indoor passage

As I try to stay calm and not think about the impending ash cloud that is threatening my upcoming trip back home (montreal), I realize that I ate my through 3\4 of the strawberry and rhubarb pie! (honestly it's a great recipe even if i didn't use tapioca!)

Enough is enough, I decide to head out for a walk for another calming activity, shopping! My husband G. is worried that a cancelled trip will get too expensive :-)
It's quite windy out, so after I have let M. run around wild in the center square, I decide to head home by a different route and use the 'indoor passageway'. I didn't realize this at first, but it is an actual shopping 'arcade' as they call it here...equivalent to Montreal's underground shopping network, except that you are at ground level. The masterminds behind the renovation of this area are Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron of Basel, Switzerland. It's called the Fünf Höfe, which means five courty ards, because it is literally an area of five connected courtyards. There is one courtyard that I enjoy strolling through, not for the shops but for the scenery above!





I am not sure if my photos capture the detail, but the plants are real and almost 10m long!



















M. loves to stop and admire it herself!

Sign language is for the birds

Although my daughter -M.is only 20 months old, she has quite a developed palate, in Italian we say buongustaio. At 9 months she decided that she was going to stop eating the mush, that most babies all around the world eat (she made that clear by throwing it on the floor).
At that point she started eating 'adult food'(cut up in smaller pieces btw, because she still didn't have any teeth) with her hands, why use cutlery, when you can lick your grubby little fingers...hmmm.

Now just because she eats with her fingers doesn't mean she has a fine palette, but the fact that she likes 80% dark chocolate' does. Back in Italy, one of her favorite dishes, was 'galletto con scarola' (cockerel with escarole lettuce). It may sound awkward but the meat is tender and makes an incredible savory broth. So the other day I decided enough of the 'wurst' (sausage) let’s go back to our mediterranean diet.

Not having a butcher close by, I decided to head to the only outdoor market in the center i know of, 'the viktualienmarkt', expecting and accepting to 'pay for it'.
I let M. run loose for awhile and when I finally found a shop that didn't only have sausages hanging from the window, I walked in. Obviously, the vendor didn't speak English so as I asked for cockerel, I had to flap my arms, like a bird. She looked at me strangely and pointed to some chickens....I said 'nien huhn' (not chicken) I looked at the poultry section, and came across, what looked like to me a 'galletto'. I pointed and she said 'Bird, from France, you know (flap flap with her arms), very famous'. Okay, close enough, I'll take it, the French are very picky eaters too!

Back home, I start to prepare the galletto as my mother in law taught me...oil, garlic, onions, sauté a little bit of tomatoes, then add the bird....and finally water and greens, and a parmesan rind as the final touch. I leave it alone while playing with M. and once she has run out of things to play with its done! I start to cut up the meat, and realize that it's rather brown. Maybe it's duck, I think to myself, but strangely the vendor didn't go 'quack quack' when she sold it to me?

I finally decide to use my German dictionary ...well 'junge taube' means young pigeon! And mine cost me 12€ probably because it flew in from France!

Needless to say, I am dropping the sign language and bringing a pocketbook dictionary, next time I go shopping.