Here is my attempt at the famous and famously complicated Hungarian Dobos Torte. I mostly followed along with this video from a Hungarian chef’s youtube channel. It’s in Hungarian and I, regrettably do not understand any Hungarian. Don’t blame me, I tried. But that’s another story. This recipe has been in my list of things to try for years. Literally, I have it saved from 2010. This and croquembouche. Some day I will make one of those… There are lots of interesting Hungarian cakes, but this one has stuck with me for 1 reason: it lacks fruit. I love fruit. And I love chocolate. But I never like fruit and…
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Learning Luxembourgish
Wait, what? Luxembourg is a small country nestled amidst the countries of Belgium, Germany, and France. There are about 600,000 people in Luxembourg, and they sometimes speak Luxembourgish. Yes, that’s really a language. It is most closely related to German and Dutch. At this point, because so few people speak this language, it is not really beneficial to use it in international business or other interactions. There are three main languages in Luxembourg: French, German, and Luxembourgish. My understanding is that Luxembourgish is spoken at home, elementary school is taught in French, and high school is taught in German. All government documents are in French, as we have had to…
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Luxembourg – April 2018
In April, we visited Luxembourg and fell. in. love. The city is absolutely beautiful and so picturesque up on the mountain. We loved the food and the people we met. We enjoyed venturing outside of Luxembourg city to Echternach, Joe’s familial home town. Food I loved the food of Luxembourg. It’s a peculiar mixture of German and French cuisines, and is quite unique. I love the heavy, saucy, creamy, old-world style foods, so I thoroughly enjoyed it. We visited a brewery and had bouneschlupp, a green bean and ham soup, followed by Kniddelen for me, which is a giant version of spaetzle, and Wainsaucisse for Joe. The kniddelen were superb,…
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My love for cooking
One of my favorite hobbies has always been cooking. As a small, nerdy child, I loved watching the cooking shows on the Discovery Channel (because the Food Network had not yet been born and not yet been killed by “personality” chefs, but that’s another topic). My favorite to watch was Graham Kerr on Discovery. My local public television channel had a cooking show from Louisiana, starring Justin Wilson. As a human who has never mastered sleeping, I would wake up at 6 a.m. on the weekends and watch Mr. Wizard and my cooking shows. Which, now that I think about it, are pretty much the same thing. Science and cooking.…
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The Black and White Dress…
Edwardian Ball When I first made this dress, I had no idea how much use I would get out of it. I’m not even sure what inspired me to make it. Actually…. I found this black and white striped satin and just fell in love with it. And I wanted to try making a big dress. This was my first foray into sewing a project this large and I had no idea what I was doing. It is made from a pattern for a French dress, and is intended to be worn with 18th century French panniers. These, I do not have, and have actually never worn with the dress.…
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FAQ – Winter in Russia
Was it worth it? Absolutely! It was certainly a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and I would definitely recommend it. I learned so much about the culture and norms in different places, which is a completely invaluable lesson in empathy and understanding. I saw places that weren’t just major cities, walked through the countryside, and I think that’s also a really important part of this trip. When traveling, it’s so easy to just go to the main cities and never explore an entire country. It’s so rare to get the chance to see this much of a single country. Why travel alone? It’s partially an exercise in exploring my personal endurance, and learning…
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Final Day in Russia
Checking out For my final day in Moscow, I have made a list of the things I still wanted to see and try to be a bit more organized. I could spend another whole day wandering Red Square because those guys are out there dancing again and really what more could you want? I had to pack everything up and check out of the hotel, so here I do the muscle work of putting as much as I can squish into the roller suitcase. It’s carry-on size, but I’ll be checking it. Then I put everything I’ll need on the plane: clothes to change into, electronics, batteries, etc, in my…
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New Years Day
ABBA Ok, so I totally forgot to tell this story last night. So there’s this song that plays on the radio everywhere. I’ve heard it a hundred times this trip, but never before. It’s clearly from the ~70’s, and my guess was Oliva Newton John. But it turns out it’s ABBA, a song called “Happy New Year”. It’s popular here because I guess there aren’t that many new year songs. It’s a weird song because the vocal harmonies overlap a lot, making the lyrics difficult to distinguish. But what I can hear is the chorus of “Happy New Year” over and over and a line that says “We might as…
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New Years Eve in Moscow
Venturing out into Red Square After sleeping until 2 in the afternoon, trying to fight off my cold, I woke up starving. Leftover breakfast pastries just aren’t going to do it, so I put on some clothes and go out in search of lunch. The map says there is a collection of fast food places across the street from my hotel, so I decide to head that way. It turns out that the security for NYE is already in full effect. They have barricaded off Red Square essentially in concentric circles and a series of one-way paths, each circle with another security checkpoint and bag check and metal detector. Outside…
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Moscow part deux
My last train ride Now it is the final leg of my trip. I am taking the train back to Moscow to celebrate New Years Eve before coming home. It has been an amazing adventure and while I’ve written as much as I could on the road, There’s obviously so much more. I have a 4 hour train ride now and I am just going to reflect a bit on all that I’ve seen. Siberia Traveling to Siberia was really the highlight of this trip. Honestly, before I left, I had given little thought to the ‘culture’ of Siberia. When I thought of traveling there, my imagination was of lakes…
