberries emit a soft 'pop' while I stirred them that I let the time get away from me.  The sauce, really, was no worse for the wear and most of the cranberries had retained their shape and a slight firmness when bitten into.

One would think that my having used 90gr more cranberries than the recipe called for would lead to a less sweet-tasting sauce, but I figured my adding the sugary pomegranate syrup would make up for the lack of sugar.  Not only did it, but the syrup may have lent another layer of flavor to the whole thing--that and the mandarin juice--making it all the tastier! 

*the cranberries came from the USA!

Easter Sunday

Easter Sunday is covered in snow.  The weather outside does not look inviting, and, to top it off, I am ill.  The fabulous four-day Easter weekend I had envisioned has become a chance to take it easy and get some needed rest.  I had wanted to take the train up to Germany, or pop over to Basel or Bern for a bit of sight-seeing, but, really, I will be lucky if I have enough energy to make it down the block to the corner store for some cough syrup.  Well, I would have made the attempt if the store were actually open.

Frohe Ostern

2013 Goals

Inspired by both Juanita's list and Janet's list I'm now going to jot down my own list of 2013 goals that I hope is realistic, achievable, and only a wee bit frivolous.  Can I actually come up with thirteen goals?  -toughie.

1.  Join a Verein (group) with the intention of participating in a regular (weekly?) activity.  I'd hope that the Verein would lead to my having Verein acquaintances.  Ex-pat life can feel lonely.

2.  Pigging-backing on #1, I'd really like to make the acquaintance of new people!  Last weekend, I spent four days in LDN.  Over those four days, I visited with four different, dear people.  Human contact feels good.

3.  As with all of us ex-pats here in ZH aiming to integrate, I'd like to become more conversant in German.  I think that, with time, I will become better in both speaking and listening, so maybe this is a throw-away goal.  Heh.

4.  Knock on the neighbor's door (as per her instruction) for a cuppa and a chat.  She's given me permission, so I shouldn't have door-bell angst...right?

5.  Stop being afraid of the snow that falls incessantly outside my window.  (This goal will wane as the months wear on and temperatures increase, but I should be prepared for next year's flakes, too.)

6.  Return to doodling as it gives me pleasure.

7.  Figure out how the new composting system in ZH works.  I truly hate throwing out food waste.

8.  Continue corresponding to a certain relative via post and hoping that she enjoys what she reads.

9.  Figure out how to dispose of the Xmas tree that is now drying out in the living room.

10.  Keep my composure when folk cut in line at the Baeckerei/Metzgerei/anywhere where one should queue up because there's nothing I can do about it.

Ten goals aren't thirteen, but, then again, thirteen goals to shoot for is a tall order!  I wonder how I'll manage with ten...

Post-Christmas Goose

A few days after Xmas I found myself in the meat aisle of the local supermarket.  Amid the whole chickens sat a goose.  The goose was the last of its kind not having been picked to adorn anyone's holiday table.  As such the bird was on offer at 50% off.  I paid about 14 CHF for a 1.5 kilo goose.
Post-Christmas Goose was a lovely meal, but the real fun came after most of the carcass was picked over.

Inspired by a post in a food forum I follow, I decided to make jook with the remnants of the bird.  Not following an actual recipe, I winged it, no pun intended.  Two things that jook needs in order to be really good are ginger and time.  Mine simmered for just under two hours, but I probably should have let it cook longer.  I hadn't any ginger, so the flavour of the jook was less than what it should have been.  I suppose I could have added either chicken stock or water to thin the mix out a bit, but, in the end, I didn't much mind.  The jook came out thicker than a porridge, but tasted fab with fish sauce drizzled over it nonetheless!  Of course, each individual portion can be thinned with a bit of water in a sauce pan before serving, so I needn't be eating jook with cutlery!

Post Xmas Porridge!

The carcass taken care of, I then decided to focus my attention on what to do with the goose fat I had collected from my cooked bird.  Thoughts of lovely, roasted potatoes danced in my head, but I wanted to do a bit more than the norm.  Fortunately, the Life & Style section of the Guardian provided a bit of direction.  As I only had 100 grams of goose fat, I made a half-batch version of these lovely, little pies.

