Essential Oils

Big deal, right?  Olive oil, an avocado and a cilantro garnish.  Well, this represents a small victory for me. Shopping in Germany has provided me with some challenges and some opportunities.  Instead of a once a week trip to the A&P or Whole Foods, I've become accustomed to the German way of making a trip to the market every day or every other day.  I find I waste a lot less food this way because I buy only what I am actually going to cook that day or the next.  So different from the US where the weekly excursion was influenced by cravings, coupons and clever merchandising. And I was never one to plan a week full of meals in advance.  I had a mish mash approach that yielded a lot more mash than mish. And, truth be told, a lot of food went off because we got home so late from work and I was just not motivated to cook. Far easier to stop at Greek Delights and get take-out.

One of the biggest challenges about shopping in Germany is that I can't count on one store for all my needs.  Living in BFMF, it's not as simple as a stroll down Main Street to stores A, B and C with a stop at a cafe in between. Main street for me includes: a supermarket, an Indian restaurant, a children's shoe store, a bank, a butcher and a salon.  Oh, and let's not forget the rocking bar Hokus Pokus which we lovingly refer to as The Poke.  That about sums up my shopping potential.  So, if I want to cook Asian food, I have to take my bike (or the train) to the Asian Grocer.  That's a small inconvenience since I have a certified cilantro addiction and need to have it at least twice a week. The Asian grocer ships it in from who knows where and it's hit or miss what sort of condition it is in.  I'm always psyched when I get a healthy bunch that will last more than a few days. This is also where I need to go if I want bok choy, sweet potatoes, brown sugar, bean sprouts, fresh lemongrass, buckwheat noodles, etc.  If I'm feeling like cooking Aloo Palak or Tikka Masala, I have to go to another store in the city center for Indian staples.

In general, the vegetable assortment in most German markets is pretty basic and more seasonally influenced.  You won't find 10 types of lettuce, a full fresh herb assortment or every type of fruit imaginable. And, for a country that loves their potatoes, they only seem to have two kinds.  New potatoes, Yukon Golds, yams, jacket baking potatoes - that's a trip to the Viktualienmarkt to see the potato man.  And certain things like pecans, parsnips, chocolate chips, vanilla extract - they're either not available or I have to go to the Viktualienmarkt and pay crazy, crazy prices. Thankfully, we have a steady stream of BMW friends visiting HQ for meetings and they are always happy (I hope) to be my baking supply drug ponies.  My last delivery included butterscotch morsels, shredded coconut and cream of tartar.

One of the foods I was missing the most was avocados.  They were a standard lunch component for me mixed with hummus and tomato on a bagel. Don't even get me started on bagels. I think there are two places in Munich. Oh, and ready-made hummus? You have to go to a Turkish market for that.  Fortunately, I like my homemade stuff just fine. But I digress - back to the avocados. The thing is, you can get avocados in every store but they just weren't the same as the ones I bought at home. The first couple of times I bought avocados here I dutifully put them on my veggie tier waiting for them to ripen.  Three days.  Five days.  Seven days.  Still bright green.  When I finally cut into one it was all brown and gooey inside.  Okay, lesson learned, they will not turn black when ripe. With my next batch I did the squeeze test until I determined they were ripe.  And they were.  But they had no flavor.  I tried and tried but I could never get my avocado mojo going.

Now, remember how I said I have to go to several stores to find everything I need?  Well, about 75% of my shopping I do in Edeka for a couple of reasons.  They are close - only a five minute walk.  They are super friendly which is not the norm.  People go on and on about how bad German customer service is but I find that Edeka employees are always pleasant and patient.  And, most importantly, I can go there with a list and almost always get everything I need.  The prices are higher but it is sooo worth it for me to shop there.

Then I supplement with the "discount" and "ethnic" markets for pantry staples and miscellaneous items.  The closest discount market to me is Pennymarkt. I head there about once a week.  You kind of just have to go and see what they have because, beyond the staples, the assortment is never guaranteed to be the same. I hardly ever buy vegetables there because the quality isn't very good.  Germany grades their produce on a scale of 1-3.  Edeka carries a lot of 1st klasse fruits and vegetables and Penny carries a lot of 2nd klasse. So, you can imagine my surprise a few weeks ago as I was skimming past the vegetable section and something round and black caught my eye.  An avocado.  A dark avocado.  Upon closer inspection, a HASS avocado!  I bought five.  They were like little pebbly-skinned bits of hope.  I brought them home and immediately cut two open. I would have made a batch of guacamole right then and there but, you guessed it, I didn't have any cilantro and didn't feel like going all the way to the Asian market.  So, I just sprinkled them with some sea salt and pepper, gave them a generous squeeze of lime and inhaled them. Perfect.  Heaven. Home. Hass.

