Thanksgiving in Lausanne

We decided to cook a Thanksgiving dinner for up to 70 - students, hotel staff, and us. A logistical challenge - reproducing Americana in Switzerland (what I would've given for a turkey baster) - would sum-up this project, but everyone helped and we had a wonderful evening together. It was a homecoming for me, as well; I think I finally landed on a favorite stuffing recipe (not sure I'll always bake the cornbread and tear and toast the bread after leaving Lausanne though).

The students have been experiencing, well, "protein issues," so I kinda went overboard and bought 4 Dinde de Noel; turkey #4 making an excellent centerpiece. The pumpkin mix was mailed from "A Taste of America" (Zurich), Migros carried fresh cranberry and yams, and we mulled local, unfiltered pear/apple juice. I have mixed feelings about the green bean casserole - not part of my or Carolyn's tradition - but I think it was recognizable.


Michael loves to help, so it was fun for him, tearing the bread, preparing the cider, and socializing with everyone. I think he was pretty bored with the sitting and eating part.



The evening crew.


Mr. Bustamonte carved the birds. I covered the mashed potatoes and gravy.

The students transformed the downstairs into a formal and party atmosphere; then filled it with much goodwill.



After the cider, we sang a doxology, then joined the buffet. Distance from home = gain in flavor.

Carolyn baked 7 pumpkin pies and made the cranberry-orange relish.

Kim made 3 apple pies.


We and the hotel staff share a common bond: neither of us are Swiss. I also realized how uniquely American Thanksgiving is (unless you count what they do in Canada), but our Spanish speaking guests seemed to experience it as a Christmas event, probably because St Nicholas day (Dec 6th) is near and also celebrated with a feast in Europe. (Mr B even offered to call in a "Papa Noel"). Seems both cultures have holiday feasts - identical meals, really - bookending the 25 odd days at year end.
This charmer is Latisha, the girl nextdoor who plays with Michael and Jack.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Fall Break: Paris

Has anyone else had this feeling of posting past happy moments when feeling crummy or in a funk, ie sick? It's a strange disconnect. Not rushing, but dragging, even slouching, to share news.

Well, here goes. We took the TGV bullet train to Paris (3.5 hours from Lausanne) and enjoyed several days at an apartment right across from the Eiffel Tower, which lights up at night and even does a sparkly light show every hour. The kids were entranced.
Jack has discovered chocolate in a big way. There is some law about a bakery always being open on every block, so Parisians can always have fresh bread. That's one I can live with. I know Japanese are fanatical about having fresh rice, so it's not so strange to have baguettes and croissants always onhand. I scoured our neighborhood daily for bakeries and found one that completely knocked me out. The main difference, it seems to me, with America is the volume of constant production. This allows the shops to stack and arrange their morsels literally from floor to ceiling in a really great presentation, rather than sparsely have them sitting in a basket for the occasional purchase; for people like me, these shops take on the flavor of fantasy.
The Louvre was not crowded and Michael loved finding paintings he had studied with Ariana on Monday mornings, while Jack had therapy back in CA. I would hurry Michael through the exhibits, but he'd tell me to slow down. He really liked the paintings and this museum trip was rewarding.
Even the ceilings were pretty. It was interesting to see so many paintings of what we now call "religious" themes - Michael would say, "There's Jesus" - and ruminate about a time when that was our symbolic cultural capital - not media.
The glass pyramid was the coolest musuem entrance we'd ever seen. You descended down into this cavern, then break out in several directions.
Food heaven. Italian deli.

We also had a life lesson thrown in there, as Michael saw the dead pigeons and rabbits in the case.
The last day we took the boys to a science museum, with a hands-on demo of how flour is milled and bread made (surprise), but loads of other stations, too.
This chocolate shop had a wall of castings as decor.
Wanted to see the Art Nouveau interior of the Galerie Lafayette department store, which was a mistake, since Christmas gawkers turned it into a nightmare.
There is this book, Paris: Capital of the Nineteenth-Century by Walter Benjamin, that makes perfect sense to me now. The city is a tribute to modern urban planning minus the distinctive skyscrapers that dominate American cityscapes, so that grand old structures anchor a vast area, lending a calculated feeling. The lack of a medieval section - normally resulting in interesting, cumbersome neighborhoods for European cities - really marks Paris, as the past was literally bulldozed away to create the vast avenues to organize mass crowds (and to more effectively squelch political demonstrations) and to lay tribute to industry and commerce (Eiffel Tower, shopping palaces), as in the world expos - the predescessor to the modern Olympic movement, where trained bodies, not mass-produced wares, display national culture.

