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And my personal favorite…

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Namaste my friends!

Good.

This week my iPhone didn’t have any interesting pictures to post…I guess I wasn’t as snap happy as usual. Instead of a weekly life update, I’m going to tell you about these 5 kitchen utensils that I missed dearly during our move. Though our temporary housing had a kitchen, the basic kitchen essentials didn’t live up to my standards. I know, I know, I should probably add a #firstworldproblems to that statement. That aside, I’m still going to tell you what I would add to the kitchen must-haves list.

1. A microplane grater. It’s just so much easier to grate…and how would you zest without one? It doesn’t work, I tried.

2. Measuring cups & spoons. Can’t bake without ‘em. Enough said.

3. An immersion blender. Or a regular blender. Smoothies, soups, and margaritas are necessary.

4. Good knives. These ones above are one of the 3 things on my wedding registry. I swear the fun factor of cooking increases ten fold when you use good knives. Bad knives cause frustration, not relaxation.

5. A Cast-Iron Skillet. I used to hate my skillet because it was so heavy, but I got over it and won’t go back. You can read all about the greatness here.

And there we have our Friday Fünf, kitchen supply style.

Happy weekend everyone!

Which is when I find myself in Starbucks.

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So, I walked into Starbucks for the first time in Zurich and I ordered a chai latte. At home, I would never just order a chai latte; it would be a grande, three pump, nonfat, chai latte. But, I was scared and didn’t want to sound like the picky American girl.

The second time, I got a little braver, but I tried to simplify my order so they would understand. I went up to the counter and said, “Can I have a grande chai latte, with a lower fat milk, and can you possibly make it a little less sweet than normal?” The girl behind the counter asks, “Do you want nonfat or lowfat?” I replied, “Nonfat please.” Then the girl behind the counter turns to the girl making the drinks and says, “grande, nonfat, three pump chai latte.”

Ahhh. A smile immediately formed on my face. What a relief. Starbucks is still as normal as ever.

Since then, I have been back once or twice (I’m not made of money and these Swiss Starbucks ain’t cheap) and my normal order has worked like a charm. The one thing that is different here is that my name is not common in Switzerland, so the baristas’ spelling is always interesting. At home, the spelling was usually wrong, but it was at least a version of my name. Here I have gotten “Kidney” and “Kitelin” to name a few. I found it a little funny since this type of thing hasn’t happened to me before, so I did what any social media savvy girl my age would do and posted it on Instagram.

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Let me back track one minute to preface the rest of this story.  There is this free pop culture magazine that comes out every Friday called 20 Minuten. The most popular section is called In and Out which shows you what fads are “in” this week and what is sooo “out.” I’ve heard that the Swiss live by this, especially the teenagers, and read it every week so they know what to wear and how to act. Swiss follow the rules, and I guess this In and Out section supplies the pop culture rules to live by. I’ve always been intrigued to see what it says but I can’t read it because there are no pictures, and let’s face it, my German knowledge is nichts (I even had to look that up- it means nothing I think).

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Ok, now back to the day I posted my Starbuck’s cup on Instagram. I was on the train on a rainy Friday afternoon and was checking out the 20 Minuten magazine. I scrolled through and looked at the pictures of train-wreck Lindsay Lohan and outfits to buy this Spring. It’s amazing how fast you can read a magazine when you only look at pictures. Some twenty-somethings sat down next to me, drinking their beers, and talking in English because it seemed one of their friends only spoke English. They grabbed the 20 Minuten and started reading the In and Out section out loud. My ears perked up because finally I got to know what it said! It turns out headbands are very in right now and so is some singer that I have never heard of. As it also turns out, it is sooo last week to update your social media sites with pictures of how Starbucks baristas misspelled your name on your cup. Thank goodness I am no longer a teenager, because instead of being mortified, the pure coincidence made my day.

I guess in my search for American normalcy, I am a Zurich outcast. Luckily, I already knew that.

Our Nuremburg friends organized the trip, and 6 of us stayed in a rented apartment from airbnb. It was a relaxing weekend filled with lots of wandering around, bike riding, whining while bike riding, red light district culture shock, and heineken drinking.

Our one touristy event of the weekend was the Heineken Experience. Heineken happens to be Jon’s favorite beer, so it seemed to be necessary.

Besides the 4 beers that came with the ticket, it wasn’t anything to write home about. But we did get this pretty awesome picture.

Walking around the canals of Amsterdam and seeing the crooked buildings was entertainment enough. They are crooked whether you have 4 beers in you or not.

Oh the bikes. Have I mentioned I am a terrible biker?

