Things That Come in the Mail - Bavarian Alpine Cheese

Aside from monthly bills and the odd newsletter to my local wine store, I love love love getting things in the mail. Postcards, letters, packages, things I've ordered online - it's always a surprise when I come home after a day at work. I've come to value the merits of certain couriers over others. Hermes allows me to send anything back, DHL is the standard of the German Post and DPD - well, it's DPD. The friendly man from DHL came by today with the box of cheese I ordered last week. What did I order? Clockwise from top:


Emmentaler - what is normally referred to as Swiss cheese in North America. This one is old.

Emmentaler - this is a milder version. I need to compare the 2.

Bergkäse - it's Alpine cheese. Literally means "mountain cheese" the milk is from cows who are happy frolicking in the Bavarian alps.

Weisslacker - I don't know what this is but it's small, creamy and the smell could peel the paint off of walls. Kind of like a roquefort but sweet.

Bärlauchkäse - a cheese with wild leeks. This makes me happy.

Camembert - it's not a true Camembert because that must come from France. This is a Mountain Guard Camembert. It'll do just fine.

In the center: Eisenberger - a hard cheese and it looks like Swiss cheese but with smaller holes and the taste is not as nutty.

The place I ordered it from has very amusing video on cheesemaking, complete with Alpenhorn music. It's like being in a Ricola ad. See it here. I visited this cheese place on my way home from Neuschwanstein - the Cinderella castle - a year ago. I saw a cheese place that was open & I insisted that we stop.

Photo taken with new camera phone that has since broken

sign on the side of some barn at the cheese place -
translates to "our milk makes Bavaria strong!"

Dinner for a few nights is saved: nice weather, crusty bread I can get on the way home, cheese and a bottle of wine. I love living in Europe.

Eating Out - McDonald's Deutschland Cupcakes

After years of trying to explain to Germans that there is life beyond muffins and its name be cupcakes, McDonald's has introduced cupcakes to its McCafé lineup. There are 4 flavours, all named after New York City areas - Chelsea Chocolate, SoHo Vanilla, Central Park Strawberry and East Village Cappuccino. I was slightly intrigued by this addition to the McCafé menu when I read heard about it last month, but not so much that I felt the need to consume the extra calories. Then I read a post on Serious Eats about this very topic. For my fellow food bloggers at home, I sampled 2 of the new cupcakes.

I ruled out the strawberry and cappuccino cupcakes right away, and settled on the Chelsea Chocolate and SoHo Vanilla. I'm not too sure why they are named after these neighbourhoods, but that's secondary. The cupcakes themselves: unspectacular. Decent cake; fatty, sugary frosting. The cupcakes were placed in a box with care by the lady behind the counter but I'm not sure that anything could have made a dent in the frosting. The cupcakes are in a cooled area and the frosting is harder than a Sara Lee cake. And not as good. It'd be better if it was from Duncan Hines. Still, the chocolate frosting is better than the vanilla.

The cake itself was decent but McDonald's has been selling chocolate muffins for a few years now, and frankly, I think they used the same batter. Not bad, but not worth the calories.

Price: €1.79 per cupcake (approx. $2.40 US), or have all 4 for €5.99.

Note: Germany has good cakes. Coffee cakes, creamy blackforest cakes, fruit flans - many bakeries have cafes where you can sit and have a coffee and piece of cake. If you're travelling here, you might want to consider that option.

Food Floor - KaDeWe in Berlin

Last weekend, the workaholic & I hopped a train & went to Berlin. The hotel we were staying at was not far from the zoo, and not far from the Kaufhaus des Westens - KaDeWe. This is one of the remaining department stores where you can really get anything your heart desires. We walked in next the the Tiffany's counter, which is a self-enclosed store, just like Omega & Mont Blanc. We didn't stop to look; it was lunchtime & we got in the next elevator, went to the 6th floor & found: food. An entire floor of International, but mainly European, food. After looking at the overfilled grill, we passed by the Paul Bocuse stand, and we finally settled on crepes. For me, the Parisienne, for the workaholic, the Marseille.


