to go without posting?
I think I need to face facts, this blog is no longer a priority for me. I've got too many other projects going on right now, and this one needs to slide a little bit. I'm not sure if I want to quit the blog altogether, that seems a bit drastic, but maybe a little hiatus.
We will see how things develop in the next few months, maybe I'll actually get back to regular postings, but for the moment, I'm taking "blog something" off of my todo list.
I've had this on my task list for too long. This post gets it off my list.
I have been listening to this podcast called PlanetMoney by NPR. I started listening in Sept or so, shortly after the Financiapocalypse. It's been really great in explaining all the crazy financial vehicles that were created in the past few years that have now all blown up.
I was listening to it this morning and they were talking to some famous economists--well famous to other economists and maybe amateur economists--as they normally do. This particular episode was about a guy who gave a speech to central bankers telling them that the current crisis is worse today because of the actions they took over the past year, at least that is how I understood it.
Anyway, I was feeling very thoughtful this morning, and it suddenly struck me how the study of economics is really important. I think it mostly goes unnoticed by the general public until something like this latest crisis happens. I've learned a lot about how money works over the past few months, but not until this morning did it really occur to me that the people who study economics have a really important job. In today's world, they set the policies that basically keep the world economy working.
In my US-centric view of the world, everything seems to relate back to money and profit [much to our detriment, imho, we still need better ethics], and it just sort of clicked as to why there is a Nobel prize for Economics. It always puzzled me in the past, seemed not so important, I mean, who cares about Economics when they are giving prizes for Physics and Medicine?
Today I might argue that the prize for Economics is much more important than any of the others because some Nobel Laureate in the past probably implemented the policies that allow companies and governments to fund the research in all of the other areas (well, there might be one exception: I guess one doesn't really do research in Peace). I find it interesting to see how my perspective can change, seemingly in an instant, even though it was probably months of information that built to my realization.
And it is the beginning of our 3rd year here in Basel. It has been a really great two years, we've seen sooo many places. I don't think I managed to write about all of them in the blog, I've got far too many half written drafts sitting around on my computers. Suffice it to say, that our friends have frequently asked something along the lines of, "You have been everywhere in Europe, where are you going this year?"
We have a few goals, we haven't been to Norway, or Luxembourg, or Monaco, and countless other cities in countries where we have been to the capital or at least the most toured city of the respective country.
Beyond travel, I've been trying to get myself into shape and that's been successful with my quest for 5000 situps and a running program that I'm still trying to get back to from the holidays. I stopped keeping track of my situps around 3500, but I still do 50 every time I make it to the gym, so at least I was able to form a new habit. This year I'm going to run the Birslauf 10K in April and a half-marathon sometime in the fall--yeah, I think I will be able to run for a little more than 2 hours by the fall.
On the Photography front, I created my first book based on the Basilisk Project. I printed a few copies and gave them as Christmas presents, it was very well received and I was very happy with the result of my first effort at bookmaking. So much so, that I intend to make a few more books this year. I have a few subjects in mind, but I'm not at liberty to discuss them just yet.
I'm going to tell you that I'm going to post more often, and like all New Year's resolutions [which I stopped believing in long ago...] I will probably have an increased frequency the first few weeks or months of this year and slowly fade... again. Well, maybe this is the year that I can manage to be consistent, who knows?
Have a Great and Happy New Year!
Herbst Messe started on Oct 25 and we've visited a couple of times since. In my opinion, this is the culmination of Swiss Fair food, with cheese obviously being the headliner. This year, I was lucky enough to be introduced to a Käsebangel. First off, there are many, many ways to eat cheese in Switzerland, but the best ways involve melting or grilling of some sort. At the Autumn Fair, you can get Käsekeichli, little cheese quiches, Käseschnitte, a piece of bread with melted cheese on top, Fondue, Raclette--in various forms, with potatoes, bread, or hornli, which are basically elbow macaroni. Needless to say, any fan of cheese must visit the Herbst Messe and sample the best melted cheese Switzerland has to offer.
Back to Käsebangels, as far as I know, you can only get these at one stand near the Petersplatz, it's on the street leading towards Bar Ono and Restaurant Zum Harmonie. It's genius, pure genius. First you have to see how hot dogs are made in Switzerland, they take a small roll or loaf of bread similar to french bread and stick it on a big metal spike to form a hole in the middle of the bread, then pump some ketchup in there, pop in the hotdog and you have a Swiss hotdog. What does this have to do with cheese? Well, take that roll with a hole in it and fill it up with Fondue. Fantastic. Fondue, is obviously not a traveling food, but a Käsebangel is. Grab it and go. Of course, you have to be very careful not to squeeze too much or the cheese runs out all over your hand, and hot cheese on your hand is not pleasant. It's takes some practice figuring out how to eat it without burning the roof of your mouth, but it's worth it. It's a nice small taste of Fondue, not too much to give you that heavy feeling in your belly. The best part, keep walking down the street and you can top it off with a variety of Wurst, the original and only Swiss fast food, as I read on a poster somewhere.
