The Week in Food

Things have been pretty busy at work since we got back from Afghanistan. We have three projects going on there now. The “client” has decided that they would “like to have” the next one ten days earlier than the previous deadline. So a 40 day project has been shortened by 10 days. This is not our only project to get out during this time. The next 4-6 weeks should be fun. SNAFU!

Not looking for sympathy just using it as an excuse for not updating this more regularly.

I looked at a couple of more apartments last weekend and one last night. The ones last weekend didn’t really do anything for me. One was a nice townhouse that was a lot bigger than what I need, but it was in a pretty nondescript (uninteresting) outlying small town. The one that I saw last night was nice. It was just at the edge of Wiesbaden, and it had a nice little park right across the road. It is a contender, but it won’t be available until the 1st of June.

I’ve heard that there is a very real possibility of lasting psychological trauma from being in a hotel for too long. That would be too long. I will look at some more places in Wiesbaden, although the parking situation can be very difficult in town. I’ve got an Immobilien (realtor) on the case for me. The housing office will only provide you with three apartments at a time. Since most people need to be at work during the hours that the office is open, they have proven to be of little use. The Immobilien fee can actually be pretty high, but it is negotiable and you can get reimbursed for most of it.

The Immobilien is a woman named Frau Huber. She is an older, divorced woman, who wears a lot of flashy jewelry and drives a little Mercedes two seater. And she drives it like a maniac. If not like a maniac then like a … well … a German. Seeing who can get to the next intersection the fastest seems to be the national sport. I was getting a bit nauseous, and thought I was coming down with a case of motion sickness although it may have just been her perfume.

She is a nice woman though, and with any luck we’ll find a place in the next couple of weeks. It really doesn’t make any difference until my stuff gets here anyway. We will start looking again after the Easter holidays.

This was a good food week though. Last Sunday I went back to Eltville and went for a walk in the vineyard. I wanted to check out the wine restaurant in the vineyard to see if I absolutely had to move there. The restaurant was not open yet (it may open this weekend though). So I walked up over the hill into the town of Rauenthal. I was looking for their Ostermarkt. They had signs out for it, but being unable to understand the signs and not knowing where you are have their drawbacks. So, I’m walking around Rauenthal and am getting a little thirsty. So I stop in this little wine restaurant (I’ll find out what these places are actually called and post it later) called the Gutssausschank (Good Life Bar or Good Living Bar) and ordered a 2005 Rauenthaller Steinmacher Riesling Qualitatswein, Trocken (dry). I don’t know if this was a good vintage or not, I just asked for a dry white and this is what I got. I was parched and it tasted good to me.

There was a guy working at the restaurant who just walked around filling peoples glasses. He had a plastic bottle carrier, sort of like the type of container we used to buy quarts of A-Treat Soda in (or Big Red, Ale-81, or whatever your local soda company was). The container had several liter bottles of wine in it, and he would just look at the ticket on your table and pour you another of the same. And this guy filled the glasses to the brim. None of this sloshing it around in the glass, sniffing the “bouquet”, and all that crap. This is a wine that is meant to be drunk.

I also ordered some Handkase mit Musik (Marinated Hand cheese). I had read about this in the past, and while the reports were not exactly glowing endorsements, I had to try it. It was actually pretty good, although after reading about it again I’m not sure it was a representative sample. Handkase is hand molded or formed cheese. So every piece is a little different, no big deal. The Musik part means marinated. It is marinated in sweetened vinegar with spices and slices of onions. It is brought to you in a bowl swimming in the marinadewith the onions on top. It is served with a couple of pieces of bread and butter. I’m not sure how you are supposed to eat it, but I buttered the bread and ate it separately. The cheese and onions were eaten together. It was tasty. The further readings mentioned that it was supposed to be a smelly cheese, but I didn’t find it that way at all. The cheese forms a bit of a rind in the marinade, I just cut the cheese (ha ha) and ate it. I either did it right or they are still talking about the stupid American who ate the Musik. I wonder if they are calling it “The Day the Musik Died”… yeah, probably not.

I visited the Paulaner restaurant one night this week. Paulaner is a brewery in Munich that is renowned for their Salvator Dopplebock. It really is quite wonderful, and I hope that they have it all year round. Bocks are traditionally brought out in the spring. The monks used to drink them during the Lenten season. They developed the dopplebock (double bock) to be a sort of “liquid bread” because sometimes during Lent they would fast from all solid food. In any case, I was in no mood for fasting. I had the Jagerbraten with mushroom gravy and Spatzle . The Jagerbraten was slices of a roast pork loin, but the spatzle was the real star of this show. Little hand made irregular shaped pastas that were so light and perfect that a couple of more helpings in a plastic bag would have made a great pillow.

I also went to a couple of Metzgerei one night this week and picked up a couple of cured meat products. I bought some pork cold cuts from an Italian place. The woman told me that it was called porcetta in Italian. It was basically the loin and side of the pig cured and rolled into a cylinder. Kind of like pancetta, but the cure was not as strong, and it was a bit larger due to the fact that the loin was included as well as the side meat. It was very good and I made several sandwiches out of it. I also bought some Iberico ham which is a Spanish ham similar, but superior, to proscuitto. It is eaten uncooked and sliced very thin. I also bought some blutwurst and leberwurst (liverwurst). The leberwurst had the smoothest texture of any I’ve ever had, and the blutwurst was bought to gross out Greg (and it did), but it was very good also.

I also went back to the Uhrturm (Clock tower) and had some Speissbraten with fried potatoes. The Speisbraten was basically a piece of roast pork cut about 1-inch thick and covered with onions and gravy. It sounds simple but it was wonderful.

It’s almost Easter, and the Germans take this Easter stuff seriously. The schools are all closed for a two week spring/Easter break, and everything was closed on Friday and will be closed on Monday as well. Most things are closed on Sunday anyway, so I guess they’ll just throw in Saturday and really try to mess up my life. Luckily I purchased a case of Paulaner Dunkel Hefe-Wiessbier yesterday after work when I went to the grocery. So with these wise words I will bid you good night and a Happy Easter.

"Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to prosper."
Benjamin Franklin