Like bumble bees defying physics in order to fly, the Swiss have managed to disregard any health risks associated with eating high fat/sugar foods; they happily continue consuming desserts like gebrannte crème…a luscious soupy dessert made from caramelized sugar, milk, cream, eggs and a thickener – and amazingly garnished with…well yes, whipped cream.

Warning…you should proceed with caution if you are trying to lose weight or if you are concerned with your blood glucose level…oh, and gebrannte crème can be addictive!

Gebrannte crème is also called crème brûlée in the French-speaking side of the röstigraben but, please don’t confuse this Swiss classic with a baked custard.

My first encounter with gebrannte crème occurred while working at Kaiser’s Reblaube restaurant in Zürich during the late 1990s. It was a late evening on my very first day of work…Suddenly the chef yelled out for one ‘crème brûlée,’ and I immediately felt somehow relieved at recognizing a menu item. You see, I had just spent the last twelve hours trying to understand the strange German dialect everyone around me was speaking…Swiss German with a distinct Portuguese-, French-, Kosovan- or Swiss accent.   More...

The recent frigid weather in Switzerland created perfect conditions to produce ice wines…a situation which does not often occur. Swiss wine-makers produce some of the most remarkable ice wines when given the chance…but only with extraordinary dedication to their craft.

It’s hours before the December sun rises and the temperature outside is well below freezing. It’s the perfect time to get out of a nice warm bed to harvest grapes. This is the type of sacrifice winemakers have to make in order to produce top quality ice wines.

Harvesting proceeds quickly before any sign of warmth thaws the grapes. The frozen grapes arrive at the equally frozen winery. All the doors and windows have been left open to keep the temperatures extremely low. If the grapes melt now, all the effort spent harvesting the grapes, and the risks taken by the winemaker in getting this far, will be in vain.

Ice wines are made from naturally frozen, ripe grapes. Once temperatures reach minus 7°C, the water inside the shriveled grape berries freezes, leaving a concentrated mix of natural sugars, acids and aromas. The frozen grapes are then pressed – a process which can take hours for the syrupy juice to ooze towards the tank. Finally, the alcoholic fermentation begins after a gentle warming of the juice, and the wait begins. Normal wine fermentation occurs on a scale of days, but ice wine can take months to properly ferment because of the high level of sugar in the juice.   More...

In this next account to Silvia’s season long wine adventure, she reports on the status of her vines after being away on vacation…

read part I ¦ read part II ¦ read part III

I missed the last lecture in Malans at the end of June…but hey, everyone needs a vacation…

We headed out during the last part of July to go check on my vines, and to see what had changed since my last visit. I expected to see fully grown vine branches with abundant grape bunches hanging below the leaves…especially after doing such a fine job in May of stripping away so many leaves from the young vine shoots.

I wasn’t disappointed.

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One of the most intimidating recipes for aspiring cooks to attempt is making homemade puff pastry…but, in reality it is simply mixing flour, butter, water and a pinch of salt together to form a light dough. So, why does this recipe seem so unapproachable?

It is difficult to get a clear historical perspective on the origin of puff pastry. The French, of course, like to claim credit for this classical preparation…and there is no doubt the French have used puff pastry broadly in many sweet and savory dishes throughout the past few hundred years or so. It appears, however, that ancient documents mentioning puff pastry happily give credit to ancient Greece…far before the days of Carême.

Now…I make no claims on being an expert in ancient Greek puff pastry – something I am still trying to visualize – but, I do know traditional French puff pastry. And, I know from my days working in the Savoy the French take puff pastry very seriously indeed. Everything has to be just right…very fresh flour mixed together with very fresh lightly salted butter to produce layers upon layers of delicate and flaky pastry. In some ways…puff pastry seems to define French cooking and perhaps even explains why so many of us are just intimidated by the thought of making puff pastry.

The traditional method is a bit tricky and involves a bit of practice and patience – as well as using perfect ingredients and having the right atmospheric conditions. To produce a light and flaky product, everything must be done carefully and properly – start to finish – or the results may be disappointing. More...

In this third part to Silvia’s season long wine adventure, she reports on the status of her vines, what she learned about vine maintenance and how to plant new grapes. read part I ¦ read part II

Spring finally arrived.

When the rain weather travels from the west toward Graubünden, there is a good chance the rain drops will never fall in Malans…or at least wait until the evening. This is the typical weather pattern in the Bündner Herrschaft and for once the weather did what was expected. Even though rain covered most of Switzerland, we were able to enjoy the warm spring sun.

A quick inspection of the vineyard told me what I needed to immediately know – our vines made it through the winter…and I did too. The vines looked strong and full of growth. The year’s early spring weather caused the vines to bud early, but the subsequent cold weather caused everything to return to normal by mid-May. But even so, some growers have compared the 2009 crop with 2003 and 2007, when everything was early.

As I walked the vineyard and came upon my row of vines, I noticed the few branches on each vine grew into bushes. There were also many little grape bunches visible…a joy to see.

Letting nature do what it wants means losing control of the vines and giving enemies a chance to attack. So after pruning and selecting two branches per vine in the winter, then binding them to the wire at the end of winter, it is now time to keep the vine’s new growth under control.    More...

We are very excited to be back up and running...and we do apologize for the recent downtime!

As you may have noticed by now, we have changed our look and feel a bit to go along with some greatly improved security measures.  We hope you like our look...but, we're not done yet!  We will continue to make some adjustments to the design during the next couple of months and fix any necessary bugs we happen to catch (be sure to send us a message if you see anything weird or if something doesn't appear to work correctly).

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Ok...that covers the main stuff.  Now, back to posting information about food & wine...