A Life Worth Living

Published by Wednesday, June 29, 2016 Permalink 0

Herding the Sheep Down the Mountain in Villars-sur-Ollon

by Jonell Galloway

A tapestry-covered armchair worn thin from hours of sitting book in hand; a rickety wooden table with chipped red paint that matched your first kitchen; a yellow cat, plump with age, sits in your lap, All the Pretty Horses balanced over its head so you can continue reading: these are the things that make up a life worth living, not frantically running in your Jimmy Choo high heels to catch an airplane and dining in restaurants with spotless white tablecloths and silver so shiny you see a reflection of your red lipstick in it. Unfeigned life is simple joys: counting your babies’ toes after they come out of the womb, or feeling warm tears of love when you walk up the mountain behind your dearlings, or listening to cowbells and watching the shepherds drive their flocks over the pass and down, or discovering the first gentle rosebud of the year. It’s when your mother takes your hand and squeezes it with every ounce of energy she has left, no words necessary. It’s when you serve breakfast in bed to your husband, with a kiss thrown in. You’ll never forget that kiss, how his dark eyes, weak and tired, looked tenderly into yours, saying everything you ever needed to know. But even more, much more, the time he hired the little boy down the street to deliver a single red rose to you on your birthday because he didn’t have enough money to pay for a dozen roses to be delivered. That was the most special rose ever. When it’s all over, these moments will have been your life, transparent and whole: The roses at the weddings and baptisms and communions and bar mitzvahs and funerals, the red and the yellow and the pink, the rosebuds and the dried blooms and the fresh, all come together to form mountains and valleys of flowers that make a life worth living.

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Swiss Food: Fribourg-style Saffron Bread

Published by Friday, January 24, 2014 Permalink 0

 

Swiss Food: Fribourg-style Cuchaule: Saffron Bread to Eat with Your Bénichon Mustard

by Jonell Galloway

From the archives

In my article, Bénichon Mustard, A Fribourg Specialty to Welcome the Cows Coming Home a few days ago, I talked about the brioche-like saffron bread cuchaule which is traditionally eaten with Bénichon mustard during the Bénichon fall fair in Fribourg, Switzerland.

I translated this recipe from the Delimoon site from the French and adapted it.

Photo courtesy of Moja Kuchnia with authorization.

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Switzerland: Fresh-fruit Marmalade and Meringue Recipe

Published by Sunday, August 18, 2013 Permalink 0

Switzerland: Fresh-fruit Marmalade and Meringue Recipe

Spontaneous Cuisine, by Jonell Galloway

From the archives

We often think of traditional Swiss meringue as winter food, but it can also be great with summer fruit, such as plums, berries, apricots, etc., either mixed or on their own.

This recipe can also be appropriate to make with children. They will especially love using the pastry sleeve to decorate the marmalade.

Recipe

Click here for metric recipe converter

Marmalade

1 kg fruit
Approx. 1 dl water
Sugar to taste
  1. Wash fruit. If it has stones, cut in half and remove stones.
  2. Place fruit in a saucepan, preferably copper or stainless steel.
  3. Add water. Cover.
  4. Cook on medium until the fruit starts to “melt” and lose its shape.
  5. Add sugar and mix well.
  6. Set aside to cool.

Note: If you want it to be smooth like a coulis, run it through a chinois or fine colander or sieve.

Meringues

3 egg whites (large free-range or organic eggs give a lot better taste and result)
100 g white castor sugar
  1. Put egg whites in a large mixing bowl. Beat until they form stiff peaks.
  2. Little by little, fold in sugar until the mixtures forms a very stiff paste.

Assembly

  1. Preheat oven to 175° C.
  2. Butter an oblong baking dish.
  3. Evenly spread marmalade in baking dish.
  4. Use a rubber spatula to spread egg white mixture evenly over marmalade or use a pastry bag to spread it in a decorative manner.
  5. Lightly sprinkle with sugar.
  6. Bake in oven for about 10 minutes or until lightly golden.

 

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MarketDay: What’s in season at the Swiss farmers market in August: a photo essay

Published by Saturday, August 10, 2013 Permalink 0


MarketDay: What’s in season at the Swiss farmers market in August: a photo essay

Jonell Galloway leads you through the August farmers market in Switzerland. Take a look at what’s in season!