Mine had crawfish and mushrooms in a cream sauce, his had tuna and olives in a tomato sauce. A good crepe, but a crepe all the same. I wanted more. So we got our things & started to walk.

We passed by the cheese counter. I asked what the layout was. "Here we have goat cheese, these are organic cheeses, here's the Bavarian cheese, next to it the Austrian cheese, the Swiss cheese, down there" (and it was 4 meters away) "is the English cheese, around the corner, we have Italian cheeses, and next to those the Spanish ones. The French cheeses are at the counter over there." And the lady motioned to another island, larger than the one she was staffing. "If there's anything you need, please let me know," she concluded - words not often heard in the German language. We bought some Roncal, because I've been having difficulties getting it with my online supplier. Then we went to look at the French cheeses. I photographed the French butters, mainly because they have over 10 different kinds.

Then we noticed that they have a cheese bar. A little nook where shoppers can sit, have a glass of wine and savour cheese, while the rest of the store hums with movement.

There was also a very well stocked wine department, which had a cooler room instead of a cellar. That was where they stored the Rothschilds and other rarities. You need a salesperson with a key to enter. I bought a bottle that didn't need to be locked up. After looking around a bit, we found the fish department, right next to the packed oyster bar. We watched the fishmonger as he skillfully made fillets out of wild flounder.

As the fishmonger told the purchaser the price, the woman simply said, that's fine - I won't eat anything for the rest of the week. 150€/Kilo is a steep price for such a flat fish.

What surprised me was the fact that I could find Canadian lobster. I've been following the lobster market from afar this season, lamenting the fact that I couldn't come home for some crustaceans. But in KaDeWe, I found some. It was in a can though, so I couldn't go through with it. Not to mention the prices did not reflect the Canadian lobster market I'd been following. Yes, other people follow stocks, I follow lobster prices.

Afterwards, we found the ham section. There was a section for Italian ham, for ham from central Germany, ham from northern Germany, ham from southern Germany, and fair selection of pata negra ham from Spain. For those of you who don't know - I love my Spanish ham. See last years post as proof. I bought some 20 month old ham to go with my roncal and wine & almost made my way out of the store. One thing got in my way - the Veuve Clicquot stand, with the Grand Dame champagne that is normally never available by the glass. We stopped, shared a glass & took our treasures back to the fridge in the hotel.

Yes, there was a lot more to see in Berlin. We made it to some tourist attractions. But for me, this was on my list of "Things to do before I leave Germany". Going to KaDeWe is now off of my list. Going back to KaDeWe has replaced it.

La Grande Dame de Berlin

I spent last weekend in Berlin. Friday night, I packed a bag, set my alarm clock and got on the 6am train. Just in time for lunch in Berlin. After dropping off my bag, I set out to the Kaufhaus des Westens, also known as KaDeWe, also known as the best food floor in the world. Yes, it outdoes Harrod's. I'll post on that later. What I'm posting about today is the Veuve Clicquot stand.

There are stands for a few of the big champagne houses, Moet, Jacquard, and Veuve Clicquot. The Veuve stand had the most seating room and had the friendliest smile behind the counter. The workaholic and I went for Veuve, mainly because we never drink it. We had a glass of the regular champagne, as well as a glass of Grande Dame. I've never seen Grand Dame for sale by the glass before, maybe because it retails for over 100 Euros. This was our unique chance to try a glass of the 1998 vintage, and it did not disappoint.

After having the lovely lady with the smile explain to us what made this Grande Dame so special (very fine bubbles, notes of apricot and tobacco - yes, this is a good thing!) we tried a glass. Opened in front of us, poured so I could taste if it was corked, I was served a glass of very fine champagne. The Workaholic ordered a glass of the Brut as comparison.

