November Days

THE Autumn Menu

When this season rolls around every year, it brings my favorite menu items: along with the venison and Wildschwein come the spiced pears, wild cranberries (Preiselbeeren), caramelized Chestnuts  (Maroni), pickled red cabbage (Rotkraut), wine gravies, and all the melded flavors. 

This past weekend, Better Half and I went to our new village’s newcomers welcome day. In Switzerland, one is a part of a local community, not just a citizen of the country. When one moves, you sign off in one place and re-register in a new place. *(Note though, you can still send me mail at the old address. After a quarter century, I don’t wish to change hundreds of contact addresses. Our young people collect it for me, and I get it quite regularly.) We were given a very blustery but informative guided walk through the village to hear about the glory days of weavers and embroiderers, when a great deal of money passed through the region. Swiss textiles were exported world wide to all fashion markets, and most were made in this region. Special houses were designed for the trade, with particular windows for various jobs. This is now the “Appenzeller style.” But also note: as usual, a few people got very rich, but the handworkers were pitifully poor, so Appenzell is still thought of as a poor Swiss canton. Partly this is because from the time of the World Wars, when exports were halted, and afterward when countries like the US started their own textile markets (why send your cotton to Switzerland, to be woven into cloth and embroidered, when all the new immigrants can do the labor at home?), the textile workers had to return to subsistence farming to survive.

Anyway, after that tour, we went to a very fine restaurant for dinner, with such a menu as described above, with fresh baked sourdough loaves, our venison grilled on the open fire a few steps away, the accoutrements, wine, and painted decor. When you come to visit, we will take you there. 

I don’t have any pictures from that, but on Sunday we celebrated a birthday in the family, so we had a big gathering at another nice place, and I did get a pictures.

Nüsslisalat mit Speck und Eier. That’s bacon and egg on cress. 

White with appetizers and salad

Red with meal

Lecker = delicious 

Cinnamon apple rings

The season

The place - this used to be a Post coach stop in another age.