Across the Pond

"Meal at which all people present share dishes they brought"? Po tluck. Today being Labor Day some families in our neighborhood decided to get together for a potluck: grilled chicken and salmon, home made potato salad; a salad of spinach, blue cheese, and pears; a fruit platter, brownies... I like potlucks, their casual spirit, the egalitarian touch. Very American. Everybody pitches in, no one has to feel bad because one family or even one person had to do all the work. In Austria potlucks are not really common; there is not even a German word for the concept. It could be   Kesselglueck -  literal yet somewhat charming - but that term doesn't exist. On the web I found "Potluck: großes Abendessen, bei dem sich alle Anwesenden selbst mitgebrachte Speisen teilen" (translation from  Reverso ). This describes the idea accurately but it is a bit long. For those of you who don't speak German, here's a re-translation, phrased as an invitation: "P...

What do we know about simplicity? Figs from our tree. Figs. The taste of summer, the taste of home; my immigrant home. Our backyard tree is heavy with fruit. In the mornings I go out to pick what is ripe; figs for breakfast, a treat straight from the tree; flesh and seeds, refreshing and sweet, grainy resistance and softness at the same time. Figs, the color of their skin, purple with blotches of green or white stripes where they have cracked. The reds and browns inside bring up memories: a summer spent in Normandy, France, with my parents, my brother, and my maternal grandmother. Life was about food in its basic, original form, about mussels and figs and cheese; it was about the ocean and its tides, gigantic but predictable, and about history. We visited Bayeux to see  the tapestry which tells the story of William the Conqueror and the Battle of Hastings;  we spent a day or a half at  Arromanches,  saw a documentary on D-Day and the landing ...

If I had a chicken farm... Wild hen or rooster on Kauai. So your kid goes out with a basket ball and breaks the neighbor's window. You groan but you pay for the replacement of the window; you also let your child know that it will be responsible for the cost if it breaks another window. Next week your child goes out with its ball and - more broken glass. You do what? Bail him or her out again? The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) is going to buy 40 million Dollars worth of chicken from the poultry industry and donate the birds to federal food assistance programs. It's the bail out of the chicken farmers  because they are having a hard year. The price of chicken food and the production of chickens have increased while consumption of chickens and thus their market price have dropped. Sounds like a horrible situation, farmers squeezed from both sides, the classical double whammy. Alas, this is not he first time we are bailing out the chicken industry. According to ...

"Local nuts and fruit." Gelato Bar in Los Feliz Every few weeks life - or rather the pain in my neck and the chiropractor who is trying to fix it - takes me to Los Feliz, a charming neighborhood on the southern flank of Griffith Park. Los Feliz has become trendy over the last couple of years. Different from so many other more corporate places in L.A. it has that small-town, artsy feel that comes with independently owned coffee shops, restaurants, and stores. One of my favorite hang-outs is the  Gelato Bar  on Hillhurst Avenue which not only offers delicious gelato  but also sells Almdudler,  an herb flavored soda and my favorite drink from Austria. (Long time readers of Across the Pond might remember that Almdudler is one of the things I carry in my suit case when I come back to L.A. from Europe.) The story of how the gelato came to the bar is posted online. Gail Silverton, the gelateria's co-owner, discovered the Italian version of ice cream when she tried ...

Snackified drinks and drinkified snacks: that is the future of food and it will be good for us, says PepsiCo, the largest producer of food and beverages in the United States. PepsiCo is training for the perfect split: give people what they want and are used to, snacks and drinks that taste of sugar, fat, and salt, but sneak in what they don't get enough of, namely protein and especially fiber. In a recent article in the New Yorker titled Snacks for a Fat Planet  Indra Nooyi, the CEO of PepsiCo, talks of "this new convergence area coming up" which according to her is going to be "a glorious area." She promises that our children - apparently refuseniks of the first order when it comes to eating healthy food - will drink carrots though they wouldn't eat them; they will suck minestrone and "oatmeal with a little bit of fruit" out of single serve pouches; they will be happy and healthy. Hm. I am doubtful. First, I hope that the "new convergence...

