A Food and (Once & Future) Travel Blog
Had a lot of fun on our first full day in Zurich with a good night’s sleep in us. It rained most of the night but cleared up and we had a beautiful sunshine filled day to work with. We started off at a place called Markethalle, a food stall gallery underneath/inside a viaduct, so Cheryl could get a coffee and quick bite. Continue reading “A day wandering around Zurich”
Sorry posting has been a little light lately, Christmas and all. I’m looking forward to having the holidays over so I can get back on a normal schedule. I really love this time of year but it can be exhausting! No snow here in Chicago (yet) so it didn’t seem like Christmas. I don’t know, I always like having some snow for it and New Year’s.
Anyway, Christmas has come and gone and I got some great kitchen stuff this year. There seemed to be a dough theme going on which was surprising since no one coordinated on it! Continue reading “Christmas Stuff and New Year’s Travels – Where’s that Passport?”
Merry Christmas from the Roaming GastroGnome! Thanks for reading! I’m looking forward to sharing many new adventures in 2012.
Cheryl’s parents are retired and live in Florida and the weather always seems to turn colder whenever they visit. I don’t know how they do it. So far we don’t have any snow here in Chicago so they’re pretty happy but it is a little…um…chilly. More than they’re used to at least! One of my appointed tasks during their visits is to keep them warm with hot drinks. Normally I whip up a hot toddy for them but since it’s Christmas I thought I’d do some digging and find a more Christmas-y drink. The one I came up with was the Tom and Jerry.Continue reading “A Hot Christmas Cocktail”
It’s about time! They finally dispensed with all those team challenges and, not surprisingly, the overall quality jumped up a few notches. The show also moved from Dallas to the third Texas city, Austin. Been there, fun city. I wonder if they’ll have a challenge at The Salt Lick? That’d be cool. The quickfire was really interesting and the elimination challenge was good too. After all these weeks of watching what I felt were boring sub-par shows, this one reminded me why I watch Top Chef. Suffice it to say, I really enjoyed this week’s episode! Continue reading “Top Chef Episode 8 – Finally! But I thought game meat was last week?”
In the lead-up to Christmas this weekend there’s been a lot of rushing around which has left me with little time for making intricate and fancy dinners, much to Cheryl’s chagrin. Contrary to some belief it’s not the Escoffier Room here every night of the week! I can’t even remember the last time I made some bread this month (doing that now). Between the traveling, cleaning, shopping, cookie baking, and work there’s been little time left for just creatively preparing dinner. I will be glad when Christmas is over and I can get back to that, I am definitely not a big time pastry baker and totally respect those who are. It’s tricky.
Continue reading “A Leek, some Brussels Sprouts, and Rigatoni get pulled out of my fridge…”
Here’s another of my favorite Christmas cookies (What ones don’t I like? The ones I don’t make of course. Sheesh!). You’ll need a mini-muffin pan for these. I didn’t have one for the longest time since I never made mini-muffins, and still don’t. I did however gain one when Cheryl and I got married and have made these cookies ever since. Continue reading “Christmas Cookie – Pecan Tassies”
So this weekend Cheryl and I were in San Francisco for a trip she won to travel with the Detroit Lions to their game in Oakland (that’s a post for another day). She was very excited about it because she really loves the NFL, I was excited about it because we’d be in San Francisco. I’d never visited there but have always thought it is one of our great American cities. Lots of history, melting pot of immigrants, and a great food culture. One thing she was looking to eat on this trip was good seafood, oysters especially. I don’t know how she found Swan Oyster Depot in the Nob Hill area but she was optimistic about it. I was too, and since we had flown in with the Lions on Friday night we had an entirely free day on Saturday to explore the city. With no agenda or itinerary we set out for lunch at Swan. Continue reading “San Francisco! Swan Oyster Depot!”
Another one of my favorites. These are really simple to make and they cook pretty quickly too. Like all the other “Christmas” cookies from when I was little, these would only get made once a year. They’re probably good anytime, but for some strange reason they only get made at Christmas. My mom still makes these too, I ate some when I was home last weekend. Continue reading “More Christmas Cookies – Thumbprint cookies”
Last night’s episode was one of the best of the season, but if you’ve been following along you know that’s not a high bar to clear. This is two weeks in a row where the quickfire challenge seemed to really bring out the creativity of the chefs. I loved the elimination challenge too. Finally one which really challenged their skills! It was still a bit flawed in the set-up and the chefs seemed to continue play it safe but the concept was perfect. And we finally had a drama explosion!Continue reading “Top Chef Episode 7 – Double Down”
The Roaming GastroGnome 