Here is the recipe 'copied and pasted' for your perusal:

Pork and onion pies with goose-fat pastry

The pastry is very fragile, so use plenty of flour to roll it out. Serves 3-4, makes between 6 and 8 little pies.
For the pastry:
plain flour 400g
goose fat 200g
milk 80ml
water 80ml
beaten egg for glazing

For the filling:
onion 1 medium
butter a little
butcher's herby breakfast sausages 2
cooked smoked ham 100g
flour 2 tbsp
hot stock 200ml
parsley chopped

To serve:
redcurrant jelly melted

To make the filling, peel the onion and slice thinly, then let it colour in a little butter in a nonstick frying pan over a moderate heat. Remove the skin from the sausages then add them, broken into small pieces, to the pan. Press them down with a palette knife and let them brown. Tear the ham into small pieces and add to the onion and sausage. Leave to brown lightly, add the 2 tbsp of flour and continue cooking for a minute or two, then introduce the stock and parsley.

To make the pastry, season the flour with salt and black pepper. Put the fat, milk and water into a small saucepan and bring to the boil, tip in the flour, then stir briefly and firmly with a wooden spoon until you have a soft, smooth paste. Put a cloth over the pan and set aside for 15 minutes to cool a little. The dough must not go cold.
Flour a wooden board or work surface generously (adding more as you feel the need), then knead the pastry, lightly, for a minute or two. Roll out the pastry, somewhat thicker than usual, roughly the thickness of two pound coins placed on top of one another. Using a cookie cutter or the rim of a tumbler, cut out rounds about 8cm in diameter (you will get 12-16 of them), then place half of them on a baking sheet lined with baking paper. Set the oven at 200C/gas mark 6.
Place 2 heaped tbsp of the filling on each of the pastry rounds on the baking sheet, then brush a little beaten egg around the edge of each one. Place one of the remaining rounds of pastry on top of each, pressing the edges together. Brush with some of the beaten egg, pierce a small hole or slit in the centre of each pie, then bake for 35 minutes until nut brown and softly crisp. Cool briefly, then serve warm rather than cold, with a pot of redcurrant jelly or cranberry sauce lightly warmed.

An interpretation of the above savoury pie recipe.

I have to admit that I didn't follow the recipe to a 't'.  I couldn't be bothered to go to the store for the filling ingredients, and, instead, I thought I'd just use use left-overs from the night before.  The pork and onion pie became chicken in spicy tomato sauce pie.  I think it turned out very well indeed. 

'New hometown'

Over the past few weeks I've read in various different publications the expression 'new hometown'.  The latest example featured someone who'd moved to a new city and within one month was referring to it as, you guessed it, her 'new hometown'.  Like with the confusing, new use of 'bespoke' to now mean anything hand-made, I'm a bit perplexed at how to understand the joining of 'new' with 'hometown'.  Sure, I've read 'adopted hometown' which I've taken to mean 'the place in which one now lives and considers home, but not the place where one is originally from'.  That makes sense.  Of course, there is also that interesting breed of folk who, for whatever reason, were moved around a ton by their parents when they were growing up.  They may claim multiple 'hometowns', or even, 'home regions/countries'.  I think, however, that the majority of us aren't 'army brats' or children of diplomats and didn't have (what I see as) the privilege of experiencing a variety of different cultures/places during childhood.

Maybe most young folk today have moved around quite a bit since being born, and I just sound like a crotchety, old crab-ass here, but, when I was a kid, I lived, with the exception of a few years, in the same town until I turned 18 and moved away from home.  Even then, I only moved about 35 miles away.  We're not talking about a massive uprooting.

I recall meeting a fellow 'Californian' while working at a Farmers' Market a few months back.  -turns out the guy was actually from Ohio.

Our exchange went something like this--
Me: (upon hearing his American accent) where you from?
Dude: California.
Me: Oh, really?  Me, too.  Where are you from (in CA.)?
Dude: San Francisco.
Me: Cool.  I'm from Pacifica.  You know, it's just south of city on HWY 1.
Dude: (blank look on his face) Oh, cool.

The above exchange alone should, sort of, tell the reader that this dude was not from San Francisco.  At that point in the convo I figured he was from a small town somewhere in the Central Valley, or up by the Oregon border or what-not.  I teased him a bit about not knowing Bay Area geography and he fessed up to having moved to SF from Ohio and living there for about six years before moving to Zurich.  I'll wager he probably referred to SF as his 'new hometown'.   

Ohio, with its very pronounced seasons, and, I would imagine, different architecture based on the fact that it doesn't suffer from earthquakes, is very, very different from coastal California.

We are shaped by our environments.  I have to say that, compared to an Ohio teen, I had it pretty easy all year 'round.  -no snow-shoveling.  -no intense summer heat waves.  -no giant insects.  Of course, I didn't appreciate how good I had it until I left.  I remember my first 'white' Winter when I was living in Germany.  I went outside to 'experience' snow, took my first step, and promptly fell on my ass.  I didn't even know how to walk in the stuff! 