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MarketDay: Farmers Market, Geneva, Switzerland, August 3, 2013

Published by Saturday, August 3, 2013 Permalink 0


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Introducing our new “TRE Quality Label”

Published by Thursday, July 25, 2013 Permalink 0


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Introducing our new “TRE Quality Label”: Healthy, Homemade Meals Delivered to Your Door, Geneva

The TRE Quality Label

The TRE Quality Label

Introducing our new “TRE Quality Label”

In this complex world of industrial food, where even organic food is sold by agro food conglomerates, it is important to know the quality and origin of what we eat. Thus the importance of a quality label that has been tested by people like us who are experienced in the real-food business. When we give the TRE Quality Label, we know where the ingredients came from, we know how the food was processed and treated — and most of it is entirely local,  allowing you too to eat locally. We also know how it tastes, because we’ve tasted it all.

All the important criteria make up part of the TRE Quality Label: quality, origin, and taste. You can be sure of what you’re buying if it has a TRE Quality Label.

Today, we’d like to introduce the first product to which we’re giving our label: panbeh, a Geneva grassroots operation that makes every attempt to meet all these criteria, and to put something healthy, natural and tasty on your plate.

panbeh‘s meals are delivered straight to your door in Geneva. Most of the ingredients are from Geneva or nearby in the countryside.

It is the perfect solution for those who are home bound and for the elderly, as well as for those who simply don’t have the time to do the shopping required to cook a healthy, well-balanced meal. It’s great for those weeks when your work schedule is heavy, and ensures that you’ll get a home-cooked, healthy meal every day, delivered straight to your door.

Geneva: Healthy, Homemade Meals Delivered to Your Door by panbeh

panbeh describes itself:

panbeh means “pure cotton” in Farsi: the purity of a healthy, home-cooked meal

Panbeh's very own cotton plant in Geneva, Switzerland

Panbeh’s very own cotton plant in Geneva, Switzerland

As we all know, what we eat is important for our daily activity and well-being, so we are introducing our new concept: the pleasure of eating healthy, natural, homemade food while fully enjoying the taste of what you eat, delivered right to your door.

No additives and no pesticides, no hormones and no chemicals — only the real, natural flavor of top quality, artisanal ingredients, the origin of which we systematically list. And you benefit from the real taste of the whole, untreated, unprocessed food, prepared fresh every day in a high-fiber, low-fat manner.

Whenever possible, we use only organic ingredients.

We propose a daily lunch menu and will deliver it to you at your home or your office, free of charge. Please find below are our daily menus for the month of July.

Delivery to your home or office
Order the night before (before 6 pm) for next day’s lunch, or order for the whole week
Orders are delivered between 12 and 1 pm

Order by email:
panbeh@servge.ch
or by phone:
076 630 79 56

 
Free delivery for Petit-Saconnex, Grand-Saconnex, Grand-Pré and Nations.
 

It is our right to know where our food comes from:

Bread: Eric Emery bakery, Geneva.
Vegetables, fruits and mountain herbs (organic): Marché à la Ferme de Budé, Geneva.
Cheese (organic) : Casa Mozzarella, Geneva.
Salmon: Wild from Alaska or Scotland, sold by Francesco Drago, Halle de Rive covered market, Geneva.
Tomato sauce (organic): Marché a la Ferme de Budé, Geneva.
Spaghetti (organic): Marché à la Ferme de Budé, Geneva.
Rice & Quinoa (organic): Marché de Vie, Geneva
Olive oil: Greece, sold by Marché à la Ferme de Budé, Geneva
Eggs (organic): Marché à la Ferme de Budé, Geneva.
Chicken (organic) : Swiss origin
Wheat (organic) : Swiss origin

 

Bon appétit!

 

MENU for July 2013 (24.00 CHF)

Monday
Mixed salad
Quinoa balls, oven-baked Homemade
panbeh cake

Tuesday
Shirazi salad (tomato, cucumbers, onion, fresh mint)
Indian Tilda rice with safran, berberis (barberries) and chicken, or wild rice with chicken and vegetables
Fresh fruit salad

Wednesday
Potato salad, onion, eggs
Eggplant and tomato sandwich
panbeh homemade crème caramel

Thursday
Tomato & mozzarella & fresh basil
Spaghetti, tomato sauce & mushrooms
Watermelon or melon

Friday
Salad (ricotta & tomato covered with aromatic herbs)
Wild smoked salmon sandwich
Homemade panbeh cake

Large portion of mixed salad: 12.00 CHF

Drinks: kefir, mineral water, or fruit juice.

