Lucerne
At Lucerne, we were strolling down the river Reuss. The riverside hosts occasional farmer’s shop selling local produce.
While browsing, we stumbled upon a cheese and meat shop. It was a humble shopfront, a simple table by the riverside, under a white canvas tent atop steel posts. The table was stacked with myriads of cheese and cured meats. Cheeses with hues of red, yellow, orange, and even black and blue were enticingly exhibited. Alluring hunks of delis of all type and sizes hung by the posts.
“Try some cheese and salami?” greeted a tall Italian man in green apron, ushering us to his wares of cheese and delis.
Bel and I are big fans of cheese, and we hardly say no to free samples. So we happily welcomed the samples he gave. They were delicious! The cheeses were deeply palatable. One pungent flavourful salami particularly caught my buds. Then Bel was hooked by one of the big wheel of parmesan, which he kindly gave us samples to try.
We really liked it and wish to bring it back home to enjoy with our friends and family, but we had a problem. It was only the first week of our trip. We still had two more weeks of travelling. I was afraid that what we bought fresh today, would go bad before we could even enjoy it back home. But thinking that it was European winter where it will be colder and much dryer than the tropics, we took the risk thinking we could make it work.
So we told him we would like buy some of it.
At the sound of our interest, his eyes lit up and cheekbones rose. He promptly went back to the wheel of parmesan, all the while maintaining eye contact with us; probably in the hope of retaining our interest.
Then he chopped a big chunk of the parmesan, bigger chunk than my one palm could grasp. I was shocked. Yes we wanted to buy some parmesan, but that is too much! Moreover, if he had cut that much OFF the wheel for us, how was I supposed to cancel the purchase? He can’t just glue the cut off parts back on right?
I looked at Bel, and Bel looked at me, we non-verbally agreed it was too much parmesan. Then we looked at the Italian man, whom was still looking at us; now packing the parmesan into a clear plastic, putting it atop a weighing scale.
I gazed at the tiny price tag with big numbers by the parmesan wheel, and then to the numbers climbing up the scale. I was aghast. We can’t spend this much on just cheese!
“Could we have less please?” I negotiated.
Which he nodded to and responded by slicing barely one fifth of the original chunk. Which was worse because now I feel guilty for BOTH the shredded fifth, and the more of less I was still not going to buy.
“MUCH less of that. Maybe just 200 grams.” I asserted. Too much at stake!
That cut much of his smile, and then he cut the parmesan.
He then weighed it again, which now totalled to about 300 grams and looked at me with a revived spark of a smile. “This OK?“
Having had enough altercations, I acquiesced to this 300 grams.
On top of that, I also got my pungent salami, a pack of ham, and a piece of dry aged beef, this time fortunately with much less cutting.
Cheese Survival
The next 2 weeks of he trip since we procured our delis, I implemented measures that will maximise the chance we get to bring back our food items in their most pristine condition.
I kept them in a dark-orange plastic bag; a dedicated bag for these food.
When we were driving around, it will always be in the boot of the car where it is closer to the winter temperature outside.
Whenever we reach our accommodations, the first thing I do would be to put that bag in the fridge.
Come our last destination, Munich, where we would be spending 4 nights in, our accommodation did NOT have a fridge. But I was not going to give up.
Capitalising on the cold winter weather again, I thought of leaving it by the windowsill where it’ll stay cold! The windowsill was very narrow, so I strung up some ropes to keep my dark orange deli-bag from falling off. It wouldn’t be delightful to have this fall onto someone’s head!
It was working quite well. One of the night we even ice chilled some beers.
The Tragedy
On the 2nd last day before I get to bring home my hard preserved delis, I discovered a terrible tragedy.
When I opened the curtains to let the morning light in, I saw birds flapping around, and a gazillion holes on my deli bag. I quickly opened the windows to rescue my deli bag.
It was too late. Those bandits probably had been on it the whole night. The pack of ham were pecked in all over. One end of the salami was pierced through. A portion of the parmesan were now swiss. Only the dry aged beef was unscathed, thanks to its vacuum packing and tougher meat.
My heart sank. I’ve put so much thought and effort into the delis’ survival. I was looking forward to sharing these with family and friends back home. Thanks to these flying beasts, now it’s all squandered.
“Why not just cut off the damaged parts?” Bel chimed in, while I was lamenting on my now futile attempt.
From the way the delis were arranged, the ham tanked bulk of the attacks though it paid dearly for that. The rest only had one side exposed, and thus were salvageable by cutting off the damaged parts. So thanks to Bel’s level headedness then, we were able to recover some parts of our delis!
Birds!
I liked birds. The day before, I was just feeding them, admiring how they could hover.
But after today, I can’t help to call fowl when I see one.
Dashing Heights 