So You Want to Make Some German Food?

I know, I know.  This is pretty much the first thing most people think when they wake up in the morning.

"Shoot!  Today I really want some cabbage!"

I get it.  I really do.  And I'm here to help.

So, let's start with the all-time easiest German dish you can make:  Gurkensalat.  aka Cucumber Salad.

All German food joke irony aside, this is actually frakin' amazing stuff.  You're going to look at the ingredients and go, "I....I...don't know...about...this ideaaaaa..."  But, you have to put your trust in me.  My first name is German.  See?  Trust me. ::I am patting your arm with reassurance::

Also, it's super cheap to make and takes about two minutes.  So check it:

Gurkensalat 

(The Heavenly Cucumber Salad of Dreams)

1 (English) cucumber, or 2 reg. American cucs

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon sugar

1 tablespoon vinegar (pref. cider vinegar)

dry or fresh parsley, for added optional loveliness

*Step 1*  Peel the cucumber (but leave little bits of the peel on places.  It's an added loveliness thing.)

*Step 2* Slice the cucumber as thinly as you can.  Aim for see-through-it-ed-ness.

*Step 3* Mix everything together in a bowl (add parsley option just on top).

*Step 4* Eat it.  Super fast.  It's that good.

Solstice

We have a good friend in Oregon (who I will call "LovePuppet") who would give everybody presents to celebrate the Winter Solstice each year, often including some kind of dark chocolate.

So, because we live in a place where it will be midnight-dark at around 3:30pm, and, in the spirit of the beloved and missed Love Puppet, we went to a chocolatier in town to get the darkest hot chocolate we could find on the Solstice.

I usually think it's weird when people take pictures of cafe or restaurant food (hey!  Look what I digested!), but I kind of can't help myself when it comes to amazing edible things.

Like, take this hot chocolate.  They literally melted a chocolate bar, poured it into a cup, gave us each a pint of whipped cream to add to it, and were like, "Welp, have at it!" (but, you know, in German).

A chocolate bar, people!  Melted!  Into the cup!

Happy Winter Solstice from der Nord!

O Aquabaum!

After we bought a teal, plastic-"needled" Christmas tree this year to set off the hues of Egnaro* (this is what happens when you live in Aquahaus), I couldn't help but notice that there were other Aquabaums all over the city.  This one, in the Norwegian part of the Christmas Market, is by far my favorite.

Doesn't that look magical?

Takes my Christmas-light loving breath away every time we pass it on the way home from work.

Plus, about ten steps away you can get a "spit-roasted boar with sauerkraut plate" or "duck breast fillets with cranberry sauce on a baguette."

O Aquabaum!  O Aquabaum!  How lovely are thy branches...and booths!



*Rees offered such a wonderful name, how could we resist?  Egnaro.  So exotic.  So inviting. So...weird...  Egnaro the ceramic orange wall.

Your Guide to Turkey: Food

Simit

I have a philosophy about traveling and food-- all foods fall into two categories

*Foods You Should Try and
*Foods You Really Should Try

Usually, the foods that sound normal, tasty, and comfortable fall into the first category.  All the other foods are in the second.

Paul finds this philosophy very distressing.  I find it adventurous.  Usually we end up meeting in the middle by the end of a trip.

So..anyway...Let me tell you about drinks!

Sahlep dude with...thingy

SAHLEP:  On our second night there, I saw a street vendor pushing around this cart with a giant brass...thermos/liquidheater...thingy...on it.  There was a sign on it that said, "Sahlep."  I stood there with a Turkish lira in my hand, literally hopping with anxiety, trying to get up the courage to ask for a cup (I was still new to the whole "I'm in Turkey" thing).  Paul just stood there being exceedingly distrustful of sahlep.

I don't really blame him because when he asked me what it was I said, "It's, like, a hot...orchid root...drink?"

Yeah.  Tasty sounding huh?

But here's the thing.  It is tasty.  It's like drinking...uh...drinking...okay.  Imagine you have hot chocolate.  But it's really thick and creamy.  Okay, but now it's white chocolate.  And now...it's not chocolate, it's just white?  And now there's cinnamon on top.  (Also it's made of orchid root.*)  That's Sahlep.

APPLE TEA:  It's not really tea.  It's more like they took really good apple juice.  Then they made it better apple juice.  Then they made it hot.  I bought a box of the mix to bring home with us.  It's only been two weeks.  It's gone.  All I want for Christmas is another box of Apple Tea mix.

JUICE:  Seems like this was "a thing" in Turkey when we were there--a lot of street vendors making fresh-squeezed juice.  Usually orange or pomegranate.  I found this one dude in the fish market who put three whole pomegranates in a hand-juicer for me and it made a little dixie cup's-worth but it was seriously so good.  Also, way way cheaper and better than this (plus, what a goofy name, right?).

