Tuesday 30 August 2011

All in one jug Brownies (when done in Microwave)

Jennifer, here is the recipe for you and for anyone else who is interested, but its not for the faint hearted when you see how much sugar goes in :-)  As I write this, I am demolishing the last few squares of a 400g bar of Cadbury's.  Swiss officianados would say this is not chocolate, but despite its cloying sweetness still remains a favourite of mine.

Fudgy Brownies

Oven heat low, I suggest around 150-160 degs C according to how fierce your oven is. Mine was on about 160 degs C Fan.  Slightly higher perhaps 165 degs C if no Fan option.

In a large glass jug, melt 200g of dark chocolate and 100g unsalted butter on low wattage about 400W stopping and stirring after 2 minutes. (60% Cremant/Dark chocolate is best, I liked COOP classics when I was in Switzerland.  Alternatively: melt ontop of the hob slowly in a heavy based pan). Mix together gently until the butter and chocolate appear glossy and smooth.

Into the jug with chocolate mix, add a pinch of salt when melted, and mix in 200g caster sugar (feinster Backzucker) (a wonder whisk I find brilliant for this purpose).  It will look grainy don't worry. Add 3 measly small whole eggs, nothing bigger than 53g. Whisk till blended.

Add Vanilla extract 2tsp or (sub in a pack of vanille-zucker as part of the caster sugar) and 85g plain flour (weissmehl, if you want slight chewiness add half Weissmehl, half Zopfmehl).  Whisk until mix becomes thickened and smooth about a minute should do.

Pour into a 7 inch square baking paper lined cake tin, but a small rectangular shallow tin will also do (which is what I use 20x30x2cm). Spread evenly in tin.

Bake for about 30-35 mins, but check centre with wooden cocktail stick after 25mins.  You don't want wet batter, you want a few damp crumbs sticking to the stick when it comes out of the brownies.  If the stick comes out clean they are a little bit over cooked. They are best when slightly underdone, believe me :-) and wonderful warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

Thursday 25 August 2011

Hergiswil Glass



I thought that I would take some time to say thank you to my Swiss friends; Kim, Nadia and Jennifer for my beautiful goodbye present.  I was able to use it this morning to serve some great brownies that we made to serve some good friends of ours, Kate and Ann.  Fudgy brownies made with my last dwindling stocks of Swiss Cremant 60% dark chocolate.

The glass has a great shine to it, and not being uniform makes the reflected light from it look fantastic.  This manually shaped glass from the factory in Hergiswil, Switzerland, was something I always wanted to buy before leaving, so was really pleased to receive this piece as a leaving present.

I know that Nadia and Jennifer you did not see this before it was wrapped, so these shots are for you :-)

Wednesday 24 August 2011

On the trail of a harp.....


Two years ago my eldest daughter Laura insisted that it had to be the harp she wanted to play out of all the orchestral instruments offered by the music school.  Quite a high proportion of ladies play brass in the Basel and Baselbiet, I think this is mainly due to the link with Fasnacht, and the Gugge bands which are pretty much all brass; trumpets, euphonuims, cornets and trombones.  I remember the day Laura went to the open day.  Hoping that she would change her mind about the harp when we got there, her face said it all.  She had chosen cello as her 2nd choice if it was not possible to get a harp lesson space organized.  She tried out the cello, and sat apathetically stroking the bow back and forth.  When she plucked a few strings on the harp, her face lit up.  I think even at an early age, connection and will to learn an instrument is important.  I am not sure whether despite the best intentions of my grandmother, that my sister, Emma ever had that connection with the piano.  All I remember  is her frustration at having to learn eternal scales and at the peak of frustration,  slamming both her arms and elbows flat onto the old ivory keys of our upright piano creating an awful noise.  This was our signal, she had had enough.  She always remembers the teacher constantly saying ,’feel the weight, feel the weight’ and her spindly fingers dug into her shoulder.  After a while I think everyone realized that Emma was not going to become a concert pianist! 

Laura has completed two years of playing, and her progress has been quite surprising.  She is too young to realize the relationship between effort in = progress made.  However, hopefully in a few years time that may come if she is still playing.  Our return to the UK has meant that we now need to find a new teacher, and a new harp, as we rented a fairly bashed up Aoyama lever harp bought off Ebay by our 1st teacher in Switzerland for the princely sum of 1000CHF, about 800GBP.  It had fallen over, and had a number of vertical cracks running into the soundboard.  However, it was cheap to rent as a first instrument, and saved us 30CHF a month for 2 years rather than renting an equivalent from Musik Hug in Basel.  Before moving back, I explored the various alternatives, and found a family firm which are based in Lechlade, and have been connected with harp making since the turn of the century.  We met the knowledgeable owner, Clive Morley, at the weekend.  We walked away with a sturdy Hempson 34 string lever harp: http://www.morleyharps.co.uk/acatalog/info_00hempsonnypl.html . It’s heavy, and I will have to take it into school every week for orchestra.  Thankfully, we have a big enough car boot in Steve’s Audi A6 with some of the seats flat in the back.  Compared with our bashed up old harp, our new one sounds great.  We could have spent more, a lot more, however, we want to give ourselves enough to save for a pedal harp if that has to happen.  We also found out about a great scheme called the Assisted Instrument Purchase Scheme, which allows you to order your instrument though your school, and they claim the VAT back on your behalf.  We pay VAT free, which will hopefully save us about 300GBP! Thanks also to my grandfather and my mum who are both supporting the purchase of the harp for Laura.  Harp does sound lovely, it’s a calming instrument, but it is a pain to move, and there is a lot of tuning to do, and even more when you add on the octaves to a 45 string concert harp!

