I am faced with the same question every summer, ‘I wish I could find some decent tomatoes here, where do you buy yours?’ To which I answer…and this predictably creates a confused, often contorted facial reaction, ‘The best tomatoes in Switzerland are between March and May!’

Ok, I will admit summer time is the best time for tomatoes – but only if you’re growing your own and live in an area blessed with a lot of summer sunshine. I will also admit the tomatoes I am referring to are not Swiss at all, but in fact they are Italian – and mostly from Sicily or Sardegna where the people know a thing or two about growing (and eating) tasty tomatoes.

Tomatoes need plenty of sunshine to develop their full flavor potential …and I’m not talking about the sugars which usually only account for about 3% of the total weight. No, what makes tomatoes so appealing to many are their high levels of glutamic acid – a savory acid more common to meat than plants. It is precisely this acid which creates the necessary balance of sugars and aromatic compounds. Without glutamic acid tomatoes taste…well, really bland and almost starchy.

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We are very excited to provide more information about our first culinary workshop week in Tuscany from the 27th of June through the 3rd of July. We are offering a unique opportunity to experience Italian food and wine lifestyle in a wonderfully restored Tuscan bed and breakfast, while offering 5 days of culinary classes, excursions, wine tasting and more!

We will be located in the Val d'Orcia, between the major wine regions of Montalcino and Montepulciano.  The amazing B&B is as Tuscan as it gets, and offers private apartments with kitchens, a swimming pool, and many other features guaranteed to make this a charming and relaxing culinary getaway...and you get to cook with us!

Participation is limited to six so we can keep the experience very personal…and very unique!

• One week workshop held in a beautiful estate in the heart of Val d’Orcia, situated between the world-renown wine regions of Montalcino and Montepulciano – more about il Poggiolo
• Comfortable and spacious apartments with a private bedroom and shared kitchen, living room and bathroom
• Daily cooking workshops in a professional kitchen
• Small group of participants to allow for personal and professional attention and instruction
• Local excursions to wine, cheese and olive oil producers
• Guided wine degustation/instruction exploring the finer side of Italian wine
• Plenty of free time to explore the surroundings or simply lounge by the pool

1,800 Euro for 6-nights’ accommodations and 5-days culinary workshops

Ask us a question…or reserve a place HERE

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Buying fresh fish in Switzerland is not as easy as one may expect. First of all, much of the fresh fish available has been filleted and the skin has been removed, erasing most of identifiable characteristics. So there goes all of those handy tips on buying fresh fish like checking the eyes, gills and skin.

So what is that piece of fish sitting in the ice? Is it a fresh water fish or salt water fish? Is it white and delicate or blue and oily? Is it wild or farm raised? Is it endangered…or perhaps mass-produced and frozen?

Oh the questions…and I haven’t even broached the subject of fish names!

Some of the available fish in Switzerland share the same English name…so that’s easy. Others, though, use the French name, Italian name or – and this is lots of fun – some sort of hard-to-pronounce-tongue-twisting Swiss-German name which doesn’t appear to have any word root whatsoever!

Sure, it may be easy to point-and-order at any fish counter…or maybe even ask the fish monger a question or two about the fish – something I would encourage. Perhaps you may even be tempted to discreetly pull out your iPhone and quickly access Google Translate…hmm!

Or, you could simply use our handy fish translation table for saltwater, fresh water and shellfish varieties in four languages.

Download a Free PDF Version

Finally…and only because this is fun. Try your hand at this dandy little German tongue-twister…

Fischers Fritz fischt frische Fische
Frische Fische fischt Fischers Fritz

Enjoy your fish...

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...

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...

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).

In the meantime, here are a few new items we've added to the right sidebar:

1. Improved searching: want to find something fast...type in a term in the field.

2. An historical monthly list of our posts...pretty easy to figure out.

3. Recent comments from our posts...got something to write about a post...it will also appear here!

4. A link to some other blogs we like to follow...send us a message with your blog information if you would like us to consider adding it to the list.

5. Want to get notified when we make a new post?...well, just put your e-mail address into the field and click on the 'notify me' button...we will send you an e-mail message with a link to the new post - it works nicely, but you have to make sure to adjust your spam filter to allow mail from freshattitude (oh...we won't be sharing your address with anyone, or using it for any other reason).

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