Page 4 – La Muse Blue

UPDATED TEA in New York: the best quality tea rooms and bars on Manhattan

The very best quality tea rooms on Manhattan are scarce. In this hotbed of competitiveness the real deal is often leapt over by gimmicky phrases echoing current trends. Until recently, tea in New York has not encountered the exotic wonder as it did in San Francisco and in Europe.
Taiwanese oolong tea
Naturally, in one of the fastest cities in the world, tea did not match its frantic lifestyle, but also New York reverberates what I call the Boston complex. The story of an independent America has flipped around the rebellious dunking of a tea shipment from England into the waters of the Boston Harbor, what the historians describe as the “tea party”. The caffeine-boost seeking Manhattan had turned to coffee for its daily recharge instead. While other fast metropoles like Hong Kong, Tokyo, and London find time for a cuppa to start or connect the moments of the day by sitting down, in the Big Apple balancing a busy week with savouring mindfully a cup of freshly brewed tea is still a hard sell. Yet, with mental health consciousness raising, tea has timely entered the New Yorkers’ vocabulary and joined the interest in meditation and yoga there.

It took me a half decade to trace and evaluate the best tea rooms on Manhattan. My globetrotting palate was not convinced that there was enough remarkable leafy Camellia to sip on the East Coast. I always brought tea in my suitcase from Europe, sipped and hoped. Rewardingly, my patience paid off. Now there is enough quality and diversity of tea purveyors in New York, and it seems that the coffee nation is turning to the slower mode with tea. Well, matcha bars are taking the city by storm, and I wrote about the best matcha hotspots in TRENDY MANHATTAN TEA SCENE. Here, I devote my investigative and tea thirsty pen to the established or new, quality and knowledge focused tea rooms and bars stretching from the East Village to the West side of Manhattan. Be it New York, things change fast, so some closed their businesses since I wrote the original post in 2017, but I decided to keep them here for you to see what survived the global pandemic and what has evolved from a tea room into a take-away and retail.

Harney & Sons

Some tea rooms and shops have existed in New York for decades. The dubious China Town pop ups have matured into Ten Ren outposts, while in SoHo Harney & Sons have finally embraced a more millennial-style sophisticated approach to their customers. The upscale tea importing business was founded by an American family over three decades ago in Connecticut. Harney & Sons is a hybrid of an English tradition and American commercial savvy. Their tea service invites you to cosy in the newly designed minimalist-cum-chic tea corner, but now also includes custom lattes with organic almond milk. Pick from the large menu of teas and your choice of milk will be steamed with it to order. Steeped to go, it will take longer than the whisked matcha, but you will taste the fragrant power in the brew since it is infused correctly – some tea needs up to ten minutes. Well, if you pick the Hot Cinnamon Spice either in black or herbal blend, the innocent bystander may kick your throat with a spicy shock. Perfect for a cold day. Decaffeinated (by rinsing), signature herbal blends, some organic options, but mainly flavoured black tea blends remain the classics at Harney & Sons. Millennial inventiveness like Nitro Iced Tea, the popular flavoured kombucha (by Aquivitea) as well as brews native to the Americas like Guayusa, black or green Yaupon and Yerba Mate sailed in.

433 Broome St, SoHo

Daily 11:30am – 6:30pm (Sat from 10:30am)

Tea Drunk is the best Chinese tea bar on Manhattan. Tucked in the East Village, the founder has an extensive knowledge about the sino-leafy diversity and is a fun little box to squeeze in next to other serious tea connoisseurs. I wrote about the tea tasting experience on La Muse Blue, so you can read more on Chinese tea at Tea Drunk.

123 E 7th St, East Village
Mon – Sat 12:00noon – 10:00 pm, Sun 12:00noon – 9:00 pm

29B Tea and artisan Asian ceramics by Tea Dealers

Sourcing tea and herbs directly from the farmers using traditional agriculture methods (no pesticides and only natural fertilisers when needed), their selections capture some of the New York’s leading restaurants (the Michelin stared Rouge Tomate, even higher end Jungsik, The Four Horsemen in Brooklyn). Seasonally imported rarities such as the indefinable but intriguing Korean oxidised organic tea Balhyo and low caffeine organic roasted Korean Sejak twigs in the Houjicha style are sold out fast. Their non-caffeinated flower tisanes such as Korean wild persimmon leaf is almost as good as my direct source in Kanazawa, Japan. Other Korean seasonally picked herbal brews that spark the non-caffeinated pleasure are the sublime White Lotus and the roasted black bean.

The intercontinental duo of an American tea dealer Stefen Ramirez and his Korean partner Shin Won Yoon created first Tea Dealers to bring the highest quality of pure, non-blended teas and tisanes from India, Japan, Korea, China, and Taiwan to America and they are back in the importing model ever since the pandemic hit New York badly. Still, you can take-away some macha and selected teas for a walk around East Village. On offer are also ceramics from Korea and Japan, exclusively sold here in America.

Tea Dealers 29 Avenue B, New York, NY 10009

Thurs-Mon 12noon – 6PM; Tue &Wed Closed

Franchia also specialises in Korean tea, but in a more old school tea room style. The “meditative quality of tea” praised in Korea still today next to vegan, Korean Buddhist style food will nourish your mind and body. Specialties include sacred Jilee mountain green tea, Korean date, lemon, ginger as well as teas from China and India. On their own the beverages are served between the lunch and dinner hours. The food is good, nothing otherworldly, but the interior at Franchia is the most fascinating from all Manhattan tea rooms I have seen to date. As if lifted from a Korean temple the wooden ceiling and carved details on the privacy dividers between tables upstairs teleport you away from the New York craze into a mindful zone somewhere far east.
12 Park Ave, New York
Mon-Fri: 12noon-9:45pm; Saturday: 1pm-10:15pm; Sun: 5:30pm-9:30pm

KETTL founded by a tea master Zach Mangan originally in Brooklyn imports the finest teas directly from small farms in Japan. At first only a tiny shop, ceramic gallery cum tasting room above now a contemporary Vietnamese restaurant on Greenpoint Avenue with most calm and cosy atmosphere from all my picks here, Kettle has stretched its retail and tea to-go arm to Manhattan. On Bowery a small window adjoining the Bowery Market offers expertly prepared tea, a sublime macha or houjicha latte with your choice of milk perfect for colder seasons and if you really crave the focused experience also a ceremonial macha mini ceremony in a tiny counter inside that seats four. Tea cookies change seasonally and satisfy the sweet craving. The quality is as high as it gets and all brews are made with altered water.

348 Bowery, New York, NY 10012

Daily 8am-6pm

tea room in New York New York tea shop tea in New York roasted tea

Physical GraffiTea shop and room is the quirkiest little basement spot, but by no means underserving savvy tea and curative herbal concoctions seeking customers. Some are traveling from Florida to stock on tea, others are local residents coming for a chat, a cuppa and some cookie or kombucha on tap. The Jewish owner knows everything about her pursuits. Mostly organic from the Planet’s fertile grounds, the tea service is not a fancy affair, but the hippie aura emphasised by the Beatles portraits hanging on the East Village no fuss brick walls feels somehow cool. As if the den was forgotten in the liberal decades past. I like her houjicha, and the longevity-promising plethora of organic Ayurvedic and Chinese herbs is valuable to any balanced health seeker.

96 St Marks Place, East Village

Daily 12noon-7pm

Cha An Teahouse is a traditional Japanese tea house with good Nippon food and great desserts. Nested in the corner of the East Village known as “little Japan”, as you walk up the cracking narrow stairs to the first floor, the Japanese team welcomes you to their sparsely lit nest. Linger on tatami benches under the lights of washi paper lamps as the seasonal fresh flora breaths some air into this tea bar cum restaurant. Japanese teas meet the sweet morsels like matcha sponge cake, houjicha ice cream with wagarashi (root starch) jelly cubes, mochis, cherry blossom jelly with a side syrup to sweeten it to your own liking. For the XL sweet explosion, the afternoon tea style desserts tasting box is a must. Houjicha, sencha, but also teas from outside Japan like Darjeeling, oolongs from Taiwan and green, black and pu-erh from China. Specialities include Japanese style iced matcha lattes with adzuki beans, green tea ice cream or a heaping of whipped cream, that like the pure fresh green Tamaryokucha tea cool your body and mind in summer. Cha An feels like the most traditional Japanese tea rooms in Japan transferred to Manhattan.

230 E, 9th street, East Village

Mon – Thurs: Noon – 11pm; Fri & Sat: Noon – 12am; Sunday: Noon – 10pm

Ippodo, the generations spanning Kyoto tea purveyor with tea rooms in Japan, has also a small concession at the basement of the former Michelin stared restaurant Kajitsu. Enjoy a wide range of their teas with dinner at the restaurant, but if you come only for the tea, you will have to take it out.
11am to 7pm daily except Sundays
125 E, 39th street, Midtown

CLOSED LUV Tea in the West Village offered Taiwanese oolong experience, healthier organic milk teas and cold brewed daily fresh iced tea. The jasmine milk honey was so fragrant that you carried the aroma along with you for hours. Deep hues of goji and rose in naturally long steeped, not artificially enhanced brews. The nutritionist on board stamped their health claims. On Saturdays freshly cooked boba was served in their real Taiwanese bubble tea. The co-founder, a Taiwanese tea master Jaesy Wang, conducted regular tea tastings, while art launching events for the temporary exhibits on the white washed brick sparked some late afternoons. Unfortunately, the pandemic shut the business and now nothing of their kind is found around Manhattan.

New York is still well behind San Francisco, London, Paris and almost any major Asian city in terms of the breadth of tea rooms and high quality tea offerings. Diversity of tea rooms would certainly help to balance the scattered minds and rough voices of the New Yorkers.

Schwarzenbach: from 19th century egg seller to the world’s best chocolates under one roof in Zurich

Schwarzenbach in Zurich brings the best of the world’s chocolates under one roof. In Oberdorf, the charming cobbled hill in the old town, the fifth generation of the Schwarzenbach family has shaken the chocolate traditionalists’ palates in the 21st century cosmopolitan Zurich.

Swiss best gourmet shops

Celebrating diversity in the Swiss liberal metropolis

That the Swiss have a penchant for fine chocolate is old news. Yet being open beyond the milk in it and beyond the Linds, Teücherlis, Läderlachs to contemporary local newcomers as well as sensitively selected foreign bean-to-bar craft chocolates, shouts that change is abound in the cantonal federation. The liberal Zurich has transformed itself over the past decade from a stiff banking centre of Switzerland, to the most internationally diverse city in Europe. As of 2022, forty percent of its residents are not Swiss. And as the diversity colours its streets, the dining and cultural scenes got more interesting, so naturally even the most traditional of products, such as Swiss chocolate got a spruce up in a more diverse offering. Just a few years ago my Zürich trips were streamlined to breakfast and snack at Sprüngli, Swiss traditional lunch at Krönnehalle and some ok Asian dinner with cool atmosphere. Hold and below, as if sprung up from the bushes, the ‘Züri’ youth now creates a vibrant plethora of anything you would expect from a worldly city. Liberal and open.

