The News in Food Archive has moved to:
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January 17, 2008
New Year, New Blog!
Welcome to the newest incarnation of Beyond Burgers and Bratwurst. I’m glad you made it over. Please don’t forget to update your links and bookmarks to:
http://burgersandbratwurst.wordpress.com
Check out my latest post on Graham Crackers below, and stay tuned for my new weekly series (details to come!).
November 17, 2006
New Haircut!
I realize it has been a long time since my last post, and I have to slightly disappoint even further because I’m not posting a recipe. However, exciting things have happened in Radeberg that will, in the long run, benefit the blog greatly: earlier this week I received two packages in the mail. Inside these wonderful boxes were (drum roll please) my DSL modem and wall plug-in. I finally have high-speed internet access in my apartment! The company is called “Alice,” and they have been very helpful and kind. The Deutsche Telekom (German national phone company, the “mother” company of T-Mobile) can definitely learn from Alice’s customer service. But that is another story, and I should just say it is much more complicated than my earlier postings on bureaucracy and still doesn’t have an end.
In all, I am only slightly disappointed that I have had to “give in” to the internet revolution. I had almost hoped I could survive without easy access to high-speed internet. However, it has become such a useful reference and communication tool for me: I can now use Skype to call my family and friends, I use the OED and Encyclopedia Britannica online, and I have been downloading podcasts and newspapers all week long. I finally feel connected with the world around me.
To celebrate my internet access I have updated the look of my blog. I hope the more neutral background will help accent my photography and be less distracting when reading the posts. I hope you enjoy the new haircut and please come back to read another food update later this weekend.
June 18, 2006
The Revival
And so the blog slowly chugs back to life! The engine sputters and sputs and the mechanic wonders if diesel was really the right thing to feed it. But, it slowly pulls through and after a while begins to run a little more smoothly.
I am off to Saxony (Sachsen, Germany) in August on a Fulbright Teaching Assistantship. I have no idea quite what to expect, but I’m sure to find out when I get there. My plan while there: teach English and work on a cookbook. My ideas have changed around a bit over the last year. Aka, the plan for the book:
I hope to collect recipes from the Pacific Northwest, and general American favorites. I will then take them to Germany and find a way to produce them there and write up the recipes. Simultaneously, I hope to find out more about cuisine in Sachsen and general German favorites and then will try to put together a bilingual cookbook: each recipe in German and English, with illustrative pictures to go with it. I aim for the recipes to be as simple and accessible as possible, and know that of course I cannot cover all of these topics completely, and they will simply be representations of what one could eat in these countries. This blog will serve to document my adventures in cooking, as well as teaching, over the summer and through next year.
This summer’s teaching experience will be five weeks of a German language camp at the International Language Camp in conjunction with the German American School of Portland. . It’s my second year there, and as teacher/intern I am in charge of a class of my own this first week (starting tomorrow!). This means lesson planning (yikes!) and basic sink-or-swim mentality. But, the kids are usually forgiving, and I hope to just take in and learn as much as I can.
On that note, it’s off to figure out what to cook for a Parent’s Day dinner (I missed Mother’s Day, so Father’s Day will be for both this year). My thoughts are tending to include wilted spinach with onions and garlic, something I helped my friends cook at the Kosher Kitchen at Smith last year.
November 13, 2005
The Idea Behind the Blog
Welcome to Beyond Burgers and Bratwurst! This is an idea that has been mulling around in my head for a while. During my year abroad in Hamburg I lived in a student dorm where cooking meals for myself was a necessity to keep myself nourished. Most college students cringe at the thought, but I’ve always loved cooking and spend most days during my vacations trying out new recipes from various different cookbooks. Having grown up in a bilingual/bicultural family in Oregon, I ate a lot of German food at home. I always assumed I wasn’t in a “normal” American family because, among other things, we ate different food. But then again, what’s “normal”?
During my year abroad however, I was often asked “What do you eat in America beyond hamburgers and fries?” and all I could come up with were things like peanut butter, candy corn, marshmallow fluff, and pecan pie. Now, I don’t want to judge, however I know for a fact that despite America’s obesity epidemic, we do prepare meals with vegetables and variety. But my question is: what dishes are these? And how do the dishes vary from region to region? Everyone automatically speaks of the south’s “homecooking” but what really is this? And do other areas of the country have specialty foods as well?
I have my own hypothesis, but it’d be boring just to ponder this on my own. I’d like to know from you, the readers of this blog: are there any specific recipes you grew up eating that you’d like to share? I’m looking for family recipes, recipes you’ve come across or developed personally over the years, or even just a dish you ate once at X restaurant that jumped out at you as an American dish. Of course, the question is: what is American food? This is up to discussion as well. My own undeveloped theory? It’s any food that Americans eat. Whoever Americans may be…
I will try out the recipes you post, and hope to ultimately publish them as one half of a compilation bilingual cookbook. The other half of this project I will hopefully be able to execute next year in Germany where I will travel through Germany and speak with Germans, local restaurant chefs, and anyone who will talk with me about what their regional foods and recipes are. The cookbook will then be geared towards Americans living in Germany and will help explain how to cook American food in Germany as well as discover the diverse German cuisine. For those people with German recipes, I will develop that part of the blog at a later date. Please hold on to your recipes until then!
When posting, please post the state the recipe comes from and whether or not I may use the recipe for the cookbook. Thank you for all of your help and have fun! And please, the only way this project will work is if you share your recipes, and share this blog with your friends and family. The more recipes, feedback, and ideas, the better!