Agreed, very fine bubbles. A beautiful brut: notes that a good chardonnay strives for and a wonderfully complex bouquet on the palate that made me savour every sip. The only problem is that I was under sensory overload with 1 glass. Maybe it's for the best because the stuff is rather expensive.

More on Berlin & KaDeWe later...

Eating In - Coa

Outside Coa

It's been quite a week with Carnival, Chinese New Year's and Valentine's Day all within a few weeks. We went out for a Carnival party but were stuck for ideas on how to combine Valentine's with Chinese New Year. We decided on having an indoor picnic with Chinese food. There was only one fault with my plan. Chinese food is really hard to find in Germany. It's normally too formal for take-out (which doesn't mean it's good) or is just a buffet (which also does not mean it is good). Enter Coa, the Asian "Feel Good Food". There are shops in Berlin, Frankfurt and in Mannheim. We went to the one in Mannheim for takeout.

I know it is unfair to judge a place based on takeout. The texture, temperature and consistency are bound to be off (unless we are talking about delivery pizza - then these are legitimate criteria). Bearing that in mind, I will judge only flavour & spices. With Coa, I was a little disappointed. We ordered: vegetarian dim sum, shui mai, chicken satay skewers, gyoza, pho bo & udon noodles with duck. The vegetarian dim sum was a dumpling with a chopped vegetable filling. The shui mai, pork & shrimp filled pockets, were very small. I was hard pressed to tell the difference between these two appetizers and the ones in the freezer section of my Asian supermarket. The chicken satay skewers came with a nice peanut sauce but the spice mix of the skewers themselves was lacking. The gyoza was good, but nearly anything deep-fried is good (it was not pan-fried as I was expecting).

I found the pho bo to be a placid beef soup with beef chunks, not slices, that were lacking the wakening spices that I love so much about pho. What surprised me is that this is from their take-out menu. When I used to beg for take-out pho from my local place at home (they didn't really do take-out), they would give me a container of rice noodles, a container of soup & a plastic bag full of sprouts & extras. Here, it all came in one container, leaving the noodles to steep until they are ready to fall apart. The udon was spicy & the duck was nice. But it's Valentine's day - it's not about the food, and I'm happy to report that the picnic was a fun success.

I think the appeal of Coa must lie in it's sleek interior. Dark wood, white walls, green accents and a few orchids; it's a nice place to come in for a quick bite. But don't expect too much flavour in that bite.

Coa - inside

Kohlrabi Greens - People Food

Kohlrabi gets its name from the German language. Roughly translated as "cabbage turnip", a descriptor which sums up the taste and shape of the vegetable. If a turnip were to sprout cabbage greens, kohlrabi would be the result.

The vegetable is very popular in Germany. One of my friends claimed it was the only vegetable he would eat as a child. In the cold days of winter, kohlrabi is one of the easiest fresh vegetables to find - my supermarket can always be counted on for crates of the alien-looking vegetable. But in the crates, there is always a pile of leaves. People pull the leaves off, and take the mini-sputniks with them.


For a while, I didn't think this was edible, but I thought of baby beet greens, which are a part of a good mesclun salad. The bigger greens can be cooked. I put a bit of research into kohlrabi greens and discovered that you can eat them. They are not just rabbit food.

The first step was going to the supermarket and filling a bag of greens. These are normally given away for free, a fact which made me feel, well, a little illicit, knowing that I would be eating these myself. Oh well, it's the supermarkets loss.

Having gotten the greens home, I washed them, pulled out any huge chunks of stem, roughly chopped them and steamed them. In the meantime, I sauteed some garlic. When the greens were cooked, I drained any extra liquid, cooked them quickly with the garlic, added sesame oil & Chinese black vinegar, and topped it with sesame seeds. The result: like spinach but with a slight cabbage taste. The vinegar was maybe a bit strong. Nest time, I want to use olive oil & lemon juice. Assuming, of course that I can swallow my pride & eat rabbit food again.