Swiss chocolate

Contemporary Swiss artisan chocolate

The new Swiss brands in the spotlight make their chocolates around Geneva or Zurich in scaled down production quantity, bean-to-bar, fair-trade, vegan, raw, name it.

La Flor is the Züri best it is said. Next to the bars but also the enrobed cocoa nibs, Piedmont hazelnuts and only in best years selected raw whole cocoa beans are extraordinary. I also like Garçoa not for their new age spiritualism on the cosmic packaging, but the content and the graphic shape of their thin bars that just feels perfect in the mouth. The Geneva-based, Orfēve signals your preferred bar by detailed, transparent description of the production of each pure chocolate bar ranging between 70 to 90 percent.

Yet, chocoholics rejoice, the offer is well beyond just Swiss-made!

Swiss chocolate

European chocolate offering

The best of the world’s chocolates now unreservedly found support beyond the Swiss in Zurich. Britain’s best, made by a popular coastal bakery Pump Street chocolates, especially the bread crumbs in dark chocolate bar gets your jaw into shape through some serious crunches, wonderful! Akesson’s for their pure origins of “single plantation” terroir precision is another made-in-Britain star and so are the more widely distributed Original Beans.

Aside from Millésime, Belgian chocolatier sourcing from South America and Mexico (I love their nutty and spicy Criollo bean of Chantugo Cacao 80% bar from Chiapas), there are more Italian than from Belgium additions in the Schwarzenbach chocolate library. From Southern Tyrol, where Austria borders Italy arrived Karuna. Ideal for those liking some fun in their chocolates, adding organic dried sea buckthorn, casis, milk, raspberries, coffee, nuts. From the South comes organic certified Sabadí with the Modica production style, which is not as smooth as the subtly conched chocolates you may be more familiar with, but it has its fans. You should try.

Chocolate Zurich Schwarzenbach chocolate boutique

Back to the cacao roots

More in the bygone times chocolate tradition, from Mexico comes Taza, round shaped more raw tasting chocolates. From South America, the Peruvian Qantu also made in Peru from its own elevated soil.

From Uganda, not just the beans but also manufactured in the country comes the Latitude range.

artisan chocolate bars

Unafraid: heritage meets contemporary tastes

H. Schwarzenbach is an iconic Zurich name known to the discerning locals for its finely selected worldwide gourmandise. In the tiny “colonial waren” as such worldly produce delivering stores used to be called, in-house roasted and freshly ground coffee, loose tea, spices, a wide selection of rice and beans, exotic fruit and nuts from dried persimmon to Thai dragon fruit and jackfruit chips are weighed into elegantly illustrated black and white paper bags upon order. The coffee is hermetically sealed to prevent moisture infiltration. Since 1928 the coffee roastery has operated its machinery to provide caffeine boost for the local discerning intellectuals. From bankers, lawyers to the Zurich university professorship, Schwarzenbach is still a point of indulgent quality reference.

best in Zurich

Schwarzenbach, unlike Sprüngli (brought by the Swiss chocolate giant Lindt) is still a family owned business. Now in the hands of the fifth generation, the deliciousness offering is there most expansive it has ever been. Originally an egg seller from St Gallen, later in 1910 the family bought the old post office at Münstergasse in Zurich. Curiously, the line of inheritance was always male, but the current Heinrich V. has two daughters, so who knows where the H. Schwarzenbach goes next?

The shop on your right used to stock also some of the chocolates, but as the cocoa passion has possessed the family members, there was a need to open a properly dedicated store only to chocolate pleasure. So where now the chocolate and espresso bar is situated used to be the open coffee roastery (now sandwiched between the chocolate boutique and the gourmet store) with a cosy indoor café. While we miss the wooden tables with perfectly brewed cups of coffee, the walls lined with chocolates more than made up for the loss.

coffee roaster in Zurich hot chocolate Coffee in Zurich

Each time I ventured in ever since the silent opening during the pandemic (in the early months of 2021), some new stock seduced me to a purchase. In all sizes, from tiniest squares, though half-bars, to packs of diverse flavours or single origin range of one brand such as the Vietnam-based Marou, but also melted in 65%cocoa Schwarzenbach hot chocolate (the grated dark chocolate bar can be bought for home making) next to the ultra serious sugar-free 100% cocoa powder by La Flor, either steamed with your choice of milk (Oatly barrista satisfies demanding vegans) or water. You can also have an espresso to go or to sit outside if the flimsy Swiss weather allows (when the sun shines though, the city revels!).

Schwarzenbach chocolate boutique Singaporean chocolate brands

Asia has landed in Zurich

Most recent additions were quirky flavours from Singaporean Fossa. How has the chocolate game down over there changed since I spotted the weird durian-flavoured funky chocolate bars there a decade ago (Naive Durian 67% with Bolivian cocoa still on offer at Schwarzenbach next to their other unusual flavours such as Porcini mushrooms and milky sour Kefir). Peanuty, satay sauce flavour with milk chocolate, Chrysanthemum for the China chic, dairy-free oat milk with apple and cinnamon warmth, the radical Salted Egg cereal echoing the Singha breakfast (I did not dare but was told that it is more like a custard than thinking of chocolate omelette) and for the purists like myself 100% Tanzania Kokoa Kamila and 75% Malaysian dark collected by the island’s Semai community. I kept the best for the end, a gift with humour if you dare, the Duck Shit Dancong milk chocolate that is not containing any animal excrements but a fine oolong tea.

Not far, still in Asia, from the Philippine soil came Auro, with added local glazed pili nuts(high fat content similar to macadamias) by Theo & Philo artisan chocolatier, while Krakatoa explores the Indonesian islands mounty from Bali to Sulawesi. I can go on, but even beyond the online store, there are more chocolates sold at the store, so I encourage you to come in person.

gourmet Zurich

My countless visits, with chocolate-infused chats with the lovely ladies led to buying more than I needed, (well I do need to match a broad chocolate library with my books studded study) but also to informative content for my chocolate-loving brain. It is the happy hormone needed for overcast and cold days that I seek for harmony, not the sugar. Schwarzenbach is now my drug store and a spa in one.

Open: Mon – Fri: 9am – 6:30pm; Sat 9am – 5pm

British cheese revolution that would leave the French gasp beyond fromage

British cheese had millennia of tradition on the islands’ soil and in the milkmen’s craft, but all that diversity and skill got almost wiped out post WWII. Rejuvenated over the past three decades, today the breadth of transformed dairy products is at least as fascinating as that of the French regional savoir-faire. Ned Palmer, the expert author of A Cheese Monger’s Compendium of British & Irish Cheese, alerts that while it is impossible to count precisely “there are probably more than 1,500 individual cheeses in Britain and Ireland” (about 700 are named in the UK) made today. Open your nose and the palate to a marvellous assortment of geographical, microbial, artisanal servings that will certainly impress even the most demanding foodie.

British cheese board

I invite you to argue with me that next to the French, the cheese made on the British islands (count in Scotland and North Ireland because of the cheese style making connections are much tighter than their political union) is the most sophisticated expression of human creativity in food making without superfluous tech gadgets today. Some very distinct cheeses are only made by one person or a dairy farmhouse in such tiny batches that only a few fine restaurants around the country get a slice. The wide variety is due to specific microorganisms on each farm, the breed of the animal, its diet and seasonal diversity and of course the choice of added cultures. The distinct microflora is expressed most loudly in raw, unpasteurised cheeses. The refined skills, local specificity and climate, all contributed to a vast compendium of fermented fresh or aged dairy products.

cheese serving

The refined skills, local specificity and climate, all contributed to a vast compendium of fermented fresh or aged dairy products in Britain as in France, Italy and Spain.

Most cheeses allegedly came to existence by accident. Countless tales of how the bread mould transferred to leftover cheese marbled it bluish are the folk witnesses of that lucky mistake. In the second millennium AD, chemistry and food science as well as better temperature control and more precise inoculation by chosen cultures allow for more consistency. A bit like “natural” wine versus more consistent rest of the wines.

British cheese

Like most foreigners’ encounter, I had a first gasp, literally, at the breadth of British cheese in Britain. Beyond the average cheddar sold in supermarkets I got to sniff some intense Stilton and it’s raw, unpasteurised brother Stichelton. Both marbled blue by their common family roots (cultures in cheese are a bit like genes in humans) as I discovered at that great mother and affinneur of British artisan cheese diversity in London – Neal’s Yard Dairy in Covent Garden. Except for good cheddar and perhaps Stilton you might struggle to find any other examples of the British mastery of cheese abroad, so it is well worth stopping by any of these during your next trip to London.

British cheese

There are quite a few British cheese experts nowadays, some publishing enlightening compendiums on the subject. I was most enlightened on the subject by Ned Palmer, author of two learned books:

A Cheese Monger’s Compendium of British & Irish Cheese

History of British Cheese

If you seek more detailed knowledge about British cheese, then these two volumes will sate your curiosity. I won’t enter the inexhaustible territory of some hard to get cheese even in Britain, but I can start to whet your appetite and expand your palate to new flavours with my favourite cheese shops in London. I chose the best mongers offering a wide choice from British cheese as well as advise you individually according to your preferences and occasion. Do not bring the Stinking Bishop to any party, please!

British cheese plate

While I hope to spare you of some social embarrassment, I also would like to lift up your scores in terms of impression as a host or a gift bearer.

Bellow, I mention some award-winning cheeses available at these specific stores, some only seasonally available rarities, but also those familiar names made with greatest skill by some cheese makers in Britain and Ireland.

These London cheese mongers know best:

Neal’s Yard Dairy originally in London’s Covent Garden and now also in three other locations (Borough market, Islington, Bermondsey) is a must go for Stichelton, an unpasteurised blue cheese specialty unique to the UK that strayed quite recently (in 2006 when two leading British cheese makers joined forces) from the pasteurised Stilton recipe. There are only five Stilton producers, another British niche.

Personally, I prefer the goat’s blue Harbourne Blue and Beenleigh Blue (sheep’s) to either of the more famous British blues. Here you will be offered to taste almost any cheese, but a few creamy moulds that are impossible to slice without reeking the “pâte” as the French call the interior of semi-soft and soft fromage. Finding rare specimens is a joy at this four decades old cheese monger, artisan producers’ pioneer that selects, matures and sells (except for young, fresh cheese, the ‘Dairy’ as it is often referred to between the locals, ages all of the cheeses available there for sale) British cheese including England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland.

The ewe’s milk (young sheep) round soft sweet Welsh Brefu Bach was just magic with oatcakes (another superb British invention, as I prefer to serve cheese with crackers, crisp breads and oat biscuits) and an opulent Battârd-Montrachet (still, the French make much better wine) to sip on. Made in Bethesda with an old school thistle stamen coagulant from unpasteurised ewe’s milk of animals grazed at old lays, as Ned palmer writes “fields with richly multicultural population of grasses. Herbs and legumes” which shows in the complex floral, nutty even a hint of caramel and vanilla on the palate.

