i like your moxie, sassafras.

Ok, so, it's maybe just the teensiest bit late, but happy New Year, friends! I'll confess now that I stole my title line here from a little (old) TV series I've been watching lately, 'Pushing Daisies.' I both love this show and am hugely irritated by it, but inarguably, the aesthetics are fantastic, and the dialog is both clever and mostly-hilarious. ("No dirt, no clues, no service!" Hah!) Make of that what you will.

A second confession, right up front: there haven't been any blog posts yet this year, as I had NOT GONE ANYWHERE THIS YEAR--as in, hadn't even left Zürich at all--until the weekend before last, but that's a story for another day. Today, I have neither exotic destinations to describe in headache-inducing detail, nor fantastical travel stories to share...but I thought I might throw together a little tidying-up post, both to include here some details that I've (accidentally) omitted in other places, and to catch you up on things that have happened in our normal lives. (As if you could really call anything we do 'round these parts "normal"...)

And with that, back to the subject of that first paragraph: what we're watching! (I know...how long's it been??) Lately, it's been lots of superhero stuff. I know, I know, the market is supersaturated right now, but I just can't help myself. The highlights:

• We're totally hooked on 'The Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D,' and 'Agent Carter' is a pretty fun watch, as well. 
• All caught up with 'The Good Wife,' which apparently ends this year; Mike says it's played out, but I'm still enjoying it, as some of the best characters on TV (Eli! Sweeney! And I quite like both Luca and Jason!)
• Really, if you're not watching 'New Girl,' THEN YOU HATE LAUGHTER AND ALL THINGS HILARIOUS. (And also genuinely silly, and a bit surrealist. Schmidt--and, come to think of it, Winnie the Bish--rank right up there with my favorite TV characters of all time, and that list includes Swanson, so you know it's no joke.) 
• 'Modern Family' continues to be sublime, brilliant, and consistently hysterically funny; as does
• 'Brooklyn 99' (that Andy Samberg is a delight, and the whole ensemble is absolutely perfect [the episode 'The Cruise' is one of the silliest and most hilarious things I've seen in a good long time]); and finally
• 'Grimm,' while always ridiculous and so very melodramatic, is just plain fun.*

On the movie front, well:

• I watched 'Spotlight' last week before it won Best Picture, so who's got two thumbs and is prescient now? Yeah. This gal. 
• Also checked out 'Whiplash,' which is also relatively disturbing, but has some incredible music.
• And on a somewhat-regular basis, there's 'Goon,' which I cannot believe, in retrospect, I've omitted entirely from this blog. Make no mistake, it is bloody and violent and absolutely filthy with dirty words; that having been said, it is the sweetest, warmest, most endearing movie about hockey enforcers that has ever, or can ever, be made. Seann William Scott is a revelation, and I am not kidding. (There's also a heavily norther-accented Liev Schreiber, so yessssss.) 

Mainly, though, it's been documentaries, which is why, back in February, I spent the better part of two weeks weeping. Although they're almost inevitably quite depressing and/or horrifying, documentaries call to me in much the same manner as my beloved nonfiction books. Once again, prescient: I somehow managed to get my hands on 4 out of the 5 Oscar-nominated documentaries before they were Oscar material:

• 'Amy' and 'Winter on Fire' (the Oscar ones) were both really good and utterly heartbreaking, for very different reasons. Definitely watch them, I say (...although I think it's a bit of a surprise that 'Amy' took home the Oscar, because goodness, is 'Winter on Fire' is powerful).
• I also checked out 'Citizenfour,' about Edward Snowden, which, for a "thriller" filmed in "real time," was a bit boring, although there were a few moments where the uncertainty and suspense were insane. 
• The last was 'McCullin,' a first-person documentary about a British photojournalist. His images are astounding, but as he focused mainly on conflict in the latter half of the 20th century, also quite DISTURBING. (You've been warned. Use caution here.) 

