Very much in love with the croissants from the portuguese bakery further down our street. Perfect for long breakfasts at home during cold, rainy and sick days in November. They’re not just the best portuguese croissants I have tasted in Switzerland, they are better than many, many croissants I have eaten back home. They are moist and dense inside, a little crunchy on the outside and they unwrap perfectly. Because that’s what you do – unwrap croissants. You also may or may not spread some butter on the dissassembled parts. Anyway, not really bothered about socially correct when eating croissants.
8 year old Mathilde has been consolidating her reading skills by turning into a boowkorm. This makes me smile. At her age, I also devoured book after book from the library, I snuck books under my pillow and my matress, which I read with the faint light coming in from the corridor. I fell asleep countless times over with the lamp on, and wasted away many many flashlight batteries for the same reason. I smiled even more when I found a french version of Roald Dahl’s Matilda in Mathilde’s room. I read Matilda in English, I gave it to my baby sister in Portuguese, and now I asked Mathilde to lend me the french version. It might just end up being the first french book I manage to finish.
Speaking of Roald Dahl, I have been listening to Desert Island Discs archives and I found the episode with Roald Dahl. I find his dark sense of humour amusing.
Also in the DID archives, Edmund Hillary.
Something else I’ve been reading: Thinking in Pictures, by Temple Grandin. A few years ago, I went down a curiosity rabbit hole on autism, and I read Catherine Maurice’s book about her experience with two autistic children. I saw the movie about Temple Grandin and I also borrowed this book from the library. At the time, it gave me a glimpse into the autistic mind and it was all out of sheer curiosity, but right now I am re-reading all of this because it is directly related to my work.
This week, I went to a friend’s PhD presentation about her pharmacogenetic and clinical study on the metabolic side-effects of psychotropic drugs and her presentation was as fancy and interesting as it sounds. In the apéro, I found myself stuffing my face with grandma-made bricelets, some with poppy seeds and others with cumin seeds. Everyone who knows me knows how much I love all things grandma-made, all the more so if they are local specialities. Because of things like this, there is a growing space in my belly and in my heart bearing a white cross over a red background.
I have been eating a lot of supermarket soup, which doesn’t sound very good. It actually is and this minestrone is my favourite. I have been thinking about what I can cook that will make dinner simple on Tuesday and Wednesday nights when we have sports until late, and which are precisely the eve of the working days when I need to pack a lunch for work. Last Sunday, I tried my hand at Rachel Roddy’s minestrone and it really hit the spot, reheated on Tuesday night and on Wednesday lunchtime. The recipe linked here is from Rachel’s Guardian column, but I followed the one in her book, which Jo gave me a couple of years ago.
quince cheese 