Month: March 2012
Easter egg market on the top of the Sacred mountain
Abbey Andechs and the “Heiliger Berg” (Sacred Mountain) in Bayern/Germany is a favourite day-trip destination for many München inhabitants. Upon it sits the abbey of Andechs a millennium-old Benedictine monastery and church. The place of pilgrimage rises above the lovely Ammer see (Lake Ammer) about 40 kilometres south-west of central Munich. But the main reason for going there is the 3,500-seat beer garden and restaurant which surround the church. The monk-brewed libration is considered one of Germany’s finest. To top it off, there are great views of the lake and surrounds from the top of the hill. All in all it’s an excellent spot to while away an afternoon.
But approaching Easter, the highlight is not only visiting of the “Bräustüberl” famous brewery restaurant and listening one of Karl Orff’s organ concert in the Church but the main attraction is the Easter egg market (Ostereier markt ) where each year genuine eggs are exhibited that have been blown clean and decorated exquisitely in a variety of ways. On first of April egg artisans will fill the Andechs hall with their booths, each displaying eggs of a distinct style. Their hand work is always incredible.
see my slide!
Choco shock in Belgium or chocolate is better than sex?
Belgian chocolate has been a lure for lovers, the indulgence of kings and today, everyone’s favorite sweet. When it comes to chocolates, we have to know that the Belgian pralines are not the same as the sugary treats offered in American candy shops. Belgian pralines could be filled with a variety of flavored nougats or creams, such as coffee, hazelnut, fruit or more chocolate. Belgian chocolate is considered to be the gourmet standard by which all other chocolate confections are measured. Even the Swiss, known for their own high quality chocolate, imported the basic recipe from French and Belgian chocolatiers.
Last week I visited my relatives in Belgium and of course I’d made a merry chocolate round about. First we went to Leuven (Flanders) for having a chocolate drink (for the Belgians eating or drinking hot chocolate is much as part of life as drinking beer). We entered into a quite new chocolate bar called Quetzal. Looking around, the interieur wasn’t striking or seductive at all just nice and comfy. The walls were painted in terracotta color, the modern furniture was shiny, deep bordeaux. There were no statues, no knick-knacks displayed or any hints to the Aztecs or the origin of the chocolate but despite of the modest decoration the bar was totally full. So it meant something! When we settled down I checked the menu. On the front page it was written: Some say it chocolate is better than sex….Okay ….and on the other side you could read: our chocos are excellent, heavenly and cause addiction…Let’s taste!-I exclaimed and I was ready for order something from the menu palette! From the wide choices I asked a Baileys choc-shock with milk chocolate with a kick of Baileys and cream on top (you had to choose from what kind of chocolate do you want to have it done from black-bitter to milk or white), one of my friend chose the Amaretto flavoured drink made with black chocolate and cream, and my daughters wanted to have the Marshmallow’s versions. When we were served alongside our chocos we also got a small nip of brownie. (Even regular coffee or hot chocolate is accompanied by a square of chocolate in most cafés in Belgium). All hot choco drinks were made with “tempered” chocolates so you could immediately feel-taste the difference between the German kind of hot choco drinks which are made with cacao and milk powder and the Quetzal’s chocolate bar’s version. They were Heaven on Earth! Erotic, titillating!
When we were about leaving I stepped to the owner and congratulated her on the great business, she told me with a big smile that because of the meteoric success they have already opened two more chocolate bars one in Gent and one in Antwerp. (www.chocoladebar.be-www.quetzal.be)
Next day we met in Brussels with relatives and friends. We started our little outing at Grand Place and then went along to the Mannequin Pis (to the famous peeing boy’s statue). In downtown of Brussels it seemed as if only chocolate shops had been existed! Cornet, Godiva, Neuhaus, Leonidas shop windows were sparkling thus almost all Belgian chocolate trade marks were present in such a small area. Then we left for square Sablon where the first chocolate shop had been established. At the corner there was the Lady Godiva shop. The decoration was sophisticated and funny, Godiva was riding on her horse surrounded by thousand Easter bunnies. In front of the Godiva was the relatively new Marcolini’s chocolate shop. Well new because Pièrre Marcolini entered into the chocolate business in 1990. Today in the Marcolini’s outlets (in Brussels, Paris and in Tokyo) everyone can find not only limited solely to chocolates but the delights of biscuits, ganache, icecreams, cakes made of cocoa beans from Mexico and flavoured with fresh vanilla from Tahiti. Pierre Marcolini´s name has become a trade name of Belgium because of its unique taste. His success resides in how long the cocoa beans are cooked.
