Our Super Deluxe Trans-Border Thanksgiving Birthday Extravaganza!

Our first Thanksgiving here we had two roast chickens because I couldn't find a turkey in the market and didn't have the guts to ask about one. Fortunately our good friends The Caramel Family were visiting and they shared their love and their sweet potato recipe which made up for the lack of turkey.

Last year, I got brave and asked about a turkey at the market butcher counter and after calling around awhile, the man told me that I was too early. Whole turkeys could only be had for Christmas, and if one wanted one at any other time one must order very far in advance. With three days to go and no turkey, I shared my woes at our home group and Jean-Noel said, "No problem, I'll take care of it." I was relieved, but it sounded...well, a little mafioso.

Jean-Noel manages a company in the Alsace that makes charcuterie: sausage and ham and paté and all kinds of the delicious kinds of things for which Americans get all excited about when they come to Europe.  Sometimes at home group he regales us with stories of ordering thousands of kilometers of sausage casing and the like. To my knowledge, he doesn't deal a lot in turkeys, but from his tone and the look in his eye I imagined him calling up his "turkey man" to "take care of things."

He was true to his word, and with one day to spare we got our turkey. It was petite and delicious and we ate our Thanksgiving meal as a family and then it was done. Then Jean-Noel told me, "So next year, just let me know a little earlier and I'll get you whatever you want."

This year what I wanted was a bigger turkey. The whole conversation had piqued the curiosity of the other members of the home group. What is Thanksgiving, exactly? How do you celebrate it? If you are still here next year, we will celebrate it with you.

November 1st of this year I said to Jean-Noel, "Okay, Thanksgiving's at the end of the month. We're still here, so I need a turkey."
"No problem. How big?"
"Bigger than last year."
"How many kilos?"
And there I had no idea. I still don't really think in kilos, especially when thinking about turkeys.
"Uh, I dunno, kind of about this big," I said, gesturing about with my arms.

A couple weeks later, I reminded him about my turkey. The word came back: either a 3.5 kg turkey (7.7 pounds) or a 7 kg turkey (15.4 pounds). If I wanted two smaller ones I should order right away but the turkey man said that the 7 kg ones could be had whenever.  By this time, we were going to be a total of 19 people, since Artemis had graciously consented to combine her birthday celebration with our Thanksgiving Feast. Okay, I'll go with the 7 kg anytime one. Still, Jean-Noel's wife Alia said, "A 7 kilo turkey!! That's enormous! I can't imagine it!!"

Closing in on Thanksgiving Day. I'd asked for turkey delivery on Thursday, since we were celebrating on Sunday. That gave me enough time to prepare and brine, though I was a little unsure where I'd put it in the meantime. The fridges are petite too.

Thursday morning Alia called me, her voice ringing with disbelief. "Jean-Noel called me. They delivered the turkey. But it's 11 kilos!!! He says he can bring you that one today or he can send it back and he'll get you the 7 kilo one tomorrow."
I got out the tape measure and measured my petite oven.
"Send it back! 11 kilos won't fit in the oven!"

Later in the day, a text message:  Bad news is that there is no 7 kg turkey and the 11 kg turkey is at our house. Good news Jean-Noel thinks it might fit in our oven.

Thursday night I went to see it. I didn't know what to think. It was beautiful, but absolutely enormous, even by American standards. Alia kept calling it la bête, the beast.

"When I opened the trunk of the car, I almost fell over," said Alia."It was the neighborhood attraction! My friend called her children over to see such a big turkey!" Even Jean-Noel admitted that his work colleagues has laughed incredulously at such an enormous bird. "Those crazy Americans," I imagined them saying, shaking their heads.

It would never fit in our dainty Swiss oven. We could cut it up to roast it, but wouldn't that be a shame? I didn't take it home as planned because where would I put it? And anyway, it was over the limit of poultry meat to bring back into Switzerland. I would need another 3 people in the car.

Our friends live only 10 minutes away, but they live over the border in France. Every person has the right to bring 3 kilos of poultry meat into Switzerland each day. To bring our turkey in legally we would need at least four warm bodies in the car. So our turkey, christened Thomas, spent the night alone in their extra refrigerator, after being visited by most of the home group, cracking jokes as they came about the Mr. Bean and the Turkey episode. Would it end up on someone's head?