The well-aged golden dry sheep’s Corra Linn has very hay summer deep taste of Scottish meadows. For Camembert and Vacherin Mont d’Or lovers, the ultra creamy Tunworth and Little Rollright for baking will surpass the bar of wow. The raw cheese selection here is splendid. Try the raw cow’s milk Baron Bigod if you like the French Brie de Meaux. Sinodun Hill will please unpasteurised Loire goat’s cheese lovers. If you are curious about more of these local meets its continental match, the Neal’s Yard Dairy blog published an insightful post on this.

Depending on the season and stage of ageing, you may come across the best summer milk or more fresh spring young cheese.

Scottish cheese British cheese

Hamish Johnston Fine Cheeses is another friendly store that offers a taste of almost anything before you buy (again except for the ultra-runny, messy pieces that only hold together before cut). South of the river Thames, just near to Hamish Johnston caters to regular residents in the neighbourhood. Not purely British, but also French, Greek, Italian and Spanish cheeses mingle with the local greats. From reserve goat (Gat in Old English) Rachel, the ashy pyramids of Tor next to Loire Valley’s Valencay, Golden Cross and Ragstone, snowy white coats of Penicillium candidum logs to ashy Geotrichum yeasty Spaniard Monte Enebro, Sharpham’s golden pate dressed as a perfectly round Camembert de Normandie. Also made form raw cow’s milk Binham Blue’s friendly mildness may persuade Roquefort enemies to enjoy blue cheese for once.

British cheese

Paxton & Whitfield in St. James’s is the longest established cheese monger in the British capital and one of the oldest in England. The veteran of London cheese shops does not just offer local selections but also other mostly European cheeses. A great Cheddar selection, with the king of them the Montgomery Cheddar sunshine wheels proudly on display. Shropshire Blue is one of these confusing misnamed mysteries. The blue-veined rich russet cow’s cheese originated in Scotland, and made now in Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire or Derbyshire. Here, I also discover lesser known stunners such as Ashcombe, a centre cut by veined wood ash, semi-hard texture with pink crust made form pasteurised cow’s milk inspired by the French Alpine Morbier.

A surprise took us by heart recently, as our dearly missed British Cheese Shop founder moved back from Zurich to London post Brexit and with him along with the political complexities, the diversity of imports dropped in our Swiss home. Some of his favourites he introduced our palates to, a rarity is the award-winning creamy cow’s blue, with a rich deep yellow pate and rustic rind, the Barkham Blue by Sandy and Andy Rose in Berkshire is also sold at Paxton & Whitfield.

British cheese British blue cheese

The Fine Cheese Company, originally from Bath, has an expanding store with a few tables for eating in or out on the inner terrace in the posh Belgravia. Their branded oatcakes and crackers are my personal favourite and now also being exported to the EU, Switzerland, the US and probably to more savvy markets open to cheese revelry. The late founder of the Fine Cheese Co. Ann-Marie Dyas was one of the pioneers supporting the British cheese quality since the 80s. My quarantine days during the pandemic lockdown in London were made more pleasant after ordering a fine box with my cheese selection, crackers and accompaniments like slow-baked Dottato figs. It was so beautifully packaged that I felt like a birthday girl. Tomme d’Adrienne from Wiltshire, a cake of a goat cheese ruffled with ash rind and a spire of summer truffle running through its midriff. Our beloved Wigmore, the Loire goat’s log-like Ragstone, and two wax-coated unusual cheddars; one made of goat milk and the other oak-smoked. The cafe is inspired by cheese but not all plates contain it, so one can have a proper lunch or aperitif hour with a glass of wine there. London cheese delivery British cheese best cheese shops in the UK

La Fromagerie is not pure British cheese purveyor but includes fine picks from most of Europe, but also incredible selections from Oregon across the Pond. Still, the pricing is most competitive and their cave of perfectly stored cheeses is a sensory pleasure to experience. The Michelin-star restaurant Hide Above and their more casual ground-level Hide get their cheese trolley from La Fromagerie.

Akin to a coffee shop, over a decade ago when coffee in London literally sucked, meetings with my friends while studying in London took place at its Marylebone base for decadent dairy indulgences. For lunch or supper with some wine at hand, perfect pairings were matched with an ease for us, tipsy bon vivants. La Fromagerie offers much of the established British cheeses you find at the above stores. I recommend Baron Bigot, the Brie style with its wrinkled golden brown specked furry white coat to higher fat level with the creamiest part in the soft pâte (the French call l’âme de fromage – the soul of the cheese, divine!). Winslade is just much more complex tasting than Camembert, the spruce bark that envelops it certainly adds earthy pine notes. Ticklemore, the semi-soft fresh tasting goat’s from Devon, shaped like a fluffy flying saucer landing in the midst of snowy winter, is nowadays made at the same estate as the Sharpham winery. Its zesty bright taste is perfect for summer with salads and white wine.

The creamy Tunworth that easily knocks down the French Jura’s Vacherin Mont d’Or even before it is baked to a liquified perfection in the oven is a must try. Packed in round wooden boxes, this is also the favourite of one of the best British chefs Simon Rogan, who shares a recipe in his cookbook Roganic.

British cheese

There are also the newish London Cheesemongers on Chelsea’s happening Pavilion Road. While they have the smallest selection when compared with all of the above, they pick the cream from the British islands’ fields plus some from Neil’s Yard Dairy, so if that is more convenient for you, stop by.

British cheese

Whether traditional or more open to experimentation, most serious foodies adore the diversity of milky transformations made by savvy humans in search of steady supply of food for millennia. In the UK now you can find exactly that, no need to take the train to Paris to indulge in cheese plates. Contrary to your belief perhaps, the contemporary reductionist approach to cheese trolleys at even the greatest gastronomic institutions in the French capital has rather disappointed us recently when dining there. Most great restaurants in and outside London now offer a broad selection of purely British cheese boards. Cheers to that.

Ingressi di Milano: the pumping heart and veins of Italian wealth shows glamorous eclectic inner architectural taste

The entrance to a building, be it a home, an office, atelier, studio or an art museum makes a statement to anyone finding their way in here. But what if you are not invited? What if that first gate allows just a finger in, a glimpse, a gold enamelled doorbell with barely suggestive names, even appended titles? Perhaps an inner garden is a tiny teaser of beauty and mystery of what follows deeper inside, through the entryway. Milan’s Centro Storico district lures us to these mysterious boundaries for privacy and posterity with a sensible eclectic taste and even glamour.

A seventeenth century characteristic of private construction in Milano was a savvy adage for humble, practical, even provocative, clandestine opulence: “Bela de enter, pei padroni, brute de fora, pei mincioni”. A city house should be “beautiful inside for its owners, ugly outside for the fools”. The gates and entryways as if whispered secrets hidden to the common eye behind grey facade.

Milano architecture

Entryways: where a communal space intersects with the private

Milan is one of the global epicentres of design and it shows in its voluptuous city architecture for some deemed ugly. Outwardly for many, historically the city appeared ugly, but enter and surprises shower with rare stones, artisan and design perfection, style. While the socialist coldness of decades past still boasts its crests on some administrative buildings, and so does the catholic grandiosity and impressionism of scale next to formerly regal murmurs, the bourgeois good taste beats on the drums of seduction more alluringly than the new developments in the Porta Genova site. Italian marbles, calm shades of calcified limestone, wrought iron artisan gates, lanterns and ornaments, gold leaf enveloping the edges of walnut and oak, bronze, tempered glass, contemporary or classical sculpture, meticulously manicured pine, bonsai, burbling fountain, iconic designer light, and more. Opulence found its home in the Italian economic capital in a more concentrated form than inside Parisian apartment buildings or the uniform post-war fixtures of the royal central London, the ingressi of Milano are like canvases set between the everyday urban and private lives.

Milan historic architecture Milano architecture

The Italian economic horsepower, central Milan shows when it pleases the greatest density of the most creative and fascinating entryways of any city on Earth. I’ve visited every important metropolis on this dizzyingly fast changing Earth over the past two decades, therefore my judgement is based on direct experience and curiosity-stirring interaction with their architecture, and not on popularity. Only Madrid and perhaps the dilapidating entrance halls in Buenos Aires touch anywhere near, yet the scale, design’s breadth and daring blend of styles was nowhere mastered as strikingly as in Milano’s ingressi. The Arab world may display a wealth of oil money, yet much of it feels too artificially uniform, not fully liberated from its Islamic (beautiful) predicaments yet. Marrakech, a fairytale of an affordable artisan complexity reserved to the privileged few, mostly foreigners buying into its palatial quality, won’t allow you just wander around the Palmeraie and other private domaines or riads to revel in the semi-public allure of its entrance halls. Nowhere grandeur gets as socially savvy as in urban Milano.

La Dolce Vita

Milano in Italian perspective

In the shadow of Rome and by the Medicis empowered Florence, Milan is well underrated in its aesthetic of socially open flamboyance. The former palazzi and bourgeoise residences of central Milan are now occupied by various businesses and wealthy individuals. Their entrances awe not just architecture lovers and design savvy aesthetes. Random passersby sensitive to surrounding everyday beauty fall into its web of mystery and wows. A flaneur is taken aback by random encounters of daily life. To me, city with unique beauty possesses something visually experiential that draws my heart inside its puzzle of architecture, landscape, urban planning and people. It clicks together in its own way and does not have to bolster with antiquity or an oversized pomp, anyway nowadays denigrated by the busloads, boat tours and flagging herds of tourists.

Milano architecture

From Catholic, through royal to the force of democratised design

For some with their eyes and hearts half closed, Milan has nothing beyonds its Duomo, cappuccino and gelato. Yet, the Catholic city of Saint Ambrosias (San Ambrogio) and Augustine (Agostino) is filled with countless heart-stopping frescoed churches next to that world-famous magnificent Duomo cathedral. The arched city core was filled with sophisticated statues from DaVinci to a humble monk, men of letters in the Public Gardens (Giardini Publici) and practical not just decorative fountains as Rome’s Di Trevi. A formidable art institution with a hidden botanical garden supported by a former Austrian Empress, the Pinacoteca di Brera was the first public museum. One would hardly argue that the grandest shopping arcade in the world still today, the Galleria Vittorio Emmanuelle II accessible to all not just these with deep pockets, housing Milano’s oldest book store next to luxury flagships and renowned restaurants. I cold cover a book with Milan’s points of interest, even more with the contemporary additions beyond the historic core like the Armani Silos, Fondacione Prada, the MUDEC, but let’s savour the overlooked details around the Duomo’s neighbourhoods.

Duomo cathedral in Milano contemporary architecture Pinacoteca di Brera

The annual design fair Salone del Mobile, known as one of the most important in the world, further reminds us that not just by fashion Milan’s bread is earned. Ever since I reentered the Città de la Moda not as a fashion model with a map (two decades ago before smart phones made it into our hands), but as design admiring urban stroller with an analog Leica and an iPhone, I was struck by the sophisticated, blended beauty of many of its central buildings’ entranceways. Perhaps, it was the meeting of the Southern colourfulness with Central European sobriety that captivated my lenses. The mosaics and shapes are elaborate, not caught in Nordic and Japanese minimalism as is popular in contemporary design. Light and shadow meet complexity here in intriguing harmony.