I wish I enjoyed it, I really wish I did. But, at least I have proof that I rode one.

After a long day out and about, we enjoyed a night in making pizzas and playing a rousing game of Cards Against Humanity.

If this was any indication of weekends to come in Europe, I think we are going to do just fine here.

I know you have been waiting anxiously for my return, and it is finally here. In the past 4 months I have moved from one apartment in San Francisco to another, started a new job as a real estate agent, got engaged, started wedding planning, and packed up our new SF apartment to move to Switzerland.

Jon and I have always talked about moving abroad, especially when I was ready to quit my online marketing job. Of course, there were no opportunities within his international company when I was ready to move. The opportunity came about when I was actually feeling settled in my career and in our first apartment together. But, he got offered a position in the Zurich office of Marsh and there was no way we could pass up a chance to live and work abroad. (Well, let’s not kid ourselves- we live, but Jon does the working).

So, here I am, sitting in our temporary apartment near the city center of Zurich, Switzerland.  What am I going to do with myself you might wonder? Currently, I’m just trying to figure out everyday life and how to do simple errands. I’ve already been scolded at the grocery store for not properly weighing my fruit. But, I have great plans to be more than just a hausfrau! I plan to blog more, I plan to get certified to teach yoga, I plan to do marketing for The Dunn Team, I plan to babysit, I plan to run an etsy shop, I plan to learn Deutsch, and who knows what else. It’s a pretty crazy position to be in. Waking up in the morning, thinking, what do I do today? It’s a lil scary though…I’m a planner with a schedule. My days will soon fill up, I know, but in the meantime I am just taking time to enjoy the simple life.

Let me give you a little sneak peak of my days in Zurich thus far.

First, my dad sent Jon and I off on our adventure with some Swiss Franks since he knew the exchange rate wasn’t in our favor. Isn’t he clever?

Then, I arrived to snow. Loads of freezing cold snow. What is a born-and-raised California girl to do?  On the first day, I walked outside and immediately turned around. I went back inside and put on an extra sweater under my jacket and long johns under my jeans.  And I bought a fuzzy hat.

To warm myself up, I ate chocolate. And I am currently eating leftover Easter chocolate. And I will probably eat some form of chocolate everyday that I live in Switzerland. It just seems like a must, right?

I went to yoga in this cute little part of town. I already found my English speaking yoga class and I am a happy camper. One thing about the snow is that it does make everything look really pretty.

I made a Swiss version of hamburger pie. Raclette cheese has already won over my heart. We are fast friends and we already have plans to hang out again soon.

Just one week in and I am liking this city more each day. I feel like one lucky lady.

First up was Otto, a Mario Batali Italian restaurant. Grandma doesn’t like pizza, so when my aunt and I ordered prosciutto and arugula pizza to share, Gram decided that she would steal all the prosciutto off the top. The little bites we managed to try with the fancy thin ham were delicious. As we were walking out, we had a surprise Mario Batali sighting. We heard he lives across the street. Let’s just say it was a good thing that my grandmother didn’t notice him because she might have given him a piece of her mind about the worst brioche she’s ever had. The rest of the meal well made up for the brioche in my humble opinion.

My next encounter was with a sinful hole-in-the wall bakery. Levain. We went to buy a few rolls for the balloon party and instead ended up with all four types of cookies the bakery has to offer. The chocolate peanut butter cookie was exceedingly large and mmm good. If I lived nearby, I would have to run when passing in order to restrain myself from those cookies.

And then there was the Thanksgiving feast. Since we cooked for a group of about twenty five on Wednesday, we decided to go out to eat for the holiday. What a great choice. Collichio & Sons wined and dined us for the evening with white truffle pasta, scallops, juicy turkey and gravy, and good ole pumpkin pie. I was busy licking my fingers and forgot to take pictures.

Friday night, we decided to go a little on the lighter side with some sushi. My cousins picked Blue Ribbon Sushi where we got the blue ribbon special platter. I don’t usually like sashimi but it was so fresh that it melted in your mouth.

On Saturday, Jon’s dad wanted his usual weekend brunch, so off to Harlem we went. The Red Rooster treated us with amazing cornbread, chicken apple sausage, fried chicken sandwiches, and cheesy grits.

We didn’t eat again until our late French dinner at La Sirene with the Parisians. We enjoyed foie gras like it was legal, escargot like it wasn’t a snail, chocolate lava cake like it had no calories, and wine like it was BYOB (wait, it was!).

