After a quick French spelling lesson and an introduction to the quaint village of Gruyères, I hope you have worked up an appetite for the specialties of this dairy rich part of Switzerland.  The region is most well known for its eponymous cheese, but running a close second is the fresh, local cream, famous for its high butterfat content.  I had heard about this cream from friends who lived in Switzerland, but never really understood all the fuss they made about, well… cream.  Turns out it is worth the fuss, for its unparalleled, unctuous texture and its rather unique aroma.  That’s probably why it’s served on top of just about everything, at all hours of the day.  Most restaurants proudly announce that they have “crème double de la Gruyère” outside, so customers are rest assured before entering.
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This past weekend we went on a road trip about 2 hours southwest of Zürich, and found ourselves in the very heart of cheese country - Gruyère of course!  But wait, shouldn’t that be Gruyères as it is written in the above photo?  Truth is, we drove all around la Gruyère, stayed in Gruyères and ate way too much of le Gruyère!  There must be a typo somewhere in there, no?  After being terribly confused myself, having read articles on the region and the cheese in both English and French, I couldn’t figure out who was making the error.  There was no mistake at all.  It turns out there are in fact 2 spellings and even 2 different genders in French.  Here’s a breakdown: Gruyères (plural with an ‘s’) is the name of the village that’s situated in the region of La Gruyère (feminine singular), where you can find the cheese that goes by the same name, Le Gruyère (masculine singular).  Any which way you spell it, it’s a picturesque, medieval town in a beautiful region, and one delicious cheese!  Which, by the way, has no holes… but more on that later!

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Whether a “sweet tooth” refers to one particular moment when you crave something sweet, or a more broad liking of sweets in general… well I have one.  All the time.  In fact, I have a whole mouth full of them.  I am not promoting an excess amount of sugar in one’s diet; we all know this a no-no.  But I am promoting enjoying the sweeter side of life, and this definitely includes indulging one’s sweet tooth from time to time.  It doesn’t necessarily have to be by eating though.  With the explosion of food and travel blogs over the past few years, you can spend all day gazing at pages and pages of gorgeous photos of baked goods, chocolate, sweets – and not take in a calorie.   Too much reading though and you might get saturated just as easily.

I was not only honored, but real excited, to be invited as a guest author on Blogs.com this past week, to come up with a themed list of my 10 favorite blogs.  The site was put together to help people find the best in blogs, and it’s very well organized and easy to navigate.  A popular feature is the Guest Top 10 Lists, where bloggers, writers, celebrities and big thinkers pick their 10 favorite blogs on a topic of their choice.  I thought about my favorite blogs for French speakers, and my favorite bloggers in Switzerland, but ended up with a topic that should come as no surprise to you all.  My theme… Top 10 Blogs to Satisfy Your Sweet Tooth.  But of course!

It’s a fun list of bloggers who all appreciate the sweet life, and I check their sites regularly to see what they’re baking up or the sweet spots they are visiting.  All of their photos are mouthwatering, their recipes approachable and inspiring, and their ideas new and creative.  Hope you’ll enjoy them as much as I do.  Click the image to the left to see my list of sweet sites on Blogs.com, and feel free to click around to see other lists as well. It’s a really great way to discover other blogs, and less intimidating to do so when you can pick and choose by your personal interests.

And while we’re on the topic of sweets (not that this is out of the ordinary), I thought I’d revisit some favorite MyKugelhopf posts of 2008 that will definitely satisfy your sweet tooth as well!  Click the photos below and follow your sweet tooth on a little adventure… enjoy a Kouign Amann on France’s Brittany coast; sweet fruit candy or salty licorice from Sweden; creamy gelato at the border of Italy and Switzerland; Roanne’s legendary and bright pink, sugary Praluline brioche; and an extra crispy and buttery palmier in Paris, or colorful macarons if you prefer.  Don’t forget some good Swiss chocolate and a stop in the Alsatian town of Colmar for a kugelhopf!

