Finger food

Last Saturday we went out for our big too-many-birthdays-in-May dinner. Last year we went to an amazing local restaurant that I hear has sadly since closed due to a problem of some kind with the location. This year we went for something a little bit different - dinner at the Blindekuh restaurant in Basel.

The Blindekuh is a restaurant where you eat in a pitch-black room, served by blind and semi-sighted staff. We went with Dani and Steph and Scott and Sarah - two friends visiting us from the US.

Upon arrival at the restaurant, your first task is to put all purses, phones, coats, bags, and anything that lights up in one of the lockers in the lobby. Next, you are presented with the menu while still in the lobby and told to study it carefully and memorize what you want as there will be no more referring to it later in the meal - this includes remembering your wines and drinks. We thought this would cause a problem until we went into the dining room and realized the darkness was unnerving enough without adding the disorienting effects of the couple bottles of wine that usually go with dinner here.

If you didn't want to order your courses from the menu, you could also choose the surprise menu (carnivore or vegetarian) - which most of our party selected. I was relieved to hear there would be no sea or lake life as part of the surprise menu.

Choices made and memorized, we took one last trip to the bathroom (important!) and settled on the couches and chairs in the lobby to wait to be taken to our table. When it came our turn, we were instructed to "form a Polynesian" - a conga line. This is how we were "shown" to our table. We passed through several layers of blackout curtains as we twisted down a long hallway that doubled back on itself repeatedly before we finally arrived at our table. Sitting down when you can't see the seats is really hard.

Once seated, we all began spidering our hands across the table, finding our napkins, two forks, two knives, spoon, variety of glassware, and strangers sitting next to us (whoops). Plates of crostini were placed for us to snack on as we waited to order. We started off with a round of the house appertif - a delicious fruity-tasting concoction we sipped as our eyes tried to adjust to the darkness...something they would continue to attempt throughout the course of our meal.

I can't even begin to describe exactly how dark it is. I tried to raise my hand up in front of my face to look at it and I managed to smack myself in the nose. For 2.5 hours, we saw nothing except one tiny blip of orange light from some mystery electronic device. Later in the meal, we spoke longingly about that light. Because of the profound darkness, I can't tell you how big the restaurant was, how many tables there were, or if they were all full, though it certainly sounded busy. As we walked to our table, I had a moment where my heart tightened in my chest and I questioned whether I would be able to stand this darkness for the duration of a meal. I gripped Steph's shoulders tighter and reminded myself of how lonely I would be in the lobby if I turned back.

A few minutes after we finished the crostini (at least we think we finished them) our waitress came over and, in German, introduced herself as Helen. Should we need anything throughout the course of our meals (drink refills, an extra fork, a helping hand to the bathroom) we were to call out to her and she would come to us. Our first chance to call Helen was when everyone at our table received their first course but poor little Miz K! As the other sat and explored their plates, I fiddled with my napkin and arranged my forks. Just a few minutes later, though, Helen was back with my plate and I eagerly dug in.

I picked up my fork and stabbed at my plate - nothing. Stab again - my entire salad. This is going to be difficult. Next try, I rested my left hand on the edge of my plate and used my fingers to poke and prod at the food on my fork until I had a mouthful. After a couple bites in this manner, I abandoned the fork and gleefully drug my fingers back and forth across the plate, savoring eating without utensils or nasty looks. Marinated veggies, garlic cheese mousse, salad, crunchy bread - it was amazing. Touching the food and smelling it and tasting it was so much fun. It was also easier to identify the food than I though it would be, though not knowing what taste to expect until something is actually in your mouth is a really odd sensation.

Throughout the meal, we would occasionally hear small bursts of tinkling music coming from other tables - the sound of small music boxes being opened. When you can't see, you find yourself listening so much closer to everything around you, and these little bursts of sound were so sweet and welcome against the backdrop of conversations and clinking tableware.

