Wolfstein Culinary Hike

Two weekends ago was the first Culinary Hike of the year. This is an event in which a village maps out a walking course of a few miles through the village and out into the fields. Along the way are five or six stops, each with a different type of food to try and of course wine, secco and beer. One stop might have skewers and warm scalloped potatoes and the next has cakes and coffee. We did a couple of these last year and I've been really excited for them to start again. Its the "sport" I've been looking for all my life. It's exactly like a 5K except no running and lots of food.

Our landlords from the first house we stayed in came out to do it with us.The forecast said rain but that morning we laughed in its face because the sun was clearly shining. No clouds were going to ruin the hike that I've been "training" for ALL WINTER!

When you check in you can purchase a drink pass card that allows you to get a refill at each station for less money. They give you your own wine glass and a wine glass caddy that goes around your neck. It looks really weird like a feed bag attached to a horse. I wish I had a picture! I didn't get one because I wasn't planning on drinking that much and I'm sure mine would knock a kid in the face, or, more importantly, spill with all the bending over, picking up, diaper changing, etc.

First, a little stretching before we hit the trail...

The first stop for a yogurt parfait.
Feeling good. Setting the pace.

Still able to talk and breathe at the same time.

A forest-fairy land.

Doing my best "Grandma Dori" with a mojito-flavored secco. 

Look out for cow pies!

Clouds comin' in. Looks like rain.
We will not be moved!

Then it was sunny again.

See? It's just like a marathon with arrows and everything.

Now its hailing! 

And he's refusing to put on his hood.

And we're making the best of it cuz we're not quitters!

At this point the hail and wind was so bad that we had to stop walking and huddle under our umbrellas that were almost inverting. I've never experienced this variety of weather in such a short time. It was five minutes of sun, then five of rain, five of hail, then more sun, then more rain. It was pretty crazy, but come hell or high water we were going to finish this race! Er, food hike. Does it really matter?!

The line for the smoked salmon. It was intense.

Sunny again!

Taking a breather.
And now more rain, but, oh, that view.

Beverage 2 of 2. Don't mind if I do.
Must...stay...hydrated.

The little punks with their beers. Or at least they like to pretend the sparkling apple juice is beer.

Doren was very suspicious of this shoulder ride.

The last lap. I...think...we...can (crawling to mirage of wine bottle and currywurst)

We finished strong and celebrated with ice cream and a jumpy castle for the kids. I could've almost broke a sweat if it weren't for the hail.

There is another hike tomorrow with sun and blue skies on the menu!

The Ways

Here are a couple of the ways we're doing things differently since living in Germany.

1) Airing the house and linens.

I remember seeing this years ago when I traveled to Europe. I wondered why on earth people were hanging their blankets out the window! 

See?

See?

See?

I think it's two reasons. 1) Air out the house. Every morning, no matter how cold, windows are opened to refresh the house from all the nighttime heat. It's actually in our rental agreement to air out the house for thirty minutes every day. 2) Exposing your bed sheets to sun and air kills the dust mites and bed bugs. Making your bed immediately just seals them into a sweaty, dark, environment to feed on the dead skin cells you shed at night. Super gross, which is why this is super smart. I open a bunch of windows in the morning, even in winter, but my window sills, erm, aren't clean enough to be hanging my sheets out (Who cleans their window sills??)...so I just let in a lot of light and maybe get around to pulling the covers up sometime in the afternoon. I don't.

2) We hang our laundry (usually).

Germans don't have dryers. Just a washer in the kitchen or basement. Its not that they can't afford them, its just not the norm, because...why? Why pay for something the sun and wind will do for free? Most people have sturdy permanent lines set up in their yard. We just have this portable one right now. We have a dryer but I think line drying is a good idea and that I should always do it. Can you cut yourself on our rock-hard towels? Absolutely! But who couldn't use a little extra exfoliation? No HOA is going to tell them to take down the line immediately because it's "ruining" the neighborhood. Its totally normal and I really like that. Sometimes we do use the dryer like when it's raining, but if I wanted to really be hardcore I would just hang the clothes inside. I should do that...



3) I bought Birkenstocks.

I know. Hideous.

But they are sooooo comfortable. Germans wear house shoes indoors. Maybe its a soft slipper but its more likely a hard-soled shoe that is only worn inside. I've always thought Birkenstocks were so ugly, rivaled only by the Croc, which (cough) I own (cough) as well. (Except when we lived in Amsterdam that one summer all the trendy 20-somethings were wearing a certain style of Birkenstock. So there.) I need serious arch support so I figured I should try the official shoe of Germany and these babies provided. They're the first things I put on and the last things I take off and I can no longer walk anywhere in my house without them. And it never hurts when I stub my toe, which seems to happen a lot. Hippies, naturalists, the cool Dutch kids, and the Germans were right all along.