Now, for those of you with a sweet tooth that’s drawing you into the kitchen, here’s another adventure for you.  Stay cozy in your own home and turn the oven on.  Take your pick below, and bake up a fig tarte Tatin, a pumpkin chocolate cake, a batch of banana macadamia chocolate chip cookies or some crumbly polenta shortbread.  Bon appétit!

If you’ve spent some time on this site, you already know that I am quite a fan of chocolate. Dark chocolate especially, and I have at least one or two squares every day. (Ok, dark chocolate with the exception of my long time favorite Toblerone.)  I’ve shared with you where to find chocolate in New York City and where to find it in Paris; you’ve read about chocolate served in a cheese box, chocolate that’s blue, and even chocolate made with pop rocks.  And you’re sure to see a whole lot more in the future. I am always on the lookout for a bar to discover.  And it’s rare that I will come back from a trip without a few new wrappers in my bag.

So I was very excited to find this relatively new bar (introduced in 2008) in a local Coop supermarket here in Zürich.  It’s not a shocking flavor or something that’s never been done before.  It’s actually a rather common culinary trend right now.  It just hadn’t been done by Lindt: chocolate… and??  Salt. In fact, I often add the latter when I taste my few squares each day.  I take a piece of dark chocolate, whether it’s a pure origin bar or flavored with espresso, and I sprinkle it with a few grains of high quality Fleur de Sel (hand harvested from the salt marshes of Brittany, France) or Maldon salt (from England), depending on my mood.  Now Lindt has added 3% sea salt to its classic dark chocolate blend, giving us: Lindt Excellence, A la Pointe de Fleur de Sel (A Touch of Sea Salt).

That said, don’t expect to look at the chocolate and see large, noticeable crystals.  But take one bite, and you will taste them right away.  If you let the chocolate melt on your tongue, you can feel the tiny crystals as the chocolate melts away.  Or you’ll feel a few morsels afterwards in your teeth.  Lindt’s deliciously smooth 47% dark blend has a pleasant mouth feel, and the salt creates a very nice balance.  And you really do get a taste of salt in each and every bite.  In order to share accurate information, I ate the whole bar.  I even did this test with a second bar.  Again, solely for research purposes

While Lindt’s Summer Edition chocolates weren’t imported to the US when I reported on them in August 2008, this Fleur de Sel bar most certainly is.  I double checked with consumer relations in New Hampshire, and they let me know that it is available in Lindt retail stores as well as online.

If you like the taste of chocolate and salt, below are a few more bars to look out for: Vosges Haut Chocolat’s line, which always has a strong component of salt, my favorite of which is the Barcelona Bar (hickory smoked almonds, grey sea salt and 40% deep milk chocolate); Sal de Ibiza‘s 70% bar made with Flor de Sal; Paul de Bondt’s Fior di Sale bar; Theo’s 3400 Phinney Bread and Chocolate bar; and last but not least, my newest discovery and current favorite from Basel, Switzerland - Beschle’s Grand Cru Triniatrio au Fleur de Sel et Pistaches (65%).

The official winners of the 2008 Weblog Awards were finally announced last night, and I could not be any more excited to say that MyKugelhopf is the winner for Best Travel Blog!

What a week it was…. a whole lot of fun, plenty of excitement (not to mention stress!) watching the polls, so many new blogs discovered and an overall close race up until the very end.  A huge thank you to all of my readers – mille merci à tous mes lecteurs.  What an honor this is.

And now it’s time to look ahead at what’s to come in 2009.  I have a few very busy and exciting months planned, with lots of traveling and gastronomic adventures to look forward to, not to mention several towering piles of recipe cutouts that I am itching to try. 

First stop will be the 31st annual International Hot Air Balloon Festival in Switzerland ‘s Bernese Oberland.  Talk about a photographic scene – the sky filled with a rainbow of hot air balloons!  A stroll through nearby Gruyère to taste a meringue (or two) topped with the region’s famous double cream will be obligatory.  I can already picture the car trunk – big coolers bursting with Gruyère cheese and cream, must buys in what is Switzerland’s richest dairy district.  Then it will be a list of must buys in Münich, Germany.  The car ride back to Zürich, on the other hand, will be too long for the cooler, so I’ll simply fill up on dried sausages and other appetizing treats from the colorful Viktualienmarkt.  Mmm, I can smell the gingerbread and already taste the zing of the mustard on my weisswurst!  And oh those enormous bretzels!  Gosh, will those German market vendors be confused with my (attempt at) Swiss German. 

