Wien Essen

When one's Heart returns from a hard day's toil saving the world, it behooves a gute Hausemann to whip up some satisfying vittles.  Besides writing novels and crashing my mountain bike, vittle procurement is one of my main justifications for sucking air.

So, casting aside all namby-pamby notions of bean sprouts floating on a gentle sea of chilled soy beans, I go to the Turk Market and get myself a big bag of vege and a packet of stew meat.  At the Turk Market, one has to talk to a real live butcher, make a request, and wait for the fleisch to be wrapped in paper.  Ain't no cellophane wrapped pre-cut here.

In my big stained cast iron skillet, I brown the meat fast, throwing in fistfuls of secret spices while chanting ancient incantations.  Okay, mostly I'm singing Tom Waits songs, but it has about the same effect.

Setting aside the meaty bits, I scald up a huge mess of onion, garlic, peppers and tomatoes.  I add a few more fistfuls of powdery stuff, three head nods and a back spin and it's about right.

In goes the meat, down goes the heat, and the whole mess simmers for an hour.  After that, it gets popped into the pressure cooker for thirty more minutes, which, through the amazing laws of thermodynamics, tenderizes the meat to a succulent state of yumminess.

My Baby doesn't cotton much to carrots, so I add some taters to the stew, then serve the hearty blend up with a big dollop of smashed taters.  Yeah, you got it, double taters!!  I am sure I hardly need add that the smashed taters are loaded with extra goodness in the form of butter, a bit of creme fresche, and some herb-y treasures.

You want comfort food?  I can supply it.  A bowl of this will make you feel as if you can spear a dragon better than Saint George, or save the world, or both.

On alternate days, I snug my Old Hippie hat down tightly over my unsightly ears and commence to doing the tofu dance.  I brown up some tofu, never forgetting the turmeric or the cumin.  I add heaps of vege, not skimping on the garlic, and let the whole pan transform itself while messing with some pan-roasted taters in another skillet.  You want to get your organic-hippie-heading-to-Burning-Man Thang on?  I got that too.   Not only will a plate of this give you the strength to save the world, you'll feel like you're saving the world just by chowing down.

"But Rev Squeaky-Eye, what about those long mornings when you are alone with your maniacal thoughts?"   I hear you Friends, I do.  When it comes down to the nitty-gritty of setting words to electronic paper, nothing sets a Brother up for writing like a big plate of left-over hash, eggs and buttery toast.  And here in the land of "We Worship Gluten," the toast is good.  Damn good.  If you add a big french press of coffee to this whole thing, the words just about plumb jump out of the air.

 When I'm out running errands in the Alt Stadt, nothing works like a slab of Leberkase from Pepi's.

Now when it comes time to kill off a character, it's better to go for the hot and spicy to start with.  If you bury your eggs in a steaming arrabiata sauce hot enough to melt the wings off angels, it will help you get into the mood off snipping the mortal coil of one of your characters.  Or so I have found. 

When the soon-to-be Father-in-Law gets his cooking thing on, you can rest assured that the main feature is going to be meat.  And more meat.  Done rotisserie style on his crazy home-made gas contraption, this is the result.  I swear, if Wile E. Coyote built a rotisserie machine, it couldn't be any crazier looking than the one that rotated this fine schwein and chicken.  Oh  Lordy, where's me
hammock? 

Last, but damn sure not least, when you go out for a traditional Father's Day lunch at an Austrian guesthouse, this is about what you can count on.  Schwein on a skewer with rice and vege.  Oh My.  Because, as Vincent says....  (it's a Pulp Fiction reference.  Watch the movie if you don't know the line)


Well, there you have it Friends and Neighbors, a brief overview of chow in Wien.  Life is too short and too tenuous to skimp on the grub.  From the kitchens of Wien, it's "Ciao for Now!"