Happy Friendsgiving!

Last night we hosted a Thanksgiving dinner at our apartment.  Chef Ryan cooked all of the traditional sides and we cheated again this year by purchasing roasted chickens from the market instead of turkey (cooked turkeys cost a few hundred dollars here, craziness!).  Guests brought a variety of appetizers, salads, sides, and desserts. Between the 11 of us, we still couldn't even finish half of the food because there was so much of it!

In attendance for the evening was an international group, we had friends from the US, Switzerland, Italy, Mexico, Argentina, and Germany.  It is always fun to introduce non-US friends to the tradition of Thanksgiving. Over the past two years we have found that the show-stealer is the sweet potato dish with roasted marshmallows, we get so many compliments on how much everyone loves it and never would have thought such a dish or combination of foods existed.

Happy early Thanksgiving to all of our family and friends! Hope you are excited for the short work week and are looking forward to celebrating the holiday with family and friends!

Our fireplace is decked out for the holidays

The boys enjoying a glass of wine while Giovanni cooks pasta to accompany the meal (note Giovanni's turkey hat and the Movember wine markers)

Digging into the meal!

Hi friends!

A few weeks of relaxation, reloading, and restarting healthy habits

Apologies for the radio silence on my end friends, nothing all that "blog worthy" has been happening in this household over the past few weeks. After a month of traveling, eating, and spending money non-stop in October, Ryan and I decided to designate the beginning of November as a time to detox from our crazy lives for a few weeks, translation: relax, reload, and restart healthy habits. We have been working out again and cooking new, healthy recipes at home. We have also been trying to accomplish as many of our wedding planning tasks as possible so that when ski season arrives we have lots of time to hit the slopes. November is a typically dreary, rainy month in Switzerland's cities; but, we don't mind because it gives us an excuse to relax (and play with Pumpkin) and it means that the mountain tops are piling up with snow!

After our relaxing early November, here is what is on the calendar for the upcoming months:

Next weekend: hosting our second annual Thanksgiving for American and non-American friends
End of November: headed to Berlin for the weekend to celebrate a friend's birthday and check out the city
Mid-December: headed back to the US for a few days for a work training and then headed to Jordan (!) to visit my brother (Andrew)
Week of Christmas: fly back to Switzerland with Andrew and it will be just the three of us this year for Christmas, sniff sniff :( But, we are excited to have Andrew with us and we plan to make the most of the situation by decking the house in decorations, opening presents, lounging in our PJs, going to the mountains in the afternoon to stay with friends and enjoying a big Christmas dinner and skiing.
Week of New Years: Ryan's brother and his fiance visit for the first week in January and there is lots of skiing on the docket! Ryan and I have approximately 2 weeks off over the holidays which will be fantastic!

What are your holiday plans? Are you taking it easy or going the adventurous route and doing some traveling?

All good things must come to an end... in Italy

Tomorrow is my first day back to work in Switzerland after a 3 week quasi vacation, I'm really not looking forward to getting back to the grind.  Fortunately, I was able to cap off my vacation with a long weekend trip to Italy with friends.  We went to the Piemonte region for the Alba International Truffle Fair. Our friends have been making the pilgrimage to this area of Italy each year to attend the fair and taste the amazing wine and food of the region.  The Piemonte region of Italy is known for its strong red wines such as Barbera, Barolo, Dolcetto, Nebbiolo, Barbaresco, among others. The majority of the vineyards are small, family owned lots with stunning properties and views. With the fall season upon us, the vineyards spread into the horizon in an array of different colors, appearing like a patchwork quilt.  This description from Lonely Planet perfectly captures the essence of the area:

Sometimes referred to as ‘Tuscany without the tourists’, Piedmont’s undulating hills striped with vineyards bear more than a passing resemblance to its famous southern counterpart. But, inexplicably, many visitors to Italy bypass this picturesque region. The first trickle of tourism, stemming mostly from Switzerland and Germany, only began in Piedmont (Piemonte) a decade ago. Today it remains a haven of tranquillity where you can meander among the vines and sip wine in castle cellars.

In-the-know foodies seek out Piedmont’s white truffles, hazelnuts, chocolates, and vintages such as Barberesco, Barolo and sparkling Asti. Its abundance of fresh produce and artisan traditions inspired the Slow Food Movement here, which is based around savouring the simple pleasures in life – an art which the Piedmontese have perfected.

Piedmont will leave you wondering when the crowds will finally catch on – and being thankful that they haven’t, yet.

We spent the weekend visiting many vineyards and fantastic restaurants, which all offered the option to add shaved truffle to your meals.  An interesting side fact: one amazing 8 course meal cost us 25 Euros a person while the truffle shavings on top cost 45 Euros per person!

I just can't get enough of this scenery! Gorgeous!

Truffle selection at lunch - you choose which truffles you want, the server weighs them and tells you the price, and then the truffles are shaved on everyone's meals as they come out. Because truffles have such a strong flavor, we chose 3 truffles to last us through 9 people and 3 courses and it was more than enough! 

Smelling the truffles

Italians love their beef carpaccio, which to us Americans, resembled a raw hamburger patty with truffles on it... it tastes alright, but it is still slightly disturbing to our American-trained mentality of "must never eat raw beef"

Wine tasting at Cavallatto

The group at Cavallatto

Wine tasting room at Paolo Manzone, fabulous wines!

Our wine tasting "notes", check out the great prices

Ryan and our friends' dog checking out the cellar at Paolo Manzone

The guys with Paolo Manzone

The fun continues at dinner with more beef carpaccio, this time in the shape of a meat ball!

Checking out the cellars at Elio Grasso

Thousands of bottles, maturing in the cellar 

Wine maturing in oak barrels

Entering the truffle festival

The food and wine stalls at the truffle fair, each vendor is selling products containing truffles or regional specialties

Patchwork quilt views...

Italy, you sure have perfected "la dolce vita" (the sweet life)!!