A Pina Colada, por favor!

What did I know about Mexico before arrival? Not that much, except for great food and drink, the rest I heard was on the news and it was not good...
So, I decided to ignore that, except the food and drink part, and experience everything with an open heart.
What happens when you open your heart? You, of course, fall in love :)




After a long flight and a great welcome party, a gorgeous sun rising from the Caribbean prepared us for a great first day.

This is my first Club Med experience and I'm impressed. The resort is amazing with all the activities you can imagine and so beautiful!















And the food? Super buffet's with great variety of food, something for everybody.
















Not to forget the fruit!




Or drinks :)!




But it's still a hotel resort and you could be "anywhere", so we packed our water bottles and took a bus to Tulum, an ancient Mayan ruin.
It's beautiful, and the setting by the sea is unique, just breath taking!




Now thirsty for more culture we took the bus to Chichen Itza the following day and except for the beach, Tulum lost at comparison. I know it's a bit of a drive, but so worth it!
In Chichen Itza the atmosphere is undescribable, almost serene. It has an energy to it I can't explain. I felt like I'd traveled in time and expected that behind the next corner some Toltek warriors would be doing their thing.
We arrived at Chichen Itza very early (and it was not one of the solstaces that collect 25.000 persons a day) so we could enjoy a quiet walk and as a bonus our guide Siw was amazing. We just had the perfect 3 hours hearing all the great Mayan stories!
















After a nice lunch and a splash in the pool we were off to Valladolid, a colonial style town.












Now I finally know I'm in Mexico!

On a very hot day, it was the perfect moment for ice-creams. A new experience was the apple chili one :)








In Valladolid we also met some locals...




After shopping for some gifts to take back home, Tequila, a silver pendant and chocolate, it was time to hop back on the bus and drive back to Cancun.

Tomorrow at departure, Mexico will break my heart.

Location:Boulevard Kukulkan,Cancún,Mexico

Good service requires large tips, right?

Wrong!

Tipping in US eats a lot of your travel budget.
First you have to get used to that taxes are not included in any marked prices or menus but are added later when paying to everything, food and everything else you shop, except for some foods and some clothes and... Well, it's very confusing..
And then you are expected to tip everybody! At the beauty salon, in the taxi and extra if you're helped with your bags, the hotel cleaning lady, the tour bus staff ( even though you paid a lot for the tour itself), the doorman, the concierge and of course at restaurants. Except restaurants, everywhere else you can get away with a few bucks, but nowadays also in taxis, when you pay with a card the machine automatically suggests tips starting from 15% and up. The option to add your own amount is not made easy.

Coming from a country where tipping is not required, it's ok to do it, but it isn't a main portion of anybodys salary, this becomes a hassle. Back home a 10% tip on a restaurant bill, even in a really nice restaurant is considered ok.

At US restaurants they no longer just mark the check with "gratuity not included" but they actually give you ready "options", 15% is this much, 18% is this much, 20% is...! And like at City Lobster they also mark what they think of your tip, 15% is $x and that is a good tip, 18% is $x and a very good tip and 20% is marked as an excellent tip. Even US travel guides suggest that you "just double the tax on your check and that works out great". ( in NY the tax is over 8%).

And the fact is, the dollar amount the waiter/staff gets is tied to the price level of the restaurant, even if the job is basically the same! A 3 course meal is the same amount of work everywhere. Just because you decided to go to City Lobster and eat.. well, lobster, instead of to Applebee's for a steak, you end up paying double the tip in dollars because of the price of the food, not the quality of the service.
Maybe there should be separate tips for food quality (kitchen staff) and waiters? Making the paying process in the US even more exciting :)

But then, consider this,

visiting the Apple Store at Grand Central Station last week, I was helped by a great guy called George. He was a real expert on the products he was selling, he made suggestions when needed, was fast and friendly and made me want to go back to the store.
Isn't that every company's dream, a frequent customer, not only because of the product but also for the service! And he wasn't expecting a tip for his work, since his employer actually pays him above minimum to do his job!

