Weinerschnitzel

Good news!  Weinerschnitzel isn't hard to make at all.  On this first try the meat was a little tough.  You're supposed to get some veal and pound it very thin with a mallet.  I couldn't find a mallet and I thought the veal looked thin enough as it was.  Not quite, but still a respectable first effort.  You take the veal cover it with flour, dip it in egg, then cover it with bread crumbs.  The internet is divided between whether to fry it in oil or in butter.  I went with the butter route on the grounds that Omi would fry anything in butter if given any chance at all.  I think the overall result was probably pretty authentic--schnitzel, boiled potatoes, saurkraut made with bacon and onions and the very smallest pot for the vegetables.  Lots of good food simply cooked--with meat, carbs and fats.  Can't beat it.

Sorry Mozart

To get a proper sense of Austria, about half of anything you see has something to do with Mozart.  We biffed it here in our virtual travels.  Of course there's the internet and I could have looked up all kinds of things.  Instead I think I'll blame the public library.  We live near a cute little branch--brand new and I think, reasonably well stocked, but when I went to the biography section there was no Mozart! Not in children's or adults.  I grabbed a librarian thinking I must be looking in the wrong place.  But no.  We stood there looking at the M's in amazed bafflement.  I suppose to atone, I should listen to the Magic Flute or something here at work today, but I'm not really in the mood.  I guess I'll leave that to my fellow virtual travelers.

Busy

I think one of the most charming things about travel is the illusion that neither I nor anyone else in the country could possibly be as busy as I am right now.  The idea of being able to stroll along a pier, visit a museum and have a leisurley lunch is completely intoxicating.  Especially today! 
PS--stores do indeed sell veal.  It wasn't even that outrageous.  I'll need to find the meat mallet though---do I even have one?

Veal

Okay, the goal is to make--what else? Weinerschnitzel.  This means I have to find veal cutlets.  I've never bought veal in my life.  I assume they sell them at the store and I've just never paid attention?

Jet Lag

Rather a disorienting month.  At work we're hiring for a new math professor.  I'm the beleagered secretary who has to fly these people in from everywhere, plus the special speaker from Minnesota.  Then Catherine had a special prom dinner with a Hawaiian theme, and it was St. Patrick's Day, and I teach English twice a week to people from Mexico, Columbia and El Salvador plus, I just got to spend some time with a dear friend that I knew when we lived in Japan and another good friend is coming on Thursday from Iowa.  It's been a bit like real traveling--loads of fun, but confusing and tiring as well--oh, and Dave is going to Boston tomorrow.  I'm going to go to bed.  I think I have a case of virtual jet lag.

Nutella and Schnecken

NUTELLA----food of the gods.  A chocolate and hazelnut spread.  Last night we had banana splits and using nutella as the topper is divine.  Using nutella on ANYTHING is divine.  Later, we watched a children's dvd about Austria and then played a game called, Tempo, kleine Schnecke.  Which means roughly 'go fast little snail.'  It's the world's simplest game---everyone gets a snail, you roll some colored dice--if your color turns up you move one space.  First one to the cabbage wins.  The game is meant for extremely small children, but this is where the good German craftsmanship comes in.  The wooden snails feel so good in your hand and the board is so charmingly decorated that we actually play this game from time to time

Beethoven

There is a nice children's non-fiction series called Enchantment of the World.  Each book in the series covers a different country with lots of pictures, some history, some culture and some interesting stories such as this one. 

According to the book, Beethoven was quite a slob.  One night in Austria he was picked up by the police for generally being a disreputable looking vagrant.  When they asked his name he said, Van Beethoven.  That REALLY upset the police.  How dare this scoundrel say that he was the great Beethoven?  They threw him in jail and he was there for three days before his friends came to the rescue and established his identity.

Church Bells

Went to the temple today and the lady I went through for was from Austria!  Love little miracles like that.  Afterward, I climbed a real mountain. No particular destination, but several trail heads are near our house and I like to hop on and just hike for half an hour up or whatever and then back down.  One of the things I like best about living in Ogden is the beautiful mountains--there is a spot when I walk to work that looks just like a postcard from Austria. Anyway, somewhere in the city is a church with a bell carrillion.  It began to play as I was hiking.  This is something that happens in Europe ALL the time, but I don't hear it here very often.  I think bell music is magical and hiking in the mountains whether in Utah or Austria or anywhere else is magical too.

