Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire

Yes, I know the holidays are over...and shortly "Heisse Maroni" season will sadly be over here in Europe. Heisse Maroni (aka roasted chestnuts) are sold everywhere in Europe once the chilly weather sets in during the Fall. Zurich has a Heisse Maroni stand at every major tram stop across town. These are usually little sheds that have a barrel with charcoals over which chestnuts are roasted and sold warm. They smell scrumptious. Given that there are so many songs about chestnuts - i.e. Mel Torme's "The Christmas Song" or the ever popular Andrew Bond's, "Marini, Maruni, Maroni" (a Swiss German song about eating roasted chestnuts - this one's actually on ITunes if you want to download it) - we figured they must be delicious and tried these the first winter we were here in Zurich. Let's just say we don't understand the hype. Bill and I thought they tasted like warm balls of raw bread dough. Yuck! So, we laugh everytime we see these stands.

Tiny House

As I was attempting to make dinner the other night, I had a strange flashback to a Geico ad from a few years back. This pretty up sums up our experience of living in our apartment in Zurich...mainly related to the appliances.

I quickly ran and got the camera as I was attempting to boil water for noodles and grill some chicken at the same time on our Swiss cooktop while using our BIG 'OL American pots/pans. I have yet to have my big spaghetti pot come to a full and raging boil on the cooktop because the pot is too large in diameter compared to the largest cooktop burner diameter.

The oven is also very small...none of my US cookie sheets fit in this thing. We had to buy some when we got here. I can't usually bake more than one thing at a time. Thanksgiving and special meals require lots of logistical planning to figure out how to get everything cooked, yet keep it warm so it's all good to eat at the same time.

It's also interesting how different the kitchen appliances operate. Our appliances are manufactured by a company called "Zug". They are Swiss-made appliances. Our dishwasher has 5 different wash cycles including "Fondue pot/Raclette cycle" for getting crusty cheese off of big ceramic pots. And we have to add salt to the dishwasher (into a little port in the bottom of the dishwasher) about every 2-3 weeks. This is very weird! It's apparently due to the fact that the water is so hard here in Zurich...the salt helps to keep the dishwasher from scaling over.

On the laundry side of things, I really shouldn't complain too much. Many folks here don't have washer/dryers in their apartment units. They usually are communal and apartment tenants each get a certain laundry day each week when they have to do all their laundry. (In fact, it's pretty common to hear, "No, I can't do that today...it's my laundry day.") So, the plus is that we do have our own washer/dryer in our apartment. The negative is that the washer is pretty small. It fully hit me while we were staying with my parents during Christmas. I was doing laundry and I was guestimating how long it would take to do it...I thought, "Hmmm...this is about 3 loads of clothes." However, I was able to easily fit all the clothes in 1 load using my parents washer. Ahhhhhhhhhhh...heaven!

I think this is one of the most exciting things about moving back to the US... a large kitchen (even a small kitchen in the US is probably larger than our kitchen here) and BIG 'OL American appliances.

Learning Swiss Life Skills

Well, it's been almost a solid 2 months since I've blogged anything. That's pretty bad. I either haven't had the time or the inclination when time has arisen. But after reviewing some photos that I took off the camera the other day, I realized I had never blogged another interesting topic related to Brady's playgroup. The photos provided enough guilt to overcome my blogging inertia.

Below are some photos of arts and craft projects that Brady has recently made at playgroup:

Project #1:

Innocuous-looking painted box that Brady made and was instructed to put under the Christmas tree as a gift to his parents. Upon further review, innocuous-looking painted box contained 4 full boxes of MATCHES! WHAT?!?!?!?!? Luckily he doesn't know what matches are and we explained that even though we loved his gift, that he was not allowed to play with the gift. And we promptly threw it out later. WOW...we were flabbergasted. Not quite sure what to make of this one.

The projects that the kids do at playgroup are typically paint/glitter related, but I guess since this one was a Christmas gift, the teacher wanted to amp up the functionality a bit. However, in retrospect, many Swiss (and Germans) use real candles on their Christmas trees...so perhaps this gift was meant to help with the lighting of the candles. (This tradition just seems rife with fire-causing fun to me, though. Glad we stick with the strands of bulb lights.)

Project #2:

Brady came home one day saying he loved to hammer. I had no idea what he was talking about, but gave him his play hammer and he seemed content to hammer plastic nails with the plastic hammer at home. Then the next week, when I went to pick him up, his teacher told me he had forgotten to give me his craft project the week before. This time - here is what I saw:

A splintery- 3" x 3" x 12" piece of wood with really sharp nails hammered into it holding various glittery doo-dads. WHAT?!?!?!? Again, Bill and I had a mini-heart attack thinking of our loving 2.5 year old playing with a full-size hammer and splintery wood. Obviously, Brady had help with this one...and it will teach good toolmanship in the future...but this was also a bit un-nerving.

Often in Swiss Day Cares and Playgroups (including Brady's one day a week playgroup), the kids use real metal silverware - full-scale adult sized silverware to eat their meals. I'm often impressed when I see little Swiss kids eating spaghetti the correct way (with a spoon and fork) while I'm sucking mine in my mouth strand by strand. And the play kitchens in these same groups often use real glassware. I guess the thought is to get kids used to this stuff...but as much as I get this, I feel a little unsure. Brady hasn't been hurt by any of this...and his silverware skills are getting pretty good...so I guess I shouldn't complain. But coming from the US where people will sue over anything resulting in children's daycare centers seeming like big padded-rooms, it's been interesting to see the opposite approach. Perhaps the middle ground might be the best approach?