I know that the restaurant work force is massive, (much more staff than back home where you can't get a check without a 30 min wait) and salaries are expensive, but if customers didn't have to sell a kidney to afford tipping when eating out, wouldn't that attract more customers, hence more money?

New York is cheesy

I've always said that there is one thing that I don't bring home from US and that is cheese. Not just because customs don't like it but also because for me US cheese has been processed slices and Monterey Jack, quite boring.

But now suddenly, everything is different.

The first hint came from a friend who recommended a restaurant that has a big emphasis on cheese. They even have a cheese cellar. Artisanal Fromagerie & Bistro.



At Artisanal you can choose a great cheese flight or Fondue, or shop for the perfect cheese basket in their shop. My choice was a Frenchie: a brie, mushroom and black truffle oil filled grilled cheese sandwich.



It was actually so good that I would fly to NY just for it.... The bread was proper sliced breadloaf that was nice and crisp after been fried in a pan with butter.
Perfect!
For dessert I went for the warm chocolate cake with salted caramel ice-cream, another perfect choice.



This is another restaurant to add to my "must eat while in NY" list. The challenge is how to eat at new restaurants since there are so many old favorites.

Next time I'll eat in the cheese cellar!



Artisanal focuses mainly on International & French cheeses but another new domestic friend is Beecher's cheese. Right on Broadway, close to Madison Square Park Beecher's opened a cheese factory last June!



Seattle based, they only sell domestic cheeses and have a superb variety. They have a great staff that will help you choose and you get to taste as well :)



So, of course I emptied the store of cheese and bought a great cheese board made of slate that weighs waaaay too much to buy and try to get in my luggage. But I did it anyway :)



Another great thing I found in the store was a cheese magazine, Culture, the word on cheese. So, now I'm a subscriber of course :).

Yes, the word is out, New York is very cheesy!

Macaroon's country cousin

I love to try out new stuff in the kitchen, be it savory or sweet. I've had a proper Macaroon cook book for a while and I've actually baked the shells successfully but somehow I got stuck with buying the colors.
Then I found a recipe in a women's magazine that sounded delicious, so I decided to finally go for the whole thing.
But of course I never end up doing the actual recipe, I start to modify it, even before I know if the actual recipe works... smart, huh?...

The recipe was for "chocolate filled blueberry-almond pastries". Sort of a Macaroons country cousin.And they are supposed to look like this:

So first a lot of whisking to make the egg whites and sugar glossy and stiff.

Since I don't think blueberries are that exciting, except in blueberry pie, I decided to change the dried and ground blueberries to blackcurrants.

The doubts of success set in when the shells were in the oven almost double the time without getting crisp, like basic shells without any add-ons would.

If they turned out ugly, people would have to eat them with their eyes closed. With the ingredients I had, they still would taste great :)

Then for the chocolate paste filling. If you have chocolate, butter and cream, how could that not taste good?

All's well that ends well! They might not be the prettiest Macaroon country cousins, but I promise, they taste great with your eyes closed!

P.S. With all those dried blackcurrants in the dough, I thought I would have a strong currant flavor, but actually, none so far. They are supposed to set for 2 days so I hope at least SOME currant flavor will appear tomorrow for the main event. 

Do you do fondue?

How lucky I am to work for a company that has their European HQ in Zurich, Switzerland, the land of gorgeous, smelly cheese. And that I get to visit a few times a year.
I know the French do great cheese as well, as most countries in Europe do, but I think I love Switzerland the most because of the fondue.

I don't know when this fixation, some might call it an obsession (and several do) with cheese started, but I do remember a crazy fondue party in the beginning of the '90s... There was 4 people around a small pot waiting for the cheese to melt, there was stringy cheese in one persons hair (you know who you are) and a wrestling match for that last fork full. So, this is not a new thing.

I own one of those really bad, cheap fondue pots that are so thin that it burns the cheese every time. After seeing the Swiss pots I wanted a proper one for cheese and separate for oil in cast iron as well.