Now it's time for dessert and my favorite is the Beggeschmutz. A delicious ball of marshmallow filling somehow covered in chocolate and rolled in coconut. These are available at a lot of places, but I always look for the hand made ones, which are sort of misshapen compared to the cylindrical mass produced ones that you can buy in trays. Maybe there's no difference in taste, but I like the hand made quality.
With a full belly, walk through to see all the crafts and assorted goods for sale, everything from meat and cheese to hand carved soup ladles. Along the way you may find some other treats like fried apples, hot apple cider, or Gluhwein. It's a tough time of year for your waistline, but when the weather is nice, it's a great place to be out and about.
Sick days? We all have them, you get out of bed and you just don't feel right. The question is to go to the gym or not? Recently, my Training Sponsor, we'll call him TS for short, mentioned the concept of consistency and that you should go do your training, maybe not the entire workout, or at a high intensity, but just get out there and do a little bit. Of course, it depends on how well you feel, are you just tired or do you have a killer case of the flu? If you have the flu, better just sleep it off, but if you just didn't get enough sleep or are a bit hungover, a light workout could do you some good.
I found myself in this situation on Friday, my allergies were really bothering me, which makes me extremely tired. I have also recently begun tracking my resting Heart Rate, which is measured by a HR monitor when you wake up in the morning, but before you get out of bed. Friday, my HR was several beats elevated--I'm not sure what that means yet, but generally an elevated rate would mean you're tired--maybe too much training--or you could be getting sick. The paradox is that getting the heart pumping, heating up, really helps to clear things out, so I was glad that I made the extra effort to follow through on my plan to run. I rewarded myself with a double tall latte from Starbucks.
First off, it's pronounced pap-ri-kash. This recipe is based on a Hungarian recipe that I enjoy, but this is somewhat simplified for easy week day cooking. I probably make this on average about once a week.
The ingredients as I get them in Switzerland, substitute as appropriate for your country of residence:
A word about the ingredients. In the US, I was able to find dried Spätzli [here the spätzli is fresh] which is an adequate substitute for the Hungarian version, called Galuskas. This is the biggest time saver, to make the dumplings by hand is quite time consuming, even if it's not too difficult. Another option is to use egg noodles.
I have not seen Paprika paste in the US, and if you can't find it we'll just use Paprika in it's traditional powder form--of course, it goes without saying that the best Paprika comes from Hungry, check your labels. Both forms of Paprika come in Hot or Sweet, I use a little of both.
Step 1: Put a pot of water on to boil, we'll use it to cook the spätzli. Set the sour cream on the counter to warm to room temp. Cut the onions in half, and then slice them. I like a lot of onions, so I use 2 medium to large, but you can get away with only one. Also, any type of onion will do, red, white, or yellow. Heat some butter, maybe a tablespoon or more in a skillet over medium heat. Add the onions and cook slowly, don't allow them to get browned, cook until they are soft and translucent.
Step 2: Set aside the onions in a bowl or just push them to one side of the skillet. Add the chicken. Add more butter, if necessary to keep the chicken from sticking. Sprinkle with salt and Paprika. This is where I use Hot Paprika, but if you prefer things less spicy, just use the Sweet Paprika. You really just want to brown the chicken, this should only take a couple of minutes for each side.
Step 3: When the chicken is browned, add the canned tomatoes, 1/2 can of water, sour cream, Paprika [1-2 tbsp paste, 1-2 tsp powder], onions, and extras*. I really like a good Paprika taste, but if you add too much powder, some say it tastes chalky. Stir everything together and reduce heat to low.
Step 4: You should have a beautiful orange-red colored sauce, a little thicker than whole milk. If it's too watery, don't worry, we've got some thickening power coming with the spätzli. Just let things simmer for a few minutes while you get the spätzli ready. If you're reading the instructions all the way through before cooking, then you can be careful how much water you add in Step 3 to make sure it's not too watery. If not, lesson learned.
Step 5: Add the spätzli to the boiling water. Wait 2 minutes [or follow the directions for your version], scoop out the spätzli with a strainer or slotted spoon and add to the skillet. The water is very starchy from the dumplings and if your sauce wasn't thick enough before, just cook it a bit after the dumplings are in there and it should thicken up.
Step 6: Stir to combine. Find one of the larger chunks of chicken and cut it in half to check for doneness--it should not be pink. If it is, let it cook for another 5-10 minutes, but every time I've every checked, the chicken was done, the small pieces cook fast. I prefer to eat my Paprikas with a spoon, from a bowl, and with some nice bread to soak up the sauce, yum.
