Stomachs on legs are proud to present

Glockenbachviertel in Munich (the GBV) might just be able to boast the city's best butter brezel. Up north, you cannot buy them pre-buttered, so it's a ritual upon coming south to eat at least one butter brezel per day.

This small, unassuming bakery slathers the butter on by hand - and the brezeln, which are lye/caustic soda-dipped and salt-sprinkled before baking, have the characteristic smooth brown surface, with a bit of crustiness. A good brezel shouldn't be too soft. And above all things, the butter shouldn't be pre-cut into brezel-shape and frozen for quick assemblage.

My colleagues in Munich all swear by this particular brezel spot.

Backshop Steger
Sonnenweg 71
85579 Neubiberg

Mon-Fri 6-20 pm
Sa 7-20 pm
Sunday 8-13 pm



Other good stuff in the GBV:

Christmas tree foliage outside Café Aroma for smokers to hide in









The Germans really go crazy for cookies at Christmas time, whether it's buttery & spicy Spekulatius with ground almonds, Zimtsternen (frosted cinnamon stars), or various cute gingerbread shapes. I'm starting to feel a certain empathy with our old blue friend, seen here in a Glockenbachviertel shop window.

A couple weeks ago it was a long weekend for Buddhist Lent...so with my Dad's car on loan we drove to Khao Yai national park...165 kms out of BKK and 57th wonder of the world apparently

We saw a monkey on our first encounter through the park. I gave her a banana and she became fascinated with us and the possibilities of more bananas



Some people stopped and tried to lure her with potato chips to no avail...apparently they hadn't got the message that monkey's don't really know what potato chips are


we arrived late without a hotel booking so drove around a bit until we found Cabbages and Condoms, a hotel/ farm/ restaurant/ community development project funded by the UN to raise aid awareness and stuff about population and development. We had a great meal there with mushrooms fresh from the farm including shiatke, oyster, eringi and black cloud. But the rooms weren't very nice.

Cabbages and condoms garden


Khao Yai is also home to the Thai dairy industry, replete with Thai cowboys and all along the road are little milk containers for pick up

Milks bottles




and dragon fruit plantations



The next morning we went to Dairy Home for breakfast.... Dairy Home makes specialist yoghurt and dairy products for the Thai market

The restaurant reminded me of my step-mother...it was filled with cutsey pictures and plastic flowers

Dairy Home


The bread was that typically fluffy Thai white bread that reminded me of cartoon bread

Bread


Thai families most likely from Bangkok, if judged by their attire, turned up in hoards to eat this strange mix of Thai/American bucolic fantasy food


We found another hotel, Fah Sai Khao Yai...that wasn't very nice either and rather pricy, no jug or tea, no bath just basic...(we are fussy bitches) and we went for a bike ride up hill for 3 kilometres...until Hock's bike broke and we decided to call it a day...we rode to a nearby vineyard and had ice coffee and cake

In the evening we went to a restaurant recommended by Austin called Krua Khao Yai. We didn't order very well and had an average meal. Half of Bangkok was there. We shared a table with two middle class Bangkokian's. One who works as a construction consultant and protests for PAD in his spare time. I kept my politics to myself.

Anyway, anyway, anyway

There are two vineyards in Khao Yai that produce wine of dubious quality. Hock and I couldn't quite figure out why people bothered at all. It's a bit like deciding you want to grow mangos in the Swiss Alps, sure you may find a way to make it happen but is it worth it? It reminded me of a quote from an academic article I had read recently, about even the dreams and aspirations of the developing world being colonised. Although I'm not sure I agreed with the article, there is a distinct sense in Khao Yai that some high society Thai people are spending a great deal of money trying to recreate Italy or the Nappa Valley in Khao Yai.

After dinner we went to a faux Italian villa, which had a rather bad restaurant attached and candles lit up through the vineyard. We had some so so gelato, then went for a walk in the vineyard, until I saw a big ugly toad

Winery


The next day we went to the national park and managed to avoid paying the 400% farang mark up price of 400 bht per person and instead paid the Thai price of 40 baht. We went on a walk through the bush....which said it was to a water fall

there were lots of bugs and leeches!!!