Which brings us to the olive oil.  You know that über-revealing website dating question, "What are the five things you can't live without?"  My top five includes cilantro and a really great olive oil.  Extra-Virgin. First cold press. Green. Pure. The kind that is so aromatic you could bathe in it.  My last good batch I brought back from Italy. On the self-same (soon to be legendary) Pennymarkt avocado trip I picked up a bottle of olive oil.  I reserve the good stuff for dressings or dipping bread but I also always have a cheapo bottle on hand for general cooking. The bottle I got from Penny cost 2.99.  Like I said, Penny is cheap.  Well, I opened this bottle on Monday to add a little to boiling pasta water.  The smell hit me right away.  This was no Bertolli.  I poured a little on my finger. Like liquid gold it was.  Quickly, I translated the packaging: product of Greece, cold-press, winner of 5 international awards. I used canola oil for the pasta water then cut a piece of bakery bread, added some fresh grated black pepper and a generous pinch of sea salt and dipped away.

Why yes, as a matter of fact, I did just get back from Pennymarkt. What did I buy, you ask? Two more bottles of the olive oil (still 2.99) and four avocados. That combined with the cilantro means the world is mine: Thai, Mexican, Indian, Greek, Italian - I shall cook and enjoy you all.

p.s. I also have a package of pork schmalz in the fridge which technically means I can add Germany to the world cuisine mix.

Fasching!

Big doings in Bavaria. Today was Fat Tuesday/Shrove Tuesday/Faschingsdienstag the last day to let off steam before Lent begins. Quite a few people take the day or afternoon off from work to party auf dem Viktualienmarkt. Thomas had more than one meeting where the participant count was well below par. One meeting, at which eight people were expected, two people showed. The rest were presumably donning dayglo wigs and rummaging in their wife's lingerie drawer for costume inspiration.

Now, I've been to Carnival in Brazil and Fasching in Munich is nothing like it. Not even close. Here are some key differences:

1. The weather. Carnival in Brazil is hot. Do you hear the chorus of Hot, Hot, Hot drumming in your head? Fasching in Munich is NOT. It was 20 degrees yesterday. So no matter how much Germans love throwing a couple of nekkid breasts into every newspaper, magazine or TV show there was no headlight action yesterday. In contrast, Brazil is one giant homage to the Nancys. To summarize: Germany - Jack Wolfskin parkas; Brazil - pasties and thongs.
2. The floats. Floats are a matter of national pride in Brazil. Starting with the music/band to the fresh flowers to the glitter which accounts for 75% of the gross domestic product. It takes months to build and decorate a float. In Germany, it looked as though they pulled out the hot-glue gun at midnight after consuming a case of Edelstoff. By tomorrow the "floats" will once again be assigned to hauling cows to the high pastures.
3. The atmosphere. In Brazil, the mood is sexy even slightly dangerous. In Germany, the mood is silly. The closest thing you'll find to sexy are the transvestites working a pair of five inch stilettos. Fasching is more like Halloween except instead of kids with bags of candy it's adults with cases of beer.
   
4. The dancing. Brazil - samba, samba, samba. Elaborate headdresses and masks, glistening, nearly naked bodies gyrating nay THROBBING with sexual tension. And in Munich? The middle-aged Market Women, dressed in dirndls and wearing fruit and flower laden straw hats, dance around the Maypole. Who knows? Maybe they're wearing Agent Provocateur corsets under their dirndls.
   
5. The music. Brazil - live bands all day and night. Even in the small towns. Munich - your choice of Lady GaGa, Katy Perry and DJ Ötzi piped in from a local radio station or traditional Bavarian music fresh out of the 8-track player- think Perry Como in Lederhosen with a cow bell.
   
6. The food. We've been here before right? I should say that caipis were being served which I thought was a generous nod to fellow revelers in Brazil. But beyond that we're right back to the Bratwurst and Bier. Oh, and the Krapfen - basically a jelly donut. They are everywhere during the Fasching season and so very, very hard to resist.

