Vegan pancakes, French fries, and Dill

Well, 2011 started off with interesting culinary beginnings.  As Gudrun has already mentioned, we were staying in Vienna visiting my good friend Kristin for the New Year.  Like all time spent with Kristin, we had a hilarious adventure.   We didn't stay at Kristin's house, because she has a cat, and Gudrun wanted to avoid an asthma attack (imagine that).  But we were extended a very generous offer to stay in Kristin's friend's apartment, while she was travelling abroad.

Well, because we didn't want to eat all of this generous friend's food (even though she said we could), and because most of what was in the house wasn't vegan, we had to fend for ourselves... not hard to do, we thought, as we would have to do this if we were staying in a hotel or hostel, anyway.   Well, on our first night (30th of Jan), Kristin had gone to the organic bio-shop to pick up some lovely food.  She had peanut butter, a couple rolls, some dried dates (for sweet dreams), and agave nectar for our coffee (she, knowing my caffeine addiction, had brought some instant coffee from her own apartment).  So we had some nice eats that evening and went to bed.

The following morning, Kristin had arranged a brunch at a local organic cafe.  Vegan pancakes and soy lattes were on the menu (YUM!!).   We then spent some time walking through the festive downtown area, complete with Gluhwein stands (which was significantly better than the Gluhwien that is served in Belgium), stands selling kitschy pig souvenirs and stages for playing music and teaching the waltz... yes, we witnessed a mass waltz lesson on the main square in Vienna, and we walked past one stage with some truly disturbing kids entertainment.... although, isn't most kids entertainment at least slightly disturbing?  but i digress.....

By the time we got home, the friendly neighborhood organic bio-shop had closed (unbeknownst to us, early for NYE).  We thought, "No problem, we'll just get dinner out tonight, and run to a bakery in the morning for breakfast."  We passed a little unassuming Italian restaurant and decided it looked decent enough, and went it.  I proceeded to have the BEST SPAGHETTI I HAVE EVER TASTED in like, my whole entire life.  Seriously.  For me, it is hard to mess up pasta, but it is also pretty hard for pasta to stand out.  It is normally divided into 3 categories:  "good," "very good," and "well, it could be better if...."  For this pasta, however, I am making a new category: "THE BEST DARN PASTA IN THE WORLD.... MAYBE THE UNIVERSE."
For basic noodles with a tomato sauce, this is pretty crazy.    It took me nearly scarfing down the entire plate to realize what the secret was: dill!!  DILL in marinara sauce.  GENIUS!    I had never thought of that before, in fact, I thought that dill was reserved exclusively for cucumber dill sauce, and the occasional salad dressing.

Dill is my new best friend (heehee).  Like for serious.  I've made plain spaghetti twice since being introduced to the greatest spaghetti secret of all time... both instances, I have ploped a store-bought jar of marinara (you know, basically tomatoes and basil) in a pan, and shovelled in a big load of dill (i would guess around 1 or 1.5 tbs).   It gives the sauce a wonderful aroma, and gives it a really hearty and savory flavor.  One of these two instances, I also put about 3-4 tbs of red wine in the sauce.  I could have sold that dish at a fancy restaurant.

Ok, back to the ongoing food excitement in Vienna.    So, after finishing the best spaghetti ever, we went back to the apartment, watched the fireworks (yada yada - see Gudrun's last blog), and went to bed.  The next morning we woke up, and Kristin and I headed out to find a bakery to buy some bread for breakfast.  [cut to image of Vienna with tumble weeds and the classic western music signifying a ghost town].... NOTHING was open on New Year's Day in the area of Vienna where we were staying.  We walked for over an hour, looking for a grocery store, bakery, convenience store, gas station - absolutely nothing was open.  ....except.... a fast food Döner Kebab stand.  They also served schnitzel and pizza.  The only vegan thing they sold was french fries.  We let out a laugh of amusement and walked in.  We proceeded to ask if they would sell us just the bread they use for the Kebab's (they wouldn't), so we ordered fries (for me) schnitzel (for Gudrun) and pizza (for Kristin).  We thought, "Why not go all the way?"  And so we ordered sodas as well!   I know we are only 9 days in, but I'm guessing this will win the award for "most amusing breakfast of 2011!"  New Year's resolutions of eating better and getting healthy are for wimps, anyway!


So what did I learn on this trip?  Vegan pancakes are the bees knees (I need to learn how to make them), dill is the most amazing spice for tomato sauce, and french fries and coca-cola make an excellent breakfast in a pinch :)

Happy New Year everyone!!!  Best wishes for 2011!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

We wish you all a Happy New Year! We hope that whatever you wished for, will come true in 2011.

Sparkly gold and silver fireworks
note, you can click on any of the pictures to see a bigger version

For us, we will try to make more amazing vegan food and take more great pictures. And as always, keep your comments and recipes coming! 

We decided to spend New Year’s in Vienna, where we stayed with Kristin, a high school friend of Kelly’s. We had an amazing time together, although the time passed by very quickly.

Fancy foto editing - 1970's era glamour shot :)

Basically, we stayed inside the flat almost all day long, as it was freezing cold outside. We had temperatures down to -10 degrees Celsius (that is 14 degrees Fahrenheit for you weirdos). Though, Kelly and Kristin were brave enough to come out with me, and we wandered around the city for 1h or so per day. (I got almost crazy of being inside all day long – people know I can`t sit still for a long time…) Even though we were not outside for a long time, I was able to make some nice pictures around the city:

Fancy Viennese decorations in fancy Viennese streets!

Gluhwein!  Prost!

How did we spend New Year's eve in Vienna? We stayed at the flat, where we had the best view to watch the fireworks. The fireworks already started an hour earlier, but then, when it was midnight, there were so much fireworks going on we didn't even know where to make a picture :-)

Taking pictures of fireworks is a pretty hard task since they move fast, and there is relatively little light. Long shutter speeds were necessary, and therefore, we had to stand very still for a long time. Kelly and Kristin noticed that if they put their hand in front of the camera for a short amount of time, they could create a cool “ghost” image, so we spent some time playing around with that technique as well.

Ghosts in the window

Kristin and Kelly edited the pictures in Picasa – a light photo editing software – and they figured out that by changing the image saturation, the colors of the fireworks were greatly enhanced. The images in the photos were originally pretty washed out and white, but by increasing the color saturation, the reds, blues, greens, and golds of the fireworks were able to be uncovered, so that the images look pretty close to reality.

Fireworks lighting up the town