Luckily, the company answered my request in a way to give me hope.

We’re glad to hear you’ve discovered Daiya and are enjoying it while in the U.S.  We are in talks with several groups who are interested in supplying the European market so please keep an eye on our website over the coming year for updates.

Great, right?

In other news, my childhood home was the land of crazier. The kitchen was gutted and being refitted and all available cooking facilities had been relocated to the garage (read: mostly ineffective electric hob, microwave, and toaster oven). The bathtub became the kitchen sink and any available surface the counter space.

It’s nice to be home (but I can’t wait to see and use their finished kitchen).

The cost of heaven comes at a premium, but what can I expect when my pearly gates exist as the doorway into any shop in Switzerland? Similar to the French macaron, but lighter, a trip to the city of Zurich cannot be complete without a visit to Confiserie Sprüngli for a taste of their divine Luxemburgerlis.

At 10.30 CHF per 100g you will easily spend your daily travel allowance in one go, but after one bite I promise you won’t regret your decision. A shame the recipe is a secret kept close to the heart of Sprüngli.

The oldest vegetarian restaurant in Europe

Opened in 1898, Hiltl claims to be the oldest vegetarian establishment on the continent. When in the city of Zurich I inevitably find myself here enjoying a selection of perfectly cooked seasonal vegetables and moorish treats. Is it the best food I’ve eaten? I won’t lie, because I can turn out similar flavours and presentation from my own kitchen, but it’s really a lovely place and well worth a try.

They have both a sit down menu with service and a buffet (price by weight), the latter a process of serving yourself and weighing the end result for the price. The portions from the buffet versus the menu seem to come out at similar prices (between 25-35 CHF) so don’t try to dupe yourself into saving money. Just sit down and enjoy a treat! The rösti is good and my friend swears by the madras banana.

Pure vegetarians beware as they do use rennet in some of their cheeses. This is evident and marked on the buffet bar but not on the English sit-down menu. Also note there is a special daily menu in German that doesn’t feature on the English menu.

…and of course chocolate

To many people the idea of Switzerland is synonymous with a luscious indulgence in tempting chocolates, and I will agree they do have a way with cacao. But, like any other place associated with a fine food, you can substitute quality for cost or embrace those establishments worth remembering (your wallet never forgets). Teuscher is one such institution, one which will cost you more than you’d ever think to spend on chocolate but which will leave you considering brands like Cadbury’s and Hersheys to be anything but chocolate.

Americans might enjoy Teuscher’s US based stores while the rest of us have to wait for a trip to Switzerland or Germany. Try anything. Everything! Something?

In Switzerland I remind myself, oh I have to, that I must listen sometimes only to what my mind desires. Every once in awhile, it’s okay to ignore that voice of reason in your head and opt instead for sheer ignorance of the fact that you could remortgage your home and still only just afford a meal out. This is what I tell myself. My Luxemburgelis and me.

It’s not unusual for me to call life off for a few weeks and just get out of here. That combined with weekends away, short trips, and visiting my family back in the US means my lazy arse doesn’t get a post up for a brief time. Oops, sorry. The thing is, I love travel. My excuse this itme? A week away in Salcombe (which is in the county of Devon in Southwest England if you don’t know), followed by a few days in Brussels with my visiting mother.

Why am I telling you this? Because when I travel I always find food related things which inspire me, make me warm and happy, and often cause me to drool on my last set of clean clothes. I always say to myself, “write about this! Post the recipe you created as a result!” and clearly I ignore myself most of the time. This time, however, is different because I banned myself from eating my finds until I photographed them… and once they’re photographed they may as well be posted!

Belgian chocolate.

This is almost a buzzword in the foodie world, isn’t it? The truth is most of it’s worthless, factory produced piles of goop which can make Hershey’s chocolate seem authentic. I tried and even enjoyed a fair amount of such choc, so don’t get me wrong. I enjoy a junk food fest as much as the next person, but at the end of the day I believe in paying a lot for a little of something good rather than a little for a lot of something under par in quality. Hence I looked out there chocolatiers with a good reputation for making their own quality product: The Chocolate Line, Dumon, and Sukerbuyc.

Dumon Chocolatier

This is the chocolate maker I would recommend to a serious chocoholic. Dumon’s chocolates are the creamiest, smoothest chocolates for which one could hope. It’s melt-in-your mouth good, and the staff are helpful; they have to be as the chocolates are not labeled. I was at first put off by this, but I left feeling more knowledgable about what I bought as the shop staff really engage with customers to explain. In the end I felt confident in trusting their own choices and took away a box of their picking. I wasn’t dissapointed with a single one.

Chocolaterie Sukerbuyc

Katelijnestraat 5, Brugge.

A sign on the door asks for only customers to come inside in order to preserve quality. A few years ago I’d have passed this off as an act of snobbery and would have huffed away to the cheapest shop I could find. Yes, I’d show them! Now, not so much. Are they snobbish? Perhaps. Does the attitude make their chocolate better? Probaby not.

The thing is, I get it. There are so many chocolate shops in this small city, enough to spend a full day going in and out and only seeing half. They are mostly all the same, and many with staff who don’t seem at all interested in what they sell. I understand why a shop who makes their own would get frustrated with yet another pack of tourists bursting in the door only to leave and, as I said, head to the cheaper place down the road (something they would do anyway). Plus Sukerbuyc has a great window display, one which allows the browsing public to see all they have on offer without entering the store.

