Coffee, Chips, and Change (Cafés 1)

Smells of coffee and cigarettes, the background hum of conversations and discussions, cups clanking on metal trays, stacks of newspapers on a side table, servers in black suits, moving silently, upright. To think Vienna, is to think coffee houses.

When I was living here in the 1990s Café Drechsler (top picture) was a favorite. It had that coffee house patina: chipped chairs, yellowing walls, a touch of seediness, the lights a notch too low. Drechsler's has since been renovated (bottom picture). Sir Terence Conran of London was asked to design. He went for the classical - red benches, black chairs -, added some whimsical detail, some writing on the wall. I too have changed, moved on to other places: tiny Café Bakery Europane in L.A., the more contemporary orientoccident in Vienna, across from Drechsler's. Starbucks? Only if desperate for caffeine.
(Pictures courtesy of Café Drechsler)

Comments

Schokoladenstückkekse? No Chocolate Chip Cookies in Austria

Today as I was making chocolate chip cookies it came to me: these baked treats which any US American child grows up with don't exist in Austria. There isn't a German term for them. Schokoladenstückkekse? The word doesn't exist. German recipes for chocolate chip cookies call them just that, by their American name. The funny thing is Austria is famous for its pastries. I have some wonderful recipes for Christmas cookies: Vanillekipferl, Kokosbusserl, Ischler T ö rtchen, Lebkuchen, Spitzbuben, Nussstangerl... They are all delicious but not one is as easy to make as a chocolate chip cookie. My recipe for chocolate chip cookies is from the Los Angeles Times. I found it in the printed edition many years ago. Unfortunately I cannot locate the online version of the article but here is the scanned original: I make the cookies much smaller than the LAT chefs do, using about one and a half tablespoons of dough per cookie and baking them ten minutes at most. As yo...

A Book Club Divided: How Funny Is Franz Kafka?

Yesterday evening my book club discussed Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis, in which a man wakes up one morning and finds he has turned into some kind of vermin. Opinions on the 50 page story were sharply divided. My Austrian friend and I talked about how we cracked up reading; our American friends shared their feelings of depression and disgust. Is it a coincidence that the difference in perception runs along lines of nationality or is it cultural? Put differently: do you have to be Austrian/Central European to feel comfortable with Kafka's humor?

Ban on Plastic Bags Bugs L.A. County

Paper or plastic? Bag from South Africa. My friend recently came back from a trip to South Africa and brought me a reusable grocery bag. It is from Woolworths, one of the largest retail chains in South Africa; it is made by a community project and serves as a symbol of the company's commitment to sustainability and social development. I will think of this whenever I use my new bag. Thank you, dear friend! The Woolworths bag is not my first reusable bag. I carry two baggies which fold up into packs smaller than a deck of cards in my purse and a bunch of bigger ones in the trunk of my car. To me this feels like an easy way of making a difference environmentally. Others seem to have a harder time. When the county of Los Angeles recently introduced a ban on plastic bags for its unincorporated areas the new ordinance was met with resistance. Shops bemoan that paper is more expensive than plastic. They charge customers ten cents for every paper bag. Shoppers complain about ...

Across the Pond

Search This Blog