Remember this picture?  Yeah, that's some ayran right there.

AYRAN:  It's like plain yogurt.  But sourer.  And watery.  It makes a magnificant milk moustache if you're in the market for one.  Also, probably a very good probiotic.  I'm glad I tried it, dag nabbit.  But that doesn't mean I'll buy another giant cup of it for fun anytime soon.  Give me sahlep or give me...not ayran.

Now imma gonna tell you about some foods.

SIMIT:  You may have noticed that first picture above.  That bagel-like dream is called a simit.  It's really good bread dipped in grape molasses (not as sweet as you'd think) and then rolled in sesame seeds.  We ate one of these for lunch every day.  Also, one costs you 20 cents.  Best part?  The dudes that walk around town with giant piles of these on boards balanced on their heads.

Simit-Balancers of the World, I salute you.

Hungry?  Grab a meze!

MEZES:  Turkey takes their appetizers seriously. And those appetizers are called Mezes.  You can get cold mezes or hot mezes.  I more or less went for the cold ones and would try their mixed plates when we went out to dinner.  This resaurant had tomatoes, cucumbers, an herbed yogurt, potato salad thing, eggplant/tomato, tomato/garlic, hummus, and stuffed grape leaves.  And pita.  And bread.

Everyone had the same bread and it was unbelievable.  It was the best bread I've ever had in my life.  I want to know where the giant bakery is that makes this same bread for everybody in Istanbul every day.  Find it for me, and I will reward you with mezes.

DONER:  Now, someone is going to call foul on this, but people, the Doner in Germany are actually way better than the Doner in Turkey.  I know!  I know!  Throw the tomatoes if you like, but it's true.

Come to Germany for Doner and I will show you the gates of heaven.   Go to Turkey for Doner, and I will show you a pretty good gyro wrapped in something that very closely resembles a flour tortilla.

For the uninitiated, Doner is actually the word describing how the meat is cooked.  It's a giant mass of a vertically rotating rotiserrie of (usually) lamb meat.  When you ask for a doner kebab, the shop owner takes this sword, slices off a few strips from the edges of the Doner meat mass, and wraps it all up for you with some vegetables and sauce.  It's always going to be good (I just know about the gates of heaven and all...so...I'm spoiled).

TURKISH DELIGHT:  Already talked about this here.  I still taste flowers in my mouth when I think about it.  Bleeeeelelelele.  I'm going to go brush my teeth.

KOKOREÇ:  Say it with me now-- Ko-Ko-Retch!   Very much like cockroach, if you ask me.   But it's totally not cockroaches!  It's way better.

Sheep intestines!

The culmination of my Turkey Food Philosophy achievement.  We went to the McDonalds of Kokoreç over in the New District and ordered me up a 1/4 portion of a sheep intestine sandwich (Paul was having none of it...he thought).  The proprietors of KokoDonalds were very nice--even taking a picture of us at one of their tables.

I liked them.  And their intestines.  You couldn't even really tell they were intestines anyway (which was only slightly disappointing).  It looked more like a squigglier version of ground beef.  And it was very spicy.  After Paul saw me chowing down on that sandwich he totally asked for a bite (win! adventure win!).  And, we both thought it was pretty good.  And who else reading this blog has had fast food sheep intestine?  Not many, I'll wager.  You should really try it. 

You should really try all local foods actually.  You get some ayran every once and a while, but usually it's a sahlep or a simit--and there's nothing much better than that.



* So apparently Turkey doesn't export Sahlep anymore because they were killing off too many orchids in production and the species was going extinct.  So, unless you're in the black market, you can only have sahlep in the winter in Turkey.  That's as good a reason to go as any!

Tandem

Uni-Rostock Mensa

I have a friend named Elizabeth.  She's from Medellin, Colombia, and we have lunch together twice a week because that's part of our Tandem agreement.

In Germany, there's an idea that everyone understands called "Tandem."  Think of it like two-way bartering.  One person has something the other one wants, and so does the other person.  So, you trade.  In our case, I know how to speak English and Elizabeth knows Spanish.  She needs to practice English and I need to practice Spanish.  And so a Tandem was born.

We went to the Mensa today, which is a university cafeteria.  We had mashed potatoes (pude de papas/Kartoffelpüree), pork (carne de cerdo, Schweinefleisch), and vegetables (verduras/Gemüse).  We talked about food and vacations and weather, todo auf Spanisch.

Tandem is totally messing up my head.  I can't help but throw in German words between Spanish words.   Ich habe una problema.  The most repeated offenses today went something like, "Ja! Yes! Sí!"  or "aberrrrr...I mean pero!"

Elizabeth gets it though.  And we can generally understand each other no matter what.  Understanding is always way easier than speaking. So we get weird looks when we walk down the street, her speaking Spanish and me answering in English. And then we laugh and say, "Alles gut!"

