Small-town tales

As usual, Friday after work I went out for drinks with some friends. One of my closest friends here is moving to India this week, so there was a larger and more varied group than usual -- including some older people who are friends of the family. During a lull in the conversation, my friend said a quiet aside to an older lady, saying "I'm sorry about your cleaning lady."

I, of course, being the subtle, non-confrontational person that I am, asked what there was to be sorry about. My friend proceeds to tell me the following story, which has been in the local news, though I missed it entirely. The following took place in a very small village in France, just over the Rhein from us.

The older lady has had the same cleaning lady for many, many years. The cleaning lady is a very nice woman who's about five feet tall, weighs about 90 pounds. The cleaning lady has had a fairly difficult life, and has a son she's raised. The son has always been quiet and mostly not got in much trouble. Recently, however, he got somehow involved with drugs and the local drug dealer in the village. They got into a fight one night and both were using knives. The cleaning lady's son was injured badly enough to be in the hospital. In the meantime, apparently the son (and his mother, possibly) had put the drug dealer, bleeding and unconscious, into their car/trunk (details are sketchy and I opted not to pry too much during a casual social occasion -- or more than I already had). The drug dealer may or may not have already been dead, but was left there for two or three days.

A few days later, the son is released from the hospital and sometime later arrested for the murder of the drug dealer. Then we learn that, while the son was being treated, apparently his mother chopped up the body of the now-dead drug dealer and put it into many small plastic bags, and then drove them over the border (ie, into CH) and distributed them all over the place. The son was arrested when the body parts started to be found and he eventually confessed that his mother had done it.

Trippy.

Swiss cake rolls!

I have found it! A so-called "Swiss" thing from the US that is actually based in actual Swiss fact. And in the most yummy fact imaginable... The Little Debbie treat called Swiss Cake Rolls, beloved by junk food lovers throughout North America, have a basis in reality!

The Little Debbie version is lovely -- a thin chocolate cake layer rolled up with "creamy filling" and coated in waxy "chocolate" coating. Granted, they are full of nasty non-real ingredients, but that's why we love them, right? From the fridge or freezer, they are especially lovely.

But oh my oh my...the Little Debbies can't hold a candle to the real thing, which I found after only 3.5 years in this country. My only excuse is that I wasn't really looking. And that I almost never go to the bakery or the grocery stores (thanks, Scott!!!). But I found them last weekend on a quick grocery run with some friends, at a store we don't usually go to. "Schoggi Rolladen" they were called. All I could think was, SWISS CAKE ROLLS!! Unlike the Little Debbie version, these are freshly made and located in the bakery section -- which means they were most likely made that day, and will be sold and eaten that day. They have no shelf life.

So here's the drooly low-down: Thin light-brown chocolate cake layer (fresh and melt-in-your-mouth delicate) rolled around fresh cream filling (also lightly chocolate flavored -- just HINT o' chocolate), and then both ends (but not the middle) dunked in real, dark chocolate that is worthy of being called Swiss (ie, no wax to be found and it melts unctuously in your mouth...and in your hands -- thus you hold it in the middle). An absolutely yummy, tasty delight. Oh lordy, must not visit that store too often...

As for the mysteriously pedigreed "Swiss steak" found in the US of my youth? That still seems to have no basis in anything we've seen here. Fine by me -- I never liked it anyhow. :-)