Friday I spent most of the day in turkey denial. Towards evening I visited the turkey again and decided to take up Jean-Noel and Alia's offer of roasting it at their house. I went home and made the brine roughly following this recipe.  

Saturday dawned and I was still in turkey denial. Meanwhile I'd been diligently preparing other stuff: cranberry relish, gravy, sweet potatoes (following Mrs. Caramel's recipe!) and the girls were helping wonderfully with potato peeling and piecrusts. In the afternoon, we had a kids' club meeting at Jean-Noel and Alia's house and while the kids munched on crèpes in the other room, a turkey conference was held in the kitchen.

Thomas the Turkey could just squeeze into their oven. But how to brine it? And stuff it? And roast it? And then transport it across the border when it was all done?  I imagined the border guards asking if we had anything to declare while turkey aroma wafts out of the car. "Um, no...not really. Just this ginormous cooked turkey that we're taking out for a drive."

It fits!  (just barely)

I wondered aloud about coming over early the next morning to stuff the beast. I didn't want to stuff it the night before -- isn't that how people get salmonella?? Then Jean-Noel offered to get up early to stuff the turkey and put it in the oven.  

"Okay," I agreed, (somewhat reluctantly...would he do it right?) "It's kind of your fault, anyway," I said, "I didn't want a turkey that big," and he agreed. 

And then, while sitting there on the floor with Alia taking pictures, I had a lovely feeling. This too, I told my friends, is part of Thanksgiving. All the fuss about the turkey, how will it fit? how will we cook everything else while it's in the oven? Working in community to make it all work out. That right there made it feel like Thanksgiving.  

"After all," said Alia, "it's a story we can tell our grandchildren! We celebrated Thanksgiving with the Americans and had to transport the turkey over the border!" 

Brining in the garden bin.

So I left Saturday night, leaving Thomas the Turkey in their capable hands and with a written set of instructions. And here, Dear Reader, is the beautiful part. 6:20 am Sunday morning, an SMS with no text, just this photo:  

Ah, the turkey was being stuffed! It would go in the oven on time! And do you know what I did then? I rolled over and went back to sleep! It was beautiful. Into my dreams came the bing, bing of another message...a photo of the turkey going into the oven. I rolled over and went back to sleep again.

The rest went like a dream...I got a few more text messages to prove that he was roasting well and being faithfully basted. I went over to visit once during the morning. And then after the others arrived from church, Turkey made his border crossing with no passport and no problem, wrapped in foil inside a couple industrial food crates.

Oooh! Ahhh!

The tables wait.

With the tables waiting and the apéro drunk, the men were sent into the kitchen to carve up the beast in time honored fashion. Everyone else crowded in too, to watch and exclaim and to snitch preview bits of juicy turkey from the platter. And that too, felt like Thanksgiving. The beautiful turkey was, as several said, "just like in American films."

And it was absolutely delicious. I'm not sure if it was the happy French turkey or the brine or the combination of both or the collaborative effort, but I'm certain it was the tastiest turkey I have ever eaten.  The rest of the day evolved in time-honored fashion...lots of eating, game playing, couch napping, a walk for some and a pick-up baseball game for others.

16 candles!

Then dessert and "Happy Birthday" and eventually a guitar and Christmas carols. And at the end of the day, as our guests departed joyful, content and stuffed, it felt like Thanksgiving in my soul.

Now thank we all our God

With hearts and hands and voices

Who wondrous things hath done,

In whom the world rejoices

Who from our mothers' arms

Hath blessed us on our way

With countless gifts of love

And still is ours today.

If you would like to see more photos of our day, please go here.

Apple Cider

Perhaps it is fitting that while my last post (not counting the one by my guest poster) was about cherries, this one is about apples. Our rental house comes with a large orchard of about 15 trees, 6 (or seven?) of which are apple trees. Last year we ate plenty, but the huge rush of ripe apples came when the kids were in the throes of starting school and the combination of that and the lack of a good way to preserve them meant that most of the apples fell to the ground and became yellow jacket and birdie food.

I especially liked to think about the well fed birdies -- it kept me from feeling guilty about not using the apples.

But this year! This year we determined to make use of the communal pressoir - the village cider press. It's something I find absolutely charming, that the community organizes a cider press in the autumn and that you have to call the town hall to make your appointment. More specifically, you call the town hall on Wednesdays and Thursdays between 9 and 10 a.m. It also tells you something about how many apple trees are in the fields and backyards here.