Further list of the best home made praline shops: Leonidas (the brand was named after a Greek confectioner, Leonidas who started his chocolate business in 1910, today Leonidas has 1700 outlets across five continents in 40 different countries), Godiva, Cote d’Or, Galler, Guylian (was established in 1960, with its unique, seashell form chocolates, with distinctive hazelnut cream filling. The inventor was Guy Foubert, the son of a baker, who had begun making truffles in Antwerp. There, he married a girl called Lilian and they continued to run the chocolate business together, creating the seashell chocolate series called Guy+Lian=Guylian) Corné-Port Royal (my favorite) and Nirvana.
The secret
What makes Belgian chocolate so unique? It is the quality of ingredients and an almost fanatical adherence to Old World manufacture’s technology. Even in today’s world of automation and mass production, most Belgian chocolate is still made by hand in small shops using original equipment. In fact, these small chocolate outlets are a popular draw for tourists visiting Belgium today. Much like wineries, tours of Belgian chocolate shops include tastings and exclusive souvenirs. They are available for the public in countless forms and varieties. However industrialization has reduced prices but regardless of this they still retain an air of luxury and decadence which only adds to our appreciation. The hand-made pralines are sold loose, in bags or in boxed selections but in spite of this fact the Belgians prefer to point to the ones they fancy tasting or ask the shop attendant to create a mixture, rather than buy a pre-prepared box.
There is one more technical advantage of the Belgian chocolate over other confectioners: the storage of couverteur before use. In the chocolate making process, the cocoa beans are ground and mixed with sugar and cocoa butter and then smoothed out through tempering (careful addition of heat). Most chocolate companies receive their chocolate in solid form, which means it must be reheated in order to be usable. Belgian chocolate companies often receive their couverteur in heated tanker trucks soon after the tempering process. Because the chocolate has not cooled, it retains much more of the aroma than the cooled varieties. Commercial chocolate makers rush the cooling process, making up for it by adding sugar whilst fine chocolatiers take time to allow the bean to release its full flavour.
That means that Belgian chocolate may be expensive, but those who have sampled it say that there is no comparison between a standard chocolate bar and a Belgian praline. As a gift or special indulgence, Belgian chocolate is one product which lives up to its reputation for quality. In my opinion Godiva, Neuhaus are famous and expensive but if you want the best, go to the small brands. For standard bars and for melting chocolate (ice cream topping), you should look for respectively ‘Côte d’Or’ (which means ‘gold coast) and for ‘Callebaut‘.
PS: Nowadays Godiva and Neuhaus companies reported to have almost 2,000 sales outlets in over 50 countries. The most popular store is located on the Galeries St.-Hubert, in downtown Brussels, a location where Neuhaus has been selling their chocolate creations for more than 130 years.
The day of little princesses or our Hina-matsuri feast in Japan
The Japanese Doll Festival (Hina-matsuri) is held on 3d of March every year. Since I have two daughters it drew my attention when we lived in Japan, in 2006 for a longer period.
It was only February when I perceived that families had started to display doll shrines and after only one day of celebration they took them down immediately because superstition says that leaving the dolls past March 4 will result in a late marriage for their daughters. It was such a pity not to let the shrines marvel except that one doll shrines cost a fortune (check the prices on my pics).
The history of Hina Matsuri
The custom of displaying dolls began during the Heian period. In that time people believed that the dolls possessed the power to contain bad spirits. However the ancient Japanese custom was called hina-nagashi (“doll floating”), in which straw hina dolls were set afloat on a boat and sent down a river to the sea, supposedly taking troubles or bad spirits with them. For today people have already stopped doing this because of fishermen catching the dolls in their nets then they send them out to sea, and when the spectators are gone they take the boats out of the water and bring them back to the temple and burn them.
