It's beginning already...

Oktoberfest preparations are underway. The official Oktoberfest 2011 poster has been released.

Most importantly, the beer prices now have been set! Munich residents hope year after year (in vain) for a year with no increase in the price of a maß. Alas, this year the average increase is around 4%, with all tents selling a Maß of Oktoberfestbier (or Radler) for €8.80 to €9.20. A Maß of Weißbier at the Weinzelt tent (primarily a wine and champagne tent) will run you an incredible €14.20!

How does this compare to the biergarten prices? Each one differs, but a Maß of helles typically runs from around €6.75 to €8.00 at a biergarten. (Keep in mind that a helles also has a lower alcohol content than the Oktoberfest Märzen, so part of the higher Oktoberfest price is reflected in higher alcohol content).

In a city serious about its beer, this is big news every year.

For me the bigger news would be that they're brewing the Olde Wiesn Jubliaumsbier again. I see it on the 2011 beer price list. Has anyone heard that they're planning to make it again? That stuff was soooo good - I'd be thrilled to have it again!

source: Abendzeitung newspaper

A few pictures to start the countdown to Oktoberfest 2011

Aspirational Ice Cream

German marketing traditionally has focused on quality differentiation and quantifiable data -  BMW's engine is x-times more efficient, Siemens' washing machine uses x% less water, Daimler's BLUETEC diesel has x% lower emissions, Porsche's sedan can accelerate from 0 to 60 in x seconds, etc...  

US product marketing generally employs a very wide arsenal of tactics, but still often relies on selling the consumer a dream. If I drink this beer, the women will want me....If I carry this phone, I'm ahead of the curve....If I buy x, I'm environmentally conscious but not wasteful with my money....

In Germany, we're starting to see the emotional and aspirational marketing creeping into the product selection. In the ice cream selection, they've gone far to the extreme. Langnese (the German brand for Unilever's ice cream - Walls in the UK and Asia, Good Humor in the US) currently is promoting two ice cream flavors where you can buy romance.  Like fire and ice, you can choose the "Eiskalt" romance of Dr. Zhivago or the fiery passion of Gone with the Wind.  

The Doctor Zhivago flavor is described as an "ice-cold" film romance of snow-white ice cream with marscapone, lemon ice cream, fine vodka-lemon sauce and tiny chocolate snowflakes.

Gone with the Wind, on the other hand, is a fruity raspberry and dark chocolate ice creams with fire-red raspberry sauce. (it also appears to have dark chocolate sprinkles on top)

While these are a special promotion, many of their other ice creams sell a similar dream - usually a dream of exotic and magical destinations. And, given the German love of travel, it seems like a pretty good aspiration to sell.

We haven't tried them yet, though they seem to be just a bit too much to me. Perhaps the cherry and chocolate one would be good, but the others have so many different flavors in there!

What are the flavors?

Kirschzauber: Cherry Magic: A magical combination of sour cherry and vanilla-poppyseed ice cream with sour cherry sauce and tiny chocolate flowers. (note: the "poppyseed" is a bit hard to describe. In Germany, it's "mohn," a common filling for pastries and cakes. While it is poppyseed, it's not crunchy like the ones commonly sprinkled on rolls)

Safari Afrika: Creamy chocolate ice cream, swirled with delicious vanilla ice cream, intense chocolate sauce, and tiny chocolate paws.

Andalusische Träume: Andalusian Dreams: Vanilla-orange ice cream, swirled with cherry-sherry saue with tiny chocolate hearts.

Dschungelzauber: Jungle Magic: Creamy pistachio ice cream swirled with delicious vanilla ice cream with chocolate-coconut sauce and tiny chocolate apes.

What do you think? Do you buy the ice cream dream, or just go for a good flavor? For me, Langnese also makes the delightful Magnum bars (thank you Thailand for teaching me about Magnums!!) with their rich chocolate and so creamy ice cream. The new Ghana Cocoa bar (milk chocolate shell with hazelnut ice cream and fudge swirls) is my second favorite ice cream bar ever. Doesn't quite beat the Ben & Jerry's Peanut Butter Cookie Dough bar, but I'm willing to test out all the competition! 

Ostrich. It's what's for dinner

I've been trying to stick to eating relatively low carb, low fat foods. (With the occasional pizza and ice cream, of course...both are soooo good in Munich, thanks to a heavy Italian influence).

While I do feel much better eating this way, I do get awfully bored sometimes and am searching for new options.