After visiting the harp workshop, Laura said, ‘this is my heaven, a room full of harps!’. They had 2 rooms, one with lever and one with pedal and concert harps.  We will have to see where our UK harp journey takes us, but Laura is keen to involve herself in the school orchestra, and this is a real mix of abilities.  Meanwhile, Alice has her eyes on piano, another nice small, cheap instrument too ;-), well let’s hope we don’t have both arms crashing down on the keyboard….

Friday 19 August 2011

Foody Bargains

Food bargains was something I used to take great delight in procuring in Switzerland, especially with the price of meat so high, I always enjoyed COOP on Tuesdays and Thursdays in Gartenstadt, and occasionally when I was there early on a Saturday to buy discount meaty morsels at 50% off. The lure of those bright orange labels was just too great, even when I knew I would practically be sitting on the chest freezer lid to seal it shut when I got home!

Food bargains here in the UK are a lot less predictable, so far but strangely feel less self-conscious buying my foody discounts in Waitrose than say Morrisons, which is our local supermarket on our estate.  In Morrisons I have already picked up some great bargains, cut price sausages, mature cheddar cheese, fish, a huge (yes huge,  1.8kg to all you Swiss friends) corn-fed chicken and even a Melton Mowbray pork pie or two :-) I am single-handedly solving Wokinghams' food waste issues ;-)  However, in Morrisons, you have to go to the 'great deals' section of the chiller cabinet where all the bargains are together on display, and you cannot help but feel a little cheap for looking/raking through this section. I suppose this is mainly because Morrisons is not exactly the most expensive quality supermarket in town, and you are purchasing something cheaper when it was pretty inexpensive to start with!  However, saying that, I have been pleasantly surprised at their product lines (and no, I am not receiving sponsorship for saying this...).  I do still feel that the healthy food seems disproportionately more expensive than the junk food they sell though :-/

In Waitrose, no such bargain-related stigma, the bargains are not so easy to spot, no orange labels, just discreet white reduced labels stuck over the bar-code and left all over the store like a treasure hunt to find in every department.  So this makes it all the more rewarding when you spot something on the shelf.  I have already had cut price lettuce, cress and ready-made salads, all consumed that day and still in good nick, so why pay full price!!

Thursday 18 August 2011

A day of rain...

A day of rain so far (my mum would be really envious, she needs quite a lot more in East Anglia for her allotment), and a tad chilly to boot!  Sitting watching the rain fall, and noticed a loud trickling of water, noticed the downpipe is not connected to the roof guttering, and the rain has been so heavy that its overflowing the pipes and running down the side of the house, will get that fixed before the winter sets in.  It's not our house, but feel the need to look after it nonetheless.  I don't think its received much TLC over the last few years, as I sat on the computer sorting out more forms, noticed a distinct lack of water coming down the drainpipe to the side of our garage.  The wall was getting really wet and the water was also overflowing over the top.  I stuck a knife up the base of the pipe, and out flew a childs toy, followed by a satisfying explosion of soil and leaves, thankfully a quick reflex reaction backwards at this point stopped me turning head to toe brown :-)  Now at least, there is a steady trickle of water down the pipe...!


Wednesday 17 August 2011

Promming

Brilliant thing about being back in the UK is that I have London at my beck and call.  Although Basel had it its fair share of music events, London wins that one fair and square.  To top it all, I am back in time to catch some of the BBC Prom season.

I have to eat my words, with regards to English trains compared to Swiss ones, the clean South West train was exactly on time onto the platform at Wokingham, and at Waterloo exactly 1hour and 9 minutes later.  Although many of our old friends in the UK think this line is very slow compared to the Paddington line into London, I quite enjoyed seeing the variety along this rail line.  There is such a mix of wealth, Sunningdale and Ascot compared to Bracknell and some of the outer parts of London.  Also welcome patches of green oases like Twickenham down to small strips of well cared for vegetable allotments growing alongside the rail track.