Mornings - Bagels

Mornings are not my friend. Only through routine do I manage to make it to work. Sometimes routine fails but normally, it works out fine. Part of my auto-pilot program is the breakfast bagel that I never manage to eat at home. I wrap it in foil, run for the train & let my bagel sit in the office for a few hours until I remember that it's there. The last few days, I've been sleeping in and running late. Today, I finally found the time to make my breakfast bagel.

There is a wonderful tradition in this country of 2nd breakfast. This is the sandwich or other snack eaten at 10am, after one has already eaten breakfast at 7 or earlier. The second breakfast is normally more than a piece of fruit. It's a sandwich, sometimes with just a slice of cheese or a few coldcuts, but when I was in university, most students packed a mid-morning snack. School children also often have their mid-morning snack. This is enough to tide people over until lunch, when they have the main meal of their day.
Germany is apparently the land of over 600 different kinds of bread, none of which is Wonderbread. Most of these are incredibly healthy whole-grain loaves that really make you count your blessings with your daily bread.

There are a few things I haven't grown used to yet. I haven't yet converted 100% to dark breads, but I enjoy 4-grain bagels. I haven't grown used to having my main meal at lunch, so I often eat again with the workaholic in the evening. But I'm all about this mid-morning snack thing.

The breakfast bagel is fairly simple (it must be easy enough for a zombie to prepare)

1 4-grain bagel
1 small tomato, sliced
1 Tbsp goat cream cheese (thicker and tastier than regular cream cheese)
1/2 Tbsp green pesto
1/2 tsp capers
1/2 tsp green peppercorns

Split bagel. Smear pesto on 1 half. Smear cream cheese on the other. Place tomatoes, peppercorns & capers on the side with cream cheese. Place pesto-smeared side on top. Slice into halves, wrap in foil & run out the door because you're late for work again.

This morning, I finally managed to take a photo of the breakfast bagel. And with the list of ingredients, maybe my coworkers will stop begging me to bring more in to feed them.

I am a Jelly-Filled Donut!

In 1963, John F Kennedy stood in front of the Berlin wall & supposedly proclaimed that he is a jelly-filled donut. The problem with this theory is that the citizens of Berlin do not call jelly-filled donuts Berliners. They call them "Pfannkuchen", which translates as pancake everywhere else in the country.

I don't understand why these delicate baked goods are called "Pfannkuchen" in Berlin, because they are fried in lots of fat or oil. Yes, fat. Lumps of yeast-risen dough swimming in boiling rendered pig or chicken fat - that would be a Berliner. Originally, they would be cooked in whatever oil you could get and up until maybe 100 years ago, animal fat was much more prevalent that vegetable oil. These sweet doughy balls of goodness were originally only consumed during Karnival, the prelude to Lent, or the period of fasting.

There are certainly trials and tribulations involved with living in a foreign country. Sometimes, I sigh & say that something is just so German. Yet, there are things that I love. I am fascinated by the differences in language in such a small area (just a few minutes ago, a friend from Berlin corrected my Facebook status to tell me I'm not in love with Berliners but with "Pfannkuchen"). I love the fact that there are bakeries everywhere. I love not having to drive. I love the Berliners. They are breadier than doughnuts, not as sweet, and the filling is real jam. What's not to love?

I know I should be fasting after the period of Christmas and New Years. I'm trying to be good. I realize that I am no longer the girl who could eat 5 Berliners on her own and not have her clothes shrink. Still, a girl's got to eat. It's not my fault if the bakery didn't have any good-looking sandwiches. It's not my fault if the Berliners look adorable, is it? But beyond looks, it's somehow a part of cultural heritage. At least I can tell myself that as I eye up the rest of them.

