Marble Pound Cake by David this weekend

Actually, like many things, it was a team effort (but mostly David's). He baked the cake, and I whisked the glaze together and poured it over and placed the nuts he had selected atop the mantle of chocolate. And he took this photo. Oh, the aroma when we open the cake-keeper each time! This is an old standard in our family, about which I've already posted before, in 2005 twice and again in 2007 (in 2006 and 2008 I mentioned it but without a photo)... Marble Pound Cake recipe here.

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My New Favorite Banana Bread Recipe

INGREDIENTS

• 3 or 4 ripe bananas, smashed
• 1/3 cup melted butter
• 1 scant cup sugar 
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• Pinch of salt
• 1 1/2 cups of whole wheat flour
• Optional: chopped pecans and chocolate chips, or raisins, dried cranberries and walnuts

METHOD (No need for a mixer for this recipe)

Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C). 

With a plastic spatula, mix butter into the mashed bananas in a large mixing bowl. 

Whisk in the sugar, egg, and vanilla. 

Sprinkle the baking soda and salt over the mixture and whisk in. 

Add the flour last, mix with the plastic spatula. 

If desired, add chopped pecans and chocolate chips, or raisins, dried cranberries and walnuts.

Pour mixture into a buttered loaf pan. 

Bake for 1 hour. 

Cool on a rack. 

Remove from pan and slice to serve.

Based, with modifications, on http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/banana_bread/

I made a chocolatey loaf and a fruity loaf, both with nuts. Delicious! And so easy because of the melted instead of solid butter. Nice and moist!

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Parsley Shadow, Frosty Grass

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Kunsthaus Zurich

On a quest for lunch between museums, David and I wandered towards the Lindenhof elevated park area overlooking the Limmat River, and found a part of the city we didn't even know existed. Cobblestone streets, narrow alleys, mysterious corners, covered walkways. We passed a Roman artifact from 200AD. We ate delicious Flammkuchen at a little restaurant, and felt restored.

Next stop: Kunsthaus Zürich, Zürich's main art museum. Boy, do they have some of everything. A veritable alphabet of famous artists (at least from C to V). We saw works by, for example:

Cézanne

Chagall

Courbet

Dalí

El Greco (did you know his real name was Domenico Theotocopoulos?)

Fra Angelico (a painting from 1445; that's a long time ago)

Gauguin

Giacometti

Hans Holbein the Elder

Magritte

Manet

Matisse

Miró

Monet

Picasso

Pissarro

Pollock

Renoir

Rodin

Rubens

Sisley

Van Gogh

Veronese

This museum kept our attention for one hour and forty-five minutes. After starting our day's exploration at 11:30, two museums and a city-tour later, our legs gave out around 5:30pm. Here are some highlights of the master works we admired:

Picasso - the Fountain, 1899

Van Gogh -  1889 - the Cyprus & the Flowering Tree

Monet - Houses of Parliament

Matisse, 1908

René Magritte

Sisley "The Road"

Signac - Rotterdam, 1906

Piet Mondrian

Giovanni Giacometti, 1910, "Winter in Maloja"

Robert Zünd, 1882 - Eichenwald

Giovanni Panini, 1734, St. Peter's Cathedral in Rome - if you've been there, you can see this is very evocative of it!

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Lindenhof Area of Zurich - Some Fun Streets

Near the Lindenhof, Zurich - how you do like the shape of the building in the middle?

 

"Zum Bahnhof" Arcade/Gallery? Architect/designer people - is this an arcade, a gallery, or something else? Shops on the left, and open to the river on the right, with pillars all along on the right. Dark and narrow.

 

Rollen-Gasse, Narrowest street in Zurich?

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Schweizerisches Landesmuseum, Zürich - Date with my Photographer Honey

David and I took the train to enjoy a 7-hour date yesterday in downtown Zurich, seeing mostly things we'd never seen before, and in some cases, had no idea existed. We had never visited any museums in Zürich. Well, there's no time like the present.

First stop: Schweizerisches Landesmuseum. That's a tough one to type. It's a collection of items relating to Swiss history. For example:

- an 800-year old embroidered tablecloth, flax on canvas

- a wooden 

Palm Sunday donkey with Jesus figure astride, from 1055 AD

- delicate, ornate drinking glasses from 1650 - how did they preserve such fine, thin glass all that time without breaking it??

- 

Swiss Reformer Zwingli's sword & helmet (with a hole in it... he died in 1531 in the 2nd Battle of Kappel, 10 minutes from our home here)

- a huge collection of knives, ranging from the Neolithic Age, through the Bronze Age and on up to the present. A couple of intriguing highlights: 

• a mushrooming knife

• one for castrating boars

• an Austrian knife with a purple handle

• a knife for roast chestnuts

• Swiss army knives from 1891 on

• 4 "plagiarized copies of the Swiss army knife" (goodness!)

• Army knives from Germany, USA, Netherlands, Denmark, Malaysia (camouflage pattern!)

• a parachutist's knife

• NATO knife, NASA knife

• knives signed by Presidents Reagan and Bush

• a Nepalese machete-type tool (called a "Kukri")

• a diamond-encrusted, platinum and gold knife

• an ostrich feather trimming knife (doesn't everyone need one of those?)

We were pleasantly interested in the collection for exactly one hour, then it was clearly time to have lunch as hunger conquered any more attention we might have otherwise offered.

We were not allowed to take photos inside this museum, but David got some nice shots of the outside of the structure:

Schweizerisches Landesmuseum - Tower Roof

 

Landesmuseum - Tower

 

Landesmuseum - Above the Arch

 

Turrets inside the Landesmuseum Courtyard

 

Landesmuseum Courtyard High on a Wall

 

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Close-ups of the Christmas Stamp Collages For Each Year, 1993-2010

It's fun to remember the stamps of yesteryear. They can trigger memories and feelings of yesteryear as well.

 

 

See and download the full gallery on posterous

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18th Edition of my Christmas Stamp Collages

Every year in January, I put together a stamp collage for the previous year, made with stamps from envelopes received in the mail in December (mostly Christmas cards). Each year forms one letter, and the years together are starting to spell a seasonal sentence. I started the Christmas after we got married, which was 1993. So we're up to the 18th letter in the sentence now. I'm starting to have trouble fitting it on a table... It's can also be quite dark at this time of year, making photography a bit more challenging. My dear one used his big camera for these this morning in the half-light.

The 1st letter was made in New Hampshire (J).

The 2nd one in Illinois (E).

The 3rd through 12th in California (first S up to the 2nd E).

13th in France (A).

14th & 15th in England (SO).

16th-18th in Switzerland (NFO).

The ratio of American to international stamps has changed through the years! It's a bit of a chronology of our lives together. I love living with David!

See and download the full gallery on posterous

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11.01.11 Today - the day of the Found Desk

On this day of so many ones in the date (in ten months we'll really see something one-wise), and so much nearly-freezing rain descending from the grey Zurich skies, I turned on the heater in our basement office and spent all day rediscovering that useful piece of furniture in there: my desk. I knew it was under all those papers and bits and bobs somewhere. Hurray for a clear space to sit and work and be productive and organized.
I love January and the clearing out of the house and putting things back in normal order, but I have to say the rolling up and storing of the Christmas decorations took longer than I anticipated this year.

Goodbye to the tree and Advent wreath and red candles and strung lights...

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