I love medieval villages.  (Murten/Morat, Gruyères, Stein am Rhein and Chur to name a few.)  The more crooked the structures, the more mismatched the bricks and stones and wooden beams, the more I’m fascinated.  Whether in Switzerland, France, Italy or Portugal, I roam up and down the roughly cobbled streets of these labyrinthine villages, ooh-ing and ah-ing at the imposing doors and the seemingly indestructible ironwork.  I could listen for hours to my husband (or his encyclopedic father) share historical tidbits, while I gaze up at the years engraved into the buildings going back well beyond the 15th century.  All I can say is, thank goodness for digital film.  Every blink of the eye is a photo opportunity.

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For those of you who are familiar with bagels, this could be a very divisive post: New York City vs. Montreal. But this is no simple battle of H&H vs. St-Viateur (each city’s most famous bagel maker, respectively), nor is my very favorite bagel from either of those two places. Unfortunately, it’s not from Zürich either, where I live. So on my transatlantic travels, I often bring back bags of bagels in my suitcase. Into the freezer pre-sliced (a must), they toast perfectly and taste almost like fresh. So where do I go for the best bagel ? Great Neck.

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My recent travels found me eating pasta, risotto, polenta and gelato, and listening to the musical sounds of the Italian language.

While your minds may be full of romantic images, like crossing the Ponte Vecchio in Florence, strolling through the Borghese Gardens in Rome, perhaps shopping in Milan or simply eating pasta all day long in Bologna,… I’m not even talking about Italy.  I’m talking about Switzerland.  Yes, Switzerland, the country with a distinctive Italian speaking canton in the South, called Ticino (or Tessin in German), where you often forget you’re actually not in Italy.

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My obsession with granola started when I was at school in Durham, North Carolina.  My parents were visiting and we took a drive to Raleigh, where we fell upon a bakery that had the largest slabs of granola in the window we had ever seen.  It stopped us in our tracks, and was simply outrageous.  After graduating, I found out that bakery was Big Sky Bread and convinced them (before they started shipping nationwide) to send a massive box to my parents in New York as a surprise.  A bigger surprise came years later when I could no longer track them down; the bakery closed.  Years went by and my parents and I would say to each other from time to time, “remember that granola in Raleigh…?”  We all did.

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I have to admit, I didn’t mind going to school when I was younger. I even loved taking notes, which I still do.  But I doubt I was asking for homework, like I recently did here in Zürich. What kind of class was this, you wonder… Chocolate, but of course. It was actually a class on chocolate and wine, even if my focus was certainly on the former. Our instructors taught us all about the cacao bean and the grape, what they consider two of the most fascinating products on earth.

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It’s starting to get real exciting at the markets here in Zürich.  We’ve already had a few tastes of summer, and berries are making their first appearances, mostly coming from Spain and Italy.  Best of all, rhubarb is now in the spotlight !  I noticed the long, green-topped, ruby stalks at the Coop (local supermarket) a few weeks ago, but as they were grown in hot-houses (and who knows where), I waited ever so patiently for the local crop to show.  Swiss rhubarb is now at every stand at the markets and I can hardly resist buying some each time I go.  Those bright stalks stick out of my market bag like a French baguette, and I hurry home to turn them into a quick pot of jam, or chop them up and throw them into the oven hiding beneath a mountain of buttery crumble topping.

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What sunny, sweet days we have had !  March 20th was not only the first day of spring, but also the Jewish holiday of Purim and Macaron Day too (Jour du Macaron in France).  I enjoyed the obligatory sweets, meaning those 3-cornered cookies called hamantaschen for Purim, with mun (poppy seed), prune and apricot fillings… and I stopped by Ladurée here in Zürich‘s old town to mark the occasion with a salted butter caramel macaron.  (Or two.)

But the weekend saw lots of other sweets too, including more cookies. With a friend in town, I was even busier in the kitchen than usual, making a few batches of my favorite crunchy oat, seed and nut granola (with dark chocolate and sea salt).   Getting crumble topping ready to cover ramekins filled with frozen summer berries.  And preparing rolls of cookie dough to bake at a moment’s notice (chocolate chip pretzel cookies and Nutella oat cookies). You can only imagine my reaction when my friend showed up herself with an enormous box of bakery cookies from London’s Assal Patisserie, as well as Persian nougat (known as Gaz). It was NowRuz, the Persian New Year, she told me. And enjoying these sweets made with saffron, pistachios and rosewater was a must.  I was certainly not going to argue.

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It’s not that I’ve been keeping it a secret from you.  I simply never mentioned one of my all-time favorite restaurants in Zürich.  It’s where I have a monthly lunch date with a friend.  It’s where my mom asks to go for lunch as soon as she arrives at the airport here.  It’s where I take friends who are visiting, as well as my carnivorous husband.  It’s Hiltl, Europe’s oldest vegetarian restaurant, since 1898.

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I hope 2011 has gotten off to a sweet start for everyone! It is certain to be full of new discoveries and adventures for me, with travels near and far.  We’ll be home in Zürich, bouncing around Switzerland and going beyond the borders to wherever the train may take us.  Perhaps heading to more exotic destinations too.  And let’s not forget all the adventures in the kitchen. Many food bloggers have been compiling their “best of” lists and sharing their favorite travel and food experiences of 2010, which naturally got me thinking too. It’s fun to browse through photos of past trips and recall memorable tastes that demand to be recreated.

What are your travel and food highlights from the past year? Here are some of mine…

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When December rolls around and the holidays approach, what gets you the most excited? For some, it’s the hunt for the perfect Christmas tree and taking it home to decorate, not to mention placing wrapped gifts underneath.  For others, it’s thinking of their city filled with festive lights – always an elegant display here in Zürich.  Still others anticipate the winter markets, roasting chestnuts by the fire or cooking and baking family recipes.  For me… it’s Weihnachtsguetzli, Christmas cookies, of course! (recipes below)

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