Food and drink
The customary drink for the festival was called shirozake, a sake made from fermented rice alongside with a colorful hina-arare, bite-sized crackers flavored with sugar or soy sauce, depending on the region. They were all colored red (or pink), white, and green. Each color had some symbolical meaning such as the red was for chasing evil spirits away, the white was for purity, and the green was for health. We were also offered some salty soup called ushiojiru contained clams, still in the shell because clam shells in food are deemed the symbol of a united and peaceful couple. It’s very logical while pair of clam shells fits perfectly, and no pair but the original pair can do so. There were some more special dishes yet such as Hishimochi diamond-shaped rice cakes. In Sapporo where we lived Shirashi-zushi,” (sushi rice flavored with sugar, vinegar, topped with raw fish and a variety of ingredients) Sakura-mochi (bean paste-filled rice cakes with cherry leaves were also served.
Of course there was a song sung in the festival. Its lyrics are as follows:
Akari wo tsukemasho bonbori ni
Ohana wo agemasho momo no hana
Gonin-bayashi no fue taiko
Kyō wa tanoshii hinamatsuri
Let’s light the lanterns
Let’s put peach flowers
Five court musicians are playing flutes and drums
Today is a joyful Doll’s Festival
The doll shrine
On the pictures you can see that the doll shrine or house contains six or seven platforms and they are covered with a red carpet, display a set of ornamental dolls the hina-ningyō, representing the Emperor, Empress, their servants attendants, and musicians in the traditional court dress of the Heian period.
The top tier holds only two dolls, known as imperial dolls and are usually put in front of a gold folding screen and placed beside green Japanese garden trees. Optional are the two lamp stands, called bonbori and the paper or silk lanterns that are known as hibukuro, which are usually decorated with cherry or plum-peach blossom patterns. The traditional arrangement had the male on the right, while modern arrangements had him on the left (from the viewer’s perspective) The Emperor holding a ritual baton shaku however the Empress holding a fan. (The words dairi means “imperial palace”, and hime means “girl” or “princess”).
The second tier holds three court ladies. Each holds sake equipment. From the viewer’s perspective, the standing lady on the right is the long-handled sake-bearer, the standing lady on the left is the backup sake-bearer, and the only lady in the middle is the seated sake bearer. Accessories placed between the ladies are takatsuki, stands with round table-tops for seasonal sweets, excluding hishimochi
The third tier holds five male musicians (gonin bayashi). Each holds a musical instrument except the singer, who holds a fan.
Two ministers may be displayed on the fourth tier: the Minister of the Right and the Minister of the Left. The Minister of the Right is depicted as a young person, while the Minister of the Left is much older. Also, because the dolls are placed in positions relative to each other, the Minister of the Right will be on the viewer’s left and the Minister of the Left will be on the viewer’s right. Both are sometimes equipped with bows and arrows.
Between the two figures are covered bowl tables kakebanzen, also referred to as o-zen, as well as diamond-shaped stands hishidai bearing diamond-shaped rice cakes. Hishidai with feline-shaped legs are known as nekoashigata hishidai, a mandarin orange tree and on the leftmost, a cherry blossom tree.
The fifth tier, between the plants, holds three helpers or samurai as the protectors of the Emperor and Empress (maudlin drinker, cantankerous drinker, merry drinker)
On the sixth and seventh tiers, a variety of miniature furniture, tools, carriages, etc. are displayed items used within the palatial residence. Chest of drawers, sometimes with swinging outer covering doors. Long chest for kimono storage, smaller clothing storage box, placed on top of nagamochi. Literally mirror stand, a smaller chest of drawer with a mirror on top, sewing kit box, braziers, utensils for the tea ceremony.
In Tokyo Hina matsuri is also called Momo no sekku (Peach Festival because according to the old lunar calendar the peach blossom season begins at the same time when the cherry blossoming.
spajzgirl 