Über die Landschaft – the German Countryside

Gettin' out and about

Any German Bakery will be a delicious experience...

See what I mean?

You may even find a flea market or two (Flohmarkt)

In every village there is a church worth seeing.

Flowers must be required by law...they're everywhere

Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing sissy about camping out in the big cities of Europe, savoring the delights of a five star hotel and going to all the eateries, museums, and festivals that Fodor and Michelin point out.  I do it all the time.  After all, I’m married.

But, for a treat that will forever loom large in your travel memories, grab your car and your camera and scoot through the countryside.  Wander through the villages.  Stop at that little bakery that caught your eye. Try out that little restaurant with a dozen cars parked outside.  Hey, the Germans are friendly and welcoming.

Along your drive, marvel at the broad expanses of fields and forests in shades of green you’ve never imagined.

You’re not going to get lost with a GPS, or a map.  The signs are in German, but we use the same alphabet and you’ll figure out where you are.

Some of the villages have only one restaurant, which certainly isn’t mentioned in the travel guides.  In good weather, you’re sure to see a wurst (sausage) stand (Imbiss).  Grab some coffee or a beer, park the car and wander the narrow streets that have witnessed many, many lifetimes of history.

Ah, but the faint of heart murmur, “What if I don’t know the language???”   You’ve got a forefinger and a smile. What more do ya need?   You might even get lucky and find an older, or a younger person in the mood to practice English.

Why do I pick the opposite ends of the age spectrum?  Germans from ages 50 on up learned survival English at the end of the war.  Simple reason, the economy lay ragged and broken.  The new American bases offered jobs.  But, you had to speak English.

For the young, it’s a different situation.  English TV and music permeates the media.  Depending on where you live, you may have to search for German music on the radio.  Then there are the schools.  German kids take six years of English.  The rub is, their teachers are no better than ours and how many of us felt comfortable after a few years of high school French, or Spanish, or German?  But, German kids are approachable.  Usually you’ll get a smile and either an answer, or a shrug.  A common answer is:  “I only speak a little, “ meaning the kid just read Moby Dick in English and can sing along with the American Country Countdown.

Don’t mean to jump into a German lesson, but here are a few basics:

Hello is ‘Hallo,’ pronounced ‘Hallow.’

Goodbye is ‘Tchus’ and if you can’t manage that, just use the Italian, ‘Ciao,’ pronounced chow.  Damn near universal these days.

What is that?  ‘Was ist das?’  pronounced  ‘Vas isT das?’

Where is….?    ‘Wo ist…..” then add an English word that’s the same as German:  Bank, Restaurant, Hotel. 

Please is ‘Bitte,’ pronounced like bitter if you grew up in Boston.

Thanks is ‘Danke,’ pronounced ‘Danka.’

Ok, now you’re armed for a leisurely sweep through the rolling hills, the tiny villages, the broad expanses of a green countryside that almost defies description.  You’ll stride fearlessly into tiny cafes and restaurants and feast on sensational dishes, accompanied by fabulous wines.  Best of all, the prices will be pretty much what you’d expect in America.

Get off the beaten path.  Leave the big cities behind and follow your instincts.  Germany is a wonderful, beautiful country.  Don’t miss it!

Prost!

The Fest That Wasn't

Promises, promises...

Reality, reality...

Let's see...chicken or wurst...hummmm..oh, you have fries....hummmm

The prizes

I came to this chicken fest and all I got was this lousy wurst!

Alright, boys....torch 'em!

Saturday saw the annual Hahnenfest (Chicken Festival) in the quaint, narrow-streeted town of Queidersbach.  The thought spilled into my imagination.  Chicken festival.  Talking chickens?  Chickens winning games of tic-tac-toe?  Fairest chicken at the fair contest?

If there’s one thing I wanted, it was an “I survived the salmonella at the Hahnenfest” t-shirt, or maybe a hat, with the bill in the shape of a beak.  I was primed for some fowl play.  Would we stand in a big circle for a group chicken dance?

“How long is this line?” my wife asked.  Despair crept into her voice, like a chicken who’d just noticed the carving knife and bloody apron.

