The Swiss Kids and Their Food

So I've been watching Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution and I posted about the Swiss children and their knives. There is a bit of an update to that post. See, I went into the forest with the big girl a couple Fridays ago and saw a minor accident with one of the children and his knife. Most of the kids wear their knives around their necks on shoelaces or attached by chains to their belt loops. One boy walked out of the clearing where the teachers were and used his knife. I saw him walk into camp crying. I was about 30 feet away and I could see blood covering his thumb and part of his hand. A teacher rushed to him and bandaged him up and when I saw him later he was happy with a nice big bandage on his finger. *eek*

About the Swiss kids' food. When S started kindy, I was told that she needed to bring snack to school every day. I was instructed, quite forcefully in fact, that I should not pack anything with sugar in it. The snack I packed the first day was inspected and I got a Swiss nod of approval because it was raw rot peperoni strips (red bell pepper). I've had a chance to look around the class and see what the kids pack for snack. Frequently it is carrots, bell pepper, apple, clementines, even raw zucchini with a slice of bread and meat or cheese. The bread is always the artisan bread they make here or a small pretzel. I've seen some crackers and cream cheese but usually it is just my daughter that brings that sort of thing. On Fridays, the kids bring sausages to cook over the campfire and eat on their whittled sticks. Nothing is prepackaged.

Lunch is a little harder to scope out because Swiss kids all go home for their midday meal. It is a bit of a hold over from when moms stayed at home but the moms here adjusted for working part time or full time by switching off child care. My Swiss informants tell me that the big meal is lunch and they cook a large meal for their kids. The kids get out at noon and for the older kids with afternoon class, need to be back at 1:30 or so. That gives an hour and a half to eat, digest, and come back to school. Right now S only goes in the morning so we will have to see how the lunch thing works for her.

Tidbits by Hiltl - Yummy Vegetarian Food in Zurich

Tonight (or rather last night since it is just after midnight) we stopped by Tidbits on our way home from meeting friends. I've been wanting to try Hiltl, a 111 year old vegetarian restaurant in Zurich city since I heard about it but so far it hasn't happened. Tidbits is a more casual version of the fancy pants parent restaurant and somewhat kid friendly. They have a tiny kid area for toddlers but it was occupied when we got there so we sat European-style at a communal table.

Baby E was asleep in the Storch wrap so I took my big girl to the buffet and put the food she pointed at on her plate. Now, I really like buffets for S because she will try stuff that she won't try at home. I'm not sure why kiwi is all of a sudden palatable when cut up by someone else but usually she will carry it over to eating at home later so I don't complain too much. The bigger issue is that buffets usually have terrible food. I just don't like it.

This buffet wasn't like the usual buffets though. It did have the usual, numerous salad and fresh fruit options. There were also some Indian-inspired foods and a token American option - jalapeno popper - like the ones found at bars all across America. S had rice, salad, and pineapple which are her usual standbys but she also ate kiwi and snap peas. Well, not together. I tried a little of just about everything but my favorites were the curry quinoa with cranberries, Moroccan bulgar, and the dal. Everything was pretty good except for the hummus. I am not sure what they did to the hummus but, just no.

Once you 'load' up your plate you take it to the counter to be weighed. The buffet is by the 100 grams which is not a lot of food. S's plate came to about 300 grams. I forgot how much it cost but it was about 3-4 CHF per 100 grams.

I'm glad I tried it and now I really want the Hiltl cookbook. Both because I collect cookbooks and because I really enjoyed the food. The cookbook is 60 CHF though and that is a little steep for the budget right now. Oh well.

I almost forgot to mention that Baby E got to eat too but he only gets breastmilk and that was free.

Not about Jamie Oliver or Food

I have some sad, sad news. I had to give the baby an emergency poopy-blowout bath and while I was in the bathroom, big girl S broke my laptop. Right now I am sharing a computer with the husband and plotting a way to get a new computer. The husband has been nice about giving me plenty of computer cycles but I am old and stuck in my ways and like having my own operating system.

Now we are off to meet a colleague of the husband's and his wife for coffee. I really need to get out more.

