sub­lime Zurich

What a fun­ny week it’s been!  A sort of glimpse into the future when Avery’s not liv­ing here any­more, in fact.  I’ll explain.

We’ve been to Zurich, just the two of us, John and I, for a whirl­wind, exhaust­ing, excit­ing, expen­sive, deli­cious two days and two nights.  What a thrill just to hop on a plane, and 90 min­utes lat­er land in Switzer­land, a night flight, so that our walk to the hotel from the air­port was a glo­ri­ous tour of the dark­ened, but glit­tery, great city.

 I can’t remem­ber the last time I was in a prop­er hotel — a des­per­ate­ly awful motel at JFK the night before a flight does not count!  This one, the Hotel Helmhaus in the very cen­tre of the city, was quite, quite per­fect, with gor­geous white sheets and a choco­late­ly soft throw, a gor­geous bath­room and fan­tas­ti­cal­ly help­ful staff.  A total lux­u­ry, a birth­day gift from my moth­er.  What an escape.

In the morn­ing, we head­ed out to explore our neigh­bor­hood, dom­i­nat­ed by the mas­sive Gross­mun­ster church.

The doors are dec­o­rat­ed in a kind of 20th cen­tu­ry ref­er­ence to the Baroque doors by Ghib­er­ti in Flo­rence, these dis­tinc­tive­ly child­like depic­tions by the great Otto Munch.

Sim­ply astonishing.

And the views from the top of the tow­er?  (We puffed.)  Sim­ply glorious.

John looked so hap­py, sit­ting by a lit­tle inte­ri­or win­dow, catch­ing his breath.

Then we mean­dered over to the intense­ly beau­ti­ful Frau­mun­ster Church, home to a col­lec­tion of the most sub­lime stained glass win­dows by Marc Cha­gall.  How I wish I could have tak­en pic­tures of these glow­ing, live­ly, cel­e­bra­to­ry win­dows, but such is not allowed.  You must look online at how stun­ning they are, impos­si­bly col­or­ful and hap­py, despite the obvi­ous­ly com­plex mes­sages within.

From these church­es we wan­dered through the streets of Zurich, as quaint as a doll­house, around every cor­ner a dec­o­rat­ed wall, a sign, a foun­tain.  Here lived Goethe.

Noth­ing was ordinary.

What a joy to see some­thing new.

A gur­gle of water, but extraordinary.

And every­where mes­sages that I could not read.  How frus­trat­ing to be such a fail­ure at Ger­man, as it happens.

And pieces of his­to­ry, in this famous­ly neu­tral, nev­er-rav­aged-by-moder­ni­ty city.

And can I just tell you how obsessed Zurich is with East­er?  A ver­i­ta­ble riot of choco­late, bun­nies, and choco­late bun­nies, this one from the famous choco­lati­er Sprungli (we may have done a bit of work for the East­er Bun­ny here).

 

Every­where were dis­plays, and not just can­dy or flow­ers, but whole instal­la­tions, this one of tiny, del­i­cate tin ani­mals, out for a day in the country.

I could­n’t help myself: I went inside and found a tiny Steiff hedghog for Avery, and an unex­pect­ed dis­play of Christ­mas orna­ments.  My choic­es are packed away care­ful­ly for Decem­ber, now, hav­ing been brought home in hand luggage.

There was a nunnery.

And then we arrived at our des­ti­na­tion, the pur­pose of this whole Swiss adven­ture: a vis­it to the Tame­dia build­ing, a seem­ing­ly sim­ple news­pa­per office in the cen­tre of the city.  Designed by the archi­tect who’s going to be build­ing our dream house, on our small plot of land.  At first it was hard to imag­ine what this build­ing could pos­si­bly have in com­mon with a fam­i­ly home.

Inside, how­ev­er, the mag­ic was instant­ly visible.

What seemed at first glance to be mere­ly a beau­ti­ful office build­ing revealed, grad­u­al­ly, details of absolute genius.  The sup­port­ing columns made of lam­i­nat­ed spruce, the unex­pect­ed floor of pol­ished Swiss riv­er stones.

The lob­by is fur­nished with chairs and tables using the recy­cled paper tubes that our archi­tect is famous for: he’s built entire vil­lages to ben­e­fit refugees of envi­ron­men­tal dis­as­ters, using these tubes.

They are incred­i­bly styl­ish.  And such good, good things.  Maybe he will build some for us.

I feel real­ly excit­ed, hope­ful, for the first time, about our even­tu­al house.  With the warmth of the spruce, the inven­tive­ness of the floors, the civic-mind­ed­ness and yet sheer beau­ty of the fur­nish­ings, I can real­ly see this build­ing trans­lat­ed into a prop­er home: gor­geous but wel­com­ing, and a per­fect back­drop for our books, and art, brought out of stor­age at long last.  Our guide seemed very hap­py at our happiness.