Soon, our second course came out. While most at our table were back to attempts with forks and knives, I was sticking with my hands - it was more fun. Main course for the carnivores was a decent-sized, even big for Switzerland, piece of meat, green beans in a bacon and sun-dried tomato sauce, and small roasted potatoes. We debated back and forth, finally deciding the meat was pork, only to find out as we left that it was actually a steak. We attributed our mistake to the steak being a bit more cooked through than most of us take our red meat - it was still very tasty, just a slightly different texture. As the main course continued, I sat gnawing away at the steak in my hands and listening as my tablemates, one after the other, abandoned their knives and also used their fingers. At some point, we all giggled at the clank of a fork hitting the floor as a man at a nearby table muttered a brief German curse while trying to retrieve the errant piece of cutlery.

Sometime after the main course, but before dessert, a large group of young-sounding girls either arrived or got up to leave (no way to know) and proceeded to scream and giggle and squawk through the dining room, receiving several very Swiss "SHHHHHHHHHHHH"es when the shrieking got too out of control.

Dessert was a fascinating mix of several small bites and left us all guessing until we finally got our menu cheat sheet. In the chilled bowls were a small square of mango lime panna cotta, a fluffy mound of white mousse with cranberries, frozen banana mascarpone balls coated in chocolate and bits of fresh fruit and leaves of mint. Once the meal was over and we were ready to go, Helen returned to walk us to the door. We went back through the blackout curtains and stood in the semi-darkened hallway for a few minutes to give our eyes a brief period of adjustment. We stepped into the dimly lit lobby and it was the same shock you get when leaving a movie theater on a summer day - it hurt. We stumbled and blinked for a moment before rushing, en masse, to the bathrooms. Thus relieved, we retrieved our belongings, settled the bill, and discussed when we could return.

I highly recommend this restaurant if you find yourself in Basel or Zurich and you're feeling a bit adventurous. If you come visit us and want to go, just say "mooooo!"

Bonne Fête Nationale!

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Originally uploaded by Arsmor

Yesterday was our first Swiss National Day - the Swiss equivalent to the American Fourth of July. We had planned earlier in the week to head out to Olivier and Celia's to celebrate and everyone was looking forward to getting together - including Danae, who arrived on the 31 of July, just a couple days ahead of schedule!

Baby and mom were both doing well and were able to move back home in time for the 1st so, at Celia and Olivier's insistence, we happily stuck with our plans and got together to BBQ and watch fireworks. We arrived with bags of groceries, and while the guys tended the grill (rumor has it this involved a hair dryer, but we'll have to wait for Mr K to post the videographic proof to know for sure) Steph and I chopped onions and tomato, fried bacon, cleaned salad and set everything out. Danae sat quietly snoozing in her swanky carrier while Celia tried to get a couple minutes of sleep before dinner.

Once the burgers and hot dogs were ready, we all stuffed ourselves full (more of that bad American influence). We then grabbed flashlights and jackets - Dani, Danae, and Celia stayed behind to relax, leaving Mr K, Steph, Olivier and I to go exploring - and headed out to crawl around in an unlit and heavily spider-infested (read: super cool) barn, trying to see (read: catch and take home) some adorable chatons (kittens). Of course, the little kitties outsmarted us, so we went back outside to watch a chauve-souris (shaved mouse = bat) chasing bugs.

After a few minutes, it was time to gather our cameras, coats, tripods, and a tarp together to go see the fireworks. We walked about 10 minutes from Olivier's house to a big field overlooking the lake. Olivier and Mr K got their cameras all set up as smaller fireworks went off in every direction. Each little town has their own celebration, so in any direction you turned, you could see huge bonfires on the hillsides and small and large fireworks exploding overhead. We had a great view when the big fireworks display started, the lights reflecting disjointedly on the lake and illuminating a tiny armada of boats.

The fireworks display lasted almost half an hour, after which we headed back to Olivier's house, stopping only long enough to play with a friendly black cat and get peed on by our first Swiss toad. Dani was passed out on the couch and we were soon to follow, so we kissed our goodbyes and piled into the car to head home.

