Sick, jetlagged and happy...

Now, those three things don't typically go together for me, but for once it is the case. After living out of luggage bags or a hotel room for pretty much four months out of the last five, we're finally BOTH back home in SwitzerFrance...

 

...and both with a nice case of jetlag and possible bronchitis.

 

It is a testament to both of our immune systems that we've lasted this long, so I can't really be mad.  My body has hung in there through Bikram yoga teacher training, and trips (in some cases multiple) to California, Philadelphia, Southern New Jersey, Northern New Jersey, Omaha, as well as weird layovers in DC/Alexandria, VA and Canada. Doc also traveled the circumference of the globe in ten days, which is far from a small feat...
 

 

With this forced recovery period that my body is putting on me, it's giving me time to regroup, unpack, organize and process all the amazingness that has been the last few months...

 

...as well as getting reacquainted with our little village in SwitzerFrance.

 

I've got a lot to catch up on, and I hope you'll stay tuned.
 

 

And hey, since I know I don't say it enough, thanks for reading friends. You really make writing worthwhile...

 

A la prochaine friends...

 

Honey 

Thoiry flu.

 

Ugh!

Sorry for the lack of posts this week, but I was fighting a bug, and by the time Wednesday night came around I just couldn't win in convincing myself that I was not getting sick.

Luckily Doc took good care of me and made me chicken noodle soup from scratch, as well as buckets of calm nuit tea with honey and ginger in it. I am feeling more like my old self today, so that's definitely progress.

 

 

I did however manage to squeeze a few little adventures in before my Thoiry flu took hold, like a day in Geneva...

 

 

...and some dialogue studying time at CERN...over beers.

 

 

Doc also surprised me one night when he claimed dinner making responsibilities, by adding in a cheese-y little baked appetizer...looks delicious, doesn't it? We dipped sauteed brussel sprouts and bread in it. He made one for each of us - for me with Beaufort cheese, and for him with Morbier. It was kind of like a little individual sized baked fondue, but one where you don't have to compete with the other person and worry about losing your dipping morsels in the cheese. If you live in a house like mine, there are specific house rules as to who claims what has fallen in the pot...but maybe cheese etiquette is better left for another post...however if you want to make a dish like the above, here's how to do it:

 

Doc's Individual Sized Baked Cheese Appetizer:

 

1. Take your cheese of choice, cut off the rind if its of the inedible variety, and slice the cheese into 1/8 inch thick pieces.

 

2. Layer them in an oven proof/broiler proof bowl. We used Emile Henry Creme Brulee plates.

 

3. Put them in the oven on broil, and when the top of the cheese reaches it's desired looking burnt/bubbly-ness, it's done. Since it'll be hot, putting it on a trivet of some sort is a good idea for the sake of your table.

 

4. Dip delicious morsels into the cheese and eat them!

 

Bon ap!

 

A la prochaine friends!

 

Honey



Dear Curse Words + Dirty Words

Pic via here.

Back from Paris last night and wouldn't you know, I'm sick as a dog. Stumbled upon this awesome site thanks to Cup Of Jo and thought I'd pass it along because it made me smile...

Paris pictures and stories to come - once the aches, shakes, snots and fever chills have dissipated...

Ode to Karyn's Cooked...

Well hello there! I'm just gonna put it out there, I'm feeling a little bummy today. Feeling very under the weather and that always depresses me because there's so many other things I'd rather be doing and exploring than lying in bed with a runny nose, drippy throat, and congested head, especially since we're in the final countdown of our days here in Chicago. I'm hoping that a day in bed full of hot earl grey tea and honey will get me better so I can resume my exploring and errand running tomorrow. Here's is my Thursday late edition of "Ode to..." with my Ode to Karyn's Cooked, an amazing vegan restaurant just off Chicago Ave. on Wells Street, just a few blocks from downtown Michigan Ave.

Look at all this food! All for under $14 with a coffee! (The mac 'n cheese was actually given to me free as a "sample" - how sweet is that?!) There's so many things I love about this place - first of all, it's super clean and super conscious. The staff are very nice and don't rush you out of the restaurant as soon as you've sat down. The desserts look great, though I've never had room left in my belly to try any. I've only ever come for lunch, however it looks like it'd be a really nice place to come to dinner as well. The beer and wine list is also very if not all organic and many of the drinks themselves are brewed/distilled locally. I also love that if I had not known that this was a vegan restaurant before eating the food, I wouldn't be able to tell after eating the food either. The mac 'n cheese tasted super cheesy (despite the lacking of cheese) and the chili was very hearty (despite the lacking of meat). They even offered me coffee to-go for free because "it's cold out there." All in all one of my favorite lunch spots here in the city, especially if you're downtown because a large majority of the food places that I've seen in that area are chains or pricey or both. Overall it was the start to a very lovely day in downtown Chicago! :)

Straight up ILL.

Yep. It's true. And I'm not just referring to our dopeness. We're both definitely on the unwavering teeter totter of phlegm and massive headaches. Dan's cough and congestion has him sounding a little like Barney Frank, and I'm just feeling super foggy and cranky. It was so bad late last week that we almost didn't make the trip down to Seymour, Indiana to visit the fam, but by Saturday we were both feeling much better and decided to make the trip.