And did you know that Elizabeth's boyfriend is on a championship Water Rugby team?!  Did you even know that was a thing?!

It is!!!

You can break your leg and drown at the same time!  Fun!  I'll have to ask her at our next Tandem about how you can spectate that sort of thing.  And how do the refs ref?  Are there underwater sonar whistles (Unterwasser-Pfeifen/silbatos bajo de agua)?!  Do you know?!  I need to know.

Also, this is the biggest cookie sheet I can find here!  Das ist a problema también!

  

The Hunns Go Shopping

The best way to spell "Fish."  They just throw in
c's wherever they wisch, it seems.

I was thinking the other day about how this blog isn't exactly representative of what usually goes on here in the Rostocker* garret we call home.  If you scroll back a little it sort of looks like all we do is train-off to exotic locations and do things like eat wild boar and walk a lot.  I mean, we do that.  Just, not all the time.  I forget that the things we do that are "everyday" here, are actually pretty exotic in their own right.

So, I'm turning a new leaf here.  And I'm gonna tell you all sorts of crazy things about, wait for it, grocery shopping.

First off, you need to bring bags.  Or a really big purse.  Or a backpack.  Because they aren't going to be giving you paper or plastic or pity when you get through the checkout with a giant pile of canned tomatoes and a panicked look on your face.  I learned this way back in May when I bought 23 chocolate bars for presents and had to carry them out in teetering towers after I stood expectantly at the end of the register waiting for some sort of sack for what felt like 30 years.    So, let this be a lesson.  You buy it, you pack it out.

Second, you have to "pay" to use a cart.  I think this idea is brilliant.  You need a euro coin which, when you put it into a little slot on the cart,  releases it from its cage ("release the wild caaaaaart!" I say in my best circus ringmaster voice).  Then, when you're done shopping, you take your cart back to the cage and if you nest it correctly into the cart in front your euro pops out.  Yes!  Germany: Incentives for Keeping Everything "Just So."

Or maybe, "Germany: An OCD Paradise."

[I assume it was quite the sight to see me trying to calmly, yet confidently** pry/yank/shake a cart loose the first time though.  It's not like there are clear instructions in English posted about that sort of thing, you know.  It's kind of at a "Well, duh!" status here, I think, so of course they wouldn't.]

Third, let's talk about the food.  I'm just going to use a few examples from our most recent excursion today since I could never remember all the "huh, interesting"s I've had over the past month and a half (it feels like I've been here so much longer!)

You know, I never knew how dependent our diet was on Hidden Valley Ranch Dressing till we moved here.     Ranch dressing...kind of non-existent.    We were actually really excited to find Thousand Islands dressing today because we've been missing Reubens, though.

One other thing, nothing really comes in plastic containers here except for some drinks.  Food is always in glass, cans, or waxy cardboard (sometimes in unexpected packaging--like alfredo sauce in a box).  I like the heft of pulling out my big, glass salad dressing bottle from the fridge--it's like when you'd go to old-school diners that actually still had glass ketchup bottles.  It's homey--vintagey.

The heft of carrying it all the way home along with my big, glass bottles of sauerkraut, mayo, jam, and applesauce isn't as nice though.  But, it's making me super buff, so we've made peace.  (Plus, throwing glass away here is kind of fun--but I'm saving that for the "taking out your garbage in Germany" post).

Moving on.  I included our new interesting food: knödel.  Imagine mashed potatoes, but more dumplingy and rounded into big ol' balls (sorry Dani).  Then put a piece of toast (you heard me. toast.) in the middle.  There you go.  They're totally weird, but great with gravy.  Like pretty much everything in the world.

And finally, I want to introduce you to my favorite brand here: Milka.  They make aaaaaaall sorts of chocolate bars--air-pocket filled bars, cream filled, hazelnut, unidentified-German-berry, etc.  I bought this one because it was on sale and made me laugh.  The "flavor" is called "Cow Spots."  ::love::  I think I've averaged about one of these bars every other day.  I'm developing a dependency but I don't care leavemealone!

Wait, Wait, I'm almost finished!  And there's a big surprise at the end!

I don't think I need to go into how big preserved meats are in Germany.  Let's just say that, you know how there's a section in American stores for chicken?   Yeah, imagine something about that size, but just for salami.  Like, tens, nay, hundreds of kinds of salami.

We bought this kind today to try out.  It's a variety called "French Baguette."  We think it's because it's all oblong-shaped.  I just got it because it was the weirdest looking one of the bunch.  Looks good, doesn't it?

And for our finale!

We also visited the cheese quarter of the store.  Yes, quarter.  I have seen cheeses Dr. Seuss could not even imagine.  Someday I'm going to get the guts to try the neon pink and neon green cheeses.  But, for today, the cheese I wanted to try the most was:

Heidi Alp Cheese!  From Switzerland, no less.
My Very Own Cheese! (I hope its edible!)