Auberge de la Cigogne

First and most importantly: Happy Birthday Mr K!

Last night we went to a restaurant in Fribourg called Auberge de la Cigogne (beware the music on the website) for a birthday dinner for me, Mr K, and Steph - a whole herd of bulls. Celia, Olivier and Dani joined us, with Dani having planned the whole thing. As I'm sure I mention far too often, I don't eat any seafood, so Dani was kind enough to plan ahead and let the restaurant know, so I didn't have to awkwardly apologize my way through and miss out on a third of my menu. The waiters and chef acted as if it were no big deal, which was refreshing. We went for the many-course "menu dégustation" - a series of small plates covering a wide range of ingredients and flavors. The typical menu included two or three fish dishes, so I'll mark with an asterisk my dishes that differed from what everyone else ate.

First Plate (amuse-bouche)

* Duck liver pate with minted couscous and fresh greens, pain noir (black bread)and butter
(Fish eaters had smoked salmon with fresh greens)

Second Plate (amuse-bouche)

Shredded beef shin in lemon and orange with lentil salad served in a small porcelain spoon (think won ton soup spoon)

Third Plate

* Crisp veal on a bed of young fava beans with dried tomato
(Fish eaters had "sea devil" with baby beans and dried tomato)

Fourth Plate

Candied salted beef in crispy fried wrappers (like rice paper) with fresh greens and a chilled white asparagus and Port soup

Fifth Plate

* Ravioli maison with asparagus in a morel cream sauce
(Fish eaters had a chunk of mild white fish tied with green onion(?) on a bed of pasta in morel cream sauce)

Sixth Plate (plat principal)

Pigeon in a butter and Merlot sauce with fresh baby vegetables and black truffle polenta

Seventh Plate

Cheese course: A cart with over 50 cheeses was brought over and we each tried 6-8 cheeses arranged on the plate from mildest to strongest. Highlights included a triple cream cheese in truffle oil, a nice Gruyere, and a Vacherin Fribourgeois. Mr K also enjoyed the "very strong" Roquefort.

Eighth Plate (petite dessert)

Strawberry mousse topped with a lavender and caramel-tasting mousse (not sure what exactly it was - that was just my impression of the flavor)

Ninth Plate (grand(e) dessert)

Thin layers of dark chocolate layered with a sweet and spicy pineapple mousse and garnished with finely chopped pistachios and pomegranate seeds

Tenth Plate

Coffee and various cookies, including tiny brownies, tiny lemon tarts and caramel tuilles

We started our meal with a round of Kir Royales made with blueberry rather than cassis liqueur. We had a bottle of white, a bottle of red and finally a dessert wine to finish the four and a half hour long meal off. Everything was amazing, particularly the cheeses and plates three, four, five and nine. The waiters were all friendly and funny and the chef came out at the end of the meal to ask how we enjoyed it. Despite the elegant food and corresponding prices, the guys all wore jeans and collared shirts and the whole restaurant felt comfortably informal - a huge change from the typical atmosphere you would expect in a similar-style of restaurant in the US.

As a side note, I learned that the current "look" for upper-class older women out for a nice dinner is a stylish tee shirt coupled with diamond and pearl necklaces, perfectly coiffed hair and modern, chunky glasses - very chic!

Thanks again Dani for planning everything - thanks for what will doubtless remain one of the most memorable meals in our lives. Thanks also to Olivier and Celia for our charming "Swiss-gifts" - I plan on relaxing in my shirt all day!

The relief of turning thirty..

