Austria

My time spent in Austria can be summed up in one word. Schnitzel. During my 2 day and a half stay, I managed to have schnitzel for 3 meals. How that happened, I’m not entirely sure. Every time though, it was delicious.If you don’t know, schnitzel is a breaded meat, usually pork or veal. Pork is the better version in my opinion, but to each their own.

Now I did eat other things while in Austria. The one that was the most traditional of the these meals that I had was a lunch that we ate on the side of a mountain. I ordered bacon dumplings and salad, thinking that the dumplings would be small and scattered within the salad. So imagine my surprise when the waitress puts a plate I front of me with a salad, but beside it were two giant balls of dough. I can hardly qualify them as dumplings. The meal was extremely filling and delicious, so I could only make my way through one “dumpling”. Plus there’s only so much dough and bacon that a girl can take.

Those two meals are really the only two traditional and notable meals of the trip. The rest of the time I mostly ate salads, and lots of yogurt. I know, very boring stuff. But that’s it for my posts on European food. I hope they help you if you ever go to France, Switzerland or Austria some day. I only dabbled in the cuisines of each country (obviously seen by this last post) but I had fun writing them all the same. Here are some more photos of my trip that I hope you like. Thanks for reading!

Switzerland

The Swiss are best known for having 4 national languages (French, Italian, Swiss German and Romansh), founding the Red Cross and their chocolate. While I was there, I found their chocolate and yogurt particularly delicious. So let’s talk about them. 🙂

I have to start this post talking about the yogurt. Oh my gosh I wish I could have bought liters of it and brought it back home. You see, while walking around during our first day there, I got a little hungry so we popped into the nearest grocery store. Since I am a huge fan of yogurt, I figured a company that’s been making yogurt since 1694 was worth giving a shot.

Oh. My. God.

It was fantastic. Creamy, smooth, and not just the right amount of vanilla. I don’t know the words to describe the joy that eating that yogurt brought me. Honestly if you’re ever in Europe and you see this brand, you must try it! And if you see it on the shelves of your local Canadian grocery store, please let me know. Writing this has really made me want more…

Another discovery in that same grocery store were these beautiful yet strange looking eggs. Since it wasn’t Easter, we thought we’d ask what made these eggs different. Apparently in Europe, grocery stores differentiate hard-boiled eggs from raw eggs by colouring them red. Isn’t that cool? So if you’re on the run but want a shot of healthy protein, you can buy a bunch of cooked eggs. I think we should have that in Canada. It would definitely be supported in my opinion.

This is just a photo of fancy toast. In the little dishes from left to right are maple syrup, strawberry jam and apricot jam. I really just took this photo to show how classy restaurants in Europe can be. They make you feel special when all you’re doing is eating toast.

CHOCOLATE! On the last day in Switzerland, we realized that we had yet to step into a chocolate shop. This would have been disgraceful, so we quickly sought out one that I regretfully no longer remember the name of.  In this particular store there were three main chocolate brands being offered for sale: Toblerone, Lindt and Laderach. We had heard that the Swiss prefer Laderach chocolate so instead of buying chocolate that we could easily get back home, we all bought some Laderach chocolate. Now, during its transport back home, my chocolate bark had melted. And since there were 5 different flavours in the bag, they have now all combined into one mish-mosh of sugar. So the bite that I had tasted like a combination of milk and dark chocolate, with a hint of coffee. Never the less, it’s delicious, so if you see some than you should buy some.

http://www.laederach.com/chde

And that’s it for Switzerland. Last but not least is Germany, who’s post will be published on Monday. Until then, below are some additional photos that I took while out and about in Murten and Berne, Switzerland. Thanks for reading!

A beautiful antique bookstore.

Mountains mountains, everywhere.

A lake in Murten had lots of fun things to do, like a slide and a zip-line.

A cinema in Murten that only shows 3 movies.

France

Whilst in Europe, I visited three countries with my family: France, Switzerland and Austria. I will cover my favourite meals, food and drinks  from each of these countries over the next couple of posts. Today, we start with France!