I entered the store, because I knew I wanted to buy. I knew they had something different, and I knew I needed to buy some of the Advokaat (avocado); I’d sampled a white chocolate truffle with avocado in Brussels but this was the first I saw in dark. Others I sampled include dark chocolate and violet, coffee, and more which have long since come to rest in my stomach.

My opinion on Sukerbuyc? For lack of better words, this chocolate is less rich than that which is sold in Dumon. Not that it’s untoothsome, just less creamy and with less milk used in the recipe. I could handle no more than one or two silky pieces from Dumon in one sitting; my body could survive slightly more from Sukerbuyc no doubt. Their avocado was quite possibly my favourite find of the trip.

The Chocolate Line

Simon Stevinplein 19, 8000 Brugge

Fried onion, cola, violet, caramel coriander, cabernet sauvignon, lavender, lemongrass, vodka-lemon, and earl grey. Chocolates.

I thought I would save the most interesting for last.

One thing that frustrates me most with people, even self proclaimed foodies, is their willingness to dismiss a flavour simply because it sounds bad. Think of all the things we ingest now, combinations which at some point in time didn’t exist. Once upon a time there was a person with an original thought to use curdled milk to make cheese, to mix flour and water and bake it, to combine tomato with herbs to create a sauce… You get the idea. Why not combine onion and chocolate? From a species which enjoys a wide range of fermented foods and wholly unordinary culinary practises, chocolate and onion seems positively straight forrward!

So yes, those are the flavours I chose, and I’m not at all disappointed with my selection. The chocolate and fried onion combination was quite interesting and subtle; it worked well in my opinion. But my favourite thus far has been the vodka-lemon, imparting a series of changing flavours as it rests on your tongue. Cola has been my least favourite, though not overall. That distinction would have to go to the sickly false banana flavoured chocolate I regretably purchased elsewhere.

When in Bruges, eat these

Dumon is perfect for serious lovers of rich milk chocolate. Try anything with their chocolate ganache.

From Sukerbuyc I preferred the dark chocolates, and the avocado filling is highly recommended.

If you’re interested in trying something different and wholly inspirational, head to The Chocolate Line. Be sure to try the vodka-lemon white chocolate!

After a lengthy holiday in Southeast Asia, I’m back and ready to cook (well technically ready to sleep, but I’ll get around to both at some point). Sorry for the lack up updates being lazy and not updating while I was adventuring away.

The easiest country in which to be Vegetarian in Southeast Asia is easily, for me, Vietnam. A lot of people assume that since these countries are Buddhist, they are veggie-friendly. This is not the case, especially in Thailand where things like fish and oyster sauce are used in just about everything from sweet chilli dips to curries. In fact, the “vegetarian” sections of menu will often list things like “vegetables in oyster sauce.” Go figure.

I won’t dwell on that much, because having been there before I knew this was to be expected. But there is one thing I will dwell on, and that’s the quality of bean curd in the region. In Vietnam I ate it nearly every day, sometimes more. Very early on I made the decision that as soon as I got home I would order a SoyQuick soy milk maker and a tofu press. Now the trip has come and on, I’m back home, and have received my new toy. This morning was my first attempt at its use, and with the first batch of soy milk I decided to try to make some home made tofu.

Using the SoyQuick was dead easy and it really makes the soy milk in a speedy manner (the beans, of course, have to be soaked first), but I thought the clean-up was a bit tedious (but then again it was before sunrise — hey, I’m jetlagged). I followed the instructions (*gasp*) to coagulate the milk and poured it into some muslin in the tofu press, along with a tad of salt and some liquid smoke flavouring. The instructions instructed (fancy that) to press for only 15-20 minutes, but I left it for a couple of hours. I’ll admit this was mainly due to laziness over anything else.

The end result is pretty good for my first go, I think! I’ll be sure to experiment with lots of nifty flavours and such over the next weeks, so stay tuned!

Simple foods like breads and fruit juices should not contain 101 ingredients, most of which I’ve never heard of. When I see something in the ingredients list I’ve never heard of, that product goes back on the shelf so I can look it up on the internets when I get home. Nine times out of 10, it’s a wacky preservative cooked up in a lab somewhere. I will not buy that product. In the US (save havens like Whole Foods and Trader Joes) it is increasingly difficult to find products that are simple and not choc-full of preservatives and other crazy things.

And don’t even get me started on the difficulty of being vegetarian, especially since the FDA doesn’t require dairy manufacturers to list whether or not rennet is used (all they require is “enzymes,” which could of course be vegetable, microbial, or animal). Combine that with the desire to eat foods without a million unnecessary ingredients (I mean, come on, who puts gelatin in yoghurt?! That’s just lazy manufacturing) and suddenly my dinner plate gets more empty and/or my grocery bill sky rockets (groceries are actually far cheaper in the UK, believe it or not).

Needless to say, I am feeling happy to be back home. I’m happy to be back in a society where “I’m hungry” translates to heading back home to get dinner started, rather than an immediate need to feed on the closest available snackfood. I generalise heavily I know, but there’s something to be said for it. How can a person have a healthy relationship with food and their body when it’s all based on instant gratification and no knowledge (nor care) of what’s being put into their body?

To be healthy and happy with your body is to have respect for it, and that respect entails an understanding of the foods you eat and a healthy relationship with that food. I think people forget this, and hence comes the inevitable self-loathing in relation to the body, leading then to the roller coaster of fad-diets which again are another example of instant gratification.

I don’t care what the British say about the French; a healthy relationship with food is the one thing they have down pat, and I wish Americans (and also, increasingly, Britains) could somehow follow their lead.