Piazza del Duomo in Milano Oldest book shops in Europe Leonardo daVinci

Ingressi: aesthetic, functional, but in Milan also eclectic

A marvellous photo book titled Ingressi di Milano by Karl Kolbitz (ironically not by local Rizzoli but the German publisher Taschen) informatively documents the appeal of Milanese entryways (get it either at the Taschen brand boutique, Liberia Bocca inside Galleria Vittorio Emmanuelle II or at the Armani Libri art, design, photography and lifestyle book shop inside the Armani Emporium) and if anything makes a beautiful coffee table decoration. For me learning about the vast diversity of Italian marble, limestone and the evolution of the city’s noble architectural heritage draws my hunger for knowledge and aesthetic pleasure.

What you and me can admire without restrictions of trespassing into private property is open gates. I find this rendezvous between the pubic and the communal — the entryways under an arched shelter of a hall — that Milan does so well most fascinating. Ushering us into the off-limits private areas of the grand apartments, businesses or show rooms, magnetises like a sexy, semi-open dress on a woman. You get pulled into these visual domaines of well designed beauty.

Milano architecture

Striking emblems of taste in Italian marble, polished marine sandstone, artfully shaped and coloured glass and metal from steel through bronze, some channel you into their inner garden. At the same time inaccessible, yet letting you visually in. One’s imagination travels beyond the walls. A tantalising experience for creators, dreamers or anyone relishing imaginative journeys.

Such inviting coexistence in a human-made oeuvre shall be celebrated. While securing its dwellers, at the same time not excluding the “outsiders”. This is art serving its inhabitants, but also entertaining the passersby, who can take their time to pause and give a minute or more to love that opens one’s heart to the world we share. Close to street art and like many costly installations in cities — fountains, sculptures to murals — the ingressi were paid from private pockets for our communal pleasure.

Marbled or concrete, yet in a sophisticated fashion etched artistically for a harmonious collage of elements these cutouts from street reality of Milan stood out. I am not lecturing you here on historical periods and elements of design here, that I better leave to the architectural expert publications, rather I share non-judgementally and without scholarly lingua Franca what made my heart jump.

I hope you enjoyed my direct, mindful encounters with the Milanese entrance halls through the lens of my iPhone and my vintage Leica. While camera is a marvellous capturing device, in some instances it just does not do justice to reality. In real time, live image wows you more while standing there in the plain sight of your own eyes. So it is with the Milan’s ingressi. If my admiration-filled rambling captivated your senses, please do seek visiting Milano and focus your gaze on these peculiar architectural beauties in Brera, Quadriletto de la Moda, around the Duomo, Porta Nuova and Venezia on your next visit.

See sea: “Don’t forget to address who you’re becoming”

The two of them were one — light and darkness

Blood pouring out of their veins, infinitely becoming

From the same source, pumped by another heart inherited

From one mother to another veiled in golden flames

Each and every morning is different but the same

It is the soul of women crying to a wounded male

Sailing towards the sun far beyond the ocean’s horizon

Arriving at some place far away, longing forever on

The animal fire, lust flaming all hearts, like a cat crawling

Her mysterious eyes, burning desires, yet her tail is high

She, him, them, it, they all know that “love is the answer”

To peace under the Sun, the feminine and masculine

Emerging from the shadow of their own secrets — creating

Realising that self-centric loneliness is hollow emptiness

Where nonexistence feels pure like mountain air — yet doesn’t fill

But I want to make all vacancies full

Not escaping truth, erode vulnerability

Like the Japanese and Italians instinctively show in art

Yet still fool their women, binding them in chains

Of machismo and infidelity, fearing the feminine strong

Like an ocean liner crashing into an eternal doom

Do you see the exit though? A street poet bows low

Calling; “Don’t forget to address who you’re becoming”

Zen, tao or renaissance, change is within and outside of you

Just navigate through, don’t look back, see the sea ahead

—

Stocks and stones

~RB

Italian art poetess Kitty cat or an old man know that “love is the answer” To harmony under the Sun, the feminine and masculine Emerging from the shadow of their own secrets Realising that self-centric loneliness is hollow emptiness But I want to make all emptiness full Like the Japanese and Italians know Yet still fool their women, binding them in chains

Like an ocean liner crashing into the eternal doom Do you see the exit though? “Don’t forget to address who you’re becoming” Call it zen, tao or renaissance, but change is in and out of you Just navigate it through

The above photographs are a collage of images from around the world that inspired this poem.

From art in Italian museums, Mediterranean and Japanese islands, Swiss kittens, a Chelsea gallery, a Milanese piazza, David La Chapelle’s apocalyptic photograph and on the street, the psychological reminders one might call poetry. Jungian psychology, the ancient yet still valid wisdom of taoism and zen, climate change, our animal side and the peace efforts of one of the smartest human beings who ever lived – Albert Einstein – all mingle in my snippet on what we must come to terms with, so “Don’t forget to address who you’re becoming” though awareness.

Equality is beyond one’s self on either side since opposites merge into oneness.

Under the masculine sun only the feminine moon can shine at night. And the Light is the Way of Joy.

Valencia: Awakened Synchronicity in the Mediterranean City of Joy and Valour

Valencia is like the Beauty and the Beast. Stunning painterly Roman and Moorish architecture mingle with Calatrava’s spacial luminescence, the utilitarian port (busiest in the Mediterranean), eclectic street art, athletic prowess of its attractive youth and the impoverished multi-ethnic population which amassed in this coastal metropolis over the past two millennia. Livy wrote that the founding of latin Valentia in the 2nd century BC was due to the settling of the Roman soldiers who fought against rebel Viriatus. This historic Roman city of “valour”, later by its Muslim rulers known as “City of Joy” constantly strives to improve itself and the better way to a closeup is by running, stopping and walking through.

mythical beasts fountain at night

According to the Swiss psychologist C.G.Jung Synchronicity happens when we perceive “two separate—and seemingly unrelated—experiences as being meaningfully intertwined, even though there is no evidence that one led to the other or that the two events are linked in any other causal way”. [Psychology Today]. This is personal you may conclude, yet it is rather interpersonal, and I show you why Valencia is more than just another tick on your bucket list.

SYNCHRONICITY versus COINCIENCE

Why I bring Jung to the equation? The most worldly famous Valencia native today, the multi-awarded architect, engineer and sculptor Santiago Calatrava Valls was further educated in and is a resident of Zurich (where his practice is based), Jung’s own home turf. Swiss resident myself, after just a couple of days back from Spain, I praise the Italianate cum Arabic beauty of the coastal Catalan metropolis to a startled, friendly lady joining in the aqua fitness class at my Zurich health club. She turns to be the architect’s wife, with quite a mixed opinion on Valencia, preferring New York aesthetic. So, I challenge her to put her grey lenses aside, tinted by her past experience of the city cleaning itself up as it poetically seems to me. For everything changes and evolves.

architecture by Santiago Calatrava Valencia lifestyle

Rather a coincidence you may assume, but I have never seen her after that week, so the seed inside me eager to burst into a beautiful flower swelled with a redemptive force. Drawing the distinction between the meaningful synchronicity and cause-effect convening of events in a short span of time, I was torn in between. There is a logical connection, and anyone who studied Jungian psychology as I did during the pandemic is familiar with the term, but a certain level of higher awareness is necessary for synchronicity to kick in. Reason can also play events up, cooking a delectable experience from seemingly incompatible ingredients. In Valencia the spirit is awakened audibly (listen to my video at the glorious Mercado Colon bellow), visually (the amusing video and photo gallery further down), as well as through the olfactory bliss of flowering and ripe sweet oranges (for that you need to travel as virtual reality still falls short on scented transmission).

Beauty and the grip of the first sight

I was smitten by Valencia ever since my plane circled above the expanding Mediterranean autonomous metropolis. With just under 800 000 inhabitants stretching to 1.6 million in its urban sprawl, the South-eastern port city scales third in terms of population in Spain. Not uniform like Seville, more a patched costume of ancestry and millennial bright scale. When I visited in January, its legendary orange trees graced the gardens, some residential shopping avenidas with ripe brightness that in winter felt warm on the heart. I felt something potent — as if ripped from the time’s linear arrangement, but also as if seemingly unconnected places merged here in front of my eyes. The contemporary city would not be as striking without its exotically lush Jardi del Túria, a dried up Turia River bed with eerie ancient bridges mashed up with steel modernity. Similarly, the catholic, moorish and romantic architecture in the old town would not feel as alive without the scant droppings of edible flora.

ARCHITECTURAL SYNCHRONICITY

Calatrava’s “sculptural forms often resemble living organisms” further “bridging the division between structural engineering and architecture”. This blending of disciplines is striking in Valencia’s City of Arts and Science. The Reine Sofia Palace of the Arts, where during my visit sculptures by the Japanese artist Leiko Ikemura floated on the water basin surrounding the futuristic centre (set in the former river bed that emptied into the sea where today Calatrava next to Félix Candela built also the Aquarium and Planetarium) enhanced the buildings themselves with the unmissable signature Calatrava bending bridge form. The contemporary bridge maestro connected the banks from Berlin (Kronprinzen Bridge, Oberbaumbrücke), Bilbao (Zubizuri; Basque for “white bridge”), Jerusalem (Jerusalem Chords Bridge) to Venice (Ponte della Costituzione), and there is something beyond the utilitarian service in each of them, they are sculptures made of steel.

Art in Valencia architecture by Santiago Calatrava

As with the World Trade Centre Transportation Hub structure in the space of the catastrophically burned-down Twin Towers of New York, the ribbed skeleton felt alive with open incisions into its skin-like form meeting in natural light. A giant bird in flight, its liberty reflects the animal movement as do most of his other wonder works. In Valencia, the Agora like a dinosaur startles our minuscule humanity, while the Opera House resembles a helmed soldier. Architecture in the profane hands of Santiago Calatrava is work of art used publicly to stir the mind into deep reflection. Like his Catalan predecessor Gaudí “Calatrava avoids the apathetic acceptance of established forms” and in that the cross-reaching, spiritual dimension emerges.

architecture by Santiago Calatrava Opera House architecture

We have lived in a globalised world for over two millennia, where concurrent influences create a more homogenised, cross-border imprint anywhere. Local now means only being locally grown, not necessarily originating from like vegetables or oranges (on their origins later), but culturally this site-specific term has blended into common ground. Architecture has often sourced ideas and techniques from elsewhere, but beyond cultural references in the visions of Santiago Calatrava giant visual installations merge with purpose. As Italian Renaissance once haloed across the catholic Europe and now unifies Western city scapes in their common past, today architecture is cross-pollinated with individualism.