For almost every dinner that we ate out, my sister and I asked for iced tea. The first couple of times, it tasted a little strange but still good. It was just nice to have something refreshing, considering the oppressive heat. On our final night there, we finally found out why Parisian iced tea tasted different. It was peach flavoured! In Paris (and everywhere else that we traveled to during our trip we would later find out) lemon flavoured iced tea is difficult to find. Sweeter iced tea is preferred in Europe I guess. The peach flavoured iced tea was delicious, although it took some time to get used to the sweeter flavour, but I would recommend trying it if you get the chance.

The first time that my family visited Angelina’s, it was a chocolate revelation. Melting a Swiss chocolate bar into hot chocolate? Who would ever think of that? This time around, we all tried something a little different. The hot chocolate was (as memory serves) heart attack inducing, so we all opted instead for some tea. Then I ordered some macarons from which we all snacked on. The four flavours were vanilla, chocolate, caramel and pistachio. I tried the chocolate one, and it was marvelous.  Oh, and the Earl Grey tea that I had was dependably energy giving as well. 🙂 I would definitely recommend going to Angelina’s, however I would go for a snack, not a full meal since it’s quite pricey.

http://www.angelina-paris.fr/

Ice cream. Gelato. Frozen Yoghurt. It was so hot during our time in France, that almost every day we had an ice cream. Being the incredibly adventurous person that I am, I usually got vanilla. Above is one of the more elaborate ice cream dishes that I got, which included a cookie, strawberries and nectarines. Although I also tried Neapolitan, pistachio and mango, vanilla ice cream will always be my favourite.

This pizza was the best pizza I have ever tasted. Topped with brie, camembert, mushrooms and drizzled with honey, there wasn’t much not to like. I wish I had taken a photo of the restaurant so that I could tell you where to visit when you’re in Annecy. All I can say with absolute certainty is that if you visit a bar down along the canal in Annecy, one of them will have this masterpiece. Good luck!

Finally, who can leave France without trying some snails? The French have a much more elegant word for them though: escargot. Essentially garlic deliciousness, they are a delicacy that I had been looking forward to for weeks before boarding the plane to Paris. If you haven’t tried them before, then I have 3 easy steps to having the best snail experience.

1. Board an airplane to Paris
2. Go to Le Coupe-Chou.
3. Order their snails.

It’s really the only way to have them. 🙂 Below are some other photos that I thought you might enjoy. Thanks for reading!

A rainbow of terrines.

Mountains in Annecy

Swimming in this lake in Annecy was pretty spectacular.

A multitude of ice cream options.

 

Fresh French Produce

 

Updates and Changes

Hello and happy summer! I hope that you are having a lovely summer, one that is a relaxing and fun-filled. As for myself, I have just returned from  a family trip to Europe so I have been immersing myself in the different cultures across the pond. But more of that later. I thought I’d take this opportunity to share with you some changes that will be occurring from here on in. There will be both short term and long term changes, and I hope that you like them all. Here’s also a preview of what there is to come. 🙂

1. The URL of the blog will change from http://www.foodandteaforthought.wordpress.com to http://www.foodandteaforthought.wordpress,com. This way when you forget the URL of the blog (which never happens because you’re subscribed of course) then you don’t have to remember a completely different combination of words. So hopefully this will make your life easier! Please note that you may have to re-subscribe after the URL change has been made, which can take 2-5 days. WordPress wasn’t really clear on this aspect, so I don’t really know what will happen. I’m really sorry for any inconvenience that this will potentially cause. 😦
2. I’ve decided to set up a schedule for posts. I was previously trying to write a post a day, however then I felt too pressured. Blogging became more of a chore than a passion. This poor blog also fell by the way side during exam season, even though I felt like if I cooked I would feel less stressed. So from now on, expect a post every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. I think that 3 days a week is perfectly manageable, and hopefully the quality of my writing will increase. Quality over quantity right?
3. As I said before, I just got back from a trip to Europe. So expect blog posts on some of the food I ate there. I also have a huge back log of meals that I cooked from as far back as April. Everything from Vegetable curry to blueberry oatmeal to Menchies. Lots to look forward to!
4. The background will change soon. It’s been the Davidstea cup for way too long!

So there’s the update/changes post.  I hope that they all work out for the best. Here are some photos of what’t to come.

 

Have a great long weekend!