Rosti

Rosti is, quite simply, one of the world's greatest foods ever invented.

It's the Swiss version of hash browns (pan-fried, shredded potatoes) and I'm sure it's been around a lot longer than anything we do with potatoes here in America.

When I was in Switzerland 2 years ago, I was dying for some good rosti - so Mr. Yellow Couch was kind to oblige me several times in his kitchen. Yum yum rosti.

I am sad to say that I have not had any of this culinary comfort food since. But all that is about to change.

On Monday I went to get a sandwich at a very, very old German butcher shop next to my new office where I just started working. The office is right on the border of my hometown where I grew up and I had been driving past this store my entire life. I knew the place sold German-style meat, but I was really unprepared for what I found inside.

It's a total throwback - I don't know how long the place has been there, but it is unchanged for maybe three or four generations. Blue and white checked curtains in the windows, ugly old building that's been there at least fifty or sixty years, who knew.

It's awesome. A time warp into German culture - and one long wall holds shelves and shelves of German, Austrian and Swiss food. My eyes were bugging out and I almost had an asthma attack. Nine long years I've been living in exile from Switzerland, thinking I can't get my favorite stuff in California. I freaked out - oh the hope!

I went to the meat counter and asked the butcher, scared to break the spell: "Do you have rosti?"

He was American and didn't understand the word in Schwyzerdutsch. So I described it. "Shredded potatoes, like a big hash brown?"

"Oh yeah!" he enthused. "That's the greatest side dish ever invented, I use it all the time!"

I got the last box. I was totally beside myself with both delight and dismay that I went two years without my favorite food for absolutely no reason other than ignorance.

Tonight, my friends, I am making rosti for dinner.