There's a lot more I could tell you about--like how cheap bread is, or how there's 15 million varieties of this spreadable cheese stuff that we eat on toast, or how the Fisch and Fleisch (Meat) section is preeeeeeety amazing looking (care for some liver bits and carrot floating around in some aspic?).  But I think this is way long enough already.

Also, I can't really top cheese that's named after myself.

Seriously.

*Rostocker.  Not Rostockian or Rostockish.  I've asked the student experts.

** "Calm, yet confident" is the phrase I repeat to myself whenever I have to go do anything that might end up with a German speaking German to me.  Especially when a German might suddenly and unexpectedly speak German to me--like, at a grocery store, for example.  That fa-reaks me out sometimes.

Plague (Plahg) Brog, The Great Strudel Adventure

We had a handful of "missions" we decided were essential during our trip to Prague.  They ranged from "Ride Funicular" to "Eat game in elegant setting" to "See Wenceslas' tomb" to "Find THE STRUDEL."

Way, way back, five months ago, we checked out a series of travel documentaries from our little public library.  One was a thirty-minute episode on Prague and though it included a variety of very interesting facts and places (the cafe where you can pay to throw stale donuts at anyone you like, for example), we kind of fixated on the little, one-room, orange-painted, neighborhood Strudel bakery that was located somewhere in the mysterious outer limits of municipal Prague, or, as the ever-positive hostess of the show said, it's "a little off the beaten path."

I mean, look at the SIZE of that thing!

It was clearly the kind of place that no normal tourist would ever know about (+5 points).  It was clearly a "real" experience since the one guy who ran the store obviously understood absolutely no English (+2 points).  And finally, you got what was some of the best apple strudel in the world for around $2...and it was, like, the size of your leg (+1000 points).



We were going to find this place.  We were going to find it and buy a strudel and eat it all right there on the road curb in front.  It was going to be glorious.

We spent nearly an hour online looking for the address of this mysterious strudel bakery, and we found it: confirmed by a picture of the orange paint and the gigantic pastries.  Also confirmed that this place, with no other name than "Strudl" had no phone number or website.  We knew it was a risk to trek into the boondocks without knowing if it even still existed, but we decided to take it (plus there was a review from August 2011, so ...that was good right?).

The day of the Strudel Search was Paul's birthday and that was his dream birthday cake.  And, like, what bakery isn't open on a Saturday morning?  And what dream bakery isn't open on the exact day is has to be open to fulfill a good man's pastry dreams?  I ask you!

I'm sure you've all guessed by now that after walking three and a half miles up and down hills, along freeways, under overpasses, and past sketchy nightclubs with names like "Go Go Go," we found our Strudel Place.  Still painted orange.  Still with its three-item chalk menu (apple, poppy seed, or cheese strudel).  Still with its $2 prices.  Still squeezed in on the first half-floor of a large, communist-style apartment building.

Still...closed since the day before for a vacation.  Not to open again till ten minutes before our train from Prague left the station.

It was so. so. so. sad.

We solemnly vowed, right then and there, that we would someday return and claim our arm-sized strudels! It's going to happen, people.  It's going to happen.

Since it wasn't going to happen that exact weekend however, we "settled" for the jablkovy zavin (apple strudel) of the Cafe Savoy.  A slice only the size of your entire hand for $2, granted.  But, man, if this orange-painted strudel place is supposed to be "The Best Strudel in the World" then I'm at a loss as to how it can be any better than what we ended up "settling" for.  It might, in fact, defy the laws of the universe.

I guess we'll see...

But as for the Cafe Savoy, well, we might have gone back twice within a three hour period to get apple strudel.  The waiter might have rolled his eyes just a leeeeeettle bit at us.  But he can't get perturbed.  He's the one peddling the addiction.  But the cafes are a totally different story, one I'll tell later.

Dreaming of Boar

Cafe Imperial in Prague

We leave for Prague on Friday morning and while Paul is spending his days in an apoplexy of glee about seeing Prague castle, I have to tell you that my particular fantasies revolve around the food.

We're going to eat out at the Cafe Imperial and the Cafe Savoy at least once each just so I can enjoy everything about them--the huge windows, those gorgeous tiles on the ceiling, and the food.  Oh, the food.

I'm kind of set on having my first eggs benedict at the Cafe Imperial, because it has such good reviews on its eggs dishes (and 4 euro for an eggs benedict breakfast?  sign me up!)

And for dinner?  Who can beat having traditional wild boar with ham dumplings?  Or a leg of hare?   Did you hear me?!  A leg of hare!  I mean, HELLO CZECH REPUBLIC!  I'm totally eating rabbit, boar, or both by the time we get back to Germany next week.