Catalan architecture

Valencia is the expo of bridges from various periods, much more striking than anything above the Seine in Paris. From medieval gems like Puente del Real through concrete Pont de Montolivet to the Calatrava’s steel airiness in the Centre for Arts and Sciences, most do not cross any river now at all. Reflecting water basins, pavement and the sandy surface of the Túria Park, runners, strollers, soccer players move bellow these bridging arches.

histories stone bridges in Europe Architecture engineering historic Valencia

Valencia does not feel just Spanish, the catholic and muslim references in its architectural make-up inject Roman and Arab nuances. The sizeable old town is a charming cobbled maze towered with churches, a Gothic Cathedral and Basilica of the Virgin (Basílica De La Mare de Déu dels Desamparats) that halo the most charming plaza where the locals meet for coffee and late night drinks. With its bell tower El Miguelete these are primarily of Valencian Gothic style with elements of Baroque and Romanesque architecture. The Virgin Mary square is an entertaining hub of old Valencia. On its blushed marble-clad carpet mimes and singers perform, while a small green park offers free for all benches and oranges under the trees shade.

While the medieval city walls disappeared, two 14th century gates into the stone core remain: Torres de Serranos to the north, and Torres de Quart to the west.

gates of Valencia Catholic architecture

BOTANICAL SYNCHRONICITY

The contemporary megaliths of glass and steel cultural edifices erected in the dried up riverbed conclude what now serves to the public as a lush park hiving with sporty activity. Next to the signature naranjas, exotic plants and Mediterranean staples like carob trees fill the sunken gardens of the former Túria river.

Valencia running spots cacao replacement

The sun shines on Costa Blanca strongly throughout the winter, climbing higher than in most of Europe and tinting the citruses into bright ripeness, so the landscape looks joyous with the abundant harvest. In Valencia the olfactory bliss of flowering and ripe sweet oranges is potent.

If there is only one healthy activity one must succumb to in Valencia, it is eating a ripe orange or gulping its vibrant juice. The experience here just feels more in tune with there place. If you tasted oranges in Seville, the surprise will change your facial expression sweetly. The European capital of citrus sinensis dulcis varietal prolongs the festive Christmas season in the early winter by a natural spectacle, but it is also the only orange varietal ripe in summer. A colour was named after this saffron dipped in water tint in the ripe fruit’s peel. What is fascinating is that this hybrid of pomelo and mandarin originated in the region around Southern China. While today Brazil, China and India grow most orange trees in the world, Valencia is most known for the sweetness of its varietal. Today, there are dozens of types of Valencia orange grown anywhere from Florida to Bali. Wikipedia broadened my orange vocabulary geographically.

valencia specialty orange orchard

Gazing at the baubles of oranges hanging from the verdant branches, I had sliced skin-less orange locally dusted with cinnamon with breakfast at Casa Orxata inside the semi-open gastronomic cathedral Mercado Colon. Alongside sweeten-it-as-you-like-it horchata (traditional plant-based milk from tiger nuts is a proof that Europe was not always just about dairy) I felt perfectly in tune with the local taste. Mexico blended cacao into its own horchata, probably inspired by the Spanish colonists.

Spanish food market Valencian architecture market area of Valencia

GASTRONOMIC DIVERSITY IN VALENCIA

One chef rules in Valencia and its region with rice (like orange originating in Southern China), seafood and citruses. Quique DaCosta, the multi-Michelin stared culinary prodigy opened sister restaurants, more casual than his three star icon about an hour drive South. I went to Llisa Negra where luxurious ingredients schmoozed on the (ideally) sharing menu, so dining solo proved a tad too much. Tuna and pork rule, in one case the two merged into smoked cured tuna belly sliced like ham and served with pickles and almonds, no bread! Prawns are boiled with their guts, the Spanish feel it adds flavour. Spanish grilled red piquillo pepper tart was so thin that the pastry tasted like paper. Sadly, the grilled octopus tentacles with skin-on young potatoes was rather average. The carbs-shunning touch of expertimentation at Lissa Negra restaurant is not for everyone.

Spanish cuisine Spanish prawn Spanish tuna Valencia's cuisine

Paella Valencianna of course is the most famous recipe to be tasted, but must be shared. This Spanish version of a risotto relies more on the range and sweetness of tomatoes than richness of parmesan or other cheese. And most importantly, no seafood, but more often chicken and rabbit accompany the tomatoes, green and white beans sticking perfectly to the cooked short grain, round rice, locally titled “arroz bomba”. Recently, the local government in the Valencia region even declared paella an “Asset of Intangible Cultural Interest”.

On a Satuday morning while strolling from the Saracen gate a Lebanese dulce y salado pasteleria seduced me in. Two twin daughters eagerly offered falafel sandwiches and pastries baked daily by their immigration parents. From honeyed baklava to cookies laced with distinct spices like saffron, nigella seeds, sesame. While chatting in their tight take-away family business El Libanés tasting multiple delights, I was also welcomed with a cup of strong black tea. The next morning, upon the nippy, late wintery sunrise, I brewed some tea and brought the booty up to privately breakfast on the rooftop of my hotel. The sky was the limit in my elevated vista.

lifestyle in Valencia Lebanese pastry

HERE AND NOW SYNCHRONICITY

Your first time anywhere is probably preceded by preconceived ideas as of what not to miss and what to do. Well, mine had to be uprooted once the car wound through the orchard waving landscape dotted in Kusama-like frames where pumpkins were generously replaced by baubles of oranges. My precisely researched plan of to do and see items in Valencia had to be reshuffled, lines scratched over and filled in once I witnessed the vastness of the metropolis beyond the old town walls. I had only a weekend. Plus, after a healing retreat the nearby SHA Wellness Clinic I was ready to ingest only small morsels of city life and my back too.

Moorish architecture in Valencia best hotel in Valencia sky view of Valencia

As I discharged my bags in my contemporary designed, refreshing room at the new Palacio Vallier (photos above), filling the gap in the local lodging lacking state of the art amenities, I felt like a drink. At the hotel’s cosy bar I inspired the cocktail masters to do anything free-reign, just not sweet with local gin. Up in my room landed a frothy wonder topped with flower petals and berry powder served with a bowl of superb Spanish olives. After this magic potion (mind me, I had only one glass!), I experienced my first night in town with an elevated sense of being a part of, not separated from it.

What Valencia ultimately taught me about SYNCHRONICITY is that we seek patterns and structure to understand reality. What is the current, yet soon changing reality of this South-eastern Spanish metropolis? Visually it reflects its social diversity, youthful population, and attempt to integrate the past within the new by adapting to climate change, emotionally the impression is entirely up to your state of mind.

L’Anse de Port Cros: drop the anchor in Mediterranean paradise to eat locally and hike with the humming cigales

Natural gem in the French Mediterranean waters, L’Anse de Port Cros requires a sea-bound journey worth the trip. From the Michelin Guide perspective the effort to travel to this sparsely inhabited protected island just for the meal would spark a star, yet at this leisurely set restaurant it is all about authenticity, not pomp, personality and wild creativity. Only the best local ingredients served at their most delectable flavours are served comfortably al fresco overlooking the charming port of Port Cros.

South of France

Yacht owners, moor at L’Anse de Port Cros to eat authentically and well, then hike the shaded rolling trails in the lush, well preserved National Park, to honour a free day well spent. Wear whatever is most comfortable, keep the glitz for La Gueritte, here the food is better and the space vast. We have been returning for years, our little secret we kept hidden from curious foodies in the virtual sphere. But, I feel like being generous this summer. Still strained by the dire global situation of increasing violence and death within our reach, we shall all savour every day, each precious holiday, and every meal out with a grand appetite before change swipes it all into the deep waters of unpredictability.

secret Mediterranean Southern fried seafood

The name of the restaurant L’Anse de Port Cros means ‘Anchor of the Crossing Port’. Its location at the crossroads between the busy, car-free Porquerolles, the French military outpost and nudist enclave of Levant and the coastal towns and cities from Hyeres, Toulon, east to St Tropez, naturally lends itself to something appealing, luring the boats in for something simple but worth stopping by.

L’Anse de Port Cros offers nothing complicated, just delicious local bounty delivered every morning by the fishermen passing by the protected port of this lush Mediterranean island.

To start, ideally to share, my recommendations are: the fresh sea bream carpaccio sprinkled over with diced pickled onions and peppers; the marinated red pepper with roasted pepper dip and bread coins typically served in the south with rouille or aioli sauce next to a bouillabaisse; as well as the more substantial hot, fried baby squids (known in French as calamars, chipirons, encornets), here served au nature, not breaded, but instead with mixed greens and herbs.

Don’t eat much of the bread, get Baba (au rhum) instead! Well, later if you can wait. The baguette served at L’Anse de Port Cros used to be superb, sourced from the mainland artisan baker, but around Covid the source changed to a lesser provider. With a positive attitude this means more space for the dessert après.

With your aperitif or alcoholic drink such as bottle of local wine, you get a bowl of delicious minuscule dark provencal olives. We usually order a half bottle of rosé or white by Château Margilliere that we once visited, but once we also enjoyed a full blush bottle of Clos Réal grown and made biodynamically in Provence. More punchy and not as cheap as most of the wine card.

We always get the whole grilled fresh fish, usually white fleshed sea bream or bass. I recommend 800 g to one kilo for two people if you get large starters as we do. Presented to the table before being deboned perfectly, the filleted fish is accompanied by purple, Cabernet Franc scented salt and with herbs infused (thyme grows all over the island) olive oil on the table. Swishes in a complimentary duet of a sublime creamy risotto (as hedonistic as Joel Robuchon’s legendary mashed potatoes when the proportion of buttery fat far exceeds the carbs) and southern, grilled vegetable tian. The later usually an eggplant, tomato, courgette or red pepper generously doused in greenish herbal olive oil. Everything is just every single time cooked perfect!

Mediterranean fish at L'Anse de Port Cros

Spiny lobsters parade in the live aquariums at L’Anse de Port Cros, but we dream about this perfection of a Mediterranean fish plate for the entire year before revisiting our beloved South of France, so we never switch to other mains. Côte de beauf glances at the frequenting locals, who do not mind the summer heat to eat as if there was nothing to do in the afternoon. Diving, snorkelling, kayaking, swimming, hiking, trail running if you desire, I have seen it all on and around the island. I keep the beef before the bed!

Mediterranean gems Radka Beach

I wrote a poem inspired by Port-Cros:

All I see is blue joy

The clear sky of promises

Of undisturbed simplicity

Calm, straightforward reality

Turbulence far gone from my awareness

Fly, you and me in a liberated company

Set free the native imagination that was bound

By the complex constructs of culture in the rear

Of the mind seeking pain, restlessness and irrational fear

All I want is simplicity, what was lost in a city, here is found

~RB

L’Anse de Port Cros: Nothing complicated, just delicious local bounty delivered every morning by the fishermen passing by the protected port of the lush national park on this Mediterranean island.

light summer desserts authentic restaurant

For a light sweet finale, the summer red berry compote with whipped Chantilly cream and cinnamon at L’Anse de Port-Cros is best if you intend to be active after the lunch.

