Germany: Black Forest Cherry Cake

This is my mom's favorite part of the Oktoberfest, and probably her German heritage. A three layer (actually five if you count the frosting and cherry ones) chocolate cake laced with kirsch.

The kirsch is the prominent flavor in the cake. It is a clear brandy that is made by distilling sour cherries called morellos that are native to Europe. This is not your typical chocolate cake. The cakes themselves are stiff, the cherries sour and the kirsch gives it a fairly bitter flavor. Definitely an acquired taste.

Ingredients:

For cakes:

6 eggs
1 cup sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
4 squares of unsweetened baking chocolate melted (we used the choco bake things that Toll House makes)
1 cup flour

For syrup:

1/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup water
2 tbsps. kirsch

For the buttercream frosting:

1/3 cup unsalted butter
1 egg yolk
2 tsbs. kirsch liqueur

For topping:

2 cups drained, canned sour cherries
2 tbsps. confectioners' sugar
2 cups heavy cream, whipped

What we did:

Beat eggs, sugar and vanilla together until thick. This will take about 10 minutes. Blend in the chocolate and flour into the batter.

Pour the batter into 3 eight-inch round cake pans (already greased) and bake for about 10 minutes at 350 degrees. Cool the cakes about 5 minutes.

While the cakes are cooking, you can make a syrup by boiling the water and sugar for about five minutes. Cool it. When it is cooled, add the kirsch.

To make the the buttercream filling, beat the sugar and butter until well blended. Then add egg yolk and beat until fluffy and thick. This should take about five minutes. Blend in the kirsch.

When the cakes have cooled, use a fork to poke the tops of all of them with numerous little holes. Then pour equal parts of the syrup over all of the cakes. The liquid should get absorbed into all of the holes.

Now you can start assembling the cake. Take your largest cake round for the base and cover the top with some of the buttercream filling. Strain the can of sour cherries, and stick some of them in the frosting of this layer. Put the second cake on top, spread with butter cream filling and more cherries. Put the third cake on top.

The final step is to cover the cake with a whipped cream topping. To make the topping, just beat the whipped cream with the confectioners sugar until fluffy and thick (it should be like whipped cream). This will take about 10 minutes. You want this to be thick enough to spread over the cake. You should get medium-sized peaks as you come to the end of the beating.

Frost the top and sides of cake with the whipped cream frosting and decorate with cherries. Put in a safe place until guests arrive to avoid early hijackers.

Germany: Hot potato salad w/ bacon

Same goes for this one on adjusting the ingredients to your liking.

Ingredients:

3 medium white potatoes, boiled

3 slices bacon

1/4 cup chopped onion

1 tbsp. flour

2 tsps. sugar

3/4 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp. celery seeds

1/4 tsp. pepper

1/4 cup water

1 1/2 tbsps. vinegar (you may need extra)

What we did:

Boil the potatoes in their skins. When they are soft (and cooled) remove the skins and slice them into about 1/4 inch rounds. You want them thick enough so they don't fall apart, but not too thick.

In a large frying pan, saute the bacon and remove the meat for later. Leave the bacon fat in the pan and saute the onions until golden brown. Add the flour, sugar, salt, celery seeds and pepper and mix it all together. Stir in the water and vinegar and stir until smooth and well combined. This is going to make a whitish/gray colored sauce. Heat until boiling, and then stir in the potatoes and bacon.

If the mixture seems too dry, add in equal parts of more vinegar and water until the potatoes are all coated and there is some extra sauce. The sauce should be thick, not watery. Adjust the seasonings to your liking. It should have a strong vinegar taste, but not so much that it overpowers the other flavors. Let it cook on very low heat on the stove for a few minutes.

We made the potato salad the night before we planned to eat it so the flavors could meld together.

Germany: Red Cabbage

We ended up improvising quite a bit on all of our recipes. This is a rough guide that is somewhere between what we did and what the recipe called for. One can, obviously add ingredients to taste.

Ingredients:

3 lbs. red cabbage, finely shredded

2 cups wine vinegar

2 tbsps. salt

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup bacon fat (the grease)

1 cup sliced onions

1 cup sliced apples

2 pints beef stock

salt

1 onion stuffed with 4 whole cloves and two bay leaves

1/4 cup wine

1 cup jam (redcurrant, strawberry or blackberry - we used strawberry)

What we did:

First thing we did is chop the cabbage into little 1/2 inch wide strips. Then we mixed in the salt, sugar and vinegar.

Heat the bacon fat on the stove in a large pot (you'll have to fit the cabbage in it) and saute the onions and apples. You want them tender, but not browned. Then add the cabbage, mix it all together and let cook for a few minutes.

Add the beef stock, cover and bring to a boil. While it's working, get the stuffed onion in order. You basically just gut the onion and shove all the spices in it. When the stock is boiling toss it in. You will take it out at the end of the cooking.