(Or self-indulgent rambling as a gift to myself)


I'm one of those people (and by those people I mean nearly everyone) who is prone to finding myself choking on thoughts of my own mortality at three in the morning on any given day that I stay awake too late without a real distraction (you know - like Xbox). Two years ago, the idea of the "Big Birthday" was enough to tie my belly up in knots for a couple insomniatic hours. Despite this fact, when the BB actually rolled around, I woke up feeling calm and content. I haven't been one of those people who gets excited about birthdays for years - I've never been one to throw or attend birthday parties for myself or anything like that - a nice dinner is more than enough. The thing about my birthday that has always made me the happiest is that I share it with my mom - a fact that I feel has always made us just a little bit closer and made birthdays seem just a little more special in their own quiet way.

So I woke up feeling warm with contentment - and why shouldn't I? My best friend and the most fun person I've ever met was curled up warm against my back, the sun was just starting to pour over the Alps right outside my window, my bedside table was littered with amazing novels I've finally had the time to finish, and an ice-cold glass bottle of fruit-flavored black tea sweetened with brown sugar was waiting for me in the refrigerator. This is a far cry from my life four and a half to five years ago, when my boyfriend (not my future husband either though a very nice guy in his own right) was living far from me in another state, I was moving from a crappy job to a stressful one, I was leaving a gross city for another gross city and I was living with barely one month's rent in my bank account at any given time. Doesn't sound like much fun, does it?

Well, a lot of it wasn't, which is why turning thirty has come as something of a relief. My life now is so much calmer, yet more fulfilling than it was in my twenties. I feel like I have a much better sense of who I am and I'm more comfortable with that person - bizarre sense of humor, still-mainly-black wardrobe, big butt and all! I'm getting to the point that I feel like I have some experience to write from and things look a little clearer than they did five to seven years ago. I would like to think I worry a little less about what other people think - their opinions certainly aren't as paralyzing to me as they once were. Despite the calm that has come to some parts of my psyche, I still find myself getting completely enraged over things that would best be blown off and ignored - maybe that level of calmness is reserved for the 40-plus crowd. I still overthink things and probably always will. I still have a tendency to become overwhelmed by guilt when I've done nothing and I'm still too much of a perfectionist. Despite these facts, I feel like I'm aging well physically and mentally. Sure I have streaks of gray - and have had them for at least five years - but they're laced through huge handfuls of coarse blond hair and pretty much invisible to everyone but me. No wrinkles or anything like that so far - no doubt thanks to a combination of my black-clad teens and twenties, my late-night and overnight work schedule, and my obsession with sunscreen - not to mention some good genes (thanks mom and dad). My brain is stuffed full of books and ideas and feels much more productive than in my food-and-drink-slinging restaurant days. Even better, my painting seems to be slowly improving.

Exactly four years ago today, I was on the cusp of massive change and completely unaware of this fact. For anyone who reads this and doesn't know, I met Mr K on his birthday four years ago in four days.... or on 18 May 2004 to be less confusing. Nothing was supposed to come of it - we chatted online and I thought it was sad he wasn't doing anything for his birthday, so I suggested we meet up and go out to dinner - tacos, of course! I remember sitting next to what passed for a duck pond in Northern Virginia - really just a muddy hole next to the highway that someone thought would be improved by the addition of some over-wrought-iron (ha ha - did you get that?) benches waiting for him to arrive. We had a nice dinner and a fun chat but nothing out of the ordinary. Within two weeks, the details of which we won't be disclosing, we had become pretty much inseparable even though it took us both five or six months to realize what we had. Exactly two years later we were too busy worrying about our wedding (23 May 2006) to get into the whole birthday thing. Mr K had his BB just five days before we got hitched, leading to several weeks of "if you're not married by the time you're thirty, you wanna marry me" jokes. One year ago today, Mr K was getting ready for his first trip to Fribourg to check it out and decide if we wanted to move here.

When he opened the door to leave for work this morning, Mr K found a thick white envelope with my name on it - a birthday note and a tin of chocolates from our sweet neighbors! Things like that remind me of how wonderful this move has been for us. Two years ago I told Mr K I wanted to take a trip to Europe for my BB - today, as the BB arrived, I live here and I'm thankful for it everyday.