34

Sara turned 34 on Saturday, Oct 30th. We had a mom day and followed her around town doing whatever she wanted. First thing we did was go for a 2 hr bike ride in the Bambesch Forest which is only a 15 min bike ride from our house. She wanted to tow Rudy, so I got off pretty easy and only had to tow my own fat ass. It was a beautiful fall day to spend in the forest and look a the colors. Here are a few shots and a vid...

After the bike ride, we swung up through town and hit the Saturday Farmers's Market to pick up some goods. 

Then we came home and Roo napped while mom took a bath and dad tinkered around the house. 

Then we had dinner at Solana and we had the paella. I thought it was OK, Mom loved it which is all that counts on her bday. 

Also, yesterday, Sara informed me that she thought that whenever one of our birthday lands on a Sat or Sun, then that person gets to have a bday weekend. Convenient. 

So today, Sunday, we woke up and mom said we were off to the Piscine des Bains to swim...

Then we went to our Sunday lunch place, Konrad and on the way there, appreciated some of the local art...

Happy bday, wife.

Quick Hits

Have had a bunch of meals at home that we haven't blogged about, so I'll do a quick food porn recap without much editorializing...

If you want to make grilled cheese, make it the right way and add bacon,  Rosemary, jam, grilled onions are also useful..

Made my first homemade pumpkin pie (homemade meaning no B.S. pre-made canned pumpkin puree). It made mom very happy on her 34th bday.

The before shot of the 8-hour red sauce...

The finished product and homemade garlic-stuffed meatballs. DIRTY.

Some eggplant parma with elbow mac...

Roo at our fave Italian restaurant in Lux, Il Fragolino, which is only about 5 doors down from us...

Salad w/ poached egg and homemade potato leek soup...

Munich

Spent a few days in Munich a couple of weeks ago as Sara had to be there for work. Rudy and I tagged along and did small bit of sight seeing during the two full days we had to run around the city. I got a bonus the first night we were in town and headed out for dinner and beers with one of Sara's buddies from work while she stayed at the hotel with Rudy. Great time and enjoyed some good food and beers at Schumann's and then headed over to the Hofbräuhaus for a couple of giant German beers. Moved a little slower than usual the following morning, but worth it. 


Next day, Rudy and I visited Sea Life, an aquarium/museum in Olympic Park. A bit tacky to visit the aquarium in  a town like Munich, but when you've got a 2 year old it's a pretty fun thing to do (esp. if you're dragging ass from the night before). The cool thing about the aquarium is that it is entirely underground and doesn't do anything to take away from the park itself which is a beautiful place. Here's a shot of Roo with a nautilus...

After the aquarium, Roo and I took a 15-minute kiddie train around the park and got to see the whole place. Again, very impressive. After the train ride we walked across the street and picked up a cab in front of the BMW museum which I was dying to go inside, but Roo was the one who was now starting to drag ass. 

So, we went back to the hotel and took a nap together which is always a good way to spend a couple hours with your kid. 

That night, we headed out to Wirtshaus zur Brez'n for some traditional Bavarian food and beer with mom and had one of the best meals ever: half a pig knuckle. The knuckle was actually half a leg of pig and it made me truly happy. Sara had duck salad and it was good, too. Roo had a giant pretzel and nibbled on our stuff.

Rudy in action and Mom's getting the strudel...

The next day, Roo and I hung out in a park and played with Matchbox cars and later grabbed some food and waited for mom to get home (we were a 15 cab ride into down town Munich, so we didn't get too adventurous that day). When mom got home, we went out and ate at another authentic German beer hall, Zum Spöckmeier. I got goose (not as good as pigleg), Roo got another giant pretzel and nibbled on our food. Oh, and Sara pulled a Sara and ordered something lame which is all too common. 

Great time. Germany, we will see you again very soon. 

Nut Shots

<<Thanks to Sara for taking most of the pics this weekend>>

Headed we headed up to Vianden a few weeks ago for their annual Nut Fest or more properly Fete du Noix.
Vianden is about an hour or so by car to the northwest of Luxembourg City Center (which I'm now going to refer to as the city for the sake of brevity). It sits on the Our River and is next to the German boarder. The countryside to and from and around Vianden is glorious...they just don't have farms/ranches and rolling hills like this in America, or if they do, I haven't seen them yet.

Our first view of Vianden was spectacular as we parked well above the town and walked down into the crowds more eager for nuts than Clinton interns. Anyway, here's what we saw when we got out of the car and looked down into town....not a bad shot of Castle Vianden, one of the most amazing places I've ever seen and my first "real' castle spotting.

