This is the spicy section of the Viennese Stories: I was glad to show the best place to buy spices to  Dagmar, Dita, Bozena and Simona when they came to Vienna for a vistit and meeting.

You can find here lots of different spices, all in top quality. Imagine, there are 16 different types of pepper! Besides that, one can find the best selection of cook books at Babettes and the owner, Nathalie Pernstich, is really an expert in these two fields - Spice and Books for Cooks.

What they also offer in this beautiful shop in the City of Vienna is - Food!

You can taste some of the spices while having tasty homemade curries.

As soon as you enter the shop, you are overwhelmed by the flavour of the spices beeing just roasted and grind in the shop itself.

But this was only one part of our meeting work. Here we have a look at the Learning Kitchen Website in my office, which is not far away from Babettes.

Have we discussed all issues now? Yes, I think so. We can enjoy our coffee and make plans for my visit in Znojmo.

There is another story taking place outside from Vienna, but still belonging to this compilation of Viennese stories. On our second day, we visited the Wachau, a beautiful and well-known region along the Danube, famous for the landscape as well as the wine and the apricots.

Can you guess, where we are? This is Dürnstein, an ancient town in the Wachau.

Eni in Dürnstein, looking for blue sky and a little bit of sun!

Instead of blue sky we enjoyed dinner at a famous traditional restaurant.

They served us traditional Austrian Food: Grammelschmarrn, Topfenhaluschka and Blunzn - as a starter.

Kalbsbeuschl with Dumpling

Tafelspitz (cooked beef) with vegetable and potatoes.

This is Pike again, Pike dumplings to be precise. You remember we have prepared two different dishes with that fish during our workshop. It was interesting to compare!

Ready for a walk!

We crossed the Danube with a fairy boat and went for a walk in the Apricot Gardens, always looking for the blue sky. 

Until we found it!!

Looks good, doesn’it? This was the result of an interesting process going on during our cooking event. Apple Strudel is a real Austrian Speciality and if you by the dough it is not at all difficult to make.

But this was of course no option for the Learning Kitchen chefs.

So here you can see Edith respectively her hands making the dough.

Sissi is cutting the apples in the meantime. She likes to do it just simply with a knife. You should have seen her cutting - like a real chef!

Here the two specialists start to stretch the dough.

It is important to make it so thin, that you can read a newspaper put under it.

The dough is allready buttered (with melted butter) and Edith is putting the sweet breadcrumbs and roasted minced nuts on top.

Here with the apples and lots of raisins. This is a challenging part of the process!

But the two of them managed fairly well.

Now you would expect a picture of the  wonderful looking gold-brown Strudel - so sorry to have to frustrate you. Somehow nobody seems to have taken such a photograph. But believe me, it tastes really great!

It was a real Food Festival! Great place, great chefs, lots of fun and - as you will see below - lots of wonderful food!

Sissi is an expert in making Viennes Apple Strudel - but in fact, this is another story. Cornelia and Cecilia are discussing  - who knows? - the receipe, may be?

Here Cornelia is preparing a special dough for one of the delicious Romanian starters.

This cheese comes directly from Romania and tastes really great.

Eni is busy stirfrying the mushrooms.

Romanian receipe, Austrian flour, nice result!

How to put everything nicely for the table . . .

Beautiful table setting, dinner is ready! Where are all the guests?

It is always a surprise what pictures you did not take . . .

Now it is time to go back to the beginning: after having coffee and cookies - we talked about food and enviroment.

Learning Kitchen is not only about cooking but also about languages: Bun venit!

And in this case it was also about the relations between food and enviroment as we can find it in our daily kitchen lives.

Here is Eni explaining the issue how it is in her country, in Rumania.

Dorothee and Onno from Germany talking about meat and what it means in terms of enviroment and food habits.

Silvia talking about the situation in Austria.

After so much work it is time to go on to more practical things: Shopping at the nearby market, the so called Meisel Markt in Vienna.

Lots of nice fresh stuff!

We found everything we need for our upcoming cooking session.

There is a lot to say and to show about the Learning Kitchen Event Nr. 2, which has taken place on 14 April 2010. So my only chance to deal with it, is to divide it in several stories. Shall I start with the beginning? No! Let me tell you the story of the pike first!

We bought the fish on a market (Meisel market) nearby our kitchen and it was really great. I had ordered it some days before and so we got pike (Hecht, in German) from the Danube and it was still alive, when we came.

The fishmonger prepared the pikes  (in fact we bougth two) for us.

Here you can see how it was skinned. But this has been done in our kitchen not at the fishmongers!

Waiting for the filling. Impressive, isn’t it?

Here is the filet. It has been chopped together with other ingredients in order to prepare a farce for the filling.

A very conveniant way to eat fish, no troubles with the fishbones! The recipe was out of an ancient Viennese cookbook.

This was the second pike, roasted in the oven together with bacon, mmhh!

The cooks proudly present their wonderful dishes!

They served it with Sauce Hollondaise.

And we all loved it!

Pike again! Next day we had the chance to taste pike dumplings at Jamek, a very good and famous Austrian Restaurant in the Wachau. So we were able to compare the different recipes.

Of course I know, that the copyrigth for this expression is not in my hands. But nevertheless, I feel it does express the philosophy of the Learning Kitchen very clear.

