This weekend was a good one! In celebration of the start of my winter vacation, Geneva's weather system which alternates between freezing and clear and raining heavily decided to avoid the raining heavily aspect for two fourays into Geneva proper for myself and a roud round of rambunctious royalits. Well, and one other American. We aren't royalists.
It all began with Polly (of ALICE Matters interview fame) volunteering me to cook some fajitas for a group of her friends, which I was eminently in favor of since I both love cooking and love meeting people, especially people as amusing as these turned out to be.
Our dramatis personae reads as follows:
Polly Bennet: Royalist - bringer together of this little group and supplier of a flat where we could cook said fajitas. She is the only person who can manage to keep a fire going in her thrice accursed wood stove. I'm not bitter.
Morag Hickman: Quite possibly has one of the coolest obsessions I've ever come across. She... learns things. All sorts of things, most of which she has taught herself. She is talented at picking up discout
Laurel Coffey: The American respresentative to the group and a minority until I joined up. She works at ATLAS which is probably the place you envision me working at except I'm working at ALICE. ATLAS is the one that gets all the press. Laurel is a PhD student and is unamused by the lack of Mexican food on this continent, so she was perhaps the most enthusiastic of the bunch on the idea of fajitas.
Monique Tsang: half American, half English, half Chinese, she completes the balance of this little group by adding equal parts US and England. The way she gets away with this is she lived several years in the US and has lived the past several years in the UK and is currently living in Geneva all the while, if you can believe it, having been born in China. Quite a talent, that. She's quite entertaining, outgoing, and throws out phrases like "let's get some cheese and crumpets, yo!" thus mixing 90's american culture with various britishisms.
The hall is rented, the orchestra engaged, it's now time to see if we can dance (props if you get the reference). The start of our adventure begins with me buying more chicken than I possibly thought we could eat and making a delightful marinade out of lime juice, balsamic vinegar, olive oil, onion, garlic, tequila, and red wine all sort of thrown in as I felt like it and sturred before dousing the chicken and letting it sit over night. As it happened this was delicious (once cooked).
The next day began with Polly and Morag picking me up to head into Geneva for the day. Fortunately, things are open on Saturday and everyone and their mother was around doing Christmas shopping, and we were no different. We visited all sorts of stores and places that I don't want to tell you about because I bought presents at some of them. So this part of the story is shorter than the rest. We met up with Monique at the train station in Geneva later and headed back for Fajitas!
We picked up the chicken at my place as well as wine (no wine does not go with fajitas beer does, but this is France dammit!) and headed off to Polly's flat for a fun evening of cooking and, most importantly, eating. Larel met up with us there and we all set to, with everyone helping. I made some guacamole which really wasn't very good, but as those of you who have tasted my guac when I have the right ingredients can attest do, this was hardly my fault. I tried mixing in lime juice and coriander which while not too bad, did not do enough to cover the horrible quality of the avocados (one of which was almost falling apart, the other of which was barely starting to be ripe). We had a third avocado which was basically made of green plastic that I couldn't do much with. Morag made some coriander and lime sandwiches which were actually quite good (if you like coriander and lime).
Laurel brought some delicious pico de gallo that she made herself as well as nacho materials that we had as an appetiser. The cheddar cheese over here is rather sharper than one finds in Mexican restaurants in the US, but it was still good. I then started with the chicken, ending with the assistance of Morag who did something with the chicken that doubtless those of you who cook often would say "duh" to. But as most of my cooking has been my own experimenting, it hadn't occurred to me. She got the pan quite hot until all the remaining liquid has boiled off and the onions started to carmelize, then put in about half the chicken (already mostly cooked) and kept it on high until it had started to brown delightfully and was no longer somewhat soggy (even if it tasted good). As it happened this was a perfect touch and I greatly approved.
We then laid out grated cheese, sour cream (made from plane yogur and, I'm not sure, alchemy or something. I wasn't around for its making), guacamole, salsa that isn't but still tasted ok, the chicken, and some amazing spiced rice that Polly cooked and ate every last scrap. It satisfied both Laurel and my craving for Mexican quite well (though I would have preferred a good guacamole) and I think it was a huge success with everyone. We all sat around chatting and either drinking tea (the English do this well), or wine (the French do this well) while Polly prepared dessert.
Dessert was a pear cake made from scratch with big ol' huge honking delicious juicy chunks of pear throughout. It was amazing and wrapped up the night perfectly. I started to light a fire before polly physically picked me up and threw me across the room because "I wasn't doing it right" and started it herself. The fire caught for a while, but started dying because the ratio of giant log to kindling was low (also there isn't much room for building a proper tepee and none for building a log cabin in the stove). Despite my attempts to save it (polly was baking) and all I really did was introduce smoke to the room which smelled nice but also was probably not good for us or the flat. So I sulked for a while until cake cheered me up.
We talked and enjoyed ourselves for a few hours before Laurel kindly drove us all home.
The next day the weather was again nice and we headed into geneva for L'Escalade. This is a celebration of a time when the swiss drove off the invading French in 1609? Possibly 1602. I dont really care to look it up. Anyway, the fort was under seige and the French were beaten off by some famous woman whose name I cant remember who threw boiling hot soup out the window at them. I assume the Swiss army was involved somehow as well, but that is less important. Celebrations involved small groups of pikemen, drummers, and piccolo...ists marching around the old town while street vendors sell mulled wine (dear Lord I love mulled wine), hot vegetable soup, and raclet. It was quite fun, even if muskets going off occasionally do cause one to jump a bit. Sadly Monique wasn't able to make it until later when we all were getting tired, so she was unable to join us.
We wandered around for a while enjoying the noise and the old town (and the mulled wine in my case) before trying to find some friends of Laurel who "were by the cannon in the old town with a red umbrella." We kept following the sound of explosions hoping it would turn out to be a cannon (it was supposed to fire every 20 minutes) but it was always muskets. We eventually wandered into the part of the old town that Oz and I had been to previously, and then into the park on the edge of the old town where we ate lunch whilest in Geneva. Oz will remember defeting me on a giant chess board? We went past that. All quite nostalgic.
We wandered back up the hill towards the muskets and came back to a square we had been through before to find a tall British guy with a red umbrella! As it turns out the cannons, well hidden, we had been past at least twice and failed to notice. Oh well! We all went to stand in line to go through a secret passage way that the open only once a year for people to go through, so that was kinda neat (if very narrow). We then separated again and we wandered off to find food. Not much was open, but I did find a McDonalds. Before you shout bloody murder at me for eating there when french food exists, it was open and it was cheap, and I tend to try various McDonalds around the world. None quite get it right (though this one was better than most).
We headed back shortly after eating having declared it a successful day. I had wanted to get a traditional chocolate thing for Katarina (landlady's daughter), but I was unable to find one except in some shops that were closed... I had thought they would be at street vendors along with the other traditional items of mulled wine and soup. Oh well. The traditional chocolate thing is a chocolate cauldron with marzipan vegetables that is for kids who dont like vegetable soup (so, you know, for kids).
Thus ended our excapade, and a fun one it was. I returned home to pack as I am going back to the US today (as I write this I'm 20 minutes from catching a shuttle to the airport). I'll be in New York for a week or so at STAR again before going home for Christmas! I can't wait. The one damper in all this is my body decided now was the perfect time to catch a cold. I haven't had a cold for over a year and it decides to get sick just before an international flight when I have a FINAL EXAM the following morning. Ugh. James is not amused. Anyways, I'll survive. Hope to see many of you soon! A week or so. I dont know if I'll be updating or not over Christmas, but I will return to Geneva on the 17th of January and shall at least continue then.
Later all!
caio!
-James
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