Huevos Rancheros - Brunching in Sydney's Northern Beaches

Checking the surf

Last Christmas we went back to Sydney for a summer wedding of two of our close friends. We stayed for two amazing weeks of beaches, surfing, brunching and grazing over long coffees. Sometimes I really wondered why I left for Europe in the first place…

In Sydney, we used to live up in the Northern Beaches, in a beautiful small suburb called Fairlight just up the road from the famous Manly beach. Our place was about 5 minute walk down to the local Fairlight beach.

Carciofi alla Romana (Roman Stuffed Artichokes) - Seasonal Eating

Artichokes from Oerlikon Markt

Cooking with in-season vegetables is a pretty easy and cheap way to practice sustainable eating. It minimises the emissions generated from transporting these vegetables from far away farms. Plus, you keep your local farmers happy and it’s a good opportunity to put on your experimental masterchef hat.

Unlike in Australia where we could generally get vegetables at any time of the year for pretty cheap, eating seasonally is anyway something that Europeans have already been doing for a very long time. I guess when the climate is harsher you’re left with no choice but to be resourceful!

Red velvet cupcake with Bailey's cream cheese frosting: Happy Valentine's Day from Zurich!

I caved in and decided to do Valentine's baking after a boring day of doing admin work for my thesis. I was initially going to do macarons but that failed miserably so ended up with a red velvet cupcake instead. For a first try I thought it was ok, nothing like Magnolia Bakery's version of course  (I don't have enough butter in the fridge to do that).... As for the Bailey's, well any excuse for booze on Valentine's right? 

Yankee crab cakes with tartare sauce: a week of loving New York, New York (part 1)

(Clockwise from top left): Ballet at the Lincoln Centre; Waiting for the show; Runners at Central Park (very Juno); Manhattan skyline from Brooklyn

NYC came calling the week after my Paris winter school, which came as a nice break. M’s brother and his beautiful family (which includes the most beautiful blonde baby boy in the world) have recently relocated to New York for a couple of years. As this was the first time we were finally in the same hemisphere for a while, of course we couldn’t pass an opportunity to visit!

This was our second NYC trip this year and I thought our autumn visit was much nicer. The only hordes of tourists that we saw were the runners who were in town for the NYC marathon. It’s a mega-sell out event and people come from all over the world… to run 42km across NYC. Clearly, I have yet to discover the joys of long distance running... Anyway, all NYC marathon finishers get this really big medal and it was quite cute to see people still wearing them even in the days after the race.

Galettes: cheap eats in Paris!

Montmartre at dusk.
Sacre Coeur (L), throngs of tourist trying to take arty photos of that pointy tower at sunset (M), an artist hard at work (R)

The past couple of months have been full of hectic travelling for both work and fun, going from super-hot to super-freezing weather! But this also meant lots of feasting in between, which has unfortunately resulted in coming home to Switzerland with an extra 3 kilos of food baby… (detox starts next week).

Peanut Free Sweet Chicken Satay (Sate Ayam Manis)

Jajanan Solo (Solo 'snack' foods)

I blame my sweet tooth on the wonderful Solonese food that I grew up on. Solo is located in Central Java with a magnificent regal culture. It's so obsessed with royals that they decide to upkeep four kingdoms in the area the size of Adelaide, each with its own batik print and imperial outfits. (Kate Middleton eat your heart out). And of course, the amazing, sometimes verging on ridiculously unhealthy obsession with eating (sweets containing half a kilo of sugar AND condensed milk, tripe soup, fried intestine crackers, anyone?).

Sustainable Eating

Who knew that food has a pretty bad environmental impact! (From www.weact.ethz.ch)

Last week, with a group of friends I signed up to do this one month of living, eating, and travelling sustainably. Admittedly, it's pretty embarrassing that I've only started this now, considering now that every day I write, research and learn about the economics of renewable energy, reducing carbon emissions, and putting the brakes on excessive consumption. It's probably time to walk the talk a bit :) 


It's pretty common knowledge biggest energy-intensive/carbon-emitter culprits are the electricity generation and transport sectors. But since demand of products/services in these sectors is derived from the final output, it turns out that the food industry has been pretty naughty contributing to 31% of total anthropogenic (a fancy word for human-driven) emissions. If you think of how much energy is used to convert that happy little cow in the paddock to into the chunk of steak in your gob, it all adds up: the farming, land use, transporting, cooling, lots and lots of wrapping and packaging, more cooling at the supermarket, and finally cooking.