I was thrilled to discover something new at the store - ostrich filet! You will see it on menus here as strauss, strauß, or straußenfilet.  It's not exactly widespread, but not really unusual either.  Many a German has travelled to South Africa and enjoyed the cuisine there. In fact, the store periodically has Steinbock (antelope) and biltong (South African jerky).

It surprised me that ostrich filets were cheaper per kg than beef, and they're quite tasty and almost nonfat. All good things, but the big question was, what do I do with it??

Luckily we live in the age of Google, and the ostrich producers wisely realized that not knowing what to do with their product is a big obstacle to selling it. Klein Karoo has a long list of recipes available, ranging from a simple filet to ostrich goulash, ostrich sushi, and ostrich shepherd's pie.  For our first foray, we chose the simple steak, with a shallot redwine glaze recipe from The Ostrich Growers' recipe site.

I baked some cumin/chile sweet potato fries and some proscuitto-wrapped baby green beans (blanch beans, let cool, then wrap with proscuitto or bacon and bake in oven).  And we had some nice Austrian red wine from our trip to Vienna.

While it looks like steak and tastes similar (minus, the beefy taste), you cannot cook it like a steak.  Ostrich has almost no fat, thus will dry out very easily. For the same reason, it absorbs marinades quickly and will take on the taste of the marinade more than will a steak. 

The best way to serve ostrich (to be tender) is a bit on the rare side.

How to Cook Ostrich Steaks:

Let the meat warm close to room temperature and baste with olive oil or marinate for 30 minutes in an oil-based marinade (without any salt!!).

Sear filets on both sides in a hot skillet (around 1 minute per side).

Season meat AFTER searing, so that the salt and seasonings do not suck out the moisture.

At this point you can continue to cook in the skillet another 2 minutes per side (to be medium rare). Then wrap in foil to rest before serving.

Or, we wrapped the seared filets in foil and cooked for a few minutes in the oven around 120°C (250°F).

Red Wine Shallot Glaze:
from Ostrich Growers

•     2 Tbsp butter
•     2/3 cup finely sliced shallots
•     1 cup dry red wine
•     Salt

Heat skillet over high. Add butter and shallots and stir frequently 2-3 minutes (until shallots are limp)
Add wine and boil until reduced to 3/4 cup, about 5 minutes. Add salt to taste. Add juices from the meat and serve over ostrich filet steaks.

Google Doodles Quiz - Part 6...Inventions & Discoveries

In this prior post we briefly described Google Doodles and had a quiz.

Now it's time to guess the Inventions and Discoveries whose dates were recognized with a Doodle:

#1

#2

#3

#4

#5

#6

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Answers below:

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#1    Discovery of X-Rays
#2    Invention of the Laser
#3    Discovery of Buckeyballs
#4    Invention of the Large Hadron Collider
#5    Invention of the Bar Code
#6    Discovery of DNA

Basecamp, Finland style

We have already posted a bit about our winter week adventure in Finland, with highlights such as building an igloo and going snowmobiling (with more posts to come, including sledding with huskies!).  This post will briefly cover the "basecamp" aspect, with some unique Finnish drinks...

We stayed at "Basecamp Oulanka".  This is a small collection of lodges just outside Oulanka National Park.  The park sits on the border with Russia, a few kilometers south of the Arctic Circle.

One gets here through Kuusamo airport.  Locals say "Welcome to Lapland" but Kuusamo is technically part of Oulu province (on it's northern edge) just below the formal province of Lapland.  On the map above, the rest of Finland above Kuusamo is all Lapland province and the cultural region extends into Sweden too.

 
Basecamp sits on a small rise, perhaps 100m from the shore of a lake.  Two 2-story buildings house the guests -- each building has only 8 rooms (you see the top story in the left photo, below).  Every room has a balcony that looks into the forest towards the lake.... although you can't see water in Winter.

    

The central building functions as the equipment center and "lobby" facility.  In Winter, each guest heads to the lower level to be issued warm boots, socks, fleece long underwear, snow pants, heavy jackets and gloves.  The upper level has the camp reception, kitchen, and a common/dining room.

     

The photo above/right is from breakfast -- everyone is decked out and ready to go.  In the evening, however, things get more relaxed and move in front of the fireplace!  It's a nice stone hearth with plenty of room to put your feet up after a tough day in the snow.

   

Frau A and I like to try local fare, and around the fireplace it seemed appropriate to get to know Finnish drinks.

The first is from a company called Jellona.

Jellona make two kinds of schnapps -- one flavored with anise (the signature flavor in black liquorice) and the one pictured here that is flavored with tar.  Yes, tar.  Notice the barrel on the label?