My brother had invited me into London for Prom number 43 at the Royal Albert Hall as a birthday present.  The last prom I attended was some time ago, I went to see the Planets, which was amazing with the special acoustics you get in the Royal Albert Hall.  I thought our circle seats right at the very back last row were great value at 12GBP each.  We were in the lap of the gods, and the steep descent down to the orchestral staging was amazing.  The ladies arriving to our right said they were terrified, they were so high up.  I was a little disconcerted I must say, that at every interval (there were unusually 2 at this concert) the top step in front of my seat seemed to bend and flex quite a lot with the weight of people using it!

The Fanfare for the Common Man and the Adagio for Strings were the pieces I instantly recognised.  There is something so special about live performance that cannot be gained from even the best CD or downloads going.  Whether it be the hypnotic movement of the bows on the violins, or the amazing quality of sound produced from the orchestra that together could almost be considered a living thing.  What amazed me was the music in the quiet sections produced by the strings felt as if it was literally hanging in the air in front of us.  At the end of the Prokofiev piece, I did experience one of those thrilling hair standing on its end on your neck moments.  I can see why people get addicted to the proms.  All sorts of people are there from young to old, and of course the regular Prommers, who have little exclamations, like when the lid of the Grand Piano was raised in unison a group sounded a  ' Heave......Ho!' sounded from the top gallery behind us.  Wang, a young talented Chinese pianist was simply amazing in her technical ability to play the piano.  The piece was not totally my thing, but I could not help but marvel at her astounding performance.
For the serious music connoisseurs amongst you the critique of the Prom: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/proms/8707233/BBC-Proms-2011-Prom-43-RPOWang-Albert-Hall-review.html

My girls are already excited at the thought of attending the Family Prom next year.  This year was Horrible Histories, one of their favourite series.  We will have to wait and see what they have in store next year.

South Kensington has really changed a lot, and Hyde Park for our pre-prom picnic, a perfect quiet oasis in the midst of a busy capital.  The Shard, will be the tallest building in London, is starting to make its impact on the city skyline.  South Ken High Street is now being partly pedestrianised and traffic reduced considerably, and Boris Bikes zoom around everywhere.  London has, and is changing, and in a good way, it certainly feel less polluted, I think the main gauge was returning to find the inside of my nose was not black, as it used to be over 15 years ago or so!

Monday 15 August 2011

Putters and Leavers

We had a conversation with our new neighbour, Nick the other day, and he had been reading somewhere that there were 2 types of people; putters and leavers.  He identified himself as a putter, along with my husband Steve.  They both religiously put things in the same place (quite sensibly I admit) so that they know where it is for next time.  Then there are leavers, those people who put their belongings down wherever, and hope that they remember where it is for next time.  Myself, and his wife were put in this category.  It's always the same answer from the putters, when you ask ,'where are my keys/important paperwork/purse....?'. Their smug reply; 'It's where you last put it..'.  Mmm helpful.  I did say though, that when a putter gets it wrong, its my turn to be smug,'It's where you last left it...'.  Those times do not come along that often, but I must admit, I do revel in it when that happens!

Steve annoyingly hardly ever loses things as a result of his putter mentality.  I always mislay things.  On the last day before property handover in Switzerland, Steve told me he had lost the keys to a metal cupboard that sits in the underground carpark containing all the car cleaner, car jack, windscreen wash etc.  He then told me that he had taken both the keys that were on the ring, and there were no spares, so now we could not open the cupboard as they were now resting on the lawn somewhere after falling out of his pocket.  My response was, 'Well, we have 24 hours to find them'.  Luckily after alot of searching by removal guys, my 2 children and Steve, I wandered to the side of my garden looking at my red rose thinking it needed a deadhead, when pointing side upwards very hard to see, were 2 keys, I was pretty pleased to have found them as handover of all keys was to occur the next day.  Time to be smug....very smug....

Thursday 11 August 2011

Swiss Clean

I had little idea when leaving the UK to live in Switzerland how obsessed with cleaning they are.  The streets are tidy, the hedges are pruned back to regulation height (you get in trouble with your neighbours if they brush past your hedge and they get wet...) and there is very little litter anywhere. Inside houses are immaculate too.  On handover of our rented property to us in Switzerland, every nook and cranny had been polished, and even though the house was 13 years old and the appliances were showing their age, they were still cleaned to within an inch of their lives. When we moved after 4 years, I heard rumours of the dreaded handover, where the agency work through the house cataloguing every new scratch and mark on the walls, floors and appliances.  Every chip and stain is noted, and there is nowhere to hide, they are ruthless. The longer you live in one place, the more they tend to some degree of leniency, but do not expect that much!  I considered my house on handover spotless, (after mum and I had taken 3 days to clean every inch, then it should have been!) but they were still about to start up over a sun fade mark where the rug had lain on the floor for 4 years.  They reluctantly said that they would redo the floors after the caretaker stuck up for me.   I only had to pay for a dishwasher service, one soap dish (deemed to cloudy) and some holes in the walls left by paintings.