Yodeling

Today I climbed an imaginary mountain to hear the cowherds yodeling to one another.  They were great--and in my imagination they had even dragged those huge alpen horns up the mountain with them.  If you want to learn how to yodel, you can check out a surprising number of sites on the web. While you get those vocal chords warmed up, here's a very lame joke to entertain you--
Knock Knock
Who's there?
Little old Lady.
Little old lady who?
Hey, I didn't know you could yodel!

Hallstatt

    Today I'm in Hallstadt.  A tiny storybook town on a lake.  It has a population of 1,200 and looks like it came straight out of a Disney fairy tale.  Oddly, this little town was the salt-mining capital of the world about 3,000 years ago.  It was so important that a big chunk of Europe's history is called the Hallstadt period.  (This according to Rick Steve's Europe throughthe back Door)  I absolutely need to come here.  It sounds like it's easy to find a charming bed and breakfast and then you can spend  your days hiking or rowing on the lake and eating terrific food.  You can even tour the world's first salt mine--and you get to dress up in miner's clothes to do it. 
    By the way, the cake from Siegfried's was as fabulous as I had fantasized--a white cake with cream and raspberry filling in the middle and the whole thing smothered in marzipan.  I don't know where Catherine get's her self-control, but her piece is still in the fridge.  She's running a terrific risk by leaving it there. 

Siegfried's

Oh dear, nothing's changed in 20 years.  When we went to Germany, Austria and Switzerland on our honeymoon the fabulous food was THE major focal point.  Both of our journals mentioned the wonderful sights we saw of course, but the really detailed descriptions were about the food. I haven't changed.   Today, I get to go to the Salt Lake airport to pick up someone for work, but the IMPORTANT thing is that Salt Lake contains Siegfried's Deli. Siegfrieds contains wurst and bread and chocolate and all kinds of imported wonders.  Today I'm going for a loaf of real german rye, a pound of aufschnit (a sampling of deli sausages), three pieces of cake with lots of layers and marzipan, and Mozartkugeln.  I've been looking forward to this and thinking about this FAR too much I fear.

A word about the Mozartkugeln.  Mozart is ALL over everything in Austria.  The kugeln are chocolate truffles wrapped with a picture of Mozart and you can't walk two steps without passing someone selling them in Vienna.  To tell the truth, they're not my favorite, but all chocolate over there is good by definition.  I think I saw some for sale here the last time I was at Target.  Check it out next time you're there.

Polka

Whew! Stressful day at work!  But I've put on some polka music in the background.  VERY difficult to take anything too seriously against a background of polka music.

Rouladen

I wonder if there's any real difference between Austrian food and German food?  I'm guessing not much, I think each little village/region develops its own specialties.  In any case, I was talking to my friend, Mary Hansen about the wonderful things my German mother made while I was growing up.  I told her all about Rouladen and she actually went home this weekend and made some!  She said they were great, but she will use less pickles next time. Way to virtual travel!  Here's the recipe that's been passed down in my family.  Internet versions are quite similar and one of them claims that a serving has 999 calories.  Darn it, that's probably a conservative estimate.  :)

Get some thin cut flank steak or rump roast or any kind of beef roast and have the butcher cut it horizontally in about 1/4 inch thick slices.  Take the raw slices and spread them all over the counter driving the cats insane with longing.  Spread each piece with yellow mustard (spicy is fine too), salt and pepper each piece, top each slice of meat with a small slice of raw bacon, some slices of raw onion and a sliver of pickle (I like sweet, but dill is fine).  Roll up each piece of meat from the short end and tie it up like a present with sewing thread or thin twine (twine is easier to remove).  Then take an electric skillet and fry up the meat rolls with at least one whole stick of real butter--feel free to add more.  The big secret is to fry up the rolls really really really dark (Mom does it much darker than what is pictured here).  Once the rolls have absorbed all the butter and look as though they may burn, add a couple of cups of water to the skillet and keep cooking.  If you have time to babysit the skillet, keep this up all afternoon until dinnertime, adding two or three beef boullion cubes throughout the cooking time.  (Once the meat is good and dark, everything is cooked through and is edible, but the longer you let them simmer the more tender and delicious they will be).  If you'd rather not babysit, once everything is dark enough dump all the meat rolls into a crock pot.  Add water to the skillet and with a spatula scrape up all the meat drippings pour all of that in the crock pot too.  Just cover the rouladen with water.  Add three or four beef boullion cubes and put the pot on low.    At dinnertime fish out the rouladen and cut off the twine. Make the gravy by pouring all the liquid into a pan and thickening it with cornstarch.  Add more beef boullion cubes until the gravy tastes good and rich.   Serve the rouladen with mashed potatoes and plenty of the gravy.   

