A treat

As I previously mentioned I am not into bar chocolates but since I am in Switzerland I feel I am obliged to try those out. I more into a nice pastry than a chocolate bar but I decided to try out the bars so I can show you what's on offer here.
This time I tried 'Japonais' from Frey. Actually, I really liked this one although it's a milk chocolate. If it comes to chocolate my choice is dark chocolate but this Japonais one might make me eat milk chocolate more often.
It has small pieces of japoinais pastry, hence the name. Japonais is a French word for meringues that contain nut and apparently nothing to do with the fact that the word means Japanese in French. You can read more about japonais here.
Back to the point: the chocolate is great, not too sweet although it's milk chocolate and contains small pieces of crunchy nutty meringues. I really liked it.

(picture is from here)

 This is how the actual chocolate looks like.

Zugersee

As we are settling down slowly and purchasing almost all furniture we have some time to discover the country.
On Sunday we visited Zugersee (Lake Zug). It was sunny and relatively warm and we had a great time. The lake is gorgeous and crystal clear as almost all lakes and rivers in Switzerland. Besides the lake there is a small castle, which worth a visit too.

Eating out

During the weekend we went to Konstanz, Germany to do some shopping and meet some of our friends. It's a common practice (mainly among non-Swiss) doing some shopping, going to the hairdresser etc in Germany, France or Italy depending on which country you live close by. As grocery prices and services being half or third of the Swiss price it's not surprise. As I mentioned before, Swiss in general are very patriotic and prefer Swiss products but non-Swiss tend to be more price conscious and seek more variety.
So, on Saturday besides running some errands, we met some of our friends there and ate out in a Greek restaurant. The place called Taverne Pan and it is in the centre of the city. Great place! The food was very nice and fresh. The Taverne was a bit crowded but we still managed to get a table as we arrived around 5 pm. Make reservations in advance or arrive early though during the weekend.

 
  (picture is from here)


I had calamari with rice and lemon sauce, tzatziki, salad, while my husband had lamb with veggies and salad, all is very tasty. We will be back soon to try out some more things. The price is great too, we paid about 30 Eur including drinks and coffee.
I did not find the website of the place but here is the menu in case you speak some German.

The ultimate problem

 Before I moved to Switzerland I had thought that the country is super clean and its people are super duper health conscious ones. This theory failed when I came to Switzerland for a visit a year and a half ago and realized that a LOT of people are smoking in the streets, stations and basically everywhere. I was previously in Switzerland maybe 15 years ago so I did not remember too much and definitely did not remember about the smoke.
Living in the Netherlands spoil me from this point of view. Not so many people were smoking (minus the weed obviously) and on the stations there are designated areas where it's allowed. To be fair, there were a couple of occasions when I run into someone who was smoking when biking which was pretty annoying but other than that it was OK.
Here it's a different story. Apparently smoking is not allowed in most of the bars, although there are still a few where it is and the smoking areas in general are not very designated. When I first landed in Zurich and got out of the terminal, I almost got a shock when I smelt the smoke.
Before anyone would think it's the usual whining about the smokers vs non-smokers, I think it's fair to say that I am basically allergic to tobacco smoke (among others such as perfumes) and without judgement it's only my opinion.

A treat

Before Christmas we visited the Lindt Chocolate factory outlet and picked up a lot of things mainly for presents. We only got one chocolate bar for us to try though. A couple of days ago I found it in the cupboard and decided it was time to open it.

As I mentioned before I am not a huge fan of Lindt chocolate in general but this seemed interesting enough to buy it.
Well, it turned out to be interesting enough. Do not expect any chocolate favor you know since it's missing sugar and many other additives that 'normal' chocolate bars include consequently it's not sweet but has a rather intense cocoa bean flavor. My husband loved, me, not too much but worth trying once.

Today's view

Sirene testing season

Any kind of defense is taken seriously in Switzerland. Among others there are sirens for water and general alert signals and they are tested regularly.
It happened last week when I heard the sirens outside. They were not the regular police, ambulance or any kind of sirens so I figured there must be something else going on. As I looked outside and no one is running anywhere I figured I would just stay where I am and wait. It was over in a minute or two. Afterwards I googled what was going on and indeed, that was a test. Apparently there were TV and radio announcements about that but as we do not own a TV nor listen to the radio we missed the announcements. I usually read the local newspaper to stay informed but obviously I missed this one. Oh, and there is another test coming this Wed.
More information about the testing can be found here and here.

Cornbread

It started months ago when I laid my eye on a cornbread recipe. I have never made a cornbread before for some reason nor I tasted any but I always wanted to try. Last week I decided to make one and I remembered there is some corn flour in the cupboard. Well, I was wrong. When I was all set up to start it turned out the cornflour was in fact semolina. I did not give up, so when I went to the store I grabbed some and was all ready.

I made one yesterday using the following recipe and adapted slightly.
112 g butter
200 g cornmeal
130 g all purpose flour
2 tablespoon cane sugar
1 and a half teaspoon baking powder
2,4 dl cream
3 eggs
pinch of salt

The preparation is the same as described in the recipe.

It turned out to be moist and delicious. I wanted to take a few pictures pictures but my husband liked it so much there is almost nothing left and believe me it was not a small pan. That's the last piece basically I managed to save for the picture.