Since leaving the home-turf in 2009 for places both snowy and foreign, I can now say I know how to successfully walk in snow.  I wouldn't say, however, that the town in which I have been living for 7 months, Zurich, is my 'new hometown'.  And it would certainly take years for me to even consider Zurich my 'adopted hometown', if at all.

White Dec. 26th

NYC has finally succumbed to the elements. There have been heaps of snow, wind, and, in general, bummer weather the entire day-after-Christmas. The gentle flurries of last week were fun to watch through the front room window, and they didn't prevent me from planning my daily activities. However, snarls of snowfall being blown by high winds as the color of the outside world goes white, freaks me out. I don't want to be in snow; I want the temperate weather of the Bay Area.

My one foray outside today involved a trip to the store two blocks away. The bf and I wanted to make chicken soup, and were lacking all ingredients but the water for stock. The rubber boots that I bought for this Winter's wet came in handy, but, never having worn them outside of the shoe shop, I didn't realize that my socks would somehow be pulled down with each step taken. By the time I got to the store, my socks were "under foot". It was an uncomfortable sensation. -kinda like when I'm out for a jog with the loosest skivvies on, and they begin to slide down my bum. At least, in that instance, I can, sort of, pull them up through my jog pants as I go. There's no way to pull up socks that have become lodged under one's heel in a boot.

I guess my snow anxiety isn't shared by the neighbors as the store was packed with shoppers jostling for position in front of the fish counter, prepared foods section, and baked goods area.

We bought our soup ingredients plus a few other staples, so that we'd not have to make a second trip outside anytime soon, and trudged our way back home. The soup turned out well, and we ate it for dinner hours ago. Now, at bedtime, it's still snowing.

French Canadian Christmas

The Quebecois are back hawking their fir trees on the corner, so it must be Xmas in the City again. And, as opposed to last year, December 2010 in New York has been kind. We've had a string of blue-skied, non-windy days, and, even at 30 degrees, I'm not feeling like a sad, human popsicle when I walk down the street. I guess that that will be in January, when Winter really starts to kick up its heels.

Thirty minutes

I've been out of the exercise loop for what seems like two months. Maybe it's really only been one month, but, when I look down at my thighs, I see a long time of disuse.
Today, I finally went out again for the usual run around the Jackie O. Reservoir. It was between downpours, but, rain jacket around waist, I was ready to get wet.
I can't say that I ran like a gazelle, but, at one point, I over took a weezing 25 year old (he probably smokes), and that made me feel like a winner.

What the rain doesn't wash away...

A short list:

1. Many, many cigarette butts.
2. Hair extensions.
3. Chicken bones.
4. Bent umbrellas.
5. Mate-less gloves and mittens.
6. A pigeon leg sans pigeon.

I H8 NY

Sorry, but it's true. This place sucks. Cases in point: men blowing snot out of their noses, spitting, or urinating while I'm walking past them; dogs relieving themselves in piles of discolored snow; untethered children walking willy-nilly back and forth across the narrow sidewalk as I'm trying to avoid bumping into them; and that one random chick who's hauling ass as we're both walking to the train and then moves in front of me while slowing down. I almost tripped over her, and, given how tiny she was, it was lucky for her that I didn't. Then there are the people who sell magazines quoting me the price as "$6.00" when the price on the magazine clearly reads frickin' "$5.99." I know it's just a penny, but it's the principle of the matter.
And, my all time fave, walking down the sidewalk only to have a lit cigarette butt whiz by my head and land on the ground in front of me. It's raining smokes in this town!

Perhaps Spring will wash away the snot, spit, urine and all else that bugs me about being here. Maybe I'll find joy amongst the blossoms, birds, and, if there are any left, bees. I don't know, but I'd like for the season to hurry up and change already so I can find out!

Joyeux Noel

I'm convinced that the French (or, given our close proximity to Canada, maybe the Quebecois) have a stronghold on all things Christmas in this town. The Xmas Market at Columbus Circle had a dread locked, French-speaking dude selling candles or jewelry or what-not (point being that he was an alleged Frenchie); the chicks at the woolen mittens and hat stand around the corner from 'Le Hippie' all sounded like Amelie, La Femme Nikita, fill-in your own French film experience here: _______; and the tree lot up at the end of this block had a big sign out on display that read "Joyeux Noel" and that wasn't just because the tree sellers were trying to sound worldly. The diminutive woman who sold us our $25 petite tree told us to put tap water and a tsp. of sugar into the bowl-like tree stand to prolong the life of our little fir. Chiquita then made a reference to the musical, "Mary Poppins," and our fine femme amie did not get the reference. A-ha!