Dark Latkes for the Festival of Lights

From a theological standpoint, Hanukkah is not a significant holiday. From a cultural standpoint, Hanukkah is great! The date varies but it usually takes place some time in December, that is, some time when we could all use as many lights and social gatherings as we can get, and Hanukkah offers 8 days of festivities. 8 days is enough for me to catch up. The first day of Hanukkah was last Friday. I made my latkes - traditional potato pancakes - last night

I miss a lot of things about Canada and multiculturalism tops the list. Needless to say, there is not a huge Jewish community here in Heidelberg, although there is a synagogue and a Jewish University. While they are very open at both institutes (I visited the one and took a class at the other), I never found the same sort of integration that I felt is so natural in Canada. I felt really sad when someone at the synagogue said, "we haven't had any troubles, but on the high holy days, it's still nice to have a police car patrolling the area". I know there is a huge amount of baggage that I am not willing to discuss, nor am I willing to judge one side or the other. I'm selfish & I just want a good latke.

Potato pancakes exist in Germany. They are called "Kartoffelpuffer", "Reibekuchen" or an assortment of other names. They are common for the area that was once the Holy German Empire (Germany, Bohemia, Poland, parts of Austria). These foods that were so common for the area seem to be the dishes that Jews from Eastern Europe (Ashkenazic Jews) took with them to North America. These "Kartoffelpuffer" are present at every Christmas market, indicating that the dish is of local significance, not religious significance. What I don't like around here is that they are only available with applesauce, not sour cream. In Düsseldorf, I had some with herbed Quark (a kind of cream cheese). I was all over it. To top my latkes (or Kartoffelpuffer, or potato pancakes), I used skim quark with a pinch of herbes de provence (my secret ingredient) as well as chives and parsley.

The potatoes are Vitelotte, a dark potato that retains its colour when cooked. They were, honestly, this dark. I added beets and carrots to make me feel less guilty about eating fried food. But let's be honest, the festival of lights is only possible because there was enough oil to light the lamps for 8 days. Oil is an essential part of the holiday. If I only celebrate one of the 8 days, my arteries aren't doing too badly.

Happy Hanukkah to everyone! Enjoy the lights and the fried food!

Midnight Latkes
300g Vitelotte potatoes (or another purple variety)
200g beets
1 carrot
2 eggs
salt
oil to fry

Grate potatoes. Place in bowl of water to allow starch & liquid to escape. Squeeze all liquid out of potatoes and, if possible, retain starch. Add to a large bowl. Grate beets and carrots, squeezing out liquid. Add egg and salt and mix.
Heat oil in a skillet and when hot (a toothpick should bubble) place 2Tbsp lumps of latke batter into oil. Do not overcrowd the skillet.
Cook until solid, turn & continue cooking. Place on a plate with lots of paper towels, and keep warm in the oven.
Serve with apple sauce and skim cream.

Skim Cream
150g quark
1 tsp herbes de provence
1 tsp chopped chives
1 tsp chopped parsley
salt to taste
Mix all ingredients. Allow to sit for 10-15 minutes before serving.

Christmas Cheer - Market

I was at the Christmas market earlier this week, which is always good fun. Hot mulled wine (Glühwein) a warm bratwurst, potato pancakes with applesauce and browsing by the stands selling handmade wares. Local pottery, handmade leather goods, scarves and candles and crystal fill the old town for 4 weeks. I'm not there for the presents, I'm there to socialize with people and drink some Glühwein to keep warm. Frankly, I prefer warm fruit punch with a shot of rum, but the Glühwein isn't bad either.

The are a lot of tourists here on a normal day, and even more come for the Christmas markets, especially on the weekend. They don't have a tiny BBQ to grill bratwursts, they have a more industrial setup, ready to feed many mouths.

I'm north of 49°, which means that it gets dark at around 4:30pm. The lights of the Christmas markets might be a little bit kitschy but 1) Germans invented kitsch & 2) it's less depressing than in January.

The pyramid actually spins around, like the tiny ones my parents would put out when I was younger. It has "famous" figures of Heidelberg, none of whom I can recall. The main thing is, it is on top of a stand that has a lot of tables to meet people and have a hot drink.