A Skywalk and a Lemon Scented Asparagus Egg Feldgieker Tart

On a Spring day in April, I packed my camera gear and props to make the roughly one-and-a-half-hour drive from Weimar to Eichsfeld. The weather was, as true to April's nature, fairly changeable. It was warm, my spirit was high and I was really looking forward to this trip. The district of Eichsfeld is a beautiful region in Thuringia, with its rolling hills and untouched nature, the landscape at times reminds me of something taken from the chapters of a Jane Austen book: a Nature of beauty and grace.

Cardamom And Orange Infused Quarkbällchen / Doughnuts

The last couple of weeks I’ve had my head down (mostly) and have been trying to get a lot of paperwork and organization done. The big “T” has been looming in our house and I have been procrastinating on this for as long as I possibly can. 

German Style Smoked Gammon and Split Pea Stew

Imagine that stories were like a stew or a soup. People could weave their stories with ladles of wonderful rich, thick and flavorsome ingredients, adding their own culturally unique seasoning to their tales. Just like stews, all cultures and each tradition intertwines its own specific aromas and tastes – and so their stories could be spicy, sweet, bitter or pungent.

Christmas Cookie Post | Butter Spekulatius Dark Chocolate Orange Spritz Cookies & Sea Salt Dark Chocolate Raspberry Cranberry Pistachio Rocky Road

It does not feel very much like Christmas – weather-wise. After a few days of extreme cold with -10 degrees, where the entire landscape was frozen in sparkly white ice crystals, it is now too warm and a mix between windy grey skies and a moisture in the air. 

Christmas | Quark Butter Stollen and Cranberry Almond Butter Spelt Stollen

As the last of the golden leaves have fallen and the magnificent Autumnscape is replaced with barren trees and frosty fields, December comes around and I begin to crave spices, warming stews and curries. My kitchen itches for me to bring together flour, sugar and spice and that bottle of rum to plump up the dried fruit and maybe a nip between whisking and beating. While outside the gravel-grey skies are bare and the biting winter winds have stripped the last of the leaves from the trees, inside the inviting glow of the candles promise cosy warmth. 

Apricot, Yellow Plum and White-Wine Elderflower Jellies with Creme Anglaise

Sustainability: we all talk about it and we all aim to live by it. For all our good intentions do we understand what it really means and how to achieve it?
“Eating with pleasure but with responsibility towards all human beings worldwide and for the next generation” – probably is the best way to bring the idea of sustainability onto the table.

Big Christmas Cookie and Gift Post | Linzer Jam Cookies, Chocolate Kipferl, Lemon Chocolate Spritz, Ischlers Orange

Several years ago when we lived in Leipzig we had a Christmas ritual. A few weeks before Christmas we would get together with friends and spend a very merry evening together making Christmas wreaths and decorations, drinking Glühwein, listening to Christmas carols and then attempting to cook a 3 course meal. We were a fairly large group of friends and the evening usually led to all sort of hilarious activities and memorable memories.  

Christmas: Chocolate Gianduia Stollen With Cranberries and Papaya

The cakes of Christmas, be it the petite mince pie or the bombastic panettone or the heavyweight fruit cake, always bring with them a certain amount of joviality. Christmas (in most Western countries) has got to be the sweetest and most decadent month of the year – a proper festival of sugary, fruity, chocolaty treats! 

Thuringia Meets Asia: Dumpling Sushi and Dim Sum

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.

Roasted Root Vegetable and Pearl Barley Soup

“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.

Saint Martins Croissants | Martinshörnchen

Martinshörnchen are available only once a year. From November 10^th to 11^th 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 10^th 1483 and spent part of his life at the University of Erfurt and at Wartburg Castle in Eisenach here in Thuringia. 

Rhubarb, Ginger and Quark Strudel

She was a proud buxom lady who commanded a very special aura of respect whenever she entered the oversized kitchen. It was the kind of respect you knew never to mess with because behind her kind smiles and her liberal patience there was her haughty dignity of being one of the best in her field. Anyone who dared to disregard this fact by challenging her significance, would become the subject of being abundantly praised out of her kitchen and into one of her inferior colleagues’ less meaningful sculleries. Before they even realized the poor exchange they had made, it was far too late to make any amends and many a wretched trainee ended up biting in the sour apple.

Classic: Königsberger Klopse - German Meatballs in a Creamy Caper Sauce

I’ve sung the song of my love for meatballs often and earlier this year took you on a world tour of meatballs. Here I am again with more meatballs for you. This time with a classic German recipe that has a long tradition and history.

Before moving to Germany I was never the one to indulge in boiled meat. I liked my meat seared and then simmered in liquid but the idea of raw meat boiling in stock or water just made a cold shower run up my spine. The only time I would ever eat cooked meat was chicken in a chicken soup.

Christmas: An Orange Marmalade Date Fig and Quark Stollen

How much kitsch is allowed at Christmas? As I walked past the stalls of the Christmas market this weekend, I felt a surge of happiness as I saw the plethora of flashy ornaments and gaudy adornments. It seems Christmas is the season where anything goes and everything is allowed.
Tinsel, baubles, lametta, ribbons, fake snow, dancing Santa Claus, snow in cans - and we’re just getting started. I could not help filling my basket with a bit of each.

1500 Sausages of Germany: The Mighty Currywurst

Currywurst is to Germany as pizza is to Italy, hot dogs are to America and fish and chips are to Great Britain. But only a few have their own museum. The glorious currywurst is Germany’s traditional modest snack of sliced pork sausages drenched in a tangy curry-tomato sauce and boasts of its own sausage shrine. 

Quarkkeulchen with Cranberries and a Cinnamon Blueberry Compote - A German Specialty

The icy grip of winter holds us firmly. Just as I was thinking we were going to get the mildest winter in years, things took a turn and we are now facing the coldest winter in decades. It totally amazes me how we are at the mercy of Mother Nature.

Christmas Cookies: Almond Peanut Florentines, Chocolate Brushed Lebkuchen and Hazelnut Gianduia Spritz Cookies

 

The tree is not up yet. But that is no cause to stress. It’s rather amusing though to see others break out in a cold sweat as they rush around the city with blank stares on their faces. What is not amusing however is to be surrounded by so much aggressiveness. Whatever happened to the joyous spirit of Christmas?

Gruyere Bacon Leek and Sun Dried Tomato Spätzle

Mention pasta and one envisages a sturdy nonna shaping and kneading dough for fresh ravioli in a rustic kitchen. She dusts the well used kitchen countertop with flour, rolling, kneading and filling the pliable dough. However, if I were to tell you that Germans can make pretty incredible pasta too would you believe me? 

Cinnamon Kissed Apple Goji Berry Strudel

When I moved to Europe 17 years ago, one of the first rituals I quickly adapted myself to, was the coffee-time culture. While much has been written and said about the European coffee culture, to get a real taste of it and feel its unique flair one has to experience it first hand. 

Cooking School: German Lentil and Sausage Stew

  

Sometimes I think German cuisine is very inadequately underestimated. Fact is, there is a lot more to German food that sausages and beer. Until relatively recently the various regions of Germany were independent and autonomous communities. Prior to the national unification in 1871, Germany was divided into many kingdoms and principalities, each with distinct customs, distinct dialects and of course distinct culinary specialities.