4) We don't refrigerate our eggs.

Just sitting there out in the open.

Ok, I admit I just recently started doing this because it felt weird to me and still does a little. But I buy them off the shelf at our little vegetable market so what difference does it make to refrigerate them if I go back and buy more of the same eggs two days later? They don't need to be refrigerated because they come straight from the chicken rather than being processed. In the US eggs must be chilled because they are shampooed, removing the natural protective coating that keeps bacteria out. No shampoo, no need to chill. I just rinse them off before we use them and we go through a lot so they don't sit there long even though the shelf life is many, many weeks.



5) German Dinner

I blogged about this here a few weeks ago. We don't have this every night but probably three or four nights a week. It's my fave.



All of that said, these things are definitely not unique to Germans or anything really extraordinary. They're just not the norm in America which is why they're unique to me. Eggs are not refrigerated in Korea or most countries for that matter. And most of the world doesn't use dryers. I like these ways and I hope to discover more to adopt. Among other things, one of the benefits of a multi-culturally influenced life is taking a little of this and a little of that from the rest of the world.

Cochem & Luxembourg

Living in the center of Europe means easy access to plenty of cool day-trip towns. One of these, recommended by Rick "MyCrush" Steves, is Cochem (pronounced COKE-em, with just a little bit of phlegm in the middle). Its about two hours from where we live, along the Mosel River. Its easy to be spontaneous when stuff is so close and doesn't require a lot of research. So off we went a few Sundays ago.

We found a place to park and when we walked into town there was a Blossom Fest going on so we sampled some goodies to tide us over before we looked for a real lunch place. Besides being a cute town, the big attraction is Cochem Castle.

Waiting for a piece of cake.

Lunch in the square.

Shepherding the lambs through town. 

On the way to Cochem Castle

Like most castles, it's at the top of a hill. Just before we got there we passed an elementary school and high school right in the shadow of the castle. I still find it so fascinating - these things that are just the norm for Europeans. Can you imagine listening to a history lecture and seeing a piece of history right out the window? And this isn't even that old for Europe.

Yeah, there's a 19th century castle behind the school. Whatevs.

Looking down from the castle to the Mosel River and its many vineyards. 

Inside the castle with (supposedly) actual armor from real knights. 

A little walk along the Mosel

Marc and I really want to see places on the weekends but its not like it was when we traveled in our solo days when we could just hop on a train. (Plus a lot of these places would take much longer to get to by train so it ends up being easier and faster to drive.) Now, a good portion of the day consists of car sickness, Are we there yet?, searching for a bathroom when there is none to be found, I can't walk!, searching for something that Jonah will eat, crying, someone needing a nap, more crying, Can we go to a playground?, and so on. We don't get to see much of what we'd like to see because all of this takes up so much time and we inevitably wonder why we thought this was a good idea. Why are we doing this to ourselves?! We could just stay home and not deal with all of this! But I guess its good that we try, even though the boys probably won't remember any of these places. Meh.

It was a (mostly) fun day in Cochem, but being a Sunday we had to hurry home to bed for school the next day, which didn't work out very well so it was a crying, overly-tired scramble to get everyone in bed. (Note to selves: Do day trips on Saturdays, not Sundays.)

At some point between Mondays and Saturdays, Marc and I develop a case of amnesia about the previous weekend. Then Saturday comes again and between sips of coffee one of us suggests another location.

How's about a spontaneous trip to Luxembourg?? 

SURE! Sounds like a great idea.

Load the boys!

Another fun two hour drive. I get to sit in back to distribute snacks and tell bored children to enjoy the scenery while Marc drives.

Luxembourg is one of those fake countries like Genovia or Lilliput, except its real. Are people actually from there? Yes. Do you kind of want to stick your tongue out at them? Yes.

Along the city wall.

I mean really.

Come on! 

People just LIVE here?! 

Me, taking the wind and the air and glory of it all. And the church bells were bonging. Sighhhh.

Everything was so shiny and pretty! I want to be like the Comte in Chocolat and fall asleep in the display case covered in cream after a frenzied binge. Instead, I just bought one of the small sampler boxes of macaroons.

Aaaaand we ended up at a playground. But a really cool pirate ship playground which happened to be right over our parking garage. Winning!

Merman off the port bow! 

I couldn't figure out the flavor was so I closed my eyes to heighten the senses. Rose.

Over and over and over and over...

These swings are so cool. It looks like they're going to hit each other but they don't!

Not sure how the hippo fits in with pirate ships.

Doren loves swings the best.

We were smart this time and did Luxembourg on a Saturday. Was there a lot of whining? Yes. Did we see very much? No. But we can say we've been there!