And John was just absolute­ly thrilled.

Sigh of relief, and of expectation.

We said our good­byes and went direct­ly to a Viet­namese restau­rant we had spied on our way to Tame­dia, Saigon.

Oh, the choic­es were excruciating!

I end­ed up with a beau­ti­ful plate of green cur­ried chick­en with bam­boo shoots, SUPER hot pep­pers and a creamy coconut milk sauce, heav­en.  John had noo­dles for which he was offered, mer­ci­ful­ly, a bib, to pro­tect his snowy white shirt.  We ate our­selves sil­ly, then mean­dered home to the hotel to put our feet up for just a bit.  Except that of course I’d left my phone at the restau­rant, so with mis­giv­ings John gave me his, point­ed me to Google maps, and said good­bye as if he’d nev­er see me again.

I had fun, tak­ing more pictures.

I found the only book­shelf in the world I did­n’t want to bring home.

Who lives down these lit­tle streets, in per­fect Swiss style?  I want to, someday.

When I returned, safe and sound, we went back out, into the slight­ly sprinkly, damp after­noon, to explore again.

I bought new shoes, gor­geous Thier­ry Rabotin clas­sic lace­ups, and also a nice springy pair of loafers.  Shoe shop­ping is always a win­ner.  We passed the famous Cabaret Voltaire, unbe­liev­ably still in busi­ness just shy of 100 years after its for­ma­tion as the home of Dadaism.  Shades of my art his­tor­i­cal youth!

After a most wel­come cock­tail back at the hotel, we head­ed out in the rain, by roman­tic tram, to din­ner, at Stefs, a restau­rant John had cho­sen because all the most glow­ing reviews online were… writ­ten in Ger­man.  A present from John’s mom for his birth­day, this was a much-await­ed event because as you know, we NEV­ER go out for din­ner.  I go to lunch with friends, we occa­sion­al­ly go to lunch togeth­er, but din­ner?  Out?  Just the two of us?  Nev­er.  It was an epic meal.

Our maitre d’ explained the menu to us, point­ing out in per­fect, beau­ti­ful­ly accent­ed Eng­lish that all the pro­duce, most espe­cial­ly the meat, comes from their farm in the Swiss coun­try­side.  “We call the meat, how do you say, ‘lucky meat.’  This is why it tastes so very good.  It has been a lucky life, for these meats.”

We began with a very mod­ern (and lucky) steak tartare, served with the req­ui­site hard-boiled, grat­ed quail’s yolk, but then most fusion‑y with a haris­sa cream and tiny leaves of baby chico­ry (I had to ask), and a spoon­ful of rich, caramelised onion rel­ish.  Per­fect­ly tex­tured steak in a por­tion that left us want­i­ng more, shades of our Prague adven­ture last year.  Then onto what was described to us as a cur­ry soup, but was OH so much more than that.  A gen­tle, del­i­cate, sub­tly fla­vored creamy broth (more coconut milk, twice in one day!) with, float­ing demure­ly, tiny sliv­ers of exot­ic mush­rooms, car­rots and cele­ri­ac.  How I wish I could make such a thing.  Again, we clam­ored for more.

And then a main course of pork fil­let, with a smooth, ten­der tex­ture we’d nev­er quite expe­ri­enced before, with quenelles of creamy mashed pota­to and two per­fect­ly cooked stalks of aspara­gus, all with a morel mush­room sauce (our only com­plaint was that we want­ed more sauce, but we could be sim­ply greedy).  Dessert was a more ele­gant ver­sion of some­thing I might make: a man­go yogurt with a sur­prise of choco­late ice cream buried inside, topped with a crum­ble.  Sim­ple and much home­li­er than the three savoury cours­es, lead­ing me to sus­pect that the chef has about as much inter­est in posh desserts as I have: very lit­tle.  A love­ly end to a quite per­fect meal.

But it was­n’t the end!  Because I had asked so dag-nab­bit many ques­tions dur­ing the meal, the love­ly maitre d’ , Mein­rad Schlat­ter, fetched the chef!  And I was able to shake the hand of the man who had pro­vid­ed us with such a mag­i­cal parade of fla­vors.  Ste­fan Wieser, a genius plain and simple.

 

What a cook.  What a kitchen!  “I see you cook with gas,” I said, with a sly glance toward my hus­band who aspires to more tech­no­log­i­cal meth­ods of apply­ing heat to food.  “Oh, yes, always with the gas,” Stef assured me.  Thank you.

We talked about the meal all the way home — the ambi­ence of the small restau­rant (seat­ing just 20 or so peo­ple, and we the only non-Swiss as far as we could tell), the sim­plic­i­ty of the menu.  Per­haps I could have a small restau­rant if I could lim­it the choic­es to just a few.  We had the tast­ing menu, but there were only three more dish­es on offer, plus Mein­rad’s spe­cial cheese board (I was tempt­ed, but even I have my limits).