Yes, we can!
Resource-oriented education in the kitchen

During two days, 16 women from five different European countries cooked, took photographs and shot movies together, and documented their common work on the computer and on the internet. This was, briefly said, the “Learning Kitchen Event” in June 2009 in Darmstadt, an event within the framework of the corresponding learning partnership GRUNDTVIG. The intended goal of “Learning kitchen“ is to measure and make useable the potential of a kitchen and of cooking for educational purposes. Read more…

We had the possibility to published this article in a german culinary scientific magazine. So who is able to read and understand German, might also have a look at it there and enjoy the other interesting articles there.

Our learning place was the kitchen! Gloria and her Mother showed us how to make pasta and the piemontese speciality called plins - tiny sort of stuffed noodles. Really delicious, but also hard work!

Nonna, Glorias Mother is an expert in piemontese cuisine. She liked it very much to pass on her knowledge.

Have you ever eaten Bagna Cauda? It is a simple dish made out of olive oil, anchovis and garlic. Tastes great - you can serve it with vegetable like peppers baked in the oven and peeled.

This is the farmers market in Asti near the office of IAL Piemonte. We went there in the morning, to have a look at the fresh food.

Here we learned how to make goat cheese and had the opportunity to taste it.

We also visited Eataly in Torino, a wonderful Slow Food Market with great food from Italian Producers.

Here you can buy Plin - but we prefered our home-made-ones.

Thank you Barbara, Silvia, Gloria and Nonna for this wonderful study visit.  Kitchens are very good learning places, for sure!

This was the first big Learning Kitchen Event: It took place in Darmstadt, Germany. Our aim was to investigate in which way cooking competences can be used as a starting point for other learning activities. The project will investigate how cooking events can make older learners aware of their informal competences and motivate them to enrole in educational offers.

16 people from five different countries met in order to cook and to learn together. Our kitchen was a studio in the Bioversum, a museum dealing with nature. Onno and Dorothee, our hosts for this event, brought along the complete kitchen equipment from the Kochwerkstatt. So we had everything we needed, much space and a wonderful workshop atmomphere!

Silvia, Cecilia and Eni from Romania.

This is Neli from Romania.

 Simona, Dita, Bozena and Dagmar from Czech Republic.

Giuseppina and Simone from Italy - they do not belong to the partnership, but worked with us as our guests.

Elfi, Maria and Silvia from Austria.

Sonja from Austria - I am afraid, there was no photo from all of us.

Dorothee and . . .

. . . Onno from Germany, the host of our event.

Every team prepared a meal out of eggs and flour, milk or water, oil, butter, salt or sugar in order to introduce themself and their respective country. So we could enjoy different types of pancake, Schmarren and Pasta!  In addition to that we also tasted different food - from cheese to jam - every team has brought along from his country. We cooked and eat a lot, but we also took lots of pictures! This was also on the agenda of the event: How to document cooking processes, so that other persons can follow the instructions easily. See more of it on our YouTube-Site.

After lunch and a short break we met again for a little media-workshop with examples from films and photos about cooking processes. We also listened to the sound of cooking activities - for example the boiling of hot oil. This was a good preparation for our own work in the afternoon.

Here you can see all the food stuff Onno and Dorothee had prepared for our dinner cooking session. We planned to cook four courses: soup, terrine, roulade and pastry. We worked in - in terms of nationality - mixed teams and every team documented the cooking process.

Preparing the soup . . .

. . . with vegetable, meat and spices.

Fish terrine . . .

. . . made out of wonderful fresh trout. See the recipe.

Cooperation for . . .

. . . making pasta for an extra course.

Out of the pasta dough Neli and Silvia prepared “a little something” - crispy, sweet and very good!

Wild pig stuffed . . .

. . . with bacon and fresh beans - variation of an italian receipe.

Cecilia was the chef of . . .

. . .  the sweet cuisine - with an exeptional cake.

Eating together - has to be documented as well. 

The next day started with looking at all the pictures . . .

. . . and working with them on the computer.

Interesting and intensive work! Still it was only sort of an impulse for further activities. Have a look at one example.

We enjoyed the cooking event very much: in terms of intercultural exchange and friendship, in terms of learning from each other, in terms of the place and the food!

Our first study visit to Romania from 16 - 20 April was really a great experience! Thank you very much to the ALEG-Team for their great hospitality!

Here are some pictures of the wonderful days - of course with focus on food again!

We had dinner at this beautiful building and experienced local cooking traditions - it is the Apafi Manor, a project of the Mihai Eminiscu Trust, where one can stay overnight.  It is also a great place for seminars and workshops!

In Sighisoara we met people on the street making “Baumstriezel”: The dow is made  with yeast. You form thin and long pieces, put them on a wooden form, butter the dow and spread sugar on it. Than you have to bake it on the fire and it tastes really great!

Casa Luxemburg in Sibiu, a very good place to stay, because it is in the center of the old town and very comfortable and nice.

In Sibiu we were invited to dinner in private homes - thank you to Cecilia and to the family of Camelia - we enjoyed it very much. It is the best way to become familiar with a new country!

More information and fascinating documentations on food and cooking traditions in Romania will be coming soon.