Fall

Before I engage in some power-blogging of our fall trip to Paris, here are some photos of our area - you really have to get closer to the mountains to sense the turning of leaves.
Warm, golden colors dominate - no reds as with New England maples.
We climbed the castle tower and got a better view of the La Tour port.
Jack inherited Michael's navy peacoat - our first ebay kid's clothing buy.
Finally, I leave you with better things to come: ready-to-roll-then-bake Christmas cookies! Anise, hazelnut, lemon, etc. We may cut some corners this season, since these are so good. After all, more than one of us here have bitten into a tomato or even tasted a lollilop and thought, "This is what they CAN taste like."

The Class Party

Saturday, 15 of Michael's kindergarten class descended for a Knight-themed party. Carolyn is tying the drawbridge to the castle, whereupon you enter the main party space - strewn with balloons and banners.
And my cake.
Flags bearing cantonal crests and Playmobil figures helped give a European castle-feel to a design that initially struck me more like a Cambodian shrine complex. I cut corners and only baked the interior keep, using mini-Panetone for the towers and genovise sheet cake for a wall. Medieval Japanese castle foundations were fitted so closely together - even without mortar - that a knife couldn't slide between the boulders. They didn't have Nutella. A quiet, serious guy who had no problem balancing an apple on his head , Joas came and stayed in costume (the gloves stayed on all afternoon). Swiss houses are built to last 300 years and a similar spirit seemed to have crafted this dragon-pinata, which withstood all blows. We dumped out the candy, in the end.
Michael and Jack enjoying a 3-legged race.
Swiss parties are pretty small-scaled and not the grand event that many American parents have succumbed to, although we actually played pin the tail on the knight. We think the good turnout was due to cultural curiosity. In the end, it was a blast. I leave you with the jousting event.

Halloween 2007

More changes were seen here during Halloween, which was a full-on, commercial holiday with all the storefront trappings: spiders, witches, skeletons - even "pumpkin pie" (closer to a sweet, citrus chiffon). The pumpkins were humbler in stature, but we carved it anyway; the costumes were all in the ghoulish vein - I didn't see Little Mermaids walking around - so Carolyn found Michael a knight outfit off EbayUK which will serve double duty for Saturday's birthday party - 15 classmates coming. (BTW, I think shopping Ebay bypasses the customs tax you pay with online catalogs. I think. I hope).

Didn't see, nor can I imagine Swiss children going door-t0-door, saying "trick or treat." They celebrated 10/31 like they do everything else: a festival(!) - which we missed, but there were reports of dressed-up children in a parade in the St Francois square.

Actually, since media is transporting trends - fun, as well as social paranoia - immediately, there seems to be an interesting skip in progression occurring. Eg: it's absolutely safe for children here to walk on their own to school, but some parents are now driving their kids anyway, for fear of kidnapping - causing a real traffic nightmare around the schools. It's as though they're skipping the loss of the 1950s/60s neighborhood and heading straight for bowling alone.
I am showing the Zatoichi; the Blind Swordsman DVD in the film course, so all this sword stuff is swirling around everywhere these days. (Check out the 60s series, if you wish, starring the lovable Katsu Shintaro - inspired Peter Falk's Columbo character, among others).
Jack was a bear and together they knocked on student dorm rooms with their economy-size yogurt buckets.

There was a student party later in the evening, a slight morale booster for mid-term blahs.
Today we're gearing up for the birthday/housewarming party. I'm baking a castle cake tonight, after rummaging the streets for large boxes to spray paint as the Chateau, inventing knight-theme games.

Parents do it to themselves.