 

Order by email:
panbeh@servge.ch
or by phone:
076 630 79 56

 

 

 

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MarketDay: Documentary Photos of a July Farmers Market in Switzerland

Published by Wednesday, July 17, 2013 Permalink 0


MarketDay: Documentary Photos of a July Farmers Market in Switzerland

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The Top 10 Restaurants in French-Speaking Switzerland

Published by Wednesday, June 5, 2013 Permalink 0

I compiled this list of the top 10 restaurants in French-speaking Switzerland from the March 28, 2013, issue of the French-language magazine L’Hebdo.

  1. Hôtel de Ville – Benoît, Crissier
  2. Domaine de Châteauvieux, Satigny
  3. Hôtel Terminus – Didier de Courten, Sierre
  4. L’Ermitage de Bernard Ravet, Vufflens-Le-Château
  5. Le Pont de Brent, Brent
  6. Le Cerf, Cossonax
  7. Hôtel Beau-Rivage, Le Chat Botté, Geneva
  8. Hôtel Beau-Rivage, Anne-Sophie Pic, Lausanne
  9. Georges Wenger, Le Noirmont
  10. Denis Martin, Vevey

English: Logo of the Swiss magazine L'Hebdo Fr...

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Switzerland: Swiss Food: Rhubarb Cream Recipe

Published by Monday, May 27, 2013 Permalink 0

by Jonell Galloway

Cherry-Rhubarb Fool

When you talk about rhubarb cream in Switzerland, you mean rhubarb cream, not pudding or custard. This naughty dessert is one of the easiest rhubarb desserts around, and is so thoroughly Swiss.

Recipe for Rhubarb Cream

Ingredients

Photo courtesy of Robin Stewart

 

1 lb. / 500 g rhubarb
3/4 cup / 200 g cane sugar
 2 egg yolks
 Cinnamon or lemon juice, according to which taste you prefer
3/4 cup / 0.2 l whipping cream

Directions

  1. Scrape or cut off any hard outer surface of rhubarb.
  2. Dice rhubarb and put into saucepan. Add sugar. Cover with water. Cook until tender but firm, 5 to 10 minutes.
  3. While rhubarb is cooking, beat the yolks until smooth.
  4. Run cooked rhubarb through food processor or chinois to purée.
  5. Add hot rhubarb purée to beaten egg yolks. Beat until thoroughly blended and eggs start to cool.
  6. Mix in cinnamon or lemon juice. Set aside to cool.
  7. Beat whipping cream. When it starts to form hard peaks, fold in cooled rhubarb and egg mixture.
  8. Cool in refrigerator, either in individual serving dishes or in a large bowl.
  9. Serve cool.

 

 
 
 
 
 
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Jonell Galloway: Mindful Eating: Farmers, the Land, and Local Economy

Published by Monday, April 1, 2013 Permalink 0

Mindful Eating: Farmers, the Land, and Local Economy

by Jonell Galloway

Many times, after I have finished a lecture on the decline of American farming and rural life, someone in the audience has asked, “What can city people do?” “Eat responsibly,” I have usually answered. Of course, I have tried to explain what I mean by that, but afterwards I have invariably felt there was more to be said than I had been able to say. Now I would like to attempt a better explanation.

 I begin with the proposition that eating is an agricultural act. Eating ends the annual drama of the food economy that begins with planting and birth. Most eaters, however, are no longer aware that this is true. They think of food as an agricultural product, perhaps, but they do not think of themselves as participants in agriculture. They think of themselves as “consumers.”

—Wendell Berry, The Pleasures of Eating, Center for Ecoliteracy

The Times They are a-Changin’: Move Towards a Local Economy

After a few very difficult years, we are now only starting  to talk about the importance, and even necessity, of maintaining and supporting a local economy. This is important not only to our health and taste buds, but also to our vital economic self-sufficiency. It is perfectly in line with the concept of Mindful Eating, and, by definition, involves local farmers as well as others who contribute to eating and drinking.

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