“You want that in miles, or kilometers?”

The first twenty or thirty minutes went by rapidly, meaning I had time to count the number of people, figure out the prime numbers, listen to the pair behind me whet my appetite with a riveting tale of blood sucking vampires and deathless zombies, and listen to Barbara and Dirk, the featured band, belt out Top 40 hits, while their electronics sucked the juice out of Queidersbach.  In the growing darkness, I could see the lights of the town begin to flicker and die.  I felt a kinship.

In another twenty minutes, the line had sped forward another twelve feet.

“Quit complaining,” my wife said helpfully.  “There’s chicken up ahead.”

This was not a fest.  This was a line on the top of a hill, leading to chickens.  There were no games.  There were no booths selling whatnots, no pony rides for the kids, no groups drinking half liters of brew.  There were no t-shirts.  No hats.  The teenager behind us murmured, “This is not a chicken fest; this is a line fest.”

We discovered a second line to buy drink tickets, which would allow you to go to another line to claim your poison.  I sent the wife for two beers and a bottle of schnapps. She returned with tickets for water and beer, but no water or beer.  I was the only one who noticed the discrepancy.

The guy in front of us had been clean-shaven when we started, but was starting to look a little shaggy.  Time did not march on.  Time had been laid off and was searching for another job.

“Why don’t you go check to see if there are still chickens?” my wife suggested.

She had a point and I sprang forward before my legs could atrophy.  I found the sticking point at the place where you ordered the food.  A mother and her three small children, in line since they were infants, trying to decide.  Bear in mind there were three choices:  chicken, bratwurst, French fries.  This was not a menu requiring the skills of Mr. Memory.  Flies buzzed.  People in line moved nervously.  Horses in the next pasture watched for a while, then got bored and ambled away.  Chickens mumbled, “Kill me now!”

At the two-hour point my wife said I shouldn’t talk so loud.  I thought I’d been talking to myself.  Hunger, thirst, and two hours of aimless standing on the side of a hill will do that to a man.

“Look at those flies,” I said, reaching out and trying to grab one.

“There are no flies,” my wife said.

“Well, there used to be.”

Two hours turned to two and a half.  The temperature, which had begun at a balmy seventy degrees, had dropped like my hopes and dreams to a chilling sixty.  The crowd began to nervously stamp its feet.  Some hunger stricken patrons pitched tents; others pulled their children close and cried openly as a family.  Priests roved around giving last rites.

At the three-hour mark, we were three patrons away from the ordering place.  I knew somehow this was false hope, meant to further confuse and demoralize.

It began to rain.  In Germany this time of year, rain does not mean drizzle.  It had been sunny when we arrived.  Sunny and seventy degrees.  I had also had a mild hunger.  Now I was battling starvation and losing.

At three hours and fifteen minutes, we reached the finish line.  I blurted out to the ordering maid, “three half chickens and two fries.”  Turned out that was the beginning of negotiations.  Did I have the correct change?  We searched our pockets and came up victors. 

“That’s three half chickens?” the ordering maid asked.

I told her it was.  The crowd behind me was getting restless again.  People get that way when they’re cold and being pelted by rain drops the size of marbles.

“How many fries?”

“Two.”

“Ok, that’s three half chickens and two fries.  Is that correct?”

Behind me, I could hear discussion, followed by threats.

“You’ll have to wait a moment on the fries.”

Behind me was the sound of cocking pistols.

Before war erupted, we grabbed our order and raced away to a friend’s house to eat our chicken and soggy fries. 

“This chicken is ok,” I offered, “But not worth three hours.”

“No chicken is worth three hours,” my wife said.

Now she tells me.

Down a Gothic Road, Where the Red Wines Flow

A wine for all days and all occasions 

Just as beautiful with leaves on the ground

We attended a quiet feedfest for eight or ten, in an old, German restaurant we’d never visited. Blasted nuisance tracking the place down, but a quaint find. High-timbers bridged the ceilings.  Candles flickered; scintillating conversation flowed. Without a second thought, and needing a brace from the cold, I ordered some German red wine, a Dornfelder halbtrocken, or half dry.  Some people who haven’t been to Germany in decades, my friends among them, will solemnly swear or affirm: There are no good German reds!  Other lost souls drink nothing but dry wines, the dryer the better.  Unlucky them, bogged in the truth of the past, and blind to the wealth of the present.  German reds can be glorious.  Half dries can be even gloriouser!   Here’s the gospel:  German reds have thrived in the last thirty years.