What heav­en to fall into the bed — made up per­fect­ly by NOT ME — with a book and a diges­tif, look­ing around the ele­gant room, feel­ing a lit­tle bit of the me I was before I was a moth­er, creep back into my bones.  Maybe, just maybe, there is life after the child flies the nest.

In the morn­ing we had noth­ing spe­cial planned — and who needs any­thing more spe­cial than the day before had been ! — so after a spec­tac­u­lar scram­bled egg break­fast at the Helmhaus (why are for­eign cold cuts so much more splen­did than any­thing you can get at home?), we ambled out and off on the tram to take a look at Lake Zurich.  Most fas­ci­nat­ing to me was this tiny, pub­lic water park.  Can you imag­ine an Amer­i­can lake dar­ing to offer such an array of unpro­tect­ed, fan­tas­ti­cal­ly dan­ger­ous-look­ing water fea­tures, for any­one to use in igno­rance and then sue some­one for? Charming!

Every bit of this climb­ing struc­ture stretch­es over con­crete sur­faces just beg­ging to have a head crack upon them.  And div­ing boards!  Even pri­vate HOTELS in Amer­i­ca have jet­ti­soned them all, in fear of law­suits.  What a shame.  These looked very inviting.

Well, per­haps not on that very day.

Fan­cy a slide?

The whole place seemed to me emblem­at­ic of the Zurich frame of mind: sim­ple beau­ty every­where and an effort­less sense of style, as well as a calm, peace­ful enjoy­ment of life.  I could just imag­ine the scene on a hot sum­mer day, per­fect lit­tle Swiss chil­dren run­ning sedate­ly to and fro, while their gor­geous­ly fash­ion­able and emi­nent­ly calm par­ents looked on.  Munch­ing on Swiss choco­late, no doubt, and con­grat­u­lat­ing them­selves on their deter­mined and peace­ful neu­tral­i­ty.  If there is some­thing not to like about life in Switzer­land, we did­n’t see it on our trip to Zurich.

We popped on the tram again to try to find what was billed as the “Shored­itch of Zurich,” that is to say the sort of hip­ster neigh­bor­hood.  We did­n’t find it, but I did stum­ble across this gor­geous food shop, Basch­er, caus­ing lit­er­al­ly the only moment of the entire trip when I wished I had a kitchen.  Oh, the fresh meats and cheeses, the glo­ri­ous pro­fu­sion of pas­tas, dried mush­rooms, pre­served meats.  I did bring home some pre­served Swiss pas­tra­mi-like beef, but that only tor­ment­ed me for more.

We whiled away the after­noon aim­less­ly, just enjoy­ing each oth­er’s com­pa­ny and the for­eign sights to behold on every corner.

Final­ly it was time to go home.  We slipped into the lounge at the air­port to indulge in a lit­tle pile of brown bread sand­wich­es, fea­tur­ing — again — the sim­plest of ingre­di­ents, but the best: Swiss cheeses, lit­tle pick­les, lit­tle local salamis.  And home to Avery.

Who prompt­ly left for Dublin on a school trip!  We bare­ly over­lapped, which means on top of our Zurich sojourn with­out her, we also had four days at home with­out her.  I’m get­ting used to it.  But I myself took off on Sat­ur­day morn­ing on a quixot­ic jour­ney by train to Bath, to have lunch with my friend Sam and then — the pur­pose of the adven­ture — to meet up with my beau­ti­ful friend Lau­rie’s hand­some son Chris­t­ian, here all the way from South Africa to… play hock­ey.  I can’t make this stuff up.  He gal­lant­ly risked embar­rass­ment in front of his mates to pose for a pho­to­graph with me, which gave his moth­er, so far away, immense pleasure.

Chris­t­ian and his moth­er had been our guests, you’ll remem­ber, five years and one house ago, for a mem­o­rable, fun-filled vis­it.  Now, so much old­er, more mature, and TALLER, Chris­t­ian has­n’t real­ly changed a bit.  Still with gor­geous man­ners, a ready smile, and a zest for life.  Lau­rie should be ter­ri­bly proud.  “I hear con­grat­u­la­tions are in order,” he said with unbe­liev­able poise.  “Avery is off to Oxford, well done!”  What a won­der­ful boy.

After all, the point of all this par­ent­hood is to set them free, isn’t it — whether to Dublin or to Bath — to watch them pack up their suit­cas­es and their expe­ri­ence and set off on their own.  It’s a bit like that old sto­ry of bring­ing a pot of water to boil with a frog in it: the boil­ing process hap­pens so grad­u­al­ly that he’s cooked before he knows it.  Of course it seems like five min­utes ago that Avery was 13, that Chris­t­ian was 10, days when their fly­ing off for their own adven­tures would have been unthink­able.  But it hap­pens.  And if John’s and my life over the last week is any indi­ca­tion, the future looks bright for all of us.