A hospitable tradition across the Mediterranean, here, each meal concludes with a shot or a sip, if you prefer, of rum, orange and pineapple juice blend with secret spices the chef keeps to himself.

Crossing by private boat from Hyeres, the Porquerolles island or Cavalaire-sur-Mer in the Var department takes only about 30 minutes to an hour. Boarding one of the seasonally scheduled ferries stretches the sail up to two hours, but if you hang around it pays off. We avoid the core of summer, rather sailing in May, June and September as the temperatures for outdoor activities are more balmy.

Andros: Greek island hike through unhurried villages to a millennium-old Monastery

Andros, the northernmost and greenest Cycladic island nearest to Athens still disembarks more Greeks than foreign tourists. Most of them are weekend beach loungers or savvy hikers. The Aegean island’s continuous 100km route of trails through alluring, quaint villages, fortified, centuries-old castles and Orthodox monasteries, plaster-clad chapels, Venetian watchtowers, pristine natural springs and small waterfalls next to up to over six millennia old archaeological sites is amongst “the Best of Europe” as recognised by the European Quality Certification Leading Quality Trails.

While Christian saints stopped by, the Cretans, Ottomans and Venetians once ruled here, and you can witness their presence with a chimeric touch of your own mind stirred by the architectural chronicles that survived the past wars and the rust of time.

Like its neighbour, the much smaller marbled and spiritually high island of Tinos, there are christian and orthodox monasteries, vineyards and self-sustaining agricultural farmland on the “Rocky One” as Andros is locally also known, next to other nicknames “Ydroussa” was another ancient title of this water-rich island. The most ‘contemporary’ name, Andros celebrates one of the successful Cretan kings, General of Radamanthys, who ruled over all the Cyclades [pronounce Kyklades] in antiquity.

ancient stone walls Andros architecture

Some places are not what they seem to be, they hide their treasures

If you are like me, avoiding crowds on holidays, preferring to explore hidden gems or more authentic places unspoiled by the ubiquity of global tourism, you will enjoy the star-lit Andros. Particularly the further, south-eastern side, opposite from the Gavrio port where mega ferries ship daily hundreds of Peloponesans to its most accessible beaches like Batsi.

There are a few hotels on the island, but best is staying at one of the “suites”, small, locally-run homes and apartments. Some offer a plunge pool, own kitchenette, and overall tend to be more integrated within the local nature or architecture. I was above satisfied with my spacious living room cum kitchen, a white-washed simple bedroom and the lush valley of Eden opening terrace at Edem Suites ran by a young, very welcoming, anglophone and helpful Dimitrios and a lady who spoke a few words in English.

Greek Sunrise Greek sunset stone walls in Greece xerolithes

Andros island hike and locally fished, grown and pastured meals

Even during the hot Greek summer you can hike on Andros. The wind now surprises unexpectedly even outside its reign in winter and August, mid-June it felt well alive on my refreshed skin. I stayed for six days in Chora, taking up the meticulously signposted paths either in the mid-morning around nine for about two hours or after my daily writing commitments were exhausted from five in the afternoon. Sunset tints the hilly landscape from its North-Western Athens side. In Chora, tucked behind the island’s highest peak this means a tad earlier. Well before nine late spring and early summer.

Usually, I would get back just in time for dinner at one of the local tavernas. My favourites were Endochora, Sea Satin in Korthi, and for a bit fancier, farm-to-table plates Dolly at Micra Anglia, the most deluxe hotel in Chora and the only restaurant accepting AmEx cards (which after exhausting all cash was my only dining option the last night).

best meals on Andros Endochora restaurant food

I trialed all the trails starting in Chora, also known as Andros town as it is currently the most important municipality on the island. Not until their very ends except for one, but as some intersect I created my own, shorter circuits more suitable for my daily outings. I can confirm that the stone-paved path number “1” is indeed first in terms of diversity and natural shade provided.

A fig offers itself to my hungry lips

I take one longing to feel its island bliss

My hands soft youth like the Andros silk

And goats welcome with their milk

I pluck grass, seduced by the plant bounty

Turning to the sheep’s watchful uncertainty

I ramble further along the olive path

Laced with chiseled silica rock laid

By countless muscular human hands

To signpost pilgrims’ faith and mules’ trails

This hot summer morning the Meltemi blows hard

Showering my sweat away and kissing me

As in this revelry I welcome the rocky island

The first Aegean to enchant me

~RB

The most scenic trail from Chora

My lids opened with the mid-June sun tickling me through the hollowed window shutters around 5:30. Seduced by the peach horizon layered like the Velvet cake in soft, delicate hues, I savoured my first morning tea on my terrace. Wholesomely anticipating my only free day on the island, unaware that this Saturday would turn into more of a pilgrimage than just a regular hike.

Up with the cockerels, I packed, ate the last dried figs (grown and packaged on Andros with sesame seeds and bay leafs to keep them from sticking to each other, smart), the dense local goat yogurt, bread sticks dipped in a sesame paste, and swiftly checked out from my blissful accommodation before nine. A local taxi lady would meet me at 12:30 at the monastery with my luggage (one handbag, plus a gift bag with Chora boutiques bounty — silk, naturally-blue-coloured spirit, dried figs, sesame tahini, olives, more of the addictive bread sticks covered in crunchy sunflower seeds). The 11.5 km trek (without detours), guides say takes about 4.5 hours, but I am a fast hiker, so even with a number of intentional and rather unplanned strays it took me slightly over three.

Greek island village Greek village

white and blue Greek architecture Greek village

If you do not have entire day to snail along the number 1 route there and back the same way (which I admit I do not love doing, too repetitive, too little time to explore more), after reaching the monastery you can take the 18 route (that spits from 1 in about 1 km) back to Chora. This way is about half the distance compared with crossing over to the opposite valley. Andros Routes, a website dedicated to inform on the condition of the trails, highlights unmissable sights along with tips for refuelling and potential detours so you can plan ahead. I am a vaguer planner. I prefer to roam, savour and fly free like a bird when traveling alone. I set a window in my day, the final destination with multiple options for discovery, one goes with the flow of the changing weather (wind in the case of Andros, because once it stops in summer, you roast like a potato and sausage on a pan glued with eggs, the local specialty).

rural Greek life Green almonds Horse Pomegranate blossom and fruit

Leaving Chora downhill into lush farmland, horses gazing, donkeys lazying, sheep and goats grazing the verdant carpets watered by naturally-endowed wells, a wild goat jumped ahead of me. Startled with a wide smile, I trod the stone-set pathway in an awed spirit. Fig trees, cypresses, oaks, planes, almond, lemon, olive, pomegranate and walnut orchards, shaded my head high with fragrant air. Abundant springs (wait till the beautifully lion-headed Menites springs for the safest bottle refill with drinking water) feed the flora and encourage animals to procreate. I felt like in the Portuguese countryside.

Connecting the the hillside villages, the shist and slate xerolithies of stone walled paths on Andros are unique to the Cycladic islands in Greece. I climbed into the first white-clad, terraced village, Ypsilou. Here, the local rachitic cats (they are the pickiest eaters I learned, give them bread and they rather skip a meal) were napping on the late morning sun, guard dogs barked from behind the fenced of gardens, jolting me anyway. I passed a sign for over a century old spring, but my Google Lens translator did not pick up “drinking water” so as a general rule I waited for a more elevated source to refill my thermos.

Greek fountain fresh water spring abandoned school on Andros star map

After the first path split, in Koumani village, route 10 met mine. I saw the first hiking group exploring a walled in building so I ventured inside, surprisingly finding an abandoned school. The post-independence edifice still fancied worn down posters of constellations, sea-centric map of the world (Andros’s history abounds with seafaring tales), drawn pictures of Andros fauna and flora with poisonous danger alerts attached. A very practical local education, I thought. Skipping over the elderly group I continued through the village, distracted by ripe apricots fallen onto my path, so with a full mouth picking one after another, delighted, energised but a bit lost, I strayed off the signed route. On the less-trod dirt road I was drawn to abandoned relics of cars that would fit perfectly in modern museums.

apricot ripe apricot in June vintage cars

Inner journey connected with symbolic surroundings

As desires and appetite seduced me away for my first detour, my walk turned inwards. Musing, is it something leading me or is it rather some deep layer of my heart that calls up from the abyss of unfulfilled longings from my past? So far in fact that I cannot recall any repressed cravings, suppressed truths or injuries to my soul. From Jungian psychology I learned that symbols speak to us universally, collectively, but I also suspect that some connection between our individual past and it form the current representation of that object. Like triangles. I was drawn to them on the Bermudas, here on Andros as at most Cycladic islands, the triangular shape adorns the traditional homes on rooftops, engraved decoratively around and attached to the doors. Most commonly, a collective symbol of the Holy Trinity, but for an individual there may be more to explore in one’s awakened consciousness.

Menites springs pomegranate tree over a spring

From healing springs around Haunted bridge

My self-analysis got exhausted with no water left in my flask, so I practically decided for an additional detour. Following the Menites Springs circular route after just a mile the refreshing gushing sources off the mouths of carved out lions set into green-clad wall blessed me for the hotter half of the route. Water tastes best when you are thirsty. Sweeter as my salty sweat made it seem so. As I replenished and got my kidneys back to work, the euphoria distracted me on the main road to Mesaria village spreading across a fertile valley splitting the North and Southern hills by two highest island peaks.

This is not a recommended “shortcut”, but a way taking you on the busy car road across the island. Trailing back towards the picturesque Chora, I missed one of the sights on the mapped route One, the “haunted” Stoicheiomeni bridge. With a hindsight, I am thinking perhaps the arched stone bridge is indeed haunted and I was not supposed to get close to it. Well-wishing is a good self defence in whimsical situations like this. Anyway, my chosen route guided by my “smart” phone was not rewarding either. Do not trust Google maps! After a few blind cross paths, I got angry guard dogs barking my heart away, hit a fence and mulched through a hill of dry bushes. After a couple of annoying failures, I found a connecting road turning me back down the valley gorge into the village at the foot of Gerakonas, the second highest mountain range of Andros. Extra mile or two. A pack of geese trodded before me on the concrete road before I turned across a creek over a stone bridge to my final climb.

PANACHRADOS MONASTERY

Snaking up, the mostly staircase path higher up scented with golden weaver’s broom flowers felt as if I was going away from the castle-like structure of the monastery above me. The xerolithies guided me during most of the final ascent. Some of the monasteries on Andros are uninhabited and only during specific festivals interesting or open to visit and experience. Panachrantou Monastery is not only the most friendly to welcome outside visitors, but also offers head-turning sea view from its cliffside height. Towering above Fallika village, the 10th century monastery engages with the followers of the Orthodox Church in sacramental festivities as I witnessed after climbing up just around noon. Inside, all gilded decadence typical for Greek Orthodox interiors, a precious sacred icon of Virgin Mary allegedly painted by St Luke was adorned by sacramental gifts.

