Behold, the Luxemburgerli.
I spent a better part of a day wandering around Zurich, looking for specialty pastries and other indispensable quality of life objects to judge a place on. I hit the jackpot when I stumbled into Spruengli. It's a gorgeous grand old European cafe with a heavy emphasis on chocolate. The chocolates were amazing- especially the fresh truffles d'jour that they make every morning- but what I found to epitomize awesomeness were the Luxemburgerlis.
They are tiny macaroons. So airy and light, but intensely flavored with a good amount of sweet-tart in the filling. Heaven.
Bry still has a lot of co-workers in the Zurich office. He tries to hold on to some bargaining power with these to ensure that we get a steady supply. Anyone who is flying to New York MUST BRING LUXEMBURGERLIS and you will be worshiped as the Bringer of All Things Good. There's a franchise in the airport specifically to cater to our needs.
I've scoured New York for something comparable- every time I see macaroons at a cafe, I give them an honest try. They are always too dense, too large, too artificial tasting, too sweet. Always a letdown. I think there probably isn't a huge market for them here (when is the last time you craved one before today?) and they tend to load them up with preservatives so they keep a bit longer. Something is lost in translation here.
They do get stale really quickly though- you wait a day and they become dense and chewy and lacking the ethereal lightness that makes them so amazing.
So, you know, you have to eat them all right away. Polishing off a box of these is not a problem at all.
Speaking of Switzerland, did anyone else catch this APOD photo from earlier this month?
Here's the Linky, I would recommend clicking on it to see it's full size. It's surreal how beautiful and other-worldly it is.
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