I admit that I was not decked out in a costume so perhaps I didn't experience the full effect. But I have to say, the idea of standing in the freezing cold, drinking beer that in approximately 10 minutes I will have to evacuate but not before standing in an outside line for 30 minutes doing the hoppy dance is not something I put in the "good times" category. But I have the feeling that if I'd just had 4-5 beers, I would have had a GREAT time and might even have intuitively learned all the words to Ich bin ein Döner. And, and, AND if I'd worn a really unflattering costume - say a cow costume - I could wear lots and lots of warm layers underneath while at the same time avoiding the whole bathroom scenario with a double stack of Depends. I am so ready for next year.

Electra Visits the Viktualienmarkt

Viktualienmarkt Stand

Thomas and I have gotten into the habit or taking our bikes into town on Saturday morning for a Milch Kaffee and a fresh pastry or pretzel. Usually we just go into the thriving metropolis of BFMF and combine our caffeine kick with a few other errands - post office, bank, green grocer.

Last Saturday we decided to take our bikes into Munich proper for our weekend ritual. We wanted to see how long it would take to bike into the city center and we needed to pick up a few things in some of the shops. Forty-five minutes later we were locking up our bikes and assessing our cafe options.

I've been into the city center about twice a week since I've been here. It's a short 15 minute ride on the S-bahn so it's easy to meet friends or just go in to pick up some hard to find grocery items. Thomas, because he clings to the questionable belief that at least one of us should be working (thank god), has been exactly twice. So it was nice to be there together for once and have the chance to stroll around before the crowds descended.

One of my favorite "must sees" in Munich is the Viktualienmarkt. This open air market has been around for over 200 years offering fresh fruits and vegetables, spices, oils, soaps, specialty foods and of course sausage and cheese. It's not unusual to see someone enjoying a weisswurst and beer at 9:30 in the morning. Not a taste I've acquired yet. I'll save that food adventure for when my father visits. Which brings me to...

The Tale of the Rollmop
Most girls try to win their father's affection with fairly standard fare - good grades, sweet Polly Purebread impersonations, chastity belts. I try to win my father's affection with food. And yes, I realize this should probably be discussed in therapy but that costs money and blogging is free. When I was young it was liver and onions. "Good iron," my father said. "Good God NO!" my stomach said. But I ate it because nobody else in the family would and I thought all that iron would surely morph into a halo around my head. Come to find out years later that the butter and bacon it was drenched in were more likely to clog my arteries. But I ate it. And I seem to recall actually almost sorta kinda liking it. Today the mere thought of eating liver makes me want to subsist on carrots for the rest of my days. I mean really this is an animal's LIVER! Livers are things which you donate. You don't eat them.

But no foul food experience (and there is a horse meat stew incident in the archives) compared to the rollmop incident. One day, while my brother and I were visiting my parents, my father pulled from the refrigerator something we just "had to try." He'd stopped at a small German deli for some sandwich fixings and made the happy chance epicurean discovery of rollmops.
From Wikipedia: A rollmop is a pickled herring fillet rolled (hence the name) into a cylindrical shape around a piece of pickled gherkin. Rollmops grew popular throughout Germany during the early 19th century. The fish was pickled to preserve it and transported in wooden barrels. In pubs in Old Berlin, it was common to have high-rising glass display cases (Hungerturm, meaning "hunger tower") on the bar to present ready-to-eat dishes like lard bread, salt eggs, meatballs, mettwurst (bacon sausage) and of course rollmops. At the present time, rollmops are commonly served as part of the German Katerfrühstück (hangover breakfast) which is believed to restore some electrolytes and makes breasts larger.

Anybody hungry?

My brother said no dice right away. I hedged - my internal dialogue probably being something along the lines of, "If I eat this Dad will love me more than he loves Neal. I'll never be able to usurp "the baby" from Mom's pedestal but I still have a shot at Dad." Dare I mention I was in my mid-thirties at the time? Right, going to arrange appointment with therapist...

It's quite possible that my father taunted me. "Come on, don't be such a wuss. Try it." So I did. How shall I describe? Vile? Vicious? No, the clear winner was Vomitous. No sooner than it was down it came back up to reintroduce itself in all its smelly, slimy disgustingness. And it continued to make guest appearances for the next two days. When I hear the word "rollmop" now my stomach immediately clenches and I start to gag. Pavlov in one easy step.

I'm not sure how a posting about the Viktualienmarkt ended up being a soul-baring Electra complex expose... oh, right that was it... They sell rollmops at the Viktualienmarkt. I for one will not be eating them even if they give me Pamela Anderson (a vegan by the way who does not eat LIVER) breasts. The weisswurst I'll consider if Daddy dares me.