Thurs, July 31 - Richard's Preview/Premiere

7.48am - porridge oats w/ peaches, strawberries, walnuts and hemp and sesame seeds, at home9.48am - grapes and cherries, at work

10.45am - a chocolate cookie during another Future of Television meeting, this one regarding American Gladiators, Gladiators UK and Gladiators Australia. It's all they can do to feed us chocolate cookies to prevent us from running out of the room screaming. At work.

13.51h - club sandwich from Breadbar, at work

19.04h - Richard premiered his new film tonight. After Egypt, New Zealand and Morocco, the latest installment of his "Adventures with Purpose" took him to Switzerland, so the premiere was held at a brand new Swiss restaurant (technically not open until some time mid-August) with the ominous name of Chalet Edelweiss. Now, if you had grown up in Germany, you wouldn't feel terribly excited things like Edelweiss either, but I'm always excited about Richard's (and Laura's) projects, plus was curious to see what the restaurant would present as Swiss food. So here we go - it was a buffet affair, so this is the first appetizer platter - looking decidedly German

19.04h - sausages! Can't get more German than this.

19.04h - pretzels - crossing the Alps between Bavaria and Switzerland

19.07h - but here's something originally Swiss (and it's not just the glass with the cow in a hammock...). Rivella, as was explained to me by a proud Swiss server, is a soft drink made "from the liquid that's left when you make cheese". This doesn't sound so good (here's a better explanation) but it's actually very tasty. Light and refreshing, with a slightly fruity taste. And apparently it's very healthy, too! This one's a winner, and I can't get over the fact that they imported these glasses from Switzerland, what with the 3 dl mark and all...

19.13h - a Swiss gentleman heating cheese for, you guessed it, Raclette... he swooped the molten piece off with a large knife and...

19.13h - ... here it is on my potatoes, onions and gherkins. I'm not a big friend of blobs of molten cheese even on the best of days (i.e. when I'm not vainly attempting to go dairy free), but this really was a too much... but it was fun to watch him swoop...

19.16h - and more sausages! These were actually very good, spicier than the first lot above. Ritesh liked them, too. Very nice. I guess we do have something in common with the Swiss...

19.58h - ok, now this is a French dessert if ever I saw one - Parisian macarons? But who's to argue, they were just what was needed after all that sausage. Between Kathleen, Jasmin and I, we pretty much had all the ones that are missing on this platter... except for one that went to Ritesh

20.14h - we even got Swiss chocolate to take home! Yay!