The track took us to a swamp


I wasn't impressed. Hock told me to try and look like I was enjoying myself. I argued that the "appreciation of nature" is a recent phenomenon in human history and it was not until recently that we're all supposed to love leech infested swamps, previously humans feared the wild and avoided it or chopped it down. Now we are supposed to "appreciate it"

So, we decided that Khao Yai is beautiful but what makes us happier are noodles

So we took a detour drive back to Bangkok through Ayuthaya and stopped at Lung Lek's famous Kwayteow Reua joint and had excellent beef noodles

This has been circulating on buzzfeeds and I couldn't help but re-blog it

For those of you that also adhere to Pastafarianism, you might like to purchase a Holy Toast Stamper and to trick your Catholic friends into thinking that their bread has been touched by the hand of god

At last...at long last. The German fine hand-crafted goods emporium Manufaktum, and its signature Bread & Butter bakery/cafe, has come to Cologne. It's in the Disch-haus, a beautiful curved building built in '28, seen as an early 'manifesto of modernism'. We went along on their second day of business.

I first ate Manufaktum's signature sour 'sauerteig' bread at their branch in Munich - Erik and me ate a whole half loaf drowned in pumpkin-cinnamon jam. I then discovered that they do a very good short black espresso at their branch in Duesseldorf (served on a small silver tray with a glass of water), so I've been looking forward to the Cologne branch opening, a lot.

I'm looking forward to trying out the nicely curated offerings of delicatessan goods over the coming months. And it's always fun to browse the kitchenware like raclette machines, utilitarian yet impracticle modernist toaster models from the 50s, Haussler wood-burning ovens for 3000 euros, Kenyo Warikomi knives, hand-made copper & porcelain bain-maries from France, and very serious looking small metal gadgets for removing plum or cherry stones.
And the gardening section is fun too.

Bread tapas, anyone? !



Manfaktum's cafe Bread & Butter is mostly for 'brotzeit' - not as in dinner but as in a snack of something on bread. They have a selection of thick cut sour rye bread with a thick layer of hand-made butter and then cheese, salami or a gouache of quark, taramasalata, sun dried tomatoes or other spread.

The bread with a blue-shot creamy cheese or italian salami both came daubed with barbieri aprikosen-senf - a sharp, tangy apricot 'Mostarda' jam from Lombardia Italy.



The poppy seed cake was the yummiest thing actually. I recommend to order that and take a loaf of bread home. These bread snacks are overpriced at 4 euros each. Whereas half a loaf will cost you 2 euros.

The poppyseed 'mohnkuchen' is nutty tasting and minimally sweet.





Latte art is mocked (mocca-ed?) by some, but in Europe it's a crucial indication that the barista has paid due care to a velvety texture milk and a well-extracted oily espresso. If you are ever in Cologne, come here and order an espresso macchiato: you'll be served a nice small-sized flat white as in the photo above (no, not as strong as in NZ, but thank god, not a milky milkshake - unless you order a latte macchiato, which was my first folly). A capuccino here means something similar to the espresso macchiato pictured, but in a slightly larger size.

Bread & Butter use Mokaflor beans from Florence, (70 & arabica, 30% robusta) available from the store in a gold shrink-wrapped packet.

Or you can have this delicious fizzy French grapefruit drink instead:



And across the road is the rather attractive new Kolumba museum which, when seen from the inside, has really quite amazing natural light effects, star bursts and jagged rows of pin pricks, from the holes in the facade.



Felt a bit sick after this maiden voyage to Manufaktum Koeln though. Probably too much bread and butter.

On the 25th December (a day after most people celebrate Christ's birthday in Germany), we went out to Erik's dad's place in the village of Urft in the area of Eifel, to have dinner and stay the night. It's my 3rd Christmas together with Erik's family.

Erik's aunt Resi always does all the cooking. I think she enjoys doing it, in a frantic sort of way - or maybe everyone just assumes she enjoys it. Anyway, she's good at it.

For starters we had turkey broth with little noodles in it. I asked Erik how often he would have this broth as a kid - he said a lot: "Whenever there's poultry, there's soup."

Erik's nephew Luis (note the little raindeer candles that gothically burn from the head downwards):





Erik's dad Erich caught in the act of serving turkey-broth with noodles. (The noodles are cooked seperately so you can specify how much noodles or if you want them at all)



Turkey, raised by a neighbour in Resi & Toni's village (Rinnen), cooked to perfection: we suspect, in one of those big black covered roasting pans called a 'saftbrater' (juice-roaster)? There was an unused one in Erik's dad's basement so we took it home.