L. A. is a city of contradictions. Anything goes, every opinion and every fashion. There is room for SUVs which seem more like trucks than cars and for little hybrids with environmentalists behind the wheel; for beach barbies, hippies, and old style ladies; for Frank Gery's Disney Concert Hall and for Richard Meier's Getty Center.   Disney Conc ert Hall (Photo: Carol M. Highsmith) Getty Center (Photo: Forrestn) Diversity in all its forms is what I love about L.A. as a whole. And yet - on a smaller scale I do look for integrity, a trait I sorely missed during our recent visit to the California Science Center. The museum features an educational and appealing exhibit on ecosystems  which includes a section on garbage in L.A.* The exhibitors point out how avoiding the production of trash in the first place is the best thing we can do to begin to tackle the environmental problem. So far so good, but the Science Center also features a McDonald's outlet where, a...

When it comes to environmentalism we Angelenos are not exactly known to be heavily invested. Quite the opposite. L.A. is synonymous with cars and freeways and too many miles driven - and that's just one aspect. The other day I was leafing through this month's issue of Whole Living magazine  when a reader's suggestion caught my eye: Etienne L. is telling us that he has started to collect "all the dregs" in his family of four's water glasses "to take care of the house plants". Etienne simply empties "the last drips into a pitcher instead of pouring them down the drain". He thereby saves "enough water for (his) indoor plants and potted herb garden". Now that's what I call commitment. Dregs for plants. Etienne is from San Francisco of course (Oakland, to be precise). We in L.A. could never pull that one off - but it's not like we don't try to be green. At least some of us. Take an enterprise called Arroyo Food Co-op i...

Washington thought long (and hard?) about how to best tackle the obesity problem in this country. This week it published new dietary guidelines for Americans: eat less, avoid oversized portions, drink water instead of sugary drinks. According to the two agencies which came up with the new plan - the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Department of Agriculture - the new recommendations provide "authoritative advice for people 2 years and older about how proper dietary habits can promote health and reduce risk for major chronic diseases". The suggestions are "based on the most sound scientific information". Which information? Scientific? Avoid oversized portions. Isn't that a no-brainer? The governmental departments of Health and of Agriculture have been in the dietary recommendation business since 1980 and have published new suggestions for healthy eating habits every five years since then. All the while we have grown bigger and bigger....

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...

After ten years of living in the U.S. many things still amaze me. The high level of customer service is one of them. Here's my latest story, that of the returned food processor. I bought one of those machines at Macy's on December 24th because I was planning on chopping Brussels sprouts on Christmas Day. When I emptied the box one blade was missing. I went back to the store on the 26th, returned the unused processor, picked up a new one - and got 20 dollars back because the price had dropped since my original purchase two days earlier. For American readers this exchange may sound like the most normal thing in the world. I was flabbergasted. In Austria I would have had a hard time convincing the sales person that the machine was faulty from the get-go. She might have said something like: Da  könnte  ja jeder kommen (anyone can say that), implying that it was my fault if a part was missing; she would have sent me home with the original machine and no blade; I would nev...

Christmas here and there: In the US people put up their trees as early as Thanksgiving; in Austria they wait until the day of Christmas Eve. Children are ushered out of the house (go play! go skiing!) while their parents - or one of their parents - decorate the tree and get out the gifts. In the US Santa brings the gifts; in Austria it is the Christ Child. In the US presents are opened on December 25th; in Austria on Christmas Eve. In the US people eat roast turkey, prime rib, or ham; in Austria the traditional meal is goose or carp. The differences are many and yet - here as there Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus by attending masses and services; here as there people gather to share a meal, to be with family or friends; and here as there the joy of Christmas is felt the same. Merry Christmas!

If you were a head of state and a foreign leader came to visit - what would you serve for dinner? Germany's official international cultural institution, the Goethe Institut, recently posted an article on this topic on its homepage. From it we learn that "it is part of international diplomacy nowadays to strike up personal friendship between leaders, to invite them into your home – and to give them a sense of national cuisine". In the case of Germany, national fare tends to be on the heavy side. Chancellor Helmut Kohl treated his foreign counterparts Francois Mitterrand, Margaret Thatcher, and Ronald Reagan to Saumagen (pig's stomach) and Blutwurst (blood sausage); Japanese Princess Hisako Takamado got to eat Schweinshaxe (leg of pork) with Chancellor Angela Merkel. I tried to find information on what other countries' leaders put on the table for guests of honor and am happy to report that Austria likes to show off its national cuisine too. In 2006, when it wa...

