Evenings Under Chestnut Trees (This I Will Miss 4)

Summer! Mosquitoes, heat, and thunder storms (and fans instead of air conditioning). I am a summer person and have always loved staying in Vienna during the hot months. The city has a lot to offer: swimming in its public aquatic centers, cycling in the Prater, hikes across the hills and mountains to the south, sailing on Lake Neusiedl, afternoon excursions to the little wineries, the Heurigen, which sell simple home made fare and cool, refreshing spritzers - and evenings spent outdoors, in the backyards of restaurants, under chestnut trees.

Chestnut trees - actually horse chestnuts - are ubiquitous in Vienna. They grow to 100 feet tall and blossom in May with long, upright panicles which are white or, more unusually, an old fashioned reddish rose color. The leaves are broad and divided, and in July soft, spiky burrs are already well visible. In the fall, when the leaves turn yellow, then brown, the burrs will crack open, revealing a shiny brown fruit. As children we used to collect these conkers and turn them into little animal creatures with toothpicks for legs. We knew not to eat the fruit. It is toxic.

In L.A. I have occasionally found trees that are similar, probably California Buckeyes. The leaves are different, more waxy, more pointed, but the fruit looks the same, and when my daughter was younger she too learned how to make conker animals. The California Buckeye is much smaller than the horse-chestnut, rendering it unsuitable for the backyards of restaurants. But then - how many restaurants with backyards are there?

Picture: the back yard of Gasthof Waldtzeile, a very good restaurant in Vienna's 13th district

Comments

Lorraine Seal said…

Thanks for this, Christina. I love the chestnut trees in Vienna, in Munich, and the ones that hang over the River Suir in Cahir, our hometown in Ireland: The pink-white flowers in the spring, their generous shade in the summer, and the way they reflect their bronze on the dark river beneath in the fall.

I think you're right: I don't remember them in Southern California. I do recall them in Salt Lake City, though.

I enjoyed your word picture.

July 17, 2010 at 2:10 AM

Christina Schweighofer said…

Thank you, Lorraine. Shame on me but Irleand is one of the many, many countries I yet have to visit. When I go there I'll keep an eye out for the chestnut trees.

July 17, 2010 at 4:18 AM

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 the t

Passionate Nerd, Dull Date: Encounter With a Stamp Collector

"Their album - it's an excuse." Stamps from Austria Last week I received a packet from Austria. It came with two old fashioned looking petit point stamps. I do not collect stamps and would not recognize a Blue Mauritius if you sent me one but the stamps from Austria caught my interest. As my fingers were running over the stitching I couldn't help but wonder: does anyone still do petit point? Are young people here in L.A. or even back in Europe still acquiring the craft? I learned to stitch, sew, and knit in elementary school in Austria but handiwork was not my forte. On the contrary. Crafts used to be the one subject I loathed - though I believe that my mother still keeps the red and blue pot holder I crocheted in second grade. (It was supposed to be a square but ended up an irregular trapeze.) The other thing I was wondering about when the packet arrived is whether young people still collect stamps. When I was in high school I knew a guy my age with a collec

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 you can s

Across the Pond

Search This Blog