The wine arrived.  I held it to the light of a candle and a rich ruby glow banished darkness from the corners of the room.  The nose was perfectly balanced.
(Add here, tones of chocolate, hints of sock, eye of newt, any of your favorite pompous wine adjectives). I sipped and murmured an amen to Dionysus, the Greek god of the grape. 

           Through clever conversation and relying on my heavily accented German (Know you this wine the name of and where can I it buy?) I cajoled the waitress into giving up some cherished secrets of the kitchen. Turned out the vintner was about an hour away, in a little town on the Deutche Weinstraße, or German Wine Road.                 

Started in 1935, the wine road is the oldest named wine route in the world and stretches from the French border, south for about 85 kilometers, or 53 miles.  If you haven’t visited, it’s a delight for the eyes and palate, with classic village after classic village, broad acres of well-tended vines, and plenty of chances to stop and taste.  We could have jumped on the autobahn and pushed the chariot to well over a hundred miles an hour.  Could have.  Didn’t.  Instead, we harnessed ourselves to a winding two laner,  following deep valleys, and through tiny towns, including Frankenstein.  Yes, there is such a place, with the castle ruins on a hill overlooking the village, a castle that (supposedly) inspired Mary Shelly to write her famously gothic novel (pub 1818).

            The weingüt, or wine producer we searched for was Karl Dennhardt, who along with his reds, offers some of the finest whites and rosés in the region.  His winemaking facilities are tucked into a spacious old stone barn, on a small and somber street on the outskirts of the town of Neustadt-Mussbach. Vineyards stretch in quiet rows behind the house and barn.   Karl and his wife, both in their eighties, own the vineyards independently, and are almost embarrassingly hospitable.  On the day we shuffled into their tasting room, a group of Germans had beat us to the punch; but in Germany, if there is room at the table, you’re welcome to sit, and in this case, sip. Fifteen or twenty bottles already sat open on the scared oak table.  Lots of whites, but we came for in the reds.  In German and English, a group of about ten tasted, compared, and offered opinions, most of which were lost in translation and the flow of the wine.

            The two most popular red wine varieties in Germany are Spatburgunder (pinot noir) and Dornfelder.  We sipped each and munched pretzels in between.  Mrs. Dennhardt told how most of her family immigrated to the U.S. and sadly have no intention of returning.  She confessed, when she and Karl’s wine making days are over, they’d sell the business.

            Meanwhile, the wines tasted better and better.  The Dennhardts offered some excellent 2005 Cabernets and we purchased a few bottles. Couldn’t resist.  These Cabs tiptoe fragrantly across the taste buds and if you like ‘em dry and flavorful, you’ve found the lost silver mine.  We also brought home a couple of cases of the Pfalz Bereich Mittelhaardt Rotwein halbtrocken, the wine that had led to our journey, and six bottles of a light and bright rosé.  Average cost for all the wines was about six bucks a bottle.

            The morals of the story are, don’t live in the past, unless the past is written on the label, don’t take the autobahn and Vive! those damn good German reds!

Three Beauties From Alsace

The Three Beauties

A Vineyard Overlooking the medieval village Riquewihr

            Germany is known for it’s white wines and rightly so.  Some are glorious and the varieties endless.  However, just across the border in France, in a region known as Alsace, you’ll find white wines that will inhabit your dreams forever.  Hundreds of vintners it’s true.  But, by luck of a wrong turn and a wicked thirst, I found a special one in the small, but noble town of Rodern.  Metz Bleger bottles a large array of whites and Pinot Noirs, which are also superbly delicious, but today we’re going to meet three beautiful, not to mention luscious, whites: Pinot Gris, Riesling, and Gewurztraminer.