And also: what I'm reading! Well, just the latest: Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman, by Robert Massie, about (who else?) Catherine the Great, empress of Russia during the 18th century (and let me just tell you, she was impressive). Prior to that, the ones worth mentioning are, in reverse chronological order:

• Gabby, a Story of Courage, Love, and Resilience, written by the husband of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, is essentially guaranteed to make you cry during each chapter. Count on it. 
• Boom, about the KXL pipeline, by Tony Horowitz (one of my fave nonfiction authors, full disclosure); 
• Dracula, Prince of Many Faces, about the eponymous anti-hero, by Radu R. Florescu and Raymond T. McNally (had to get into the real story after rereading The Historian for the third time); 
• Alice, Let's Eat, by Calvin Trillin, world's best food author (so funny! so dry! so eloquent! and so enthusiastic about the most random of foods!); and 
• Furiously Happy, by the Bloggess herself, Jenny Lawson. (Her second book is another that's simultaneously hilarious and sad and laced with profanity, but ultimately full of hope. I do like that Bloggess.)

And finally, my friends, the food. Ohhhhh, the food we've had over the past half-year! I've left out most of this due to space constraints in destination-themed posts, but now...as Bruce Buffer would say, "Iiiiiiit's tiiiiiime!" Either the pop-up scene here has exploded, or we've just lucked out and found ourselves in the right places with the right people, but whatever the case: so much awesome--if only temporarily available, but I think that makes it maybe even more fun!--food.

Wayyyyy back in October, we hit up this pop-up tavolata (essentially, everything's served family-style) in this insane spiral-elliptical building called the Cocoon.

On the menu: fish from our lake; mozzarella; beef tartar; fennel salad with grapefruit; long beans with tomatoes; pork belly; pasta with spinach pesto; beef baked in a dough crust; roasted potatoes and veggies; celery puree; eggplant with miso; a chocolate-orange tart; and caramelized pineapples with ice cream. Yup, we ate all that and shared it with strangers, and it was good.

November brought with it an astounding Mexican pop-up, cooked by a very nice Mexican lady who was quite proud to share her food with an appreciative audience. (She was also rather indignant that the Swiss consider Tex-Mex to be authentic Mexican food). In case you can't read that menu--terrible photo, dim setting, taken with my phone--there was a soup of roasted, pureed poblanos with corn; a small gordita filled with nopales (sauteed cactus paddles, which kinda taste like green beans) and topped with chopped radishes, tomatoes, queso fresco, and salsa; a mole tamale with white corn and chicken; pulled pork enchiladas with pumpkin, chile, and pipian (pumpkin seed) sauce, topped with pepitas (my mouth is actually watering about this right now); and pan de muerto (a sweet roll served that they served with a cocktail of bitter drinking chocolate, anise liqueur, and fermented honey--sounds weird, sure, but it was AMAZING) for dessert.  (The cocktail pairings were also tremendous--these guys always hit that nail on the head--but I didn't take nearly as detailed notes there.)

The New Year brought with it Lola Sally, a pop-up in the adorably renovated barn of a local restaurant, where they made Chinese food for a week, and then Japanese for another. It was GREAT. At the Chinese dinner, Mike and I shared some pounded prawns cooked in crispy tofu and served with a spicy dipping sauce; some Sichuan chicken wings; an order of pork buns (so fluffy!); some crunchy (possibly raw...?) shoestring potatoes with preserved veggies and mustard dressing, which they brought to us because they forgot to put in our final dish, the pork belly. Which, when it arrived, was spectacularly crispy, plentiful, and served on a bed of sour cabbage with chile. YES, PLEASE.

I went back with a group of friends two weeks later to check out their Japanese food, and it was equally amazing. Those crazies let me order, and since there were nine of us, I went nuts. We tried out the smoked broad beans with miso; the BBQ octopus leg (CRAZY DELICIOUS!!!); the beef tataki (super thinly-sliced, seared beef, which was so good that Steve ordered another plate of it with dessert, and rightfully so); the tuna sashimi; the smoked pureed eggplant; the veal cheek; the miso cod; and all three desserts (but the bean pudding with the caramel hands-down stole the dessert show). 

And finally, March brought with it another edition of Wood Food, which we'd first checked out last year. 