Tips and the Development of the Recipe. I really enjoy this recipe, and I cook it whenever I get a chance. I have had much practice at getting just the right result. Here are a few tips to help you get good results and to explain a little bit of how the method comes together.
Curdling. Curdling is not terrible, and mostly only noticed by perfectionists like me. This is when the sour cream curdles and you're left with small white bits floating around in your sauce. This used to happen to me all the time. The reason: the temperature difference between the sour cream and the sauce causes it to cook instantly. My method avoids this by adding the tomato sauce, water, and sour cream at the same time. It's also helpful to bring the sour cream to room temperature. The cooking process in the original recipe required tempering, which just means reducing the temperature difference, the problem with that is it recommends to cool the entire skillet, add the sour cream and then reheat--who has time for that?
Extras. Another issue with week day cooking is minimizing dishes, and unfortunately, I haven't had good results with making this a one-skillet dish. It is possible to cook the spätzli in a skillet with butter, but I have always had unsatisfactory results; the spätzli seems to soak up the butter and come out very heavy. But, you might be able to save yourself pots or pans from your side dish. You can use the pot of boiling water to quickly cook a vegetable of your choice, e.g. broccoli or cauliflower and then add it to the dish at the end. You can also cook some vege with the onions, you may have noticed that there are mushrooms in the pictures above. That's because for this rendition, I cooked up some mushrooms with the onions, peppers are also good for cooking with the onions.
Bacon was also listed in the extras section, the best way to add bacon is to cook it first, set it aside and use the bacon fat to cook the onions and the chicken. Then add the bacon back to the skillet at the same time as the tomatoes. I hesitate to call it Paprikas when using bacon, as the bacon taste overwhelms the paprika, it is more reminiscent of a sauce I had in Budapest called Bacony, that's not the correct spelling, however, as my keyboard doesn't have all the special Hungarian characters required. It may not be Paprikas, but it is fantastically delicious, I highly recommend it, especially if you can find slab bacon, just cut up into 1/4 in by 1/4 in bits before you cook it, maybe use 1/8 to 1/4 lb, or to your taste.
Paprika. I once happened to catch an episode of the Frugal Gourmet where he was making Hungarian Goulash, and he just poured the paprika in, commenting that you can never have too much paprika. I feel much the same way, but you may not, so adjust the paprika levels to your taste. Also play around with the combination of Hot and Sweet, I've made some batches with all Hot paprika and it really has some kick, which can be a nice change of pace sometimes, or maybe you prefer it that way all the time, experiment and find out.
What have I been doing with myself for the last few months with no posts? Well there was a lot of travel, I hope to catch up on that soon, but also I've decided to step up my efforts to get in shape and so I want to introduce something new; posts about training to discuss interesting things about fitness.
In Sept. I started an 8 week Run/Walk program, leading up to 30 minutes of running. I love to run, but for numerous reasons, I have not been able to continue running consistently in the past. I decided that I probably started off too quickly, with too much running, and that usually resulted in an injury and discontinuation of training. This time I decided to take it slower. So far, so good, I've finished the 3rd week, which has me running for 6 min with a 1 min rest and repeating up to 30 min.
Even before I started the running program, I set a goal to do 5000 sit-ups in 100 days. I'm not doing as well with that one, today I'm at 2550 and I was supposed to finish on 31 Oct. I had a few setbacks, but I will reach my goal eventually, and I think that 50 sit-ups a day is a great way to a stronger core.
I'm currently watching Roger Federer play in the finals at the Swiss Indoors on TV, where yesterday, I watched him play live in the semi-finals. Last year I went to the Swiss Indoors, but it was in the early rounds and I wasn't lucky enough to see Federer play then, or any other top 10 player for that matter.
Many people have watched him on TV and thought he was an amazing player and then to see him up close and personal, in a small venue like Basel's St. Jakob, was fantastic.
Roger had 15 aces in the course of a stellar 2-set, 6-3, 6-2, defeat of Feliciano Lopez.
I also was able to watch the doubles semi-final matches which were also something to see. The last match of the day ended when a frustrated player through his racquet to the ground with such force that it crumpled into a heap of carbon fibers and synthetic materials. This show of unsportsmanlike conduct resulted in a point being awarded to his opponents. It also happened to be the final point; game, set, match. Kids don't ever throw your racquets.
Federer just won his 3rd Swiss Indoors title in a row, but he only hit 8 aces in his last match. ;-)
This is interesting, Roger is conducting his interview in Swiss-German, which is almost totally incomprehensible to me and apparently to many others, as the Eurosport announcer is translating on the fly into High-German.