The castle was built atop Roman forts and evolved from a small chapel to larger and larger outbuildings that over the centuries became the full castle (similar what I'm doing with my beer/F.S. gut....slowly growing it over time into something monumental....it takes time, people... foresight, stick-to-it'ed-ness, admittedly a degree of laziness, and a staunch love of F.S.)

We descended into town following our friends Les and Nuria and their son Elliot by following our pattern of latching on to more organized people who know what they're doing and where to go. (thanks again, guys). We entered the stream of people jostling over each other for fresh walnuts, walnut wine, walnut booze, beer and loads of F.S. and other festival food dirtyness. It was heaven. I love the smell of F.S. in the morning. I had several. Here's a shot of us enjoying one of them...

We tried a shot of some walnut wine and it was superb--tasted like port. So we had to buy a bottle. Just might crack it open tonight. We passed a classic butcher shop while wandering through town and had to get a shot of Rudy in his element -- he loves everything sausage as much as his dad does. We share genes that is no lie.

Got a few more shots of town from some different angles. Here's a shot of Mom and Roo looking back up at the Castle Vianden from below.

We also ran into friends Troy and Daniela and their kids at the Nut Fest and sat down with them for a beer and sausage before departing. Troy is an author and I'm currently reading his book Karoo Boy. It's a good one and comes highly recommended from us both.

One final tidbit re: the town is that Victor Hugo used to like to hang out here. Word on the street is that the Hunchback of Notre-Dame was based on a story about a handsome sausage-maker from Vianden who was horribly disfigured when the chapel's churchbell broke from it's anchors and tumbled down through the village square straight into his sausage shop. At that moment he was in the process of cooking several large cauldrons of sausage for the wedding of the Duke's nephew, Peter the Meek. When the bell smashed through his front window and into the shop, he was scalded about head, neck, chest and face area with boiling sausage water. With terrible facial burns and a severely altered gait, he retreated to the church to ring bells for the rest of his life as he saw it as his penance, for on the day of his disfigurement, he had snatched his neighbor's cat and added it to sausage mix. He did not need the extra meat, nor the mild and then very much appreciated feline flavoring it would add, but instead did it to spite his neighbor who had done nothing for weeks as the sausage-maker complained that her wretched cat was using his open flour sacks its personal litter boxes. Betcha didn't know that.

Apple Fest in Steinsel

Headed out last Saturday 8 clicks north of town to Steinsel for an apple festival and the prospect of "festival sausage" or F.S. as we like to call it ... "Will there be F.S. there? -Yeah. OK, we're in."

Only spent about 45 mins there and we did find some F.S. We also watched the locals making apple juice right there on the spot with old school equipment and picked up a few bottles. Rudy was very interested in the process. Here are a few shots of Roo and the applemen.

And since it was a festival, beer and F.S. were present. Here's a shot of Roo trying to steal my sausage and next pic is of me holding Roo and eating my sausage right in his face. Showing him who's the boss. He wouldn't even look at the camera. I ended up sharing. It's what a good dad does.

And here is a lovely shot of mom and boy enjoying more sausage at the apple fest. Pretty.

After the festival, Roo and I drove home and mom decided to run back through the forest. Sounded like it was a beautiful run, but I wouldn't know. I haven't said a word to my running shoes in 3 weeks. Too much sausage to enjoy.

Gotta Go Back in Time or Grand Salami

We did something a couple weekends ago that I didn't get down on the journal (or "gournal" as Andy from Wet Hot calls it) that I need to recap. So that means we "gotta go back in time" (thank you Dana and Kevin).

A few Sundays ago we spent time in four different countries in one day and we did it all by car. We started the day in Lux and drove east out of town and country into Belgium about 25 minutes away. The destination in Belgium was IKEA, or Hell, as I may refer to it. We needed lamps and light fixtures and some other b.s. for Rudy's room. Not to bag on IKEA, I'm just still bitter over the 2 weeks of furniture assembly I had to upon the arrival of our stuff from the States. Damn those little s-shaped wrenches and odd human-like figures in the instruction manuals. (see below)

After swimming through the masses in the maze that is IKEA, we had planned to eat Swedish meatballs in their cafeteria. Unfortunately, everyone and their mother was there that day and we didn't feel like waiting a half-hour for shitty food just for the novelty of it. So, we checked out and went to the little giftshop on the main level and Sara picked up some goodies for us (me) to eat in the parking lot. She grabbed a bag of Swedish Fish and a couple tubes of Reindeer salami. The salami took care of my minimal recommended daily allowance of sausage for the day, even if by technicality. And the Swedish Fish? Well, they were the stuff dreams are made of. I know we've all had Swedish fish before, but not this fresh. These things were practically still kicking as if they were just pulled from that glorious rainbow ocean of sugary goodness from whence they come. The best analogy I can give is to compare it to a fresh a can of Copenhagen in Kentucky....a can that was made that day or the day before and was shipped only a few blocks away to a local Circle K....you flip it over and the date on the back says yesterday and you know you are about to experience something magical. I think that's what heaven probably tastes like -- note I haven't had a dip since early August so it's still a bit on my mind.


