Vienna, Europe's cultural capital and a metropolis with a unique charm and flair, will provide the backdrop for my first Food Photography and Styling Workshop in 2015. We start in style this year!
If the British have their roast beef and Yorkshire pudding and the French the Blanquette de veu – then this is Thuringia's all-time classic Sunday lunch - beef roulade stuffed with paper-thin slices of bacon, onion and gherkins and spread with a hint of sharp mustard and served with braised red cabbage spiced with all-spice, juniper berries and cloves. The steaming hot potato dumplings - the famous Thuringian klöße are the exceptional darlings of every family here in Thüringen.
Happy New Year! Hope you all had a fantastic and safe start to 2015! After a relaxing break over the Holidays with 2 weeks off I am back ready to kick-start 2015 with much enthusiasm. As I do each year, I’d like to review my year 2014, looking back and reflecting the past year. This is a moment to take a step back to look at the achievements and to give thanks before we all tumble forward into a brand new year!
It looks it’s going to be another snow-less Christmas this year again. Last Christmas was mild, the temperatures hardly falling below 0 degrees Celsius. This year we had a spot of snow. It made my heart flutter a bit, but that fluttering disappeared soon enough when the next morning I had to slip and slide to get to my car, and scratch it free of the thick ice. I love all the Christmas spirit but I can often do without the cold and snow that comes with it.
December has crept up on me! It’s been a very busy and full few weeks. All good I must say and all very exciting – I am taking it all in and making the most of each new creative job and inspiring project I have been working on. Here I am now, the last month in 2014 and I inhale deeply - it feels good. I’ve done so much, learnt so much and met so many incredible people.
“Grünes Thüringen” – will bring the wide and plentiful thick forests of Thuringia to mind. For me however Thuringia has a more colorful landscape with abundant bounties of vegetables that this fertile state provides. Cauliflower, kohlrabi, broccoli and a wide variety of cabbages are only some of the types of vegetables that are amply found around the capital of the state, Erfurt. Dig a little deeper and one will find that Thuringia also boasts of cultivating fine aromatic asparagus and after Bavaria it is the second largest herb growing region in Germany.
Martinshörnchen are available only once a year. From November 10th to 11th bakeries in our region, especially around Weimar and Erfurt, offer these delightful pastries to eager customers who often line up in the early hours of the day to get their hands on the freshest pastries. Saint Martin Luther, after whom the croissants are named, was born on November 10th 1483 and spent part of his life at the University of Erfurt and at Wartburg Castle in Eisenach here in Thuringia.