Eleni, the friendly lady for my pre-arranged multi-stop transport back turned up knowing all the monks. Her family farm house is in the village just bellow, so she spent her entire life visiting the amicable group of priestly men. She showed me around the monastery, even the kitchen where she offered me from one of the silver bowls the chewy fruit and rosewater loukoumi sweets made by in the monastery, and I refilled my flask from the lion-mouthed spring on the premises.

She drove me across the yellow and purple covered hills down to Korthi. The wind battered the car so strongly that unused to the Cycladic Meltemi one worries about falling down the steep cliffs. Down by the sea, we lunched with our frothy coffee fredos (shaken iced espresso) at her local favourite Sea Satin. While we waited for the relaxed-pace waiter, she told me of her 102 years-old grandmother also living off the family’s own organic farm just under the ‘blessed’ monastery. The island is a village. She seemed to have known many people around. The sublime Kretan salad composed from the freshest local vegetables, pickled Andros capers, Greek samphire, olives, bread rusks and the sweetest plum tomatoes was by far the best I had on this for two weeks lasting Greek trip. With some extra bread and olive oil, refuelled, I could walk some more.

Wild capers Greek ceramics

As per my interest in archeology, she drove me north across to the open Zagora site. The winds messed our hairdos and the car doors were an additional workout to close firm! Finding that, there is not much to see along the route 7 through the over six millennia old Zagora, she drove North to my ferry in Gavrio. Attentively pointing at the best sunset viewing spots, I was allured to return to Andros soon! Still, so much to explore in the relaxed, slow-life pace the Greeks do so well. Kalimera!

Strawberries: false fruit with many secrets that will enrapture your senses

There are more than 600 varieties of strawberries and they are botanically not berries at all, while eggplants, tomatoes and avocados are berries, gotcha! The sheer diversity popping around me from Denmark though France, Germany, Israel, California, Switzerland, as far as to Japan rose my curiosity. My studious research yielded quite shocking revelations of our communally shared ignorance. The fibre-rich, multiple fruit according to the Carnegie Science Center researchers reveals: “The brownish or whitish specks, which are commonly considered seeds, are the true fruits, called achenes, and each of them surrounds a tiny seed.” Since the seeds are placed outside, it cannot be classified a berry as a blueberry is for example. Each strawberry has about 200 fruits on it. And this is only the start, I gasped at my further findings.

Japanese wagashi

Human creativity meets natural selection though questions

What you probably did not know about strawberries beyond their Wimbledon fame, whipped cream pairing, milkshake and frozen treats, is that it is not just where they are grown or on which farm but as with apples, there are many different taste profiles and colours to show. While it is unlikely that you will ever taste all the hybrids and cultivars (Wikipedia incompletely lists only the US&UK), each tastes slightly different.

Tinted by sun exposure or the lack of it from off-white, through Valentino red, to inky violet. I tried the rainbow of this jolly pseudo-fruit (allow me to refer to it a ‘berry’ further on as per familiar, while incorrect linguistic labelling) except for the almost blackish Chinese breed (China unsurprisingly also produces the largest quantity of 草莓 read: Cǎoméi).The so called black strawberry is actually of a very deep dark violet hue. It is remarkable that no genetic modifications were used in creating this breed. The ochre, yellowish variants I had in Munich (imported from Belgium) and Stockholm (imported from Netherlands) called “pineberry” is actually a light-hued, red seeded strawberry found recently in South Africa that tastes like pineapple. Dutch farmers saved this breed, which was on the brink of extinction.

Heart-shaped (is human heart indeed two joined mirroring question marks??), but also conical, oval or indefinably shaped like the most recent claimer of the Guinness World record for heaviest strawberry Ilan (named charmingly after the farmer’s son) at 289 grams!! (an average strawberry weighs 15 grams) grown in Israel in February 2022.

white strawberry

Rainbow of strawberries celebrated around the world

My globe-spanning travels include countless strawberry stories. From picking them in the wild anywhere from the Swiss Alps (German: Erdbeeren) and Zurich hills (again this morning on my way from yoga), French gas stations (fraises), sampling the previously world’s heaviest ‘King of Strawberry’ and the priciest white in Japan (苺 read: ichigo) to the world’s best chefs’ creative recipes at the fine tables.

This time of the year I would be driving through the Mediterranean Eze village, seduced to stop my car for a giant basketful of sexy red Naiad strawberries driven from Provence fresh daily by the roadside vendor. Buy a kilo or go to a supermarket. This large quantity would stir creativity once one was overfed by the pure fruit. The assembled deliciousness at home from countless cookbooks, as I did once with a giant white truffle, I would add them into anything (best recipe suggestions further down).

While the Italian fragola can sing a libretto according to the Pinocchios of that well-heeled land, the strawberries in Italy as well as from Spain have not impressed me so far. Even from the Southernmost Sicily, they do not taste as complex as those grown in France or further North. No matter how South the berry was grown, the Italians could not measure up to the Provencal specimens when in season.

In Denmark I tasted Favori, the first harvest of the year mid May (Danish jordbær). Chef Christian Baumann now at the superb Koan Copenhagen, where local bounty meets Nordic and Korean culinary heritage, worked as a teenager on a berry farm each summer learning about the subtle differences between strawberries and serves others like Rumba as the season progresses.

June strawberry

Always seasonal superfood

Forget June, there is always peak ripeness somewhere in the world. Heralds of early spring sunshine in the Middle East, later in Europe and Northern America, strawberries sweeten the year with juicy Vitamin C brightness, yet in some places it is the winter when they are at their best and cooler weather also favours more intense flavour. Mountain berries taste the most concentrated.

Plus, a bowlful has more fibre than a slice whole grain bread, so do not hesitate to eat plenty, sans gluten. More, the not always red juicy rascal turned out a relative with rose hanging out botanically in the same Rosaceae family.

These are the first ripe fruits rouges, to use the deceitful French term for all berries including black, blue, purple, yellow, beige, white, opal, or whatever colour a surface acquires as the sunshine warms its pigmented skin, ripe in the mild climate of four-seasons variability.

Burgundy strawberries

Made in France, literally

These edible roses grew from only a few original wild strawberry species into many breeds. The garden strawberries were first bred in Brittany, France in the 1750s from fragaria virginiana (American wild strawberry) hybridized with Chilean Fragaria chiloensis. This became the Fragaria ananassa species (there are about 20 now) resistant to diseases that ripens earlier and is the most used variety in commercial strawberry production. Hundreds of other crossbred species are available around the world throughout the year.

wild strawberries

It is also the French who honour the distinctions of these not always red berries most beyond the garden shops also on the food marketplace. I love the bloody juicy and bright Anaïs from the Loire valley, sweet Burgundy-deep Cirafine from Brittany, reliable Cléry from Ille de France, and while the Provençal Dream candy, marmalade processed sugar flavour is not for me, Joly and Murano — both straightforward bursts of sunshine in your mouth are delightful. Most distinguished in Provence are strawberries from Carpentras, Pertruis and Vaucluse. The Gariguette are perhaps most farmed in France and they are reliably sweet.

At Septime in Paris we ended a birthday meal with brick pale, juicy and balanced sweet Diamante. Most French Michelin chefs favour the cross of Mara des Bois for their wild forest fragrance resembling Alpine strawberries (fraises des bois in French).

Their bright acidity qualitatively sets apart Mara de Bois, with an intense, instantly recognisable strawberry perfume. It is more like an 80 percent dark chocolate in terms of sweetness and the pure taste of the place it grows. I can smell and taste the leaves, the bushes on the sun-warmed hedges where they like to grow. It is a luxury product of savvy breeding. These are one of my favourites, but it really depends on the day or how I want to eat them. The former chef to the designer Kenzo, Nakayama Toyomitsu serves mara de bois with caviar or shaved feta cheese at his Michelin star counter in Paris.

French strawberry

The success of any strawberry plant is about location. In the US different varieties dominate than in Europe or Asia. In America, the hard worker Honeoye, forerunner Earliglow, giant Allstar and the pretty red Jewel, not to be confused with the rare Japanese white Jewel. It is getting rather confusing in the strawberry world, doesn’t it?

While the low-yielding breed white Jewel strawberries in the Saga prefecture of Japan are very difficult to find, the most expensive there are the Kokota breed, priced at around $22 for just a single berry this is indeed a jewel, not your regular milkshake friend. The giants in Japan may look suspiciously oversized, but far from a watered down inferiority. The Amaou strawberries from Fukuoka Prefecture are widely considered to be the best, and so called the King of Strawberries. Grown inside temperature-controlled vinyl greenhouses from December to May, the first picks are generally considered the sweetest.

rare strawberries

How to savvily buy strawberries

Often imported from earlier ripening warm lands like Spain (fresas), Morocco (friz – the peak seasons are between December and January), Portugal (morangos), California to our impatient Northern palates before the local, often very short growing season kicks off.

Farmy, my Swiss delivery platform focusing on more sustainable, local produce even dares to claim that the Swiss strawberries are more sweet than from other countries because of their slower ripening. Well, with global warming we get the red garden berries from late May as other parts of Europe, yet if you compare with the imported produce to Switzerland, often inferior to what I eat in France, Oregon and the Nordic countries, locally farmed Erdbeeren indeed tend to be sweeter since they can be picked perfectly ripe.

Like all berries, they are fragile to handle so they are often gathered, transported and even sold in punnets, a small, usually paper or wooden box. Best, pluck your own and eat them the same day. Not just their antioxidant potency is diminished, but their flavour is muted by refrigeration, and since they are susceptible to moisture, mold easily develops so eat that punnet rapidly.

While strawberries are included in the dirty dozen list having often the highest residues of pesticides, here organic does not mean necessarily better taste. Eating a few samples I got around the markets in Paris next to the conventional varietal ones, I was struck how inferior the “bio” tasted. Too often, the flavour is watery, diluted, bland, sour, rarely you get to know the exact variety. Most organic shops around Europe stock them from the vast plantations in Spain.

perfect strawberry body Swiss strawberries

Wild joy of the colour red in nature

Searching through strawberry photos in my library, yielded unexpected discoveries. The quirkiest were my favourite strawberry bikini travelling with me from Italy through Asia in my early 20s. While I am working on getting that strawberry body back, my fascination with strawberries has grown. Well, if I subsided on a diet of strawberries only for a month, I would probably get there with a flash of those ripped abs, but anything too much is just not fun.

Driving through France last July, I spotted plentiful red sparks in the grassland and picked a box-full of wild joy around a gas station set in the countryside. Cycling in my native Czechia (Jahoda in my native Czech even graces some families with the strawberry namesake, greetings to all of the Mr and Mrs Jahoda!) often seduces me into the roadside hedges and hiking in the Alps each summer often turns into slow strolling as my face and fingers turn red with all that juicy bounty. Have you wondered which variety is the sweetest? It seems that the tiny Alpine Strawberry (Fragaria vesca) is one of the sweetest fruits you can grow.

