Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Ocktoberfest In April?

First off, I think most of you must think that with the amount of commentaries on food (and status updates on Facebook) that I must be obsessed with food. To answer that....YES, I am. I truly am a "foodie"! I previously blogged about my obsession (click here to read that post) with all things culinary and I attribute that to family lines. Yep, the whole lot of us are food junkies! Granted, I could use to lose 20 pounds but I am sure lucky that with my obsession (and the fact that I enjoy cooking) I am not 500 pounds!

Secondly, as most of my followers know, David does a lot of traveling. In fact we, as a family, have done our fair share of traveling the world. Along with that comes an exploration of different cuisines. Since I enjoy tinkering in the kitchen, I try to replicate some of the delicacies that David has experienced. And thus, tonight's Oktoberfest.

David and I have been to Germany and David has also traveled there on his own a few times for work. For the "meat & potatoes men", Germany is the place to be......meat, meat, more meat with a side of meat! They love their sausage there too and it appears that each region has there own specialty as far as sausage goes and how they serve it. For example, Berlin's "must have" is Currywurst and Nuremberg has their own little way of serving mini sausage with gobs o' mustard on the side. We found out that there is a little German shop in Buffalo and this weekend we headed over there to scope it out. I must say, as soon as I opened the door, the first thing I said is, "Wow! It smells like Germany!". The deli, Spars European Sausage Shop, has a huge selection of meats along with a small German grocery section. That particular day, we left the store with some German sausage but also grabbed some German salami for a picnic lunch after we left the store. The bread we bought there was so dense and very, very much like the bread we had while in Russia. But also, we noted that the deli carried Currywurst sauce. Although David brought some home from his last trip to Berlin, it is good to know where to find it when our supply runs low.

So, today's Oktoberfest was inspired merely by a trip to the German deli. I decided to make homemade German potato salad (I was floored at how much of the bacon fat you actually use in the recipe!) and sweet/sour red cabbage. I bought some German beer for the occasion and pulled out that currywurst for atop our sausages (sauce wasn't added yet in this picture). OMG!!! Soooooo good! And, yes, it tasted JUST LIKE GERMANY!! I also made mini German Chocolate brownies for dessert although we didn't even touch them because we were so full! I will admit, however, that next time I make this meal, I would prefer to boil the sausages (as one might kielbasa) instead of grilling. But despite that, it was perfection....so much so that I may be inspired to have a true Oktoberfest party this Fall. Time to shop for Lederhosen!

3 comments:

Marysia said...

Ocktoberfest this fall??? I thought you were done with event planning!

Amy said...

Think of me as the Brett Farve of event planning.

Patti said...

Yummy stuff! So, since you are a foodie, I'm just wondering if you have cooked much Russian cuisine? I attempted some meat pies (cabbage and ground beef in pastry) and it wasn't a huge hit.