Last week a friend here in L.A. asked me whether Austrians celebrate Thanksgiving too. At first I was stunned because I thought of the origins of this day  and the Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony. But then I reconsidered. Doesn't everyone have something to be grateful for? Why shouldn't all countries recognize a  national day of giving thanks? I celebrated my first Thanksgiving in a small café in Prague, Czech republic, which was called Red Hot & Blues. The place unfortunately closed very recently but it used to be a  favorite hangout for American expats. It was there, in 1996, that I ate my first sweet potatoes, my first pumpkin pie, and my first pecan pie. I remember the food as good but most of all I recall engaging in lively conversation with the two strangers at our table and that the café was filled with laughter and happiness. It was like a giant family party. Thanksgivings since then - one at the home of friends in Prague, another in a cabin ...

Does anything taste more of home than the bread we ate as children? I miss it: I miss the hearty, slightly sour taste of the dark, moist Austrian Roggen - and Vollkornbrot, the whole mealy texture of the lighter colored Grahamspitz, the crisp crunch of a fresh, golden  Semmel. (Sorry, no translations. They would not denote the same thing.) Other countries and regions make good bread too of course. I think of the unsalted white breads in the area around Orvieto (Italy), hard crusted baguette in Normandy, Paris, and Beaune, and slightly bitter tasting pumpernickel slices in Northern Germany. They are delicious in their own way and always pair perfectly with whichever food is produced and eaten locally. It's just that to me these foreign breads are not the real thing. Here in L.A. I often find bread too soft and too sweet, but there is a German bakery not far from where we live, which produces a rather nice kind of Mischbrot  and Whole Fo...

The other day I passed by a new Subway sandwich place which had opened a few blocks from our house. As I was reflecting its green and yellow sign images of foot long chunks of white bread came to mind, mayo smeared on one half, mustard on the other; ham, provolone, pickles, jalapenos, onions, peppers, olives, tomatoes in between and a bag of chips for sides... People in America like to pile on. I also thought of my favorite fast food place in Vienna, which goes by the unspeakable name of Trzesniewski. The original Trzesniewski opened in the first district more than one hundred years ago. Its oldest location is tucked into a narrow street off of Graben. Other outlets are scattered around town. Trzesniewski sells open face sandwiches, slivers of rye bread (white or wheat? no, you do not get to choose!), topped with spreads made from either egg or tomatoes or cucumber, pickle...

By Lorraine Seal Lorraine Seal is a fellow expat blogger who moved from Los Angeles to Ireland and on to Salzburg, Austria. Her blog, A Spy in Another Country, is about "the European gestalt as experienced by an American woman married to an Irish man". Across the Pond asked Lorraine for a guest post on the things she misses about Southern California. Dear Christina, As I write this, it’s been three years to the day I departed Los Angeles for life in Europe. This morning, I think of you and your family in Southern California, beginning a new phase of your lives. You asked me what I miss, and I had to think a bit before I could answer. In the time I’ve been here, I’ve made a point of remaining focused on living where I am rather than looking back. Our intention is to stay in Europe, so I’ve tried to avoid comparisons or to consider what I miss. But since you ask, yes, there are sights and tastes and sensations that stand out vividly as I let m...

What a treat: we got to spend a few days in Madrid, an elegant yet careless, old fashioned and easy going, proud but welcoming, southern place with French, Austrian, and Arabic influences. The people were friendly, and the pickpockets we had been warned of by tourists from Austria must have been on vacation. We met friends of relative F.'s, an international bunch of happy, energizing people in their thirties, talked politics and culture, ate simple food: Spanish omelet made with firm, waxy potatoes; goat cheese, Iberian ham, green olives, served with plain white bread, country fare, tapas. The yellow peaches were so rich in taste and so juicy that our preteen daughter exclaimed, "I have been waiting to eat this all my life. It is like in James and the Giant Peach." In three days of wandering we noticed more colorful shoes on feet and in shop windows than I have seen in decades; we studied architectu...

Expat relief as Austria switches to UK recipe for Heinz baked beans...  Ahh, the comfort of familiar food! I haven't eaten baked beans in years and would probably not know the difference but the headline  from yesterday's Daily Telegraph got me thinking about the taste of home and the expat suit case. I have taken Kremser Senf, Gelierzucker, Mannerschnitten, and Almdudler to the U.S., brought Reese's Pieces, Mac'n'Cheese from Trader Joe's, and Meyer Lemons from our backyard back to Europe. (The list is incomplete.) How about your suit case? I would love to hear about the things you schlep across the pond.