Usually the first crop is best. High in the mountains, the wild Alpine variety ripens later, I usually pick them mid to late August, while down in altitude around Zurich I can forage around early in July, our backyard beset by usually haloes the ripening season.

wild strawberries strawberry recipes

How to eat the not-berries and some palate-opening recipes

Chefs keep the admired fruit going as well on their bold menus including lobster, black pepper (in Copenhagen) and other savoury ingredients in their strawberry recipes. In Vienna at Tian, I had them dressed with verbena leaves, poppy seed crackers, topped by their sorbet. Alain Ducasse marinated fraises de bois in sweet juice and in Monaco served them simply (even a three star restaurant can do things in uncomplicated way, bravo!) with vanilla ice cream. Just this weekend in Zurich at Maison Manesse, they pureed unripe Swiss green strawberries into a refreshing desert with cucumber, pistachios and sorrel sorbet. Superbly light for an unusually hot first June Saturday!

I would also add strawberries into a chilled gazpacho. Blend them in with the sweet n’sour tomatoes, bell peppers, even a cucumber, season well with spicy sauce and white pepper. In Europe usually crossing path with the tail of asparagus season, mixing them together in a salad is not a bad idea, add feta cheese or some string beans. Sage surprisingly pairs well. Herbs like basil or mint, heating spices such as cinnamon, vanilla, cardamom, and chili also enhance the flavour of the pure fruit. A ripe strawberry does not need any sugar in my opinion. Once a sweetener is added, the breadth of the taste is diminished.

traditional strawberry recipes

Honestly, I love them mostly bare, not in cakes, perhaps with a drizzle of olive oil and fleur du sel or aged Modena balsamic vinegar.

My grandmother used to make me a milkshake in June, she had no blenders or electric equipment back then. Just ripe strawberries picked from her garden minutes before were mashed with a spoon, easily (not with a fork as that would break the flesh chasing the texture) adding the icing sugar powder to it ground it a bit, then little by little she would pour some whole milk from her dairy cow into it. This tastes like no milkshake I have ever had anywhere ever since.

The most famous strawberry recipes include a Pavlova, pies, jams and marmalade in the West, Far East Fukuoka’s most famous wagashi ichigo daifuku, a strawberry enveloped in azuki red bean paste, mochi (sticky rice cake) and rolled into a ball is a must.

In Amsterdam, strawberries (aardbeien in Dutch) are marinated in rose sirup to be served alongside verbena ice cream and fresh almonds (also in season with the strawberries). At the Restaurant de Kas the chef Gert Jan Hageman profits from his organic greenhouses dating back to 1926.

At Brae in Australia’s countryside the pairing with green fresh almonds finds refreshing rendering with fig leaf oil and yogurt whey in a broth of broad (fava) beans. The chef Dan Hunter prefers the sweet Japanese specimens and the wild and rather rare white “fraises des bois”.

In cocktails, especially frozen or blended smooth beyond daiquiris (cask-aged rum), they work well with gin, neutral vodka, sparkling wine (as in Hugo), in France there is even a liquor made with the wild fraises de bois with countless blending options (in French). My local Swiss farm also makes a strawberry liquor from their superset crop. You can of course make a mocktail or that indulgent frozen strawberry daiquiri.

Raw or smoked fish like salmon pair well and so do vegetables like fennel. Mix in other fruits like mango in a spicy fresh salsa:

3/4 cup diced strawberries
3/4 cup diced mango
1 jalapeño, seeded and minced
2 tablespoons diced red onion
2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro leaves
2 teaspoons honey, or more to taste
Juice of 1 lime

June fruits French strawberries New Nordic cuisine Japanese strawberry

I like them as they are, like a kaiseki restaurant would serve these treats plain at the end of a long meal. I enjoy the Chinese and Japanese tradition of enjoying the highest quality fruit plain, showing their natural perfection, without adornments, dough, cream and other desserty companions we like in the West. My Japanese friend says: “I had them with some herbs like mint and shiso, white chocolate injected and so on, but still like them most as they are.” Anyway creativity knows no borders and the Western influence on either culinary culture infiltrated the Far-Eastern markets with layered sponge cakes, trifles, chocolate fountains, waffles and other sugary accompaniments to strawberries.

Some no brainers, so obvious generalisations of our seasonal experience just automatically escape our closer examination. Yet, when one pays attention to details, and in spring reads the labels above or bellow the “fraises” at markets in France. While being one of the most popular western spring heralds of ripeness, strawberries are one of the most qualitatively stretched fruits I know. The greatest of these berries stand alone strong!

On Meaning of/in Your ‘Connected’ Life

Meaning is perhaps the most important aspect of one’s happy, fulfilled life. Without having a purpose or a meaning, what is the source of motivation and lasting success? For thriving is not about that one moment of glory but about happiness in the long run, and as research into the Blue Zones shows, also benefits longevity.

While, some confidently roam through life with the flag of purpose, meaning is that known unknown for some of us. It is when instinct meets our heart.

So have you ever asked yourself what were you meant to do in this life? Even better, have you felt it? Feelings can confuse but also bring us closer to the truth, our inner version of it at least. Are you genuinely connected to your essential self?

Meaning of life

You can work literally you ass off, but if a deeper meaning does not back your effort that you better do nothing. Well what I mean, sometime the best ideas, the breakthroughs happen we we rest.

Yet, if you do what you were meant to do in this life, you do not need to ask this question. You just flow, thrive and trust yourself. You might not be well off financially, but you may be the well of creativity, wisdom and happiness.

Still, without a keel, the boat cannot sail for long. There may be wind forcing it forward (external motivation), a skill needed to take it (learned through practice), yet without the balance supporting the frame, the trunk of you (internal motivation), you won’t succeed in there race of life.

Incongruity rots your integrity. Rusty poses and smiles take their toll over time.

Unclear meaning of life fogs one’s path. You can get easily lost in that noisy obscurity.

Your heart-core satisfaction, your growth potential towards lasting happiness, and thus success beyond measure depend on you, solely and only on you.

Fondation Carmignac

The artist Miguel Rothshield quoting W. Shakespeare as his muse in the universal starlight piece above (and the video of it I made below) reminded me that ‘meant’ doesn’t mean shedding all responsibilities, right the reverse: “The fault is not in the stars, but in ourselves, that were underlinings”. Once again creative, theatrical wisdom took both, my heart and my brain by their tails!

Miguel Rothshield and Shakespeare alert on the importance of connectivity and our individual responsibility for our success or failure. It is not fortune or destiny written in stone that drives our purpose. It is the deep connection with ourselves.

Your ‘Connected’ Life

Meaning does not just walk in without your heart, or If I may dare – the soul. I will explain myself now. Some words just blend into one meaning. There is that physical pump pushing oxygenated blood through the vessels out into the organs and our limbs. But there is also that metaphorical heart that humanity has used ad memoriam. Yet this emotional, even metaphysical meaning of the heart touches us deeper than just the physical, machine-like function keeping human life on the go. The soul may be just a metaphysical well and psychological concept, but we cannot escape the self in our existence. We may not accept this part of the Cambridge dictionary definition “the spiritual part of a person that some people believe continues to exist in some form after their body has died”, yet we cannot deny “the part of a person that is not physical and experiences deep feelings and emotions”.

contemporary art

Like the mind, the soul is likely connected with the body. We already know that stress and other emotions affect the wellbeing of our physical body. The realm of psycho-somatic health problems has been expanding with more measuring tools at our disposal. The ancients spoke cross-culturally of the mind—body—soul alignment as the ultimate achievements of a spiritual being. It goes beyond the spiritual though, and surely the religious pathways. How comes that so many atheist intellectuals meditate? Even Einstein was puzzled and gave into the force of nature and the universe.

The work by Latin American artist Thomas Saraceno is often exhibited in NYC. He is one of the leading contemporary conceptual and visual artists. This video is the part of the Web series.

How we feel, how energetic or exhausted both in our body and the mind affect our experience of daily life. It may seem as if I strayed a bit here off the theme, but I did not. For being connected with your meaning is to be tuned into your soul. Where else would purpose come from? If it were dictated by some outer source then we would be robotic, unfree tools of someone who knows how to manipulate us. Connected therefore means free. Within — with oneself; as well as externally with others, nature, the universe. Hence, if you feel the connection then you have a meaning. Further, the more separated we get, the further lost we are. The soul home resides within us. Once we understand, accept, embrace and love ourselves, we will never be lost again. The web starts from you and it is all about love.

emotional art

I just read the bestselling fantasy book The Midnight Library by Matt Haig, where after a surreal journey “in-between” lives, the leading character Nora learns a very contemporary lesson: “You could eat at the finest restaurants, you could partake in every sensual pleasure, you could soak up whole thunderstorms of applause, you could travel to the ends of the Earth, you could be followed by millions on the internet, you could win Olympic medals, but this was all meaningless without love in your root life.” That love is not just romantic, butterfly excitement of meeting your kindred soul, but also your love of nature, yourself, life, family, and indeed someone who loves you back. That most reliable lover is yourself. For as everyone dies your attachment to them is vulnerable. What matters is that you love yourself until you perish.

Love is as much an attitude as it is an emotion. We must let the light in. I wrote more on this in my past musing and a few poems, but here I would like to quote Matt Haig again: “She had to try harder. She had to want the life she always thought she didn’t, the future was unwritten, a blank page”. Life consists of days and nights spent doing, thinking and resting. Therefore, what you fill each moment with is the sentence, page, leading to a chapter in the book of your entire life.

If you resent what you are doing it is perhaps because you do not love yourself enough and see no meaning in it, therefore your attitude is sour and not joyful. You do more harm in ‘helping’ with a sour face, bitter attitude and negative energy. Even for a helper who chose to do charity work, if meaning is not connected with love, it is not a genuine feeling and your connection is broken.

Love and meaning increase their potential when shared. For example if I compose songs, play instruments, listen to music, I may feel calm, uplifted, focused, connected with myself and perhaps something higher, unexplainable, but unless I share my work of joy with others, that selfish devouring of pleasure won’t last. It will not fulfilled you over time. There is a limit. But, when you share your meaning through lyrics, the tone of your guitar, piano, and a voice, then love works magic. The rockstar Lenny Krawitz coined it in his latest (I believe) album “Let Love Rule“. This is not a hippie slogan or a devotional cocktail of nativity and faith, but a gravitational pull of greater lives lived.

Finding what brings you joy is quite simple. For some it sparks in youth, for others it takes decades to reveals, but the rick is to become aware of all those activities that make you feel, genuinely and in a long term good. For one it is gardening, another savers the adventure of sailing, climbing mountains, composing poetry, challenging oneself physically, mentally or growing spiritually, discovering and researching, chatting with the locals at the cashier of your grocery store or the farmers market, …

Go back to your school years. What subjects were like a feather floating in a breezy afternoon? What just felt natural, doing as if it were the utmost expression of you? Perhaps this talent or its alternatives is exactly what you meant to do.

Matt Haig contemplates: “Is happiness the aim? Success isn’t something you can measure, and life isn’t a race you can win.” And his heroine confesses with her brimming heart: “I want my life to mean something – to do something good.” So find that activity that makes your heart swell with love, your mind so focused that you forget time, and your life more than just worth living. Do not expect any gains from that, just you being happy and content.

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