No linguistic worries at least when I head back to New York City, as well as Paris, my two other “homes.”  My lists of new places to try are getting frighteningly long!  Ice cream, waffle and dessert trucks in NYC, up and coming pastry chefs, chocolatiers and boulangers I have been reading about in Paris – I’ve got my work cut out for me for sure. Before the ski season flies by, you’ll be sure to see a few snowy photographs and hear about my adventures in the Alps of France, Switzerland and Austria.  I’ll make sure I’m back in either Lucerne and Basel for Fasnacht, the long-awaited annual Carnival celebration.  I can only wonder if it will be a 3-day equivalent of Zürich’s Techno Parade.  Either way, I’ll be off again to a friend’s Serbian Wedding (Svadba) in Belgrade – he’s Austrian and she’s Serbian.  What a fascinating mix of cultures – and cuisines – that will be.  I still have yet to report on a friends’ wedding I attended a couple of months ago - a Portuguese and Kyrgyzstani couple.  I’m just waiting on the bride’s very own recipe for Samsa (of course that means you Nazgulia!).  I’ll also be spending a week discovering the beauty of Istria, Corsica.  I’m ready for the authentic konobas, traditional tavernas with open-hearth fireplaces.  And finally, if you have the courage, you can follow me on a European bike tour, as I train for the ZüriTriathlon this summer (1.5km swim, 40km bike, 10km run).  Nope, never did this before.  It’s probably not the best idea to wear arm floats on race day, so I better start learning how to swim too.  Talk about a challenge.

And this is only through June.  It’s going to be one adventure after another, and I can hardly wait.  So grab your passports, your cameras, your market caddies and your aprons… and be sure to check back here on the blog often! 

But first tell me, what are YOUR plans for 2009?  Travel plans near and far?  Recipes you’re set to try in 2009?  Culinary resolutions?  I’d love for you to share here as well…

There was certainly a lot to learn while in Indonesia – religion, culture, history, land… and food.  Staying in a house with Wiwit, a petite Balinese woman (you’ll see her photo below), allowed me to ask my 101 questions each day about what this is, what that’s called, how you make this, what that tastes like, and how does one eat that?!  Not to mention my numerous questions on local customs and especially those Rice Guards! One thing that I came home with is a new set of Indonesian vocabulary – words for all of the different fruits we tried.  So here is a small introduction to Balinese fruit.  Keep your eyes open at your local supermarket or specialty food shop – a lot of these tropical fruits are exported. Read the rest of this story >>

Click here to vote for MyKugelhopf

I was absolutely thrilled to learn that MyKugelhopf is a finalist for “Best Travel Blog” in the 2008 Weblog Awards.  Voting is underway, and continues through this weekend. The polls close on Tuesday, January 13th at 10pm GMT / 5pm EST / 2pm PST, and you can vote once every 24 hours until then.

Clicking on the above link will bring you directly to the poll.  A big thank you to all who have already been voting for MyKugelhopf, and to all who will continue to do so!!

And for those of you who haven’t yet, please click here and vote for MyKugelhopf! Thanks very much, and merci beaucoup à tous!

We have been staying in a house at the end of a narrow, short road, in the middle of Bali‘s rice fields.  It is almost as if the house was picked up by the same tornado that took Dorothy and Toto in the Wizard of Oz, and dropped us here.   We have been able to see up close just how significant rice is to the Balinese; it is not simply the food staple, eaten at every meal including breakfast, but also an integral part of their culture, the rice terraces also making Bali’s picturesque landscape what it is.  We watched their daily work routines from morning to night.  Not only seeing how it all works, but especially hearing it all too.

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Happy New Year 2009 !  Bonne Année !  Prosit Neujahr !  And for me here in Bali, it’s Selamat Tahun Baru in Indonesian.
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