I wish I'd thought to take a photo of all these crates and bins full of apples and crammed into the back of our Mazda! When I called for my appointment and explained that I'd never done this before and how many apples would I need anyway? the nice man told me that 100 kilos of apples would be ideal and would produce 60-70 liters of juice.  I wasn't quite sure how many crates 100 kilos would be, but when I left I was sure we had more than that.

Last Thursday evening was our appointment. We drove them down to the community building next to the bank where a lot of people were milling about. It was hard to tell who was or wasn't in charge. There was one truck with a trailer full of apples and I felt slightly silly with mine all packed into the car with the seats down -- like a real amateur. But then I saw that there was also a very bent old lady who was frail-ly loading up her finished cider into her car with the help of her children.

We loaded our apples into this VERY LOUD room and dumped them into the hopper on the left. HORRIBLE chomping noises came from the machine as it schlurped up the apples and squished them to a pulp. The boys were fascinated. Then it rolled the squished apples on the squishing bands and out squeezed the cider. The hose in the middle of the photo sucked up the fresh juice and pumped it over to...

 
A big blue barrel marked for us!! The nice cider pressing man gave us little cups of the fresh juice -- mmm, good!!

 After a waiting interval, our juice was pumped by hose into the next room where the apparatus for pasturization is set up. A bunch of guys were working non-stop to fill bottle after bottle and carton after carton. We had ours put into cartons and then there were 20 liters left over that we took home to drink fresh in the next couple days. We also shared with friends and neighbors as 20 liters is a lot of fresh cider to drink in 3 days. It was delicious!

 The next morning I had the kids unload the car and stack up our wares. We had 25 cartons of 5 liters each! 125 liters of juice ~ that might last us through the winter!

Since the total amount of liters (before pasturization) was 160 liters, and since we are curious about exactly how many apples I lugged down to the car (with the help of the workers, of course), we can use what the appointment man told us in the following equation:

               60 liters                    =                              160 liters
          100 kilos of apples                       Number of kilos of apples we picked


I tried to get people interested in this equation as in "Real Life Homeschool Math" but no one fell for it and I ended up doing it myself. We picked 267 kilos of apples!! Gracious! And translating to kilos by multiplying by 2.2 we discover that that is 586 pounds.

 Yummy delicous fresh pressed organic apple cider. Wish you could come by and share some!!

Cherry Season

This week I bought my first ever cherry pitter. Here’s why.


There is this whole tree full, of which the southern half is already ripe. This picture below shows only about a third of the tree. It’s full sized, about 40 feet high. There’s no way we could reach the upper branches without breaking some necks, but I am quite sure there will be enough bounty on the lower branches for us. Especially since there are four more cherry trees in the orchard that will ripen after this one! Goodness! Anyone wanna come cherry pickin’?
I’ll just have to keep telling myself that it’s good to leave lots for the birdies – I’m sure that’s how many folks have injured themselves….if I could juuust reach that juicy bunch over there….
Here is part of the tree with Artemis “doing her math” on the bench and Hermes up the ladder scouting out the goodness.

Here is what you do with cherries after you pick them off the tree:  Cherry earrings!
We didn’t have a cherry tree growing up and since my parents weren’t huge fans, we didn’t come across them very often. Cherries became the stuff of children’s literature where children dangle cherries on their ears.
Later on, I realized I really liked cherries. The real ones are even better than cherry flavored lollipops!
 
Here is the cherry pitter in action. It’s a Leifheit and you fill the cherries into the hopper on top, press the handle, hear a satisfying cher-CHUNK as the little blade pushes the pit into the box underneath, and the pitted cherry drops out into the waiting bowl. You can get through a lot of cherries fast!