To start, there were grilled bread skewers with raw-milk butter, smoked salt, and some fantastic smoked hazelnuts. Then came smoked-perch soup with mushrooms and lemon; tiny roasted and salted potatoes with Douglas-fir yogurt (so...ridiculously...tasty!); an absolutely gorgeous plate of charred cauliflower with almonds, cherry seed oil, whitefish roe, kohlrabi, and apples (people, if you're going to do a mostly-vegetarian plate, THAT'S HOW YOU DO IT!)...

...this poached egg with smoked Hollandaise sauce, lime, teensy root veggies, and--yes--those are freeze-dried worms; lamb shanks with radish and cypress polenta; and grilled bananas with coconut ice cream and lime, served on a "shrimp-caramel earth" (which was just vaguely salty...dessert did not, in fact, taste like shrimp). HOLY SMOKES (if you will), what a meal.

Ooh, and then there was the music! We got a little crazy with the shows at Herzbaracke this year, and we have yet to be disappointed. The food is always great, and quality- and entertainment-wise, the shows are 5 for 5 for us. Obviously, then, I have every intention of going a little nuts again next year. It's one of my absolute things in this city, period. 

In November we checked out Marco Marchi and the Mojo Workers, a group of Swiss guys playing some of the best blues-Dixieland-old jazz-ragtime that I've ever heard. Seriously, they were all crazy-good musicians, and we smiled and laughed and stomped and clapped and hooted-and-hollered the entire night. SO. MUCH. FUN.

Next up was Frankie Silence & Ghost Orchestra, whose music utterly defies description (it's creative! it's spooky! it's weird! it has absolutely no genre!), but is outrageously enjoyable. They were without their marimba player that night--goodness knows that stage is small!--but a saw, a toy piano, and a xylophone were all expertly played.

And last, but certainly not least, we saw Lady Sings the Blues, and boy, does she. That singer definitely could be smooth when it was warranted, but she really shone when she absolutely cut loose; she sounded like a cross between Tina Turner and Bonnie Raitt, and it was phenomenal. Also amazing: her piano guy is hands-down the best jazz pianist I've ever heard! He played the entire evening only from charts (no actual music, and only sometimes needed the chart, anyway) but was obviously classically trained, and went on the most stunning and incredible improvisational solos ever. 

The drummer ("Steve aus Amerika") and bass player--who was definitely a rockabilly in disguise: the floppy hair! the full-sleeve tattoos! the six-shooter cutouts in his bass (no, for reals...this photo is awful, but you can at least kinda see them)!--were also amazing musicians and improvisers, but man, that piano guy was it.

Let's see, what else to catch you up on... Oh, I know. I went back to German class. Yup, after a nearly-five-year-long break, I decided to finish A2, and although it made sense at the time, it now seems utterly insane that I didn't finish it the first time around, as I only had 8 weeks left. Ugh. So I studied my tail off in January, somehow managed to test back into the course at the same unit as the one I exited from in 2011, and started classes again in March. So that's going again, and here's a photo of Stewie helping with my homework.

Yes...he's "helping." As is always, always the case.

But wait, there's more! Ned likes to be involved, as well. (Thanks, cats, for these zero-productivity study sessions.)

Ooh, and I've been stockpiling a list of weird chips over the last 6-ish months to review for you. (You're so welcome. I do it because I care. Links included so you know I'm not making this stuff up.)

• Burt's British, spicy chorizo: a bit more wurst-y than chorizo-y, but at least the flavors come through right up front. Nicely smoky and lightly seasoned.
• Ten-Acre Pastrami in the Rye: tasted just like pastrami with a hint of mustard. I didn't get the rye that Mike claimed to taste, but still, quite a tasty chip in all. (And somehow, it's vegan. For some reason I find that a little unsettling, because the rest actually involve some form of real meat. Or maybe that should be unsettling. I'm undecided, but either way, I will continue to eat this stuff. It's too weird to pass up.)
• Smiths Bacon Flavour Fries: holy goodness, these were so tasty. (Right up there with McCoy's Flame Grilled Steak, and that fejoada flavor that Lays had out for the World Cup.) Salty, mildly bacony, and utterly divine. Will absolutely buy these again the next time I or someone I know goes to the UK. (I've said it before and I'll say it again, those people love their meat-flavored chips. Like, I love meat-flavored chips, but those UK-ers have me soundly beat.)
• Burt's British, Devon roast beef: salty and marginally beefy-tasting, but I can't say that I'd automatically know what flavor these were intended to be. Quite savory, though, and I won't deny that I absolutely intend to finish the (small, snack-sized) bag. 
• And a total wild card that I found at a grocery store I haven't been to in quite a while: Chio Bull's Heads, grilled steak, which, crazily enough, are shaped like bulls' heads. (English possessives, Chio: look into it.) The chips themselves are oddly tasty, with a definite grilled-meat sort of flavor topped with what I imagine A-1 Steak Sauce tastes like (based solely on its smell, as I've never tried it...tomatoey, maybe, with a hint of Worcestershire? or something.). 

