More photos of Hohenstein

Here are some more photos taken on Saturday after lunch in Hohenstein.

view from the terrace of our restaurant

to give you a little perspective

view back down toward the village along the climb upward....

thank you handrail!

Lulu exploring a bit with Daddy

the Burg with red/white shutters for Franken

additional perspective on how high up we were

view from behind as we walked to our car

And some sweet ones of Lulu and her Oma:

Kirwa or Kirchweih

When we arrived back in Rothaurach yesterday, the town's Kirwa celebrations had shut down the main street to get to Walter Hoffman's house.  Kirchweih, or Kirwa in the local dialect, is literally "the church's birth."  It is an annual summer festival to celebrate the "birth" of the local church which happens after Pentecost/Pfingsten, of course.  One of the traditional celebrations of Kirwa is the erection of a Kirwa Baum which resembles the Maibaums of southern Bavaria or the Schwarzwald/Black Forest region.  Traditionally, men from the neighboring villages are supposed to sneak over and steal the Kirwa Baum the night before, so the local boys have to stay up late "guarding" the tree with lots of drinking...  They had closed the street to erect the Kirwa Baum yesterday afternoon, complete with a small oompa band for accompaniment.  Unlike southern Bavaria or Austria, this festival is also one of the few occasions when you see everyday folks wearing traditional clothing or tracht.  (I learned from Elisabeth, Hoffman's friend, that they don't call them dirndls around here--they're tracht)

Once we got to Hoffman's house, I could resist walking down the street and taking a few snapshots of the Kirwa Baum's erection and even shot a short video to give you a feel for the celebration.  Once the tree is up, then everyone goes back across the street to the local Wirtshaus and drinks and eats some more!

the big picture

teams of local boys working with poles

the "crown" of the Kirwa Baum
blue/white = Bayern/Bavaria, red/white = Franken, red/yellow/black = Germany
not sure, but I think the green/white = Rothaurach?

the top of the Kirwa Baum

another perspective on events

the oompa band, with toddler accompaniment

And here is the promised video to give you a spectator's birds-eye view:

Lunch

We took a short drive to the Fränkische Schweiz this morning for a(nother) walk in the woods, a wonderful lunch at Hohenstein, and some really beautiful pictures.

We stopped at a Wirtshaus (restaurant) in Hohenstein that had a beautiful terrace out front on which to eat lunch.  Everyone else was hoping for forelle (fresh trout) but had to be satisfied with (Norwegian) salmon steaks or schnitzel instead.  (I guess the local fisherman hadn't had any luck lately?)  I had a beautiful pork chop with delicate onion rings on top and perfectly sauteed potato wedges that went perfectly with my wine (Nordheimer Vögelein for those of you keeping track at home).

Afterwards, we enjoyed a local speciality called a windbeutel which is a type of profiterole stuffed with ice cream and whipped cream and topped with powdered sugar.  Gropius really wanted the sour kirschen one, so he and Lulu split one while I had another (small) one with gingered pears, walnut ice cream, slivered almonds, and caramel sauce.  My in-laws split a big strawberry one.

I had Isaak's Lieblings-Windbeutel

Afterwards, we hiked/climbed up the short trail to the top of the Hohenstein Berg to look back in the direction of Nürnberg.  According to my father-in-law, they built the Berg as a look-out/signal tower for the folks back in Nürnberg, to warn them if someone was coming because it's the highest place in the Fränkische Schweiz.  And sure enough, we could see the Fernsehturm (TV Tower) of Nürnberg in the distance!

Enough description already!  A picture's worth a thousand words anyway....

my wine

Gropius's beer (locally brewed, of course!)

my meal

everyone else's
(and for the record I *did* finish and eat my salad, too!)

sour cherry windbeutel

the in-laws' strawberry windbeutel (the BIG size!)

my small one enjoyed with a cappucino

pure deliciousness...and the windbeutel wasn't bad either!

On this episode of My Frankisch-American Kitchen...

We are putting an American spin on the most traditional of Frankisch specialities, the Nürnberger Bratwurst!

Given the food items on hand in the pantry, we are going to try our hands at making Nürnberg Pigs in a Blanket.

I have my mise en place assembled:



And here they are all rolled up:



And finally, a look at the finished product:



Some point on the learning curve:

1.  Given a larger working space, I would roll out all the dough and treat it like one piece, rather than several triangular pieces of dough

2.  I would also cut the dough into strips for better rolling around the bratwurst

3.  I would also probably cut the bratwurst up into sizes more closely resembling the traditional lil Smokies.

4.  Lastly, corn that comes packaged like this:



tastes as nasty as you might expect.  The French do NOT do packaged foods well.

Food in Nürnberg

Delicious food has been the default during our trip.

"Vier in Bier" at the Altstadt Brauerei
("fear in beer" or "four in beer" at the Old Town Brewery

"Drei in Weckla" or "Drei in Weggla" (spelling varies)
Three Nürnberger bratwurst in a roll--ubiquitous street food here

An After Eight/Chocolate Mint ice cream Sundae
"shared" with a 3 yr old....

traditional Nürnberger Lebkuchen from Düll in Nürnberg
(these are SO heavy from all the nuts and candied fruit inside them!)

Lulu enjoying her Lebkuchen....

Maifest

Last weekend, we invited over some friends and celebrated the coming summer!  We went shopping at Morant's, the local German butcher and picked up some fresh Nürnberger bratwurst and weisswurst for the grill:

It looks like a lot of meat, but only 3 bratwurst were left!

And then we prepared a pitcher of Maibowle:  sparkling wine, white wine, fresh fruit and herbs.  Sort of the German answer to Sangria:



Earlier in the week, I prepared two ice creams:  a chocolate fudge pop-kinda ice cream and an herbed ice milk (made with herbs from the garden:  basil, lemon verbena, lemon balm, tarragon, mint, and thyme).  And I prepared a French potato salad (no German this time--Ginger is vegetarian).

That was pretty much the extent of our preparation--other than de-husking some corn and preparing green beans.  Otherwise, all we needed were our friends!

L-R:  Hellen, Derek, Ross, Amber, Gropius, and Ginger

While the adults enjoyed munchies with our pre-dinner Maibowle, Lulu and Stella (Ross and Amber's little girl) enjoyed playing "hotel" in our bedroom:

I can't believe how tolerant Dido was of the whole thing--she's sitting on my pillow

And then we settled down to the task of eating:

Grilled turnips, sausage, black bean salad, green beans, potato salad, and sauerkraut

I had hoped that we could enjoy the weather and sit outside on the patio, but it was unseasonably hot last weekend, so we ended up sitting indoors and admiring the sunshine from a safe distance....

Lemon Poppyseed Scones