With those particular cherries (after eating a whole bunch and making cherry clafoutis) we made jam. Yum! Sunday afternoon we all went out and picked 10 pounds in about 45 minutes (I weighed them because I wanted to know.) Those have been frozen for winter clafoutis, eaten in a tart and dried to go in homemade granola.
Something I love about eating in season is that when a particular fruit is ripe, you eat and eat it until you are nearly sick of it when the season end. Then it is a treat to look forward to next year. For now we are in the eating and eating stage and not yet to the tired-of-them stage.
Here is my recipe for Cherry Clafoutis, which I got from Zeus’ mama. It’s a good one to keep handy because it is about as easy and Makin’ It Work as you can get. However, if you like your measurements to be super exact, then you should maybe look away. If you don’t and you like super forgiving recipes, then this one is for you!
You can call it dessert if you want, but we often have it for a small dinner, with a bit of cheese or sausage beforehand to make it nutritionally and socially acceptable. You can whip it up reeeeaally fast which makes it excellent for times when you’ve been doing a craft or being chatty on the phone and then realize that dinner time is bearing down on you like an express freight train. If the table is set and there’s a pretty clafoutis on it, then maybe your husband and kids won’t notice the pile of crafty creativeness all over the table in the next room.
Cherry Clafoutis (Claw-foo-TEE)
Oven to 350 degrees. Or maybe 375 if you feel so inclined. Butter a 9x13” Pyrex pan or if you live in a metric country grab the metric equivalent – something large and rectangular.
Cover the bottom with your pitted cherries. (Or apricots or plum halves – sunny side up.)
Sprinkle the fruit with some sugar.
In a large liquid measuring cup, measure roughly 1 cup of milk. Add three eggs, a touch of vanilla and a tablespoon of flour. Take a fork and mix, mix, mix. If you are feeling fancy, you could use a whisk – but odds are you are in a hurry, so why bother?
Pour your egg mixture over the fruit and put it in the oven to bake. For, oh… maybe 30-40 minutes? Until the custardy bit has set and it’s not jiggly in the center. The kind of fruit you use and whether or not it’s frozen will vary the time. Using frozen cherries that you have diligently stored during cherry season may mean baking it up to an hour.
When it’s done and getting just a little brown on the sides, pull it out and sprinkle a little more sugar on the top. It will sort of melt in. Or, if you want to make it all pretties, wait until your clafoutis has cooled and sprinkle powdered sugar. We eat ours only slightly warmish or at room temperature. Ta-da! All done! The next time I make one, I’ll have to take a photo to post. Bon Appetit!

Our Village

Sunday afternoon, and after a good church service this morning, the three big kids are playing Risk around the coffee table in the living room. Hermes is upstairs playing Legos with his Papa. Two chickens and oven fries are all roasting snugly together in my petite oven, and I thought that in between bastes, I would take you on a little tour of our village.

***

From the south, (that is, the rest of Switzerland) this is the first thing you see in our village: a ruined tower from the 11th century – the Tour de Milandre. It sits on the hill overlooking the village and was used as a guard tower for some lords living further upstream on the small river – l’Allaine – that runs through the valley. In the 1980s a metal staircase was built inside and one can climb to the top of the tower and survey the lands from a great height. If you have a doggy with small paws that might slip through the metal grating, you should to carry her and hold her up to the windows for a view and fresh breezes.

Then you round the bend and enter the village.

But before you go thinking that it’s all chateaux and history, here is the view as you enter the village from the other direction.

The sign says “British American Tobacco” – as in cigarettes. It’s the cigarette factory that employs about 60% of the town residents. That’s down from what Zeus estimates was 80% when he was growing up.

Back then it had a different name: Burrus, after the farmer who several generations ago started growing tobacco in this area. His factory employed Zeus’ father, his grandparents, and probably some great-grandparents as well, not to mention many aunts and uncles, neighbors and friends. It’s a company town, and when I first visited, it was still the Burrus company and Monsieur Burrus lived in a large house at the top of the hill. People would sort of nod deferentially when he drove on by and they would talk about him and his family by their first names: Monsieur Charles and Monsieur Leon. I found it very feudal and rather odd ~ especially in strongly democratic Switzerland. 

When she passed away, Zeus’ grandmother still had a handwritten cookbook from a cooking class that Madame Burrus had given for the young wives of the village. Dotted about the town are some of the fancy old homes of members of the family that now serve other purposes; one is a conference center, one is a rest home, and one was donated to be the town hall, or mairie. Here’s a picture of the latter from the summer – they were doing some maintenance work, the blue tarp isn’t usually there.

Back at the end of the village with the ruin, when you round the bend, this is the view into the village on the main highway. When I first came to the visit, lo, twenty years ago, the big rectangle on the left was painted as a huge pack of cigarettes. Charming.