I felt a photo was necessary here, because look how silly these are. 

And finally, because this post is insanely short--at least, by my standards--I'm going to start a new feature and call it 'Forgotten Gems.' (Yes, that's a cheesy, cheesy, cheesy name, to be sure, but it's my blog, and I love cheese, so there.) In a nutshell, I'm going to list little pieces that have somehow gotten lost as I've written about travels past, that maybe deserve a place here after all. (Full disclosure: most of this was omitted because I'm a scatterbrained, terribly-organized person. So not on purpose, is what I mean.)

First, I'm going to take you way, waaaay back in time, to 2014, when we went to Genoa (sigh) with my parents. After dinner one night, returning to the rather grand Savoy Hotel (it's Italy! everything there's cheap, compared to Zürich! wooo!), we overheard some lovely and tasteful piano playing emanating from the lobby. We strolled over to check it out, and found a man sitting at the piano without music, just improvising lovely, quiet, lush covers of all sorts of pop and rock music (sadly, all I remember is some Metallica song--I kid you not--and OneRepublic's 'All My Secrets'.) As we listened, we noticed that he had a laptop sitting on top of the piano and was, between songs, Photoshopping what appeared to be professionally-taken advertising photographs at the actual speed of light. With one hand. At one point he turned and struck up a conversation with us, and here was his story: he was a homesick engineer from Vietnam--where his family was, currently--and was in town on an engineering project of some sort. He was staying at the hotel, where they had absolutely no problem with him volunteering to play the piano in that same, rather grand, lobby...and he was Photoshopping to make a little extra money. Um...what?? Talk about a gifted individual, and very, very nice, to boot. We only saw him in there that one night, but obviously, he made an impression on me. I hope things went exceedingly well for him, wherever he ended up, and whatever he's doing.

And while I know I took a photo of that lobby, with all of its marble and columns and classy decor, I can't seem to find it anywhere. So here's a link to their gallery (all of the photos with a cream-colored terrazzo floor and a black piano are from that lobby), plus a photo of part of what makes Genoa magic.

I love this city. It is so intriguing, and is up to its eyeballs in amazing history.

Next up, a few snippets from something slightly more recent: Budapest and Bratislava last year for Mike's birthday. One of the things I liked most about Budapest is that the people there, while not outgoing, seemed to be not the least bit resentful when speaking English with us, even if their English wasn't so strong. (A thing for which I am eternally grateful, seeing as how Magyar is far, far outside my feeble linguistic grasp!) I also appreciated, though, that whenever someone approached us there, the first thing they spoke was Magyar; usually, in Europe, that's not the case for us. (For some reason, everyone thinks we're German, but that's only until they hear us speak our terrible, terrible Deutsch.)

Shamefully, I know that I also left out a bit about dinner at Csalogany 26: there was a pre-dessert, people. Let that sink in: pre-dessert. It wasn't even listed as a course on the menu, and yet they brought us tiny portions of creme brulee with mango sauce and a tray of petit fours that included what I can only describe as a tiny, lemony Peep; a super soft slice of lemon-anise shortbread; and a wee, fluffy little carrot-poundcake muffin. Want to go back right now.

Also in Budapest... Spotted around 1:00 in the morning, post-kebab and ruin pub tour: an absolutely massive bronze statue being hauled (horizontally) somewhere on the back of a huge flatbed truck down a rather major thoroughfare. With a serious police escort. (As in, one of the at-least-four police cars pulled over a motorbike to let the statue pass.) Neat. And surreal.

Thanks, Budapest. You were very kind to us. And also very entertaining and delicious.