To end the vacation, we went to see a Broadway show called the Mystery of Edwin Drood. It was Charles Dickens last play and since he died before he finished the script, the audience got to decide the ending. After the show we headed to Sardis- you know that famous place in NYC with all the caricatures of famous people?

I guess my great gram took my gram after her first Broadway show; Gram took my aunt when she was sixteen for her first cocktail; my Aunt took my brother and cousins, and now my aunt and Gram took Jon and I.

And for our grand finale, we went back to where we started this food adventure; with Italian at Mercato. Lasagne, gnocchi, and strachiatelli, oh my.

Good thing we did yoga all week in order to keep our figures.

I arrived at the odd location in Soma and was surprised by how big the restaurant was. We were seated upstairs and a bottle of wine was quickly served by our sommelier. I lived vicariously through a Coachella weekend over our first glass of wine and then it was time to order. We decided to share a bit of everything, sans the vegetables. Who needs ‘em anyways?

We started with slow cooked pork belly, that were served atop a dumpling, with broccoli, and a poached egg.

Next up was pasta: Spagetthoni, spicy tomato sauce, and pancetta. It seems that all Italian restaurants in the city have this pasta that is thick, fresh and so delicious. I don’t know how they do it but I do know that I’ll be back for more.

And pizza- the reason why I wanted to come in the first place. We got the “Fillmore” pizza with lots of mushrooms and different cheeses. It was tasty, but I missed the red sauce.

Get ready for your mouth to start watering because I know mine did. They gave us a ‘customize-your-own dessert’ order form with a golf pencil… and customize we did. Chocolate lava cake, vanilla ice cream, mini chocolate chip macaroons, and hot fudge.

Overall, I think it was a perfect Friday night dinner spot. It was lively but your could still hear each other, it was normal SF priced, and was delicious.

Zero Zero

Address: 826 Folsom Street,  San Francisco, CA 94107 (SOMA District)

What you will probably spend: $40-$60 per person

Overall Rating (10 stars max): 8 stars

Highlights: Lively atmosphere, great pasta, make-your-own dessert

What to Try Next Time: Different Pizzas 

After dinner, we went to possibly the weirdest artistic event I have ever been to (think naked men covered in baby oil). Since we didn’t understand the art in this, we decided to find the art in mixology. A few Moscow and Kentucky Mules at Bloodhound…. and we called it a night. I came home to find the last piece of pizza wrapped in foil in my purse. The pizza may have even tasted better as a late night snack.

Ever since moving to San Francisco, I have had a hard time finding “my” sushi restaurant. The problem is, there are a lot of great tasting sushi restaurants in the city, but they are way too expensive to go to on a normal basis (and I crave sushi at least a few times a month). This past week, our non-sushi loving group member was off to Coachella, so the two of us decided to take advantage and try out a new sushi restaurant. We ended up at Domo Sushi in Hayes Valley and it was the perfect spot for a 2 person dinner date. The inside consists of one table and the rest is bar space. The bar faces Laguna street, so it was fun to be able to sit inside and people watch at the same time. We were able to experience the feeling of eating outside without having to deal with the inevitable cold of outside. Slowly but surely learning the SF weather tricks of the trade, I tell ya.

We started off with wine and miso soup (which will be left to your imagination since I forgot to take pictures) and shared two rolls:

The Spicy Hulk- spicy tuna & avocado, tobiko wrapped in a cucumber sheet with lemon panzu

and The Dragon Roll- shrimp tempura, avocado, & cucumber, topped with unagi & a special sauce

We didn’t realize the Spicy Hulk was a rice-less roll until it showed up. The roll had some great flavor, but I did miss the rice. Sushi just doesn’t seem like sushi without rice! The Dragon Roll was tasty, as it usually is, and the sweet sauce was a good addition. Overall, I really liked Domo sushi, it was pretty reasonably priced, and it was a good atmosphere. Unfortunately, it is not in my neighborhood so I probably won’t frequent it, but I would recommend it to anyone that is looking for sushi in that area.

The advantage of Domo being in Hayes Valley is that I finally got to try the famous made-to-order ice cream at Smitten. Smitten is this little trailer/food truck (but doesn’t move) in Alamo Square. They are known for freshly making your ice cream with a crazy machine and liquid nitrogen. As you enter, you immediately see the colorful chalk menu full of pictures of ingredients for each flavor of ice cream. It’s refreshing to know exactly what’s in your food, even if sugar is one of the first ingredients! The flavors are normal, and the topping selection is minimal, but I think simplicity is what they are going for. There are plenty of off-the-wall ice cream flavors at other SF ice cream shops (which I love trying), but nothing beats a great vanilla or chocolate ice cream. After examining the menu, the little red wagon led us to order our ice cream, and we followed the puff of smoke to watch our ice cream be made.