Jamie Oliver has nothing on Switzerland

There is a lively discussion on a message board I visit about Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution. Usually I don't watch anything that isn't a fake crime drama but I was interested to see who this Jamie Oliver character was and what he had to say about school lunches and processed food.

Toward the end of episode 2, Jamie tells the cooks and the principal that the kids would need a knife and fork. The reaction was priceless. It was like he asked them to give the kids a machete, not a butter knife. This brings me to kindergarten life in Switzerland.

Every Friday, big girl spends the morning (8:15 - 12) in the forest. They build a fire (the kids drag sticks for firewood), play games, sing songs, and all those other things kids do in the forest. A couple of weeks ago I went with because big girl was upset about leaving me. That week the lesson was "whittling a stick with their own Swiss Army knife." I have to admit, I was a little shocked by the idea of giving my 4 year old a Swiss Army knife and sending her into the forest with a little - but really not much - supervision.

All the kids were taught how to open the knife, cut away from their body, and close the knife with their jacket sleeve. I am not sure how much my big girl (age 4, nonspeaker of Swiss-German) understood so I will be going to school with her until her Swiss-German gets better or the end of the year.

Oh, and the Swiss eat everything with a knife and fork. Even pizza. The kids definitely know how to use one by age 4.

I have a cold and really need to go to bed but next post will be about the kids' food.

An Interesting Idea

My husband would say I like to kill plants. That simply isn't true but I have a hard time remembering when I watered them. So when I came across this article on using plants to improve your indoor air quality, I was intrigued. Then I thought about the poor plants and how buying them would, in fact, doom them and I decided to wait until I started taking ADD meds or something.

My Baby, Budding Photographer

Yesterday we took a walk to the post office to pick up a package and my big girl asked for my camera. See, next door to the post office is a farm with baby cows, ducks, goats, and chickens and she decided she wanted to take pictures of it. I gave her a quick tutorial on the proper way to hold and take pics with the camera and off she went. At some point she snickered and said, "I take beautiful pictures." Yes she does, and here are some of them. 

A horse painting in a train underpass.













A goat hoping for a snack. He was denied.











Some random house that captured her eye.

Today was a tough one. The newbie started crying and the big girl started sympathy crying so I started rethinking my unofficial "no hard alcohol in the house" policy. Then the baby fell asleep and I decided to pee which obviously meant the big girl had to get frustrated with building her marble run and she screamed - waking the baby.

The buzzer rang - it was the big girl's friend asking if she could come out and play. Well, she might be a big girl in her mind but she isn't yet 5 so I told her to stay by the playground. I went to the window to check on her and I saw her running back to the apartment crying. Her friend took off, probably expecting her to follow but I told her to stay at the playground. Props to my girl - she didn't follow. I made hot cocoa and commisserated but not before her wailing woke... that's right. The baby. *sigh*

The big girl is asleep and the baby has been handed off to daddy so I am drinking a glass of wine. Tomorrow will be better. 

Things That Come Out of Mommy's Mouth

Why are the toothbrushes and toothpaste in the bathtub (with you)?
You need to be calm to push your brother in the stroller. (said mid-tantrum)
Why did you color on your face?

If you ever want to hear what you sound like, forget a tape recorder, get a 4 year old. You will hear them say something and ask, do I really say that? On the plus side I found out that I say please and thank you regularly and I don't swear too much. Last night I heard the girl say 'good lord' after she spilled a glass of water. Oops. That one is on me too.

Note to self: be a little more careful of verbiage and no more Rolling Stones.

Slowcookers in Switzerland

The Swiss apparently don't use crockpots. I say this because it took me months to find one. Then I did and it was devoid of features. I used a nice programmable slowcooker in the US that allowed me to set a timer and ignore it until a buzzer went off however many hours later.

The only reasonably priced slowcooker (under 100 CHF) was available at Migros City in the electronics department. For the low price of 50 CHF, I picked up an unknown brand (Mio Star) that has a manual switch and four settings, off, low, high, and warm low. It does have a removable liner for easy cleaning and it seems to work pretty well although the high setting seems to run a little hot.

Today red beans and rice was on the menu and my apartment smells spicy. Yum.

Bretzel Konig - Lucerne

It isn't just American businesses that have silly names invoking
royalty. This Pretzel King is located in Lucerne, Switzerland.