After about 4 hours in the car we got to Indiana and met everyone at Buffalo Wild Wings where Dan did the "Blazing Hot Wings Challenge" - essentially you have to eat 12 wings covered in the hottest sauce in under 6 minutes. You must sign your life away on a waiver, and then an employee stands behind you with a stopwatch to make sure that all the wings are "clean" and that you don't take drinks of water or beer or eat any celery to help the process along (all are no-nos). Once you finish and succeed in the challenge you're supposed to get your name on a plaque, have your picture taken and put up on a wall, and get a t-shirt, which Dan was trying to win for the boys.

Dan finished the challenge in 3 minutes and 33 seconds. Unfortunately the t-shirt that had been promised to him somehow disappeared through an ulterior galaxy, never to be recovered. And this particular Buffalo Wild Wings did not do the plaque thing. And their Polaroid camera was out of film. Whatever Buffalo Wild Wings. Psha. On the plus side the woman who timed him said he had the best technique she had ever seen. I think I now have a competitor to back for Philly's Wing Bowl 2011. Watch out 'Super Squibb,' the Docta's comin' for ya!!!

In fact, Dan was so impressive, this guy (see guy with Flip camera above) videotaped his wing eating feat. And no, no one knew said guy with camera. At all. Freakin' weirdo.
We had a great time relaxing and visiting with the fam - just wish it could have lasted longer. The ride back was a rough one for both of us as we both started feeling sick again after about 48 hours of immune system calm. We're just too busy right now to be sick!

Feeling under the weather in a yellow submarine...

I'm feeling a little under the weather again today, not full on sick, but definitely congested and with a serial headache. I've diagnosed my body as being in full-on rebellion for all of the moving/stressing/traveling/standing in line at offices that's we've been doing lately to make this move abroad happen, and I can't stop daydreaming about the fresh produce at the local markets in Geneva and the wonderful cheeses and cafes in France that will put me back to feeling normal. It's hard to stock a kitchen with good for you whole grains and fruits and veggies when you know you'll be leaving almost as quickly as you moved in. But as I'm not feeling well today, I thought I'd share this little gem that I came across today on the interwebs:

It's a little submarine tea infuser! Isn't it so cute? Found via swissmiss

In addition to getting our French and Swiss visas on Wednesday, we also went to celebrate a surprise birthday party for one of our friends at an amazing little bar called "The Violet Hour." I wish I had pictures of this amazing speakeasy-esque bar, but the place was pretty much pitch black and only lit by (very) dim and small overhead lighting, candles, and a fireplace. The walls were blue with white trim, and heavy dark velvet curtains divided the rooms, which added to the dark vibe. There were big comfy couches and the drink list was amazing - I hadn't heard of a single drink on the menu as many contained things like whole egg or egg whites, and liquors that I hadn't heard of. I think I picked the best drink at the table - it was a mixture of Laphroig and Johnny Walker red, and then had a few other ingredients in it that I don't recall, and THEN the server lit my drink on fire. And this wasn't a "Oooh look at us we're so extreme we're lighting a drink on fire because we're an awesome kind of place," this was "I'm heating up this slice of orange peel to release the oils from it into your drink, and then I squirt it into the drink which creates a small flame." And it must have worked, because the orange peel never made it into my drink, but there was definitely an orange flavor to it. Well played "Violet Hour," well played. Just a really awesome place. But good luck finding it: there's no sign or name on the place, and the door is pretty hidden on a wall covered in an artist's mural. Definitely worth the search though if you're carousing around Wicker Park...

Last night we again chose some hearty comfort food in the form of some beef chuck and black bean chili, with a side of roasted eggplant and beets. We kind of made the recipe up as we went along as I made this often in grad school as my go to "Poor Grad Student Dinner" (sans the meat), however it took some reorganizing to figure out how and when to incorporate the beef chuck. There was even a little celery in there because we needed to use it up, and it went really well in it (I think celery goes well in everything so maybe I'm a little biased).

Buying the beans in bulk and cooking them yourself is much more economical and for me satisfying than buying them canned at the store (and less packaging to dispose of - yeah!), but you've gotta have the time to make them (these took about 1.5 hours simmering on the stove in the Le Creuset). Something we also learned as we went along is that this one was much more on the hot side than the ones I used to make in school - I'll tip my hat to the blending of lives in the institution of marriage, and to my husband who eats jalapeno, serrano and habanero peppers like they're apples. So in hindsight, also preparing a bed of either organic long grain brown rice or organic long grain basmati rice would have been helpful in cutting the heat a bit for me. Mental note for next time...

This bad boy took about 2.5 hours to reduce down to the level it should be at for serving. We were really hungry at the 1.5 hour mark and it was getting late, so it was a little more watery than we would have liked, but nonetheless delicious (and HOT). Luckily we let the rest simmer for another hour while we ate and cleaned up, so the rest of the batch is just right (and HOT).

A little shredded jalapeno cheese on top finished off the meal. Can't wait to dig into the leftovers! :)