Unfettered

The weather this week continued to be quite variable. This did make for some rainbows visible from my apartment. Lucky for us the weather mostly held off for Wednesday night Frisbee practice. On Thursday after work I bought another second hand bike. This one is cyclocross bike which should be more fun to ride long distances on dirt roads than my City bike. Naturally I had to take it on a longer maiden voyage on Saturday so I took the same route south down the Isar as I did a couple weeks ago. This time I never felt the need to walk my bike so a definite success.  I took a different route home than last time though so I could check out Burg Grünwald .  I also appreciated the hotel next door. Once I was back in Munich proper I found a different biergarten for lunch. This time I ordered the seasonal delicacy of Spargel or white asparagus. It tasted a little milder than the green variety, certainly good but I still don't understand the locals obsession with it. Sunday was frisbee ...

Naturally in amongst my expeditions I'm keeping myself fed. Some weekends I'll stroll to a local bakery or coffee shop for a mid morning snack (not technically kaffee mit kuchen since thats an afternoon tradition). I couldn't quite pin down the fruit in this cheesecake but it tasted good. Sometimes I'll opt to get dinner out. This is the local street food favorite currywurst mit pommes, basically sausages and fries with curry ketchup. I can see why its popular though not something I need to eat regularly. From the Boulangerie Dompierre a quiche and Kouing Aman. Another coffee and cake this time from the bakery inside one of the local grocery stores, not overly sweet despite the cream filling. Mostly I cook dinners for myself. This is a vegetarian Shepherd's pie based on a Moosewood recipe. The key innovation is using frozen grated tofu mixed with Walnuts as a substitute for ground lamb. Keeping with the casserole theme, I also made Moussaka. Again vegetarian in this...

 These photos don't quite fit in with the weekend excursions cataloged in other posts but I wanted to share them nonetheless. First more bread! This is Sportler-Brot which is so far my favorite. Next up is Bio Roggen Pur or Rye bread. It is more mild than the rye I've had before. This is Dinkel Chia, it was good but didn't stand out particularly. Some stores stick a paper label directly on the loaf which is the white stuff in this picture. Finally we have Familien Brot, another whole wheat loaf. It was longer than the others so perhaps that's where it gets the name. I'm not just eating sandwiches though. A couple weeks ago I attempted Schwäbische Linsen mit Spätzle, which is a South German lentil dish served with traditional noodles. Here's the work in progress. I used store bought dried Spätzle to make things easier and it turned out quite well. On the sightseeing front here's a view across the Isar of St. Maximilian. The ducks in the river originally...

 Inspired by a local restaurant I attempted to make Kartoffelknödel (potato dumplings) and Apfelblaukraut (red cabbage) for dinner last week . The red cabbage was fairly simple and one head makes plenty of leftovers. The potatoes were a bit more work since they needed to be cooked, mashed, formed and then steamed. They tasted good but the texture wasn't the same as those served by the restaurant. I may have picked the wrong type of potatoes or maybe my impatience (and lack of tools) during the mashing step did me in. I cooked some vegetarian sausages as my protein since I don't eat much meat these days. The plate looks authentic and tasted good too. Though I had to buy them online, I now have sufficient food storage containers that I can cook dinner twice a week and eat leftovers the rest of the time. I've been slowly sampling the local restaurants as well, mostly on weekends. Since Germany is known for their bread I've been having sandwiches for lunch. I started out wi...

Well this entry is a week late because I only went to Bratislava last weekend, so I really couldn't have written it much earlier. Anyways Lucas, Caitlin, Kylee and I decided we wanted to get out of Budapest for a bit so we decided to visit Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia. We opted for a quick one night trip, bus from Budapest early Saturday morning, see the city, spend the night, and catch a bus back in time for a late lunch in Budapest. Despite one of our number nearly missing the bus everything went pretty much according to plan. Bratislava is a lot smaller than Budapest so we did a pretty good job of seeing all the important sites, highlights of which are in the photos below. The Slovakian Equivalent of the white house. The US Consulate in Slovakia. Everyone but me on the way up to the castle, note the UFO bridge in the background. Slovak flag flying on the castle. The travelers in front of the UFO bridge. Headquarters for Slovak radio, also an inverted pyramid. Some abandon...