After Belgium, we headed south into France to the town of Ottange where we hiked for a couple hours as Rudy slept in the car in the Kelty Kid on my back. We started the hike in France and then wrapped north over the border back into Lux and then back into France to wrap it up. We were on the GR 5 Trail, more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GR_5. Here's a shot of Mom and Roo standing at the border of France-Lux just before we started the hike and he jumped on my back in the big carrier: 

After the hike we started our final leg and moved northeast into Germany and a rendezvous with Cord and Katarina, owners of Weingent Dr. Frey which is a vineyard in Kanzem and der Saar. They are extremely cool people and walked us around their vineyard which has been in Katarina's family for over 100 years and of which the land itself has been used for growing wines for around a 1000 years. Yes, 1000. They have a couple kids, one very young son of 3 months i believe and a 2-year old son named Leonard. Rudy and Leonard hit it off and looked and acted like brothers by the end of our time there. Here's a couple good shots of them:

We drove away with 12 bottles and it's going fast. Great way to spend a Sunday even if we did get a little lost here and there. Nice work planning Sara.

Philly Cheeseostrich Sandwiches

Of the many killer foods we've found at the Saturday/Wednesday farmers markets in Lux City Center, ostrich meat ranks at the top. The aubergine spread, goat cheese stuffed peppers, sausages, fresh fruit and veggies, cheese, yogurt, etc are all exceptional, but the ostrich is truly a gift. 

I almost feel bad for the poor things, not only are they arguably some of the most unattractive birds in the world, but they taste good, too. I did some reading on ostriches and found some interesting facts about them that don't make me feel so bad about eating them or their unfortunate appearance and volitational deficiencies... 

• They are so powerful a single kick can be fatal to predators. 
• They can run 40 mph and outpace predators such as lions, hyenas and leopards.
• When fully grown, an ostrich has one of the most advanced immune systems known to man.
• When a male ostrich reaches 13 years of age it is responsible for its own actions. This is recognized with a ceremony whereby the young ostrich reads from the Torah. Typically, this ceremony is followed by a celebratory meal and party attended by friends and family. Musical entertainment is often provided and usually falls short of everyone's expectations until enough wine has been consumed to make dancing possible. On occassion, a great aunt ostrich will break a hip and/or wrist on the dance floor and a few adolescent ostrich males will get to second base in the coat check room.* 

Anyway, not only does it taste great (only slightly gamey), but its nutritional value beats chix, turk, beef and pork hands down. Check it here: http://www.ostrichgrowers.com/nutrit.html. If you're wondering what it looks like, it's appearance is a mix between beef and chicken, skewing much more to the beef side of the spectrum. 

The only cooking tip I got from the ostrich vendor was to cook it medium. That's it. So what did we do? Well, we made cheesesteak sandwiches, and they destroyed.

 

Seasoned the meat-bird with salt, pepper, cumin and coriander and then seared it in a cast iron skillet. The skillet then went into the oven and under the broiler along with shaved green peppers and onions, as well as some sauteed criminis. Pulled it from the oven and let the meat-bird sit for about 5 mins. Made thin slices of meat and placed them atop toasted ciabatta buns that had some delish melted Hepperdanger Keis cheese. Piled the peppers, onions and shrooms and got busy. We had some mashers and chard on the side as per usual. 

Musical accompaniment for cooking and dinner was Loudon Wainwright III's "High Wide & Handsome - The Charlie Poole Project" which comes highly recommended for anyone who likes banjo picking and songs that can thrive in any time period. Check it out here: http://www.thecharliepooleproject.com/project.html.

*I may have taken some editorial liberties with this final bullet point. 

The three holy B's: bourbon, braised, beef

Had one of Sara's work friends over for dinner on Friday and had a great time and much food and wine.

Did bourbon pomegranite beef short ribs, garlic mashed potatoes (again) and sauteed broccoli.

It was good and the leftovers were even better.

Here's Roo in mid-eat....