This is the train station. You can see the Tour de Milandre again on the upper right. There is no longer anyone on duty in the station – just an automatic ticket booth. Trains arrive from Porrentruy and points south every hour at :21 past. Then the train continues on to Delle, just across the border into France. After a couple minutes, it comes back, and leaves from this platform heading south at :36. Artemis catches the train here twice a day with the other secondary school kids.

Looking down the tracks the other way. Across the tracks is a big warehouse used to store tobacco.

 

The Hotel de la Rochette – the one and only hotel in the village. Because of the shape and pitch of the roof, it makes me think of a large pink Darth Vader. A pink Darth Vader certainly takes the scare out of him.    

A typical farmhouse and attached barn. Historically, the two shared a roof and a wall. The animals were handy for milking in the winter and helped keep the house warm. There’s a house in the village very near this one that has 1794 carved in the stone over the doorway – the year of construction.

 

The commercial center of town. Not a PF Chang’s in sight. Instead there is the post office, the bank, our small grocery store (which despite its small size carries refried beans and taco shells!), and a bakery/cafe with curious opening hours – i.e. sort of when the owner feels like it. Fortunately there is a little more parking across the street.

The one main thing not on this little tour is the church. Maybe for another day? I will take some nice photos of it. It does tower over everything else which is very nice and the church bell tolls the hours which I love. Thanks for coming on the tour!

***

Allrighty, now I have to tell you that it’s no longer Sunday afternoon and those chickens have long since been eaten up. But speaking of food, I have been getting adventurous with fermentation these days! After one friend’s recommendation of homemade sauerkraut as a way to keep nasty germies at bay (Gina), and the encouragement of another (Marijo), I asked for the recipe. I subsequently found roughly the same recipe in the cookbook I recently recommended, and soon I had a big jar of it fermenting on the corner of my counter and a skeptical husband keeping his distance.

One fermentation inspires another, I suppose, because I soon began toying with the idea of making a sourdough starter. Now Auntie Janet has shared several sourdough starters over the years, all of which ended up coming to an untimely end from neglect. But since we are now eating spelt flour and since it’s been years since I ate sourdough bread, I started to get a hankering and wondered how it would work out with spelt flour. I would give it another go. Only this time, I would start from scratch with no packaged leavening and just pick up the lovely yeasties floating here in the countryside. For good measure, I let my mass of spelt flour and water sit next to my compost bin for a few days. Surely there’s some good fungi and bacteria there, right?

Well, it worked – really well!! Apparently we’ve got a good strain here – maybe Boncourt Sourdough will be a new craze. It was for me at any rate. My loaf was soooo good! Hard crusty outside, soft chewy super sour inside. I almost cried, but I was too busy slapping on the butter and salt and chewing. Then I annoyed the rest of the family by telling them over and over again just how good it was and asking them if I had mentioned my sourdough to them yet?

But I hadn’t told you yet! And now I have.  Here is the link to a site with instructions on making a starter and here is a picture of my first beautiful loaf. Ah, so crusty!

The sauerkraut came out very tasty as well, and when we had it for lunch one Sunday dinner (the week before the roast chickens), everyone had a small bit to try. I didn’t have high expectations, but 50% of my children liked it! And I did, so that made 50% of the family! Hermes was especially surprised since he had been making faces at it. That is why we have No Thank You helpings. Zeus, despite the fact that he grew up in a seriously heavy sauerkraut region (choucroute) does not care for it (– and never has, so I won’t take it personally), but politely ate his No Thank You helping. 

The many pots of things fermenting on the counter had been getting to be a bit much for my dear man. So when it came up in conversation at one point, I pressed him.

“So you don’t really like all these pots of fermenting things everywhere, my dear?”

“Well, no, not really.”

“So you’re not really into fermentation then, honey?”

“No, not really.”

“So are you ready to give up on all fermented foods then, sweetie?”

“Uh…hmmm….I think this is a trap.”

Aha! Yes, it was. Wine and cheese are two of my sweetie’s favorite foods – both of which, I think we all know, are fermented!

I think that maybe they are just supposed to ferment a little further away from his personal space. Okay, I get that. I will make my next batch of sauerkraut down in the cellar, and my sourdough starter is now living quietly in my little fridge waiting until it’s time for the next tasty loaf.

No Thanks

Just one more little thing to share about Christmas markets before we let them go for another year.

There was one we visited in Montbeliard in nearby France where the food stands, which in the States would be serving hamburgers, hot dogs, and chili, here sold the hungry masses sausage, sauerkraut and spiced wine. What we had was very tasty and French, but there was one offering we didn't go for:







'Hot Snails' says the sign behind Athena. She was not tempted.