And a rich and creamy ice cream it did make.

Malted Vanilla with Chocolate Sauce

TCHO Chocolate with Brown Sugar Caramel

I could eat this everyday, no problem.

If you want great, simple ice cream combined with an out-of-the-ordinary ice cream experience, get yourself on over to Smitten.

And here is a quick recap of our Smitten with Sushi meal:

Domo Sushi

Address: 511 Laguna Street  San Francisco, CA 94102

What you will probably spend: $20-$40 per person

Overall Rating (10 stars max): 7 stars

Highlights: Bar for people watching, tasty rolls at a normal (for SF that is…) price, close to great dessert

What to Skip: The wine

and for dessert…

Smitten Ice Cream

Address: 432 Octavia Street  San Francisco, CA 94102

What you will probably spend: $5-$8 per person

Overall rating: 8.5 

Highlights: Experience of watching your ice cream made, creamy & simple ice cream

What I’m going to try next: The pistachio brittle since we heard we missed out!

Tonight the whole group is back in town and we are off to our “Thursday Night Dinner.”

On a Friday.

A non-school night.

I’d say there might be some extra glasses bottles of wine involved.

Reunited and it feels so good!

We explored the quaint city of Nuremberg for three days with some historical site seeing, beer drinking, bretzen eating, and trachten shopping.

We hopped over to Rothenburg ob der Tauber for one night and spent the day buying trinkets in the little funky stores, including the biggest year round Christmas store I have ever laid eyes on. I did not know so many Christmas decorations existed. An unnatural desire for christmas ornaments kicked in when I saw them in every color, design, and shape imaginable.

Most of Jon’s family has been to Rothenburg and, for whatever reason, has taken a jumping picture in the center of town. Needless to say, we had to do the same.

He might have gotten a little more air than me.

The last time I went to Germany, I was so close to buying a dirndl but I backed out due to the hefty price tag. My dad could not believe it as he informed me that it is a lifelong investment that everydunn needs.  I have witnessed him get a ridiculous amount of good use out of his leiderhosen over the years at Halloween, costume parties, etc. so there was no way I was going to skip this opportunity again. Luckily, Melissa might be an even bigger supporter of the German outfit than my father and accompanied us to all the trachten (traditional German clothing) shops in town until we found our prized outfits.

And let’s get to the good stuff…the food. Meat, sausage, potatoes, oh my! I’d say below is the men’s version of  what I like to call a three tiered beauty.

The food was heavier than I am used to but so flavorful. My grandma makes a mean sauerbraten, so when I recognized it on the menu among the other foreign German words I ordered it and I’m sure glad I did.

That and cheesy spaetzle were my favorite meals of the trip.

Jon somehow found beef goulash on the menu everywhere we went and did not hesitate when ordering it for the third, maybe fourth time. Let’s not forget the apfelstreusel for dessert!

The German portion of our trip went by too fast, but Vienna was awaiting us! Third and final part coming soon.

Onto my craving of the week: deviled eggs. I had these crab-stuffed deviled eggs at my friend’s house a few weeks ago and have been dying to have them again since. Easter is just around the corner anyway, right?

Crab Stuffed Deviled Eggs

Recipe Adapted from Bon Appetit on Epicurious.com

• 8 large hard-boiled eggs, peeled
• 3 tablespoons mayonnaise
• 1 1/2 tablespoons chopped fresh tarragon
• 1 tablespoon minced shallot
• 2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
• 1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1 teaspoon sriracha sauce
• 6-8 ounces canned or fresh crabmeat

Cut the peeled, hard-boiled eggs in half, lengths-wise. Place the yolks into a bowl and the whites onto a plate. Mash the yolks with a fork. Once mashed, add the mayo, tarragon, shallots, lemon juice, cayenne pepper, sriracha sauce, and crab meat to the yolks. When fully mixed, either spoon a tablespoon of mixture into the egg white shell, or do as I did and put the mixture into your frosting tool to make them look pretty!

I tried some different variations on this with greek yogurt and Japanese mayo in the place of the regular mayo. It didn’t work. Just stick to the regular mayo. I should know that Bon Appetit knows what they are doing. You can use reduced fat or the olive oil kind of mayo though if that helps you sleep better at night.

Now for some fun with the wide angle lens.

Through Foodbuzz’s tastemaker outreach program, Alexia sent me some sweet potato fries and ya, it was a random lunch, but it was a good one.

Now you have an excuse to make deviled eggs more than once a year!