So time to go shopping for the cheese pot.
I thought this was an easy thing, that you go in the store, choose between the two they have, and walk out.
This might be the case in most other countries, but not in Switzerland... At Globus, a big department store in downtown Zurich, you can find more than ten different models, sizes and colors of the pots. There's ceramic and cast iron, plain colored and different patterns, cheap and not so cheap.






There is even one that suites induction stoves, the red one with the checkered pattern, my final choice.

So, now I have the pot, time for the cheese. Even there there is a lot of choice. There are ready grated, different kinds of mixes and of course a lot of variety to be found at the cheese counter. And at the counter the friendly staff will let you sample as well :)




But no way I was going to wait until I got home to have some fondue, new pot or not. In Zurich fondue can be easily found, but my favourite place is guarded by Rudolf the red nosed... cow,



the Swiss Chuchi that offers all kinds of Swiss specialities.



Nothing beats a hot pot of molten cheese on a cold day!

February fun and food in freezing Finland

I like being a tourist in my own city, you get to do all those things you seldom do otherwise because you take them for granted or don't even think about.

Helsinki is a great place to visit, we have sea, sometimes sun and the city center wrapped up nicely in a package to see in one day on foot.

Yesterday wasn't so much about being a tourist but trying to escape the bitterly freezing weather. Even Helsinki has suffered over -20 degrees temperatures and Finland now has a new low temperature record of more than -40. So you really don't want to be outside, well, at least I don't, no matter if the sun shines..

The plan was to visit Hakaniemi Food Hall ( Hakaniemen Kauppahalli) for an excursion before our food date, since my friend had never been there. The food hall has been around since 1914 so soon it's time for the first centennial party.

At the food hall you can find any and every delicacy you're looking for. Bread and pastries, cheese (the Flying Cow, Lentävä lehmä, shop being my favorite), fresh fish and meat (you can also buy horse meat), ready made foods, French delicacies at Deli, Deli, Polish food for some strange reason, spices, veggies ( a lot of organic on offer), fresh ground coffee, sushi plus a lot more.

And all this is only downstairs, then we have upstairs with loads of great small shops, for example Marimekko has a shop there + a lot of knick-knack stalls that could take you hours to explore with a nice stop at the cafe.

The best day to visit is during weekdays during the day, if possible, Saturdays are very crowded so it's a bit hard to just walk around taking in the smells and the ambiance with thousands of patrons. We bought some nice tulips, marengues for the dessert and some dried berries. We also met a friend from work who gave us an idea for our evening activity.

February second was also the Restaurant Day. A day when anyone can open a restaurant for a day. This was the fourth time the event was organized (it started in May 2011) and it has grown from 40 restaurants in 13 Finnish towns to over 300 restaurants in over 40 towns, and now it's happening abroad as well. Good job Finland!

Not even the freezing cold weather stopped all these food enthusiasts from spreading the joy! We met the Hog & Apple crew in Karhupuisto who were struggling with keeping their gas bottle warm (what lovely challenges cold weather brings..) Their menu was great!

Then we visited the Butterfly Bakery stall with great brownies and green tea macarons and I even got a picture of the pastry chef who'd made them :)

After some pesto lasagna, red wine and Eaton Mess it was time to take my work colleague up on her tip and walk down to the Senate Square (Senaatintori) to see some "water art", ice lanterns, made during the day.

"Wonderwater develops projects around the world aimed at raising awareness of global water issues and design for a sustainable future".

Unfortunately the display was a bit disapointing, I expected great BIG sculptures but reality was a bit different.

Helsinki is the World Design Capital 2012 so in that perspective it's a shame that this was "all there was" especially since this was supposed to be the big wow thing of the day. I know the main event was during the day with many VIP's doing their own "water art" on location, but still..

After looking at the frozen toilet for a while we took a last picture of the real art work at the Senate Square and went to order some hot chocolate with mint liquor before our lips stopped moving all together due to the freezing cold weather. A sweet ending to the day.