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.