Take me to the Ball

Okay, anyone who loved fairy tales as a child, here's what let's do.  Let's go to Vienna in the winter when they have balls all month long during the carnival season, and we can stay at the Hotel Imperial and attend the Opera Ball. The hotel has priceless furnishings and Queen Elizabeth said, "it is the most beautiful hotel we have ever stayed in."  The Opera Ball is the biggest and grandest ball of them all.  Workers take all the seats out of the Vienna State Opera House and turn it into a magnificent ballroom.  Real debutants still make a grand entrance, the men wear white ties, and I can't even imagine the fabulous gowns the women wear.  This is the land of fairy tales so it shouldn't be too hard to find a fairy godmother to help me.  I can even provide my own prince, all I need are tickets and a gown. 

The book 1000 Places to See Before You Die doesn't reveal which month is ball month, but it doesn't matter because the fairy godmother can take care of that too. 

Puppet Theatre

One of the things I'd most like to see in Austria is the Salzburg puppet theatre.  I looked up the German version of the website, and since my German is dubious, so are the following "facts."  It sounds like they've been around for nearly 100 years and have traveled all over Europe.  They perform everything from high-brow operas to children's shows.   I believe their puppets are the ones shown in The Sound of Music--remember when the kids get the puppet theatre and sing the goat-herd song?  In any case the puppets are that intricate and the scenes that detailed.  Wouldn't that be a cool job to be a puppeteer?  This year the puppets are performing The Sound of Music.  Worth going to Salzburg just to see that! 

Brats

      I can't get to the library till day after tomorrow.  So I will take this minute to rant about an unholy abomination that takes place in Iowa and probably elsewhere around the country.  And that is---the improper eating of bratwurst.  Look at the picture of the brat above.  YUM YUM YUM!!!  Notice the bun--it has some body to it.  It is beautifully crusty on the outside and chewy on the inside.  It is NOT from a pack of 89 cent American hotdog buns that come 8 to a package that are made of glue and have all the appeal of an old wet sponge.   No, this is real bread.  And notice that the brat is covered in mustard--probably spicy mustard.  
      Brats are special and there are lots of ways to eat them.  You can eat them plain if you don't like mustard, you can put them on a real roll, or you can have a roll to the side and you can have them with a side of saurkraut or potato salad.  But DON'T put them on a horrible cheap hotdog bun and DON'T put ketchup on them.  If you do, in the next life all you will get to eat is baloney on white bread and Velveeta cheese, which will be exactly what you deserve!
  

Useful song

One goal while visiting any German speaking country is to see if I can breathe any life into my defunct German.  And now I MUST, simply MUST share this song with one and all.  Catherine learned it in a summer German camp---great stuff!  Sing it (with great vigor) to the tune of "She'll be Comin' Round the Mountain."

Ich bin auslander und spreche nicht gut Deustch!
Ich bin auslander und spreche nicht gut Deustch!
Bitte langsam, bitte langsam,
Bitte sprechen Sie nur langsam,
Ich bin auslander un spreche nicht gut Deustch!

which translates to:

I am foreign and I don't speak German well!
I am foreign and I don't speak German well!
Please speak slowly, please speak slowly,
If you only will speak slowly--
I am foreign and I don't speak German well!!!

If you manage to get this song out of your head please let me know how you did it.  I've had it rattling around in here for a good 5 years now.

Austria!

Oh Boy!   Austria!  I've actually been here for a few brief shining (expensive) days--and it looks EXACTLY like this picture.  This is going to be a fun month!  There's the Sound of Music, and the Vienna Boys Choir, and fantastic food...What a great place for a virtual trip!