It has a strong, smoky, "tarry" (how else to describe it?) character.  Definitely puts hair on the chest.  A number of people in our group gave it a shot... not the crowd favorite after that.  Perhaps it's an acquired taste?

The anise version was more predictable - those that like black liquorice flavor loved it, those that don't, didn't.  Frau A said that her father would probably really like the anise version...

Another evening we learned about Finnish cut brandy.  Our guide (who doubled as bartender) explained that in wartime, brandy was in short supply so Finns would cut it with vodka.

One star indicates one part brandy to two parts vodka (1/3).  Three stars means three parts brandy to one part vodka (3/4, a higher quality).

We tried a one star variety.  Not bad.  The mix is strange at first, but it works.  I'll bet most people would prefer this to straight vodkas.

Jaloviina is a popular  brand -- Wikipedia's photo for cut brandy, plus a Facebook page!

Wikipedia notes that vodka-cut-brandy is also common in East Germany as general practice.  Interestingly, these versions are not graded -- must be the Russian influence, because Germans tend to control products closely.

I've seen Goldbrand (a German version) in stores and may have to try it.  One could cut their own as well...

 Finally, we sampled the Lapponia brand of Finnnish liquers.

These are sweeter and thicker than schnapps, with some unique flavors too.  We tried cloudberry (not bad!) but blueberry, lingonberry, and buckthorn are also available!

We brought a bottle of cloudberry back (actually, Frau A snuck it home and surprised me for my birthday).  In addition to apertif format, we will try it as an ingredient with desserts too.

At the end of each day, most people were quite tired from whatever activity kept us romping through the snow for hours, and after a hot meal & drinks we were content to enjoy the sunset.  It seems to be a great options for Summer vacation too, with white water rafting.  We'll see...

 

Morning Observations

This morning we went for a really early (predawn departure) morning photowalk through Munich's Olympiapark.

After a few hours of walking, we stopped at Woerner's for a nice filling weisswurst breakfast. Munich at 8am on a weekend is pretty wonderful - there is some movement, but most people are still in bed and it's a peaceful time. It's also early enough to get prime seats in some of the restaurants and cafes!

As their outside tables weren't out yet, we secured a prime table by an open window overlooking Marienplatz (Woerner's cafe is a level up).

You'll always see some strange things if you watch the people on Marienplatz long enough. This morning, it was a man with a small trailer behind his bike. From our distant view, the trailer looked like a glass display case with a statue of Jesus.  He then parked his bike and trailer in front of the Rathaus, set up a video camera and began recieving guests.

Luckily Herr J had his 600mm effective lens and we could spy on the proceedings down below. Definitely not Jesus, but we're still at a loss for why this guy was towing around a glass cases with a sawdust statue of a woman in it.  He seemed to have several friends meet him out there, so there must have been some significance and interesting back story...

What we did realize was how handy Herr J's stealth lens is....Since he's using the  micro 4/3 standard, his 600mm lens weighs in at 1 lb and a tiny fraction of the price of the 11 lb, $10,000 behemoth lens Nikon offers for my camera. Plus, it fits easily in the man purse!

Silly Goose!

We've been visiting the English Garden the past few weekends to see the babies growing.  Last week we saw some unusual behavior from a Greylag Goose near the Seehaus.

First we see him happily swimming with his family.

 

But then another goose catches his eye and he quickly turns to go after it.

 

A goose snapping at something was not unusual in itself. These guys can be pretty aggressive with other birds and will persistently beg you for food by nipping the back of your knee to "let you know" that they want bread. They'll also eat it from your hand without hurting you - they're much rougher on other birds than on people. Obviously they understand "don't bite the hand that feeds you" quite well!

What was unusual was first, that the other goose swam underwater to evade attack

and second, how aggressively the attacker continued to pursue him, trying to catch and bite him.

 

 

By this point, they've zigzagged back and forth in front of us for a seemingly long time (probably under a minute), with the victim spending most of the time fully underwater (circled in orange) and kicking up a trail of muddy water. 

The strategy works, and clearly he can swim underwater much faster than his pursuer can on the surface.  Realizing this, our attacker changes tactics and tries to catch up with a quick flight and a divebomb.

And...he fails....

But decides to give it one last try!! (you can see the other one still underwater, below his left wing)

 

Finally he gives up on the chase

and returns to his woman and children...

 

...with a big spash! 

 

We could never figure out what started the attack - it seemed unprovoked to us, but we don't speak goose very well. All I know is that I'm eternally grateful I'd set the camera to shutter priority. It's the only way to get decent shots of things that are bundles of endless, unpredictable energy...like baby ducks and silly geese.