            The wine cellar isn’t always open.  You have to ring a buzzer at the entrance, and listen for a stout woman to bellow at you from a second story window of the attached house.  “One moment, Monsieur,” she calls with the delicately balanced tones of a framer’s wife who’s just dispatched three chickens with her bare hands.

            We wait and soon a heavy set man, younger than the woman and whom I assume to be her son, opens the heavy oak door of the wine cellar and welcomes us.  At first he seems a little edgy, but as we drink and drink some more and order case after case, he becomes more jovial and starts drinking himself.  Soon all of us are absolutely elated with each other’s company.  We croak in German, French, and English, managing to be misunderstood in the variety of languages.  We laugh, slap each other on the back, promising never to part. After slugging down a half dozen bottles of his wine, and with the assurance that we are all good friends for life, he gives us a wink and brings out bottles of the really good stuff.  We stand and applaud.  Champagne flows, before we go back to white.  The trunk of the car is beginning to sag like a nag’s back as the cases stack up.  No matter.  Back to the business of tasting.

            Besides falling in love with a couple of Pinot Noirs, I select a 2009 Riesling, with a particularly bright and cheerful nose and a medium dry body.  Rieslings can be all over the scale, from dry as a Texas draught to sweet as….. fill in your own suitable metaphor. 

            Another Alsatian delight is the Pinot Gris, this one also the Class of 2009. What, you may well ask, is the difference between Pinot Gris from France and the more familiar Pinot Grigio, a popular Italian wine.  Apparently, both wines are from the same variety of grape, but to my simple palate Pinot Gris is creamier and fruitier, probably because of the difference in soil and climate, or it may be because by this time I have a full bottle of it under my belt and am praying that this glorious day never end.  

At home, I drink both the Riesling and the Pinot Gris anytime, either for just sitting and sipping, or with light meals, or because I’m desperately lonely.

            The Gewurztraminer, (Gur-verts-tramer) (low and behold another graduate of 2009) on the other hand, calls for food.  A bit drier and with the bite of fresh herbs, it stands up well to fish, pork, or chicken dishes, if by this time anyone is still standing.

            The next time you head to your favorite wine shop, look for these three great varieties of white wines.  Mine cost about $9 a bottle.  Tell the wine steward the woman who chokes chickens sent you.

Three Blogs for the Price of One!

I'm a guy who just can't keep a secret.  Don't look to me to keep your favorite coffee shop, or that tiny restaurant that's never crowded hidden from the world.  I blab.  It's the same with blogs.  I just can't keep a great blog to myself and today I'll give a shout to two of the best!

     Both of these favorite blogs are written by two of my favorite friends.  Ed Rasimus is a fighter pilot par excellence and continues to live on the cutting edge of aviation.  His blog, Thunder Tales, reflects more than a shade of military aviation, and also his other occupation, professor of political science.  Pick a topic, Ed’s got an informed opinion.  His knowledge and research are first rate and he’s not afraid of being honest and forthright, whether or not it offends those on the left or the right.  But, Ed’s real strength is his writing ability.  He flat out entertains! If you want to read about the air war in Vietnam, look no farther than Ed Rasimus’ two autobiographies, When Thunder Rolled, and Palace Cobra.  He’s also the co-author of Fighter Pilot: The Memoirs of Legendary Ace Robin Olds.  These three volumes are modern military classics. Period.  All three are available on Amazon.  

     To read Thunder Tales is to stay informed on matters military and political.  Grab the stick!  Push up the power!  A link is on the right. 

     Laura Burgess, who writes Laura Uncorked, is just as entertaining and information, but in entirely different arenas.  Want to know about wines and travel, or maybe you’re looking for an au currant hideaway for a drink and noshes with that special someone?  Uncorked has the low down on the downtown and uptown.  She prowls New York City, but she also travels the world, and in her travels she finds the most out of the way vineyards, both delicious and cheap.  Best of all, Laura writes in such a refreshing, unpretentious way that after reading her blog, you feel like you’ve just met an old friend for gossip and a sip of vintage grape.  Wines in Charleston, South Carolina?  You bet.  Care to tingle with vinho verde?  Laura’s got this Portuguese wine pegged.  There’s a link on the right to Uncorked.  Enjoy the trip!