Also spotted on that trip, in and around both Budapest and Bratislava: roving packs of stag parties. (That's "bachelor parties," to you Americans.) What makes them delightful in Europe, however--at least, in my experience--is that they begin during the day, and that the groom is always subjected to some sort of very public humiliation, but is generally a decent sport about the whole thing. It's fantastic. In those cities, it seemed like the humiliation mainly involved dressing up: we saw a guy in a frog costume; a guy in a skirt, matching leopard-print scarf, and heels; a guy dressed as an old-timey stewardess; and, my favorite, a guy dressed as Tinkerbell. All surrounded by a smallish group of normally-dressed friends, and all doing completely normal things like going into a pub or drinking coffee at a cafe. I'm fairly certain I tried to take surreptitious photos of those, as well, but seeing as how I'm really bad both at being surreptitious and at taking photos of people, none came out. So: a entirely unrelated Bratislava shot, just for you.

Well hello, giant pink palace of the Primate.

Last, but certainly not least, I cannot believe that I managed to leave out a description of a couple of very small things that made my last birthday downright magical. I generally find it inconvenient to have been born in such a cold time of year--how is that supposed to make me want to celebrate anything??--but sometimes, things work out. Like when we went to Palma, and they turned on all of the city's Christmas lights while we were there. If you're me and you positively detest the cold, a city full of Christmas lights is just about the only thing that makes it worth going outside, and then it's like being a kid again, all full of wonderment and joy and whatnot. But I digress.

 This time around, it was in Brasov that I got to marvel a bit. First, the owner of the Drachenhaus, the truly delightful hotel in which we stayed, figured out from my passport that we were there over my birthday, and brought a bottle of local red wine, an opener, and two really nice glasses to our room as a surprise. And then thanked us for choosing to stay with them on that particular day! Could they be any nicer there?? And then, after we were out exploring all day, we came back to find that the hotel had hung their Christmas decorations while we were gone, and there were wee blue and white lights all over the place, and tons of actual pine garlands everywhere, which made everything smell like pine tree heaven. I know that that second bit wasn't for me, but it was just so welcoming and magical (forgive the overuse of that word here, but it really was!) to have all of that spring up during just a few hours, and on my birthday, no less. It may have been absolutely freezing out there, but it definitely felt warmer in that courtyard, thanks to the loveliness of the people and the season there. (I believe I also failed to mention that the staff in the attached Hockey Pub were also absolutely lovely, that the hotel serves up a divine breakfast there, as well.) 

So it's not the best shot, but you can see a wee bit of the lights and garlands. (And a big thank you, Drachenhaus, for being so darn welcoming and awesome.)

And with that, I believe I'm all caught up! Well, I would be, at least, but we went to France two weekends ago as a preventative measure against me getting stabby**, and so there's that to write about. And my German final is next week, and Mike's big birthday trip begins the next day, so there'll be that, too! I guess what I'm trying to say is that you probably won't hear from me again for the next six months or so, given my current pace of writing and inability to focus on anything at all..! 

Really, though, I'll do my best to stay on track. We'll talk again soon, friends!

*Also, stupid bit of pop-culture trivia: did you know that the lead in 'Grimm,' David Giuntoli, is real-life BFF's with my favorite (linguistically hilarious and insanely musical) YouTuber, Flula Borg? (Whom I also cannot believe I've never mentioned! What is happening??) Check out these videos here (and this one--how did he manage that??...and also this one, with his actual adorable German parents) and you'll get why I heart Mr. Borg. And then imagine the ridiculousness of him and Detective Nick Burkhardt together in real life. (Ok, you don't have to watch all of the Flula videos, but I can almost guarantee you'll love them, too, unless you don't like creative and funny things. If that's the case, then there's just no pleasing you.)

**Look, I'm sure literally every single one of you has been out of your respective cities at some point during the current calendar year, but I HADN'T BEEN OUTSIDE OF ZUERICH SINCE CHRISTMAS and was starting to get all sorts of cabin-fever craziness. I realize that I've said now at least three times in this blog post, but I want you to understand the depth of my desperation to get out of here for a while. Even just a couple of days. And thank goodness, we did.