Skip to content

May 27

2 Comments

Simple garlic-herb yogurt dressing/sauce

Salad

This is another one of those deceivingly simple recipes that came about from improvisation and immediately wriggled its way into regular circulation. Some of the best ones happen that way, another testament to how important and fun it can be to develop and then rely on those kitchen instincts.

When we arrived in Vienna we had no olive oil or good vinegar in the apartment, but after a week in the Czech Republic I was dying for some salad – something cold, green, and crisp to counteract day after day of stews and dumplings and potatoes. So I combined what we had that seemed right – yogurt, garlic, parsley and thyme, and plenty of salt and pepper. It took two minutes to make, and we ended up cleaning the bowl out with our fingers, wiping up the last streaks and drips and smears. It was tangy and fresh and delicious and I’ve made it half a dozen times since, completely forgetting about oil and vinegar and switching entirely to this. Each time we remark on how it’s possible that something so simple could be so fantastic. Read more

May 22

2 Comments

Best-ever basic lentils (plus feta, caramelized fennel, mushrooms, and tomatoes)

Lentils_caramelized-fennel_feta

One of our favorite activities in Vienna is to pass the afternoon in various cafés and coffee houses. Vienna is famous for them, I suppose as many European cities area, and most still exude the same old-school style that they have 50 years (or more – one of our favorites looks almost the same as it did circa 1900). Waiters in tuxedo-like uniforms, chandeliers hanging from the ceilings, and glass cases packed with frilly strudels and dense cakes and other confections. Coffee drinks and towering ice cream sundaes arrive on tiny metal trays, each accompanied by the traditional small side glass of water (I’ve heard many reasons for why, all logical but completely different, so I still don’t know the answer). You can generally also order fancy wine spritzers, coffee with Gran Marnier and whipped cream, a sip of brandy, or a variety of other beverages destined to make your day feel a little more elegant.

Prueckel_2 Read more

May 18

Spring cocktail: Frühling’s 19

We’ve been in Vienna for over a week now, the longest we’ve been anywhere since we left Claremont last July. Being here for five weeks has meant an entirely different rhythm of travel, one that feels a lot more comfortable as we’ve gotten more and more exhausted over the last ten months. We keep saying that it’s 50% normal travel – venturing out into the city to see and do things – and 50% normal life – grocery shopping and cooking, slow mornings and early nights, and lots of time at our computers catching up on work and life and getting things done.

On our second night here we cooked dinner for ourselves, made a cocktail, and watched a DVD on the television in our apartment’s living room. It really set in, then, that we’d get to have a fairly domestic little experience while we’re here.

Fruhling_19 Read more

May 15

Beware of impending technical difficulties …

Brett’s going to a five hour opera this evening (five. hours.) which means he’ll be gone for about eight, so I’m solo for the rest of the day (it’s early afternoon here). Because I’m such a party animal, I’m taking advantage of that time alone to tie up a bunch of loose ends that came along with switching the host for this blog. Beware of impending technical difficulties. There may be old posts that show up on your feeds or in your email, or pictures that don’t show up in posts, or broken links, or any variety of scary things. My goal is to have everything as good as new by the end of the day. (Which means something like mid-afternoon Wednesday back in the States.)

Spending the next million(ish) hours working on HTML is really not as bad as it sounds – I have good music, an open window, a new cocktail recipe to test (meaning drink, obviously – and it’s a good one, so get excited for the coming post) and three seasons of Friday Night Lights (which I’ve never seen) on DVD to keep me company. I have plans for a big salad for dinner to counteract all the döner and schnitzel and everything else we’ve been eating, and a slice of sachertorte for dessert. (Yes, I see the contradiction in that sentence, and no, I don’t care.)

That said, I do wish I were still wandering around the Wienerwald, as we did for much of yesterday …

Wienerwald

 

May 11

1 Comment

Setting up shop

What I really want to tell you about is how I managed to cook this entire meal without getting a speck of anything on my shirt, particularly notable since our kitchen in Vienna did not come supplied with an apron (or many other things).

Spring_polenta_2

And there’s certainly a lot more to say – about our time in Vienna thus far, about how amazing it feels to have our own kitchen space, and about all the little confusing things about going grocery shopping in another country. Or about how easy it is to burn things in the thin, aluminum pans that sorely stock our kitchen here, or how the stove really only goes down to medium-high, and that effectively using anything lower requires some MacGyver-like manuevering. But for now I have a few more important things to move on to. Read more

← Older Entries
Newer Entries →