This is where I need to revise my standards.  We too rented out our property in the UK whilst abroad, and left it in a state that someone could live in relative comfort.  The oven was only a year old and the carpets were still in good shape, the bathrooms were sanitary.  We arrived last week to our current rental to find cobwebs in the corners of the rooms, that I can deal with I thought, I can remove those.  Then the layer of yellow turmeric grease left on the surfaces and walls around the extraction hood.  Too many Indian fry-ups had taken their toll.  The extractor I found does not extract, it merely recirculates the greasy air. So today I noticed there is a yellow line of turmeric grease on the ceiling where the air has been blown onto the paintwork above....tasty.

However, I had to draw a line at the mellow-yellow toilet seat.  There is something about your own yellow that can be tolerated in most cases, but someone elses....? It's something that makes my stomach feel a little queasy.  Not wishing to wait any longer, I purchased a soft close anti bac seat from Argos, no more loo seat crashing, and no more yellow for us!  My first victorious DIY job that I completed myself (much to the disappointment of my husband).  The toilet is now worthy to be sat on.  Well, now I have cleaned the rest of the underside too.....

So that's todays readjustment, UK professional clean is not quite Swiss professional clean.

Wednesday 10 August 2011

Time Keeping

When living in Switzerland, you do as the Swiss do, and you keep good time.  Its rude to turn up at someones house late.  Even 5 minutes fashionably late does not do.  The whole country works constantly to time, (well not surprisingly when it still manufactures some of the best time pieces in the world) the gleaming trains and trams run effortlessly, gliding into and out of the platforms on time.  The Swiss start looking at their watches impatiently if the tram looks like its even 1 minute late.  It is an expectation that people and services all run to time.  Here in the UK, I have to readjust, my husband has to be grateful if an overcrowded grubby train rolls into the platform in the morning, and the return journey has to have at least 1 half hour delay, we have experienced this twice already in only 4 days of commuting.  Workmen too, in Switzerland they will give you a time and they stick to it, never late.  Sometimes appointments really early in the morning, often had the water softener done at 07.30am so I can get on with the day.  Now just today, I have waited for an appointment quote 'any time after 12.30am'.  Its now 4pm and the electrician has just this minute come to repair a ceiling rose which fell out the ceiling.  I was told amidst the stacks of boxes by my letting agent to push the rose back into the ceiling.  Yeah...thats going to stay there for about 2 seconds.  No, do your job, call someone out and get the job done!  There was a huge whole in the ceiling, and 2 tiny screws keeping the rose in place, anyone could see that it was not fit for purpose!

We have, already had the baptism of fire; yesterday screw related casualties were a toilet roll holder, Laura my daughter pulled the loo roll and half the holder fell off.  Alice, 2nd daughter puts the retaining band back on the curtain and half of the rail falls off...we are not doing too well so far!  We may be returning our rental property in better condition than we found it at this rate!

Tuesday 9 August 2011

My first blogpost

This blog is something I had in mind since some parting words that came from a very good friend of mine, Kim in Switzerland said, 'You will experience Reverse Culture Shock, believe me!'  I want to blog some of my thoughts on the whole process, going back to live in a country where I used to live, and whether I would indeed go through this process of Reverse Culture shock.........

 It was with mixed feelings I left Switzerland, my home for 8 years and getting used to all those rules I never thought I would ever get my head around.  I can remember vividly the day, 12th June 2003, feeling really sad taking off from Heathrow, and wondering what the life was like ahead of me with one 2 year old daughter and a husband.  Now, 29th July, 2011, I faced doing this the other way round, the intrepidation of living back in the UK after Switzerland...this time with another daughter in tow.....

Our wonderful neighbours, Hannelore and Markus took us to the airport for our flight out, and I feel very sure that we will see them again, we shared many great times together, they were the adopted grandparents for my 2 girls whilst we were away from direct family members as expats.  I was also concerned about all the friends I leave behind, and the business I built over 4 years making cakes for the Expat community.

GB Liners coordinated our move, and thanks to a great crew, kept my spirits up as we packed up quite a large 6.5 Zimmer (roomed) house.  My main worry was that we had a rented house waiting, which I would be moving into unseen (no stress, did this in Switzerland, husband making a snap decision from 3 different properties he was shown on the same day!) The only problem weighing on my mind was how the hell do you fit a house that has a basement, a ground floor, 1st floor and an attic into a small 4 bed house in the UK with no basement or attic and a teeny loft....??

Over the next few posts, I will pick on various aspects of my reverse culture shock as I adapt to life back in the UK, and yes, I have noticed the differences already... and chart them on this blog and of course to keep in touch with friends I now have all over the globe....