Let everything simmer for a while until the cabbage is tender, but not mushy. This probably took about a half hour (at least - we weren't really paying attention). About halfway through add some salt and pepper to taste, jelly and wine. Make sure to take a swig for you!

Bring on the brine!

So the very first step of our cooking adventure is done - brining the meat for the sauerbraten.

We ended up going with an eye round of beef, since that's what the guy at the German store dad found recommended. I guess it has more fat in it than a higher end cut, like a top round. Apparently it also makes for a nicer, more traditional presentation.

The recipe we had from the cookbook called for larding the meat, which some research via Google revealed involves using a fairly complicated tool called a larder to shove pieces of fat into the meat. I consulted with my buddies at the Food Network (Emeril, Alton, Bobby, etc.) and none of their recipes online said to do this, so we didn't. Besides, our meat looked fatty enough anyway.

To make the brine, we basically brought the three cups of white vinegar, three cups of water, an onion (chopped obviously), a carrot (also chopped), two bay leaves, eight cloves, 1 tbsp. pickling spices and eight peppercorns to a boil and then let it simmer for five minutes. My dad was getting pretty excited when it started to emit its vinegary aroma. My eyes watered it was so potent.

Then we let it cool to about room temperature, poured it over the meat and stuck it in the fridge where it will live for the next three days and we will have to turn it periodically.

In the meantime, I'll be hitting up the National Chicken Wing Festival on Saturday!

Germany: Rhineland Marinated Pot Roast (Rheinischer Sauerbraten)

We're not really sure where many of our German recipes came from, but we know Dad picked the sauerbraten from The German Cookbook, by Mimi Sheraton. He remembers eating sauerbraten with a ginger snap gravy, which is apparently characteristic of northern Germany. Like many other foods, the sauerbraten varies depending on what region it's from. Some are more vinegary and some might be creamy. Grandma, whose family is from Bavaria, remembers her mom making one that was more on the vinegary side. Apparently none of our family members wrote down their recipes though, so we defer to Ms. Sheraton.

I feel compelled to include this link to Amazon.com where you can purchase her cookbook if you are interested.

Otherwise here are the ingredients we'll be picking up in a few hours after my little bro and I hit the gym (working off the calories is essential to this obsessive eating) and then brining it this afternoon so it can sit about three days.

Without further ado ...

5 lb. rump of beef

bacon or salt pork for larding + 4 slices

salt

3 cups white vinegar

3 cups water

3 large onion

3 bay leaves

14 cloves

8 peppercorns

1 tbsp. pickling spices

1 large carrot

3 tbsp. butter

2 tbsp. flour

lemon juice

1/2 cup white raisins (Blah! I hate raisins. So does my sister But I'm guessing we're not going to win our lobby to exclude them. Dad says you need the raisins.)

tomato puree or sour cream (which we are actually skipping)

Lecker schmecker means yum yum in German... I think.

So my dad is TOTALLY excited about this whole German Oktoberfest situation. Perhaps even more excited than I am. Within a few days of announcing my little blog project a few months ago, Dad sent me a menu with probably two dozen German food options to choose from for the cookoff.

I'm just now becoming clear on where Dad's side of the family comes from (I guess his father came from Alsace-Lorraine - which I guess qualifies as German. I don't think we ever got a real straight answer about his mother... but he's now staking claim to Germany for her as well). Regardless, Dad has all sorts of memories of eating German food with family and friends as a child. At one point, probably when we tired of watching old men in lederhosen, Dad decided he would make us our own Oktoberfest and in those pre-Internet days headed to the Buffalo library to check out cookbooks with recipes that matched the memories of his childhood.

Fifteen years later, we're doing it again. We've decided to keep it fairly simple, settling on a menu of sauerbraten, potato pancakes, German potato salad, dumplings, red cabbage and black forest cake. Yes, this is a simple meal in my family.

We thought about getting some of our supplies at this awesome looking German store Dad found in the city (Buffalo that is - in Western NY, Buffalo is "the city" one refers to). But then we found out they don't have the cut of meat we need until October. So we'll be going to Wegman's instead. The site is still amusing. A pig snorts when you scroll over the menu.

Since you have to brine the sauerbraten for days in advance, we'll be doing that today.

In future cooking adventures, I anticipate posting links to the web sites I find recipes on in advance. But this time around I have pages and pages of copies from many different cookbooks I don't feel like transcribing - and I am not about to violate any copyright issues. So I'm not going to put the entire recipes up. I will put up all of the ingredients, and give you a general gist of how it was prepared when I blog about the cooking.

In other news, Grandma liked the blog. Score! She was cute and sent me an e-mail - yes Grandma e-mails and now follows a blog - about it this morning, saying it reminded her of when we all used to go to Epcot at Disney when I was growing up and ate our way through all the countries. This whole eating thing is nothing new in my family.

She also thought my story about Hohenwarth was pretty funny.