Definitely the juiciest and most flavoursome turkey I've ever had - i know I'm wont to compare meats to other meats but this was so brown and - um- meaty, it almost could've been suckling pig. Served with a mushroom sauce made from the juices and a bit of cream. And, of course, lots of apple sauce on the side.
The noodles are quite plain tasting, but all Germans love them. They're called Spaetzle - originating from Stuttgart. A wet sheet of dough is draped over a board and then they're chopped very fast into boiling water with a knife.
Resi always makes this very yummy christmas dressing for the salad that is very herby and has pomegranate seeds in it.



Kids (and adults) love apfelschorle - usually you mix up the apple juice and fizzy water yourself, but it turns out, the premade version is pretty cool.



Dessert was a gingerbread mousse, but I wish I'd only eaten a mouthful or two. Very rich and alcohol spiked. The brave of heart also had ice cream. "Love your arteries." Then it was all washed down with a fancy Spanish brandy, rather like Cognac.



Boxing day breakfast the next morning is my favourite part about Christmas. It's the only time in the year when we get all traditional German on our asses (so to speak). Fresh rye rolls (crisp outside, soft inside), sourdough bread again made by Resi, black forest ham, shortbread-macaroon cookies and nuss-ecke ('nut corners' dipped on one side in chocolate) made by Erik's cousin's partner Sylvia; a very nice selection of cheeses, a boiled egg, orange juice and loads of fresh drip coffee brought to the table in a thermos. The little boys Luis and Henri love to have leberwurst (liver pate) on rolls. For me the best thing: salmon with creamy white horseradish on a fresh rye roll. Every morning should begin with a wasabi style kick like that. But salmon is not eaten without guilt. Forgive me, Jesus...

Weckmanner like this fellow are made for St Martin's Day, and are stocked in German bakeries until almost christmas. St Martin's Day is a nice festival where kids join a candle light parade with lanterns, and people roast geese. The day honours a military man who gave half his jacket to a beggar and became a saint. Apparently it was a very nice jacket.

Naturlich, this Weckman eventually met his fate and was eaten, starting with the head. He was a bit dry & salty. Erik thinks a wholewheat weckman is like cruelty to children. But the white ones are usually much more misshapen, even if they taste better.

This Tim Burton-esque 'weckman' (whole wheat, from the Biomarkt) is the nicest & most handsome one I've seen: but for some reason, he looks like he needs to go to the toilet.



The cool thing about Weckmanner, which are apparently based on a priest, is that their little pipes do work. Saintly fun for all the family.

Early morning pig carcasses on the north side of the St. Lawrence Market, Toronto.

I'm ashamed to admit we only knew about this place through a visitor from NYC who had read about it in a Wallpaper magazine supplement.

At this hour of the morning, the handful of people browsing (as well as the stall-holders) were less Marc Jacobs and Northface, decidedly more in the arena of ancient parkers and homespun knits.



On Saturdays the smaller North hall is used for an organic farmer's market. We went there straight from the afterhours (in Toronto anything open past 2am is called an afterhours) at about 6am...eschewing dodgy home fries at Fran's diner for the warm, familial atmosphere of a market in its calm and sleepy opening hours. No one seemed too hurried, no one was hussling or shouting at each other – maybe it was because of the laid back Canadian temperament but the atmosphere was comparable to a provincial library, especially the spectacled, brown-cardiganned woman who stutteringly sold us her malted, hand made 7 grain bread. No shortage of strapping sons helping their dad load piles of potatoes, elk venison or jars of honey either though.





Top notch cider (we drank 2 litres in about 2 seconds):



Home made apple cranberry crisp and wild blueberry pies (we bought a pumpkin pie):



Across the street is the South hall of the St Lawrence Market which is open daily except Monday:



We were convinced by a Ukrainian lady in the basement to buy a piece of a big coiled up sausage she had just baked, which was herby and juicy. We also bought a still-warm hot cross bun:



Smoked pork hocks:



Famous Canadian peameal bacon, a variety of unsmoked lean back bacon that has been sweet pickle-cured and coated in yellow cornmeal, though originally, as the name suggests, peameal was used. This should be distinguished from the imposter that is often called Canadian bacon in the U.S. but which is actually just sliced ham. Goes great with maple syrup.



Later on that night... we cracked open the pie, which was distinguishable from store-bought pies by its light, flaky and carameralised-around-the-edges crust:



and the bread. Top marks to the lady in the brown cardigan. The bread had a dense but light crumb, just soft and crumbly enough, with a pleasant molasses undertone. With avocado and a glass of cider, a remarkably effective hang over cure.