Berlin! Ice Cream and Wiener Time

Taste Of Berlin: Wiener Time! Wonderful Berlin, Germany. Packed with sordid history, high fashion, excellent Turkish food, major art, gorgeously green in Spring and Summer, 70 cent beer at the corner store, delightful cheeses and the best hearty, grainy bread... While in Berlin on our recent trip to Europe, we stood in a large line of eager tourists and Germans alike, under a bridge in the middle of the city amongst speeding cars, graffiti and tons of fat pigeons... to get a taste of a "famous German national dish"... CURRYWURST!! While we inched closer to the front of the line, I saw people poking their little wooden two pronged forks into sliced fried white sausage slathered in blobs of ketchup, mayonnaise and curry powder, with a side of fries of course!

Line of people under the bridge. "Under the bridge downtown... "

Don't even DREAM that Konnopkes Imbiss doesn't have their own awesome website!!!

These ladies take serious pride in providing some serious wiener time. They have this doo-hickey (let's call it a "wiener chopper") that you stick the fried wiener in, pull down a lever, and CLOMP!! Perfect wiener slices every time. See those little slices in the pic above? Then one woman blasts the mayo on and the other the ketchup, smiling and chuckling away with speed and efficiency. They have probably worked there for 23 years and will work there forever, likely. And they're stoked. I love that. All you need in a job is friends, pay, free wiener snacks and a sense of pride in your work.

The finished product: Currywurst mit Pommes!

RT and I with our fried national treasures.

The marzipan version of Currywurst, at KaDeWe department store!!!

The cutest little ice cream shop across the street from the apartment. Fraulein Frost!

My delicious and delightfully fresh ice cream cone: vanilla bean, and fieldberry. So good. RIch had coffee, and hazelnut; Sandra had strawberry basil. I tried them all, and all were great!

The menu at Fraulein Frost. A simple, sweet little shop, totally inspiring for a young cupcaker like myself.

Do you know the joy of Frühstück? German breakfast? So wonderful, wonderful. A platter of delights, it should really translate into. Slices of meat folded or laid out just so, a few types of good cheese, often some yogurt, a hard boiled egg and the chocolate and hazelnut spread Nutella, accompanied with a basket of fresh breads. You can mix and match your meal! Mini open faced sandwiches! Roll a slice of meat and eat it! Dig into your egg! Spread some Nutella onto your bread! Spread some of your egg onto a slice of bread, add some cheese and meat and your thinly sliced cucumber! What a great, great thing! Enjoy with a coffee, and basically your day is set.

Berlin was a real blast. And to buy an apartment there is ridiculously cheap. So I am hoping we will be back many, many times.

xo

Sangria Good-bye

I had a good-bye potluck with a few nice ladies from my office. We ate a mix of Korean and Cuban foods. The Korean foods included gimbap and bulgogi. I made my "famous" berry crisp. The best part of the meal (other than juicy work gossip) was the homemade sangria! I'll miss nights like these. I'm sure I won't make as many friends in Kansas. Not to mention the dearth of Korean products!

Now I'm Thinking About It...

I had forgotten about the melamine scare until I purchased these crackers in Hong Kong. Great way to ruin my appetite!

Chinese Dinner - Hong Kong

Before the yoga conference started, we took the Star Ferry to Kowloon:We ate at a dim sum restaurant. We shared sweet-and-sour breaded fish: Vegetable and rice wraps:

Crispy fried dough:

Tangy cucumber skins:

Hot tea served in water glasses:

My friend's sister, a prominent yoga instructor in Korea, ordered seconds of everything! For petite Korean women, they ate a lot!

I was surprised by people's eating habits at the conference. Many people skipped breakfast, believing that the food would impair their yoga practices. (We practiced strenuous yoga four hours in the morning.) Others merely ate salads or nibbled on carrots for lunch.

I brought my own food and ate hearty oatmeal, protein powder, deli sandwiches, Chinese buns, and Odwalla bars. One day I followed my teacher's advice and skipped breakfast. What a mistake! I felt extremely hungry and ultimately ate more food than usual. I guess my friends ate such a huge Chinese dinner because of their daytime eating habits!