"Your memories of Hohenwarth are just as I had imagined the place must be," she wrote. "The pictures you brought back are more than I thought you would find."

I think it's pretty hilarious my family got to sit back and be amused as I cluelessly, bumbled my way out into the nothingness in the Bavarian Forest.

I also decided to post another picture from Hohenwarth since I have yet to master posting multiple photos with each post. If anyone is schooled in this matter, please advise.

Bon Voyage

So I'm too lazy to renew my passport. Now, I can't even go to Canada.

That's pretty bad, considering I grew up just about 30 minutes away in Buffalo, NY. You can walk across the border.

All it would take to get my travel credentials renewed is a short walk around the corner to Walgreen's for new photos and a brief stop at the post office. I've actually been carrying my old, expired one around ever since I got this bug to go wine tasting across the border in Niagara Falls and thought I'd spring the extra $60 to put a rush on it. Never happened.

People who know me aren't surprised. I like routine. I get comfortable.

Most people my age spent their 20s restlessly jumping around the country in search of new jobs, new loves and new adventures. Not me, a once wandering and ambitious teen. I have spent the past six years comfortably roosting here in the exact same job and the exact same apartment in Sarasota, Fl. It took years of uncharacteristic nagging from my mother - and a promise to oversee the process - to even let them replace the carpet in my apartment this summer.

Perhaps there is something more subconscious to my apparent laziness.

The truth of the matter is I'm pretty happy. I have a good job, which I get a lot of enjoyment out of and feel like I am making a difference. I have great friends and a supportive family. Life is pretty good for me.

I didn't feel that way a few years ago when I was first starting out on my own. I struggled with the high expectations I set for my job, missed my family and had trouble finding people in my new home to connect with. There were many times I thought about leaving.

Instead, I found the one place I could escape all of my frustrations and anxieties: my kitchen.

Evenings spent home alone away from my family and closest friends, I never really felt lonely. It may sound lame, but I had Emeril, Rachael or any other recipe or cookbook on my counter as I cathartically chopped, stirred and simmered away my depression. Somehow a few hours behind the cutting board with a glass of wine helps put life in perspective.

Over time, and with practice, I managed to find a balance between a solid work life and social fulfillment. My friends and I love to get together now with some food, a good bottle of wine (or a few) and great conversation.

But the problem with routine is that at some point it gets boring. Before you know it another decade is almost gone. You're pushing 30 with limited vacation time and finances and can't even muster the motivation for a quick trip to Walgreen's to leave the country.

What once seemed like all the time in the world to accomplish your hopes and goals has vastly diminished. Rather than the exotic life you dreamed of as a child, you're a single 28-year-old reporter living in the state with the largest population of senior citizens in the country.

The something to break the monotony came to me one Sunday morning as I tracked down a recipe for Greek Moussaka. I love ethnic food and experiencing different cultures and cuisines. I cook every weekend, and sometimes the biggest challenge is figuring out what I'm in the mood for. Why not cook my way around the world, researching and tracking down a recipe from every country, and blog about it?

In this age where one can Google and Wikipedia their way around the world you don't need a passport to experience something different. I am just a short walk away from the local Publix and a few hours from a great paella. Besides, cooking blogs seem to be all the rage anyway.

Before I published this very long first entry I showed some drafts to my closest writer friends and my little brother, who pointed out the air of "when life gives you lemons" to my story.

But the scholar in him eloquently noted that this really isn't about someone handing me something sour to deal with. Life has given me a seemingly endless supply of fine ingredients, talents and opportunities. It's up to me to figure out what to do with them.

"It would seem as if life is inherently good," Ben wrote. "When life (and Publix, Food Network, the Internet) gives you every food you'd ever want, yet your (allegorical) kitchen's a mess, make as much food as you can."

Now that sounds like a plan.

So 203 countries, I'm going to try to get through in 80 days (If Jules Verne could do it ...). I was originally going to try to do this consecutively, but my mother pointed out that might be too ambitious. So I'm going to just cook on Saturdays and Sundays, and maybe sneak in an occasional weeknight. I think it was always meant to be a metaphorical, Biblical 80.

Basically what I'll do is put all of the countries in a hat and every Monday draw two out for the following weekend. I'll probably pick a few other countries with similar cuisines to round out the meal and make the 80 day deadline. I'll post recipes during the week, for anyone who wants to follow along. And of course I'll share my awesome and entertaining stories about the cooking (and the parties).

The feasting will begin Sept. 6, 2009 - my 28th birthday. I will be home in Buffalo, NY.

And what better place to start the culinary adventure than where you came from, sort of. So my dad and I will be whipping up a birthday feast from our ancestral birthplace - Germany.

With any luck, this will at least suffice as some adventure and intrigue until I figure something else out, or at least have motivation to renew my passport.

And maybe along the way I'll figure out what else I should be doing with all these damn ingredients.