Playing with Food and Sugar and Coffee: September 2006

September 17, 2006

The last few weeks have been a bit of a crazy blur. We went to Munich, which was a good time, overall. We arrived by bus late on a Thursday evening. I’m not a big fan of long bus rides with 30 people, but it was ok. We got in around 12:30 a.m., checked into the hotel and went to sleep. Friday was fully scheduled with a tour of a farm and a brewery. We were greeted that morning by our bus driver…he was wearing lederhosen and had a knife—the handle of which was made of part of the leg of a hooved animal. He seemed nice enough, I guess. However, he almost killed us at least three times. Not the safest driver ever…..I think he must have thought, “Hey, I’m a big bus. People will see me coming and get out of the way when I pass on a curve.” Seriously, he ran at least two cars off the road doing that.

We arrived in one piece at Hermannsdorfer, the “ecological farm complex,” was really interesting. It is made up of a farm, bakery, brewery, butcher and dairy. There are beautiful gardens and greenhouses where they grow plants and vegetables. The flower garden is open to public…anyone can stop, pick flowers, and leave money in a box by the garden. So trusting! Our tour guide was a lovely woman, whose passion for what she does was obvious. They don’t use any chemicals or hormones to grow their products or feed their livestock. It made all of us think more carefully about what happens to the food we eat before it gets to us. Also, they have a small brewery where they make two kinds of beer, weiss bier and dunkel bier--- both were really good.

After leaving the farm, we went to Ayinger, a brewery where they make the Celebrator—also known as the 13th best beer in the world. After a thorough tour of their modern, computer-run facility, we sat down for a tasting. They make quite a few beers, and I think I tasted every one of them. Yummy. It was a nice contrast to the simpler, more rustic style of the farm we had just seen.

The next day was free to explore the market. I have to say that the vendors in France were much nicer than the ones in Munich. While the produce was beautiful, they wouldn’t let you touch it. Hmmm….I’m not so keen on buying a vegetable that I can’t pick up before I purchase it. Oh well….

Who knew that one of the best meals of the trip would be Thai food in Munich at the airport? As we arrived at the airport for dinner, we were all very skeptical—in fact, we discussed it with our chefs. I told them that I had gone on-line and read mixed, though overall good, reviews of the restaurant. The itinerary said we would enjoy “the best of Thai cuisine you can imagine (Maki-Sushi rolls….Japanese Teryaki steak, etc.)” Please note that neither sushi nor teryaki is Thai. In the end, we decided to embrace it for the surreal experience it was sure to be and have a laugh later.

We were pleasantly surprised. Mangostin was opened by a former Executive Chef for Hilton International. Chef Josef Peter is from Germany, and worked all over the world including South America and Europe before spending 13 years cooking in Thailand. This inspired him to join with the largest private restaurant owner in Europe to open Mangostin. This restaurateur was a seemingly nice, very old man who came out and waved at us—his restaurants did 900 million € worth of business last year. Anyway, there is another Mangostin in downtown Munich, and when the airport began to plan for its new wing, they decided it would be the second location for the restaurant. Go figure. There was logic behind it, but I can’t remember it all right now.

They set out a beautiful buffet for us with all kinds of food…..sushi, steak salad with kaffir lime leaves, rice dishes, duck soup, won tons, basil rolls, egg rolls, everything that is fresh and good. One of my favorites was an appetizer….you take the leaf from a wild pepper plant, load it with ginger, onion, red chilis, roasted coconut flakes, peanuts, dried shrimp and a sweet-ish soy-based sauce. Fold it up and stick the whole thing in your mouth. Be sure to have something to drink nearby in case you get a little heavy-handed with the ginger-chili pepper combo. Chef Peter was a charismatic inspiring man who has seen and done so much, and gave us really good advice. Mainly it boiled down to “do what you love.” Simple, but not always so easy. He also invited some of us to comeback and work Octoberfest.

Sunday we went to Salzburg for the day…..hello, von Trapp family! It was a weird day to go because everything is closed on Sundays, but we did have a nice tour with Myra, a British woman who moved to Austria 50 years ago when she got married. She was absolutely fantastic….I think I want to be a tour guide when I’m an old lady. We saw Mozart's house and other places he liked to hang out. Because we were American, Myra assumed that we wanted to know more about the Sound of Music film than we really did. Anyway, she thought better of us when we told her that we were actually interested in the other aspects of the city. And so, we walked around in the rain, listening to her thoughts on the modernization of Salzburg (she’s against it), Mozart (she loves him), and other random things that floated to her mind. It was funny because Kathrin, our trip coordinator for Munich took me aside and whispered, “What is this ‘Sound of Music’ she keeps referring to? Should I know it” I told her about the movie, and how practically every kid in America has seen it or at least knows what it’s about. I sang a little medley of the songs for her….she still had no idea. Apparently, Maria is not a big part of German childhood.

We left Munich on Monday after touring Rischart, a bakery with many locations around Germany and Austria. It was interesting to see a mass production facility, but by that time we were very tired and just wanted to get back to Engelberg and sleep. Which we did.