Bread of Molde

Part of the fun of living multi-lingually in a multilingual region is having all the bits of languages that I know jumbling about my head as well as on on the packaging.  In Switzerland, everything is printed in at least German, French and Italian. In nearby France where I did my grocery shopping yesterday, it’s often in Dutch, Spanish, even (depending on the store) Flemish in addition to French. Mostly it’s fun to see what other people might be in the habit of calling ‘Toothpaste’ ; “Tandpasta” is apparently what they call it in Flemish (at least I think it’s Flemish – it’s from the Belgium owned store.)

However, sometimes it makes for an interesting combination of international words.  Even though there aren’t too many kinds of gluten-free bread to choose from, I somehow lost my appetite for this one. I just don’t think I want the letter combination ‘molde’ in any way associated with my bread.

Hunters in the Snow

More snow is falling. We’ve had several inches, more is now coming down in the middle of the night, and the forecast for this week predicts even more. Here is what it looks like outside the windows right now (well, not right now, because I am writing at night.)

It makes me think of Pieter Bruegel’s Hunters in the Snow. One of the houses even has the same shape. Today on the way to church, we really did see a Hunter in the Snow. But he was wearing bright orange, and his dog was white with spots.

The neighborhood sledding hill with a small neighborhood sledding person. Our kids have spent a lot of happy time out there.

 

I always suspected that every twig of this tree was beautiful. Now I am certain.

In the orchard in back of our house.

A few apples still left on the tree. I really wonder if this is what inspired shiny red Christmas tree balls.

icicles. because they are so pointy and frozen.

At the end of last week we celebrated Artemis’ 14th birthday. With Legos and a bottle of nice ol’ wine.

The Caramel Family is here visiting and they helped us celebrate. It has been a wonderful morale booster for us all to have visiting friends.

Saturday we had a girls’ outing to Belfort in France. We did a little shopping and beret purchasing…

and then we restored ourselves in a French cafe.

 

My treat – too pretty not to take a picture of, but not too pretty not to eat!

Back in our Tracks

It’s been a little quiet here on the blog, and I’ll tell you why. Coming back to Switzerland, to Boncourt, after the unreal sunny warm visit to Sardinia was hard. A very cold snap arrived at the same time we did, and we stepped off the plane to cold and foggy gray. Being near the sea had brought us associations with Puget Sound and home, and somehow, it seemed that we should board that plane and get off in Seattle. It was rather shocking when we didn’t.
The return to school for the kids last week was also hard, the mornings that much darker getting up, school and language still a puzzle. And now Zeus is away working long days, and we miss him. I spent a lot of time last week missing the simplicity of homeschooling and agonizing over whether or not this all was a good decision.
Fall is a time for hunkering in, building fires, reading good books, game nights, cooking savory meals – in short, for enjoying all the comforts of Home. But when you are far from one home, and don’t yet feel like the place you are living is home, then you feel a little lost and homesick. And that is what we are all feeling.
Towards the end of the week, the Lord prompted me to take myself by the scruff of the neck and do a little shaking: late October is like this, even when you’re homeschooling, don’t you remember? You need some exercise! Cease overthinking, stop pondering how you feel about everything, count your blessings, and do the next thing.
So I got a little exercise, worked on some house projects I’ve been procrastinating about, and tried not to Ponder Everything. God is my Home, and my loving family is around me. Yes, I am homesick, but wallowing around in it doesn’t help anything much. There was a song we sang at church on Sunday with good words in French that were something about being and growing and rejoicing wherever God has put you.
This week has been better – no school-induced tears, I think (although maybe I shouldn’t say – the day is not over yet), and there were some encouraging academic reports coming in: a German test with only 1/2 of the answers wrong instead of 3/4 wrong!  Progress!
So that’s about where we are.
And here are a few pictures to help tell the rest of the story.

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Will Easy Jet pay me for the Advertising?

