By: Amira K.
Photography, Travel, , , , ,

This Is Just About Food

Hi guys. It’s time for another blog entry. But today, I walked over 20 miles, hiking through the forests of the Vosges mountains, and I’m really, really tired. So this one’s going to be simple: just a bunch of photos about food. Food that we eat; food that we make. Alsatian food, German food, French food, supermarket food, delicious food. I’m not going to pretend that I’m not bragging, just a little bit. So, here goes.

The second day that I was in Alsace, at the Natural Wine Salon, I happened upon this. A large, dead, roasting pig. That we proceeded to eat.
This is what our cheese tray looked like, one day. We have a large variation of cheeses that we rotate in and out of the cheese tray. They are always delicious.
Breakfast. Always simple. Sometimes it’s yogurt with honey, and some tea (as shown). Sometimes it’s raisin bread with butter. Sometimes it’s an orange.
About a week after I got there, my hosts made “boudin” which is basically sausage made from pig blood. This is how they make it – by stuffing the blood into the sausage casing (which I believe is the same thing as pig intestinal lining, or something). Apparently it’s an Alsatian tradition and a “delicacy” – though in my opinion there’s nothing delicate about it. 
In which they made me try the boudins, and I demanded photographic proof that I had tried them. I can’t say I wouldn’t eat them again. But I can’t say that I would, either.
Shortly after making this strawberry-rhubarb tart (with creme patisserie as the filling), I was declared the official house dessert maker and have since been reprimanded at every meal for which there was no dessert.
One day, I made cookie bars. They were superb.

I’ve made a number of other desserts (including apple crumble, gooey butter cake, and cherry cupcakes) and have consistently forgotten to take pictures. It’s interesting, baking American desserts in France, because they always seem to lack (completely, as in, I cannot find it at the grocery stores) at least one major ingredient. With the gooey butter cake, it was cream cheese. (They thought that fromage blanc might suffice as a stand-in. I disagreed.) With the apple crumble, it was oatmeal. The cherry cupcakes were the only thing that went off without a hitch. Alas, no photos.

At a wine bar in Colmar, we ordered a “plat de viande”. It looked like this. Every single thing (but most notably the bacon and the salmon rillette) was amazing.
The tapenades. Artichoke, red pepper, olive, and several others with which I was not familiar.
Oh, and then there was the mozzarella cheese. Freshly made, topped with sea salt and olive oil. I cannot overstate how good this mozz was.

I’d say that’s a pretty good sampling of some of the more extraordinary things I’ve eaten since I got here. Except the cheese. We eat amazing cheese every day. Everything else, though, was pretty one-of-a-kind. Mmm-mm. Bon appetit!