Update

I'm down to 6 weeks in Korea. My friend and I created a "Korean Bucket List" of everything we want to do before we leave. Once we start on that bucket list, I'll have more photos! Also, anticipate some posts related to my Hong Kong trip.
Here are a few random Korean food items:
-The PX was out of Centrum. Older Koreans love Centrum, especially bottles with American labels. My friend from the states sends them to his grandmother here.
-My SO competed in a long distance triathlon in Jeju over the weekend. The finish line lacked fresh, cold water! His only choices were hot soup, tea or coffee on a hot day! That's what he gets for finishing too fast!
-Yesterday I sampled Australian moscato and red sweet wine....at the grocery store! Heineken beer was also available to taste.

BBA: Multigrain Bread Extraordinaire

aka: Little piece of heaven!

Once again we're baking out of order in order to keep up with our daily lunch needs. I must say however that this bread is my favorite sandwich bread so far.
What a beautiful loaf of bread! I did however make a couple adjustments to the recipe as follows:

-I substituted a 7 grain cereal for the cornmeal and wheat bran because that was what I had at home.
-I also substituted white rice for the brown rice, once again because that was what I had in the fridge already.
-I found that I needed to add a lot of extra flour I could be because of my soaker. I didn't measure the water I just filled till it covered the grains as it states in the recipe.

I doubled the recipe and it made 2 large loaves over 2 1/2 pounds each.
My lunch! I am officially committed to never buying store bread again. One bite and I was with my family eating a $7 sandwich at the Atlanta Bread Company. This loaf could easily sell for $5-10. Let's just say 5 stars! This bread is pretty well perfect.

BBA: Brioche

Let them eat Brioche!

According to Peter's book, the history of brioche "includes allusions to Queen Marie Antoinette, whose last words are reputed to be properly translated as 'Let them eat brioche,' and not 'Let them eat cake.'"
There are three different types of brioche in the book, rich, middle-class, and poor man's. I decided to make the middle-class so that I could get a good idea of what brioche is (I've never had it before) but not needing to work-out non stop.


Here's my pretty bread! I was surprised at how quickly this loaf baked. The times in the book are a little vague depending on what shape you made the dough. I figured the loaf would be on the max side of things. It cooked a lot faster than I thought, so it turned out slightly over done.

The Crumb! Looks almost like pound cake, but it's a lot lighter think cream puff.

French Toast

(We almost had breakfast for dinner I was so excited about this!)






Ingredients

* 2/3 cup milk
* 2 large eggs
* 1 1/3 tablespoons honey, warmed in microwave for 20 seconds
* 1/8 teaspoon salt
* 5 (1/2-inch) slices day-old brioche
* 2 tablespoons butter

Directions

In medium size mixing bowl, whisk together the milk, eggs, honey, and salt. Pour the mixture into a deep plate or pie pan

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Dip bread into mixture, allow to soak for 30 seconds on each side, and then remove to a cooling rack that is sitting in a sheet pan, and allow to sit for 1 to 2 minutes.

Over medium-low heat, melt 1 tablespoon of butter in a 10-inch nonstick saute pan. Place 2 slices of bread at a time into the pan and cook until golden brown, approximately 2 to 3 minutes per side. Remove from pan and place on rack in oven for 5 minutes. Repeat with all 8 slices.



Buttermilk Syrup
I was introduced to this at a local restaurant and had to try it at home
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3 Tbsp butter
1/3 cup buttermilk
1 Tbsp corn syrup
1 tsp vanilla
pinch of cinnamon (optional)

Combine sugar, butter, buttermilk and corn syrup in a small saucepan over medium heat. Bring to a low boil, stirring constantly. Reduce heat and simmer for 2 minutes (continue to stir!) until all sugar has dissolved. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla and cinnamon if desired.

Recipe from Dinner's on me
Ta Dah! This was the most amazing french toast I have ever had the pleasure of experiencing! I am planning on freezing and saving the other loaf of brioche for breakfast when my sister comes down next week. (yup Tiff that's you so be excited!)


I wouldn't say it's a healthy breakfast, but what a way to start the day!