First of all, because it’s just not something you see everyday: the Alps from the airplane. The rest of Switzerland is buried under a sea of clouds.

~~~~~

Happiness is a warm crock-pot

Remember my trip to Basel and my fruitless search for a crock-pot? Well, even before I wrote that, for my birthday a few friends had gone together and got me an Amazon France “Cheques-cadeau” with which to purchase one. Here it is – Mmmm!!!!  

I’m not sure why, but the thought of spending this year without a slow cooker brought me great feelings of anxiety. There is great security arriving home from church, or a soccer game, or just an afternoon of errands knowing there there is hot food waiting and ready to go. The first Sunday I got it fired up with some chicken cacciatore, I immediately felt the desire to invite a bunch of people over for lunch – that’s what a crock pot does for me. I’ve used it at least once a week since. Thank you, friends!
At the moment this photo was taken, it was full of pulled pork, which is a favorite of everyone in the family – 6 out of 6 – amazing! Our small village store had no BBQ sauce, so I had to make some, morphing several recipes that I found online.  It turned out okay – sweet and sour and a little too tomato-y. If you have an easy and good bbq sauce recipe that doesn’t require a bunch of unusual ingredients, I would love to have it!

~~~~~

Memories of the Beach

The week we got back from vacation, we bought Hermes some new fall shoes. They came in a shoe box. And shoes boxes, as you know, are meant to be made into dioramas!  I love dioramas, and I love making them with my kiddos. When Artemis was in kindergarten, we made a lovely one of the solar system with all the planets hanging in space. I used to think of that homeschooling year as a failure, but now I know that if we were making dioramas of outer space, it can’t have been too bad.
This one is “Underwater Sardinia.” One of the stores here – the Migros – has started passing out a pack of fishy stickers for every 10 francs you spend. You are supposed to collect them in a special book, but I didn’t know that. I didn’t even realize they were stickers at first. I just thought, as they lay there next to the empty shoe box, Hey! This could keep Hermes busy for a little while!
And it did! He was very happy as he watercolored the sides of the box blue and the bottom yellow (for sand). The rock is a real Sardinian one which seemed to have fallen into my bag somehow.(!) And the shells are also real ones we brought back that Hermes painstakingly glued into place. Before it dried up a bit, the parsley looked very much like seaweed – that was Athena’s idea – she is so wise.

The fishy on the string has a different fishy on the other side, so you see both when it spins in the breeze.
And, yes, just so you know, I do know that the proper word is ‘fish’ and the plural form is ‘fish’ lest you think otherwise. But now that we’re all sure about that I’ll go back to ‘fishy’.

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Jazzy Dog Car

Zeus has spent the month of October working hard at his new job, faithfully commuting back and forth while we played on the beach. Upon our return, in order to facilitate a commute to Basel that is an hour each way instead of two hours each way by train, we bought another car. It is not at all new but had really low mileage. Er…kilometerage? Apparently it really did belong to a little old lady who only drove it to church on Sundays. Or something like that.
It is a Honda Jazz. Which Zeus Mr. Carman tells me is called a Honda Fit in the States. A Honda Fit sounds like a granola bar to me, so I am glad it is called a Jazz. Only when he first told me, I thought it was called a Jazzy. Which made me think of my cousin Christy’s dog Jazzy.
Now Jazzy Dog, who has since passed on to a fluffy couch pillow in the sky, wasn’t exactly what you would call a “friendly” dog. She was a little Yorkshire terrier, and when I met her, she was already advanced in years and pretty set in her ways, perhaps much like the lady whose Honda this was. Anyway, Jazzy Dog didn’t like to be pet by anyone who was not part of her family, and if you tried she would bite you. But her hair was so soft and silky that it was hard not to try anyway. If you were very quiet, snuck up gently on her from behind, and petted her softly she would think you were Christy and you could get away with it for a little while. Until Christy came in the room and Jazzy saw her. Then she’d look startled and whirl around on you. Caught in the act!  Arf arf arf arf arf!!! 
A n y w a y….. the point is that when I thought the car was a “Jazzy”, I started calling it the Jazzy Dog. And it kind of stuck.  Zeus is not very pleased that the car is named after a crotchety little ol’ dog, but I can’t help it. When he is around, we try to use the other name we hurriedly drummed up instead: The Silver Bullet. Now that has a speedy ring to it, doesn’t it? But we all know that it’s really The Jazzy Dog Car.

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The Vista ~ La Vue

And then there is a morning like this one, and when we’re cold and tired and fussy about the kids having to leave at dawn, and then we open the door and stop in our tracks because of The Beauty. This was the view from the front door, about 7:45 a.m. a few days ago. Not for the first time, I wish I were a painter.