who's your Xbox?

This is Mario.

He is an apprentice and he is 18.

Everyday after work, he goes home, plays with his Xbox and tries to beat the computer.

Everyday at work, he is my Xbox. I try to beat him at whatever we are making or shaping.

Mario doesn't speak very much English but he understands enough gaming language to understand the analogy. Aahhhh, you are the Gamer and I am the Computer.

The computer always wins.

It is a very annoying but very addictive game.

technique counts for a lot.

Last week's.

Today's.

Proud.

The fact that my semmerls are getting better is old news.

The fact that I can make semmerls with the same technique as the bakers is new news. They won't let me do it my way anymore.  I now need to use my left fingers to flip the dough over and the base of my right hand to form the folds. It's not easy.

When the masterbaker does it, it is a fluid motion, moving a flat piece of dough across the bench, gently folding over the dough but pressing the seam down firmly. He moves so quickly there is a constant cloud of flour where his hands are. And his elbows are always comfortably apart from each other. It is a bit like taichi - only fast.

When I do it, my whole body and arms get ridiculously contorted. I'm like the person trying to use  chopsticks for the first time. Instead of moving just the hand and fingers, the entire body is summoned to create some kind of action as if it has some role to play in in lifting the morsel of food.

I'd give it another week for the rest of my body to realise the handling is all in the hands.

the common fish.

This is called the Maurerforelle or the Bricklayer's Fish - take a huge sausage, make a deep cut down the middle and stuff it with chopped up parsley and onion.

Very satisfying.

canoodling food.

Knodel is German for dumpling. You pronounce the 'k'.

They are not aphrodisiacs but they will most definitely make you feel nice, warm and gooey. Consider them Austrian comfort food.

Knodels are round, made out of old bread or flour, boiled in water, can be savory or sweet and have a variety of things in them.

These are savory semmerl knodels which Tanya made out of the ugly hand semmerls which I had to bring home.

Bread soaked in warm milk, onions, seasoning and spices.

Then boiled in water and eaten with a mushroom sauce.

And these are sweet marillenknodel (apricot dumplings) which Bernhard's mom made.

Place apricot in the center.
Dough made out of quark, semolina flour, butter, eggs and seasoning.

Wrap dough tightly around apricot otherwise it will fall apart in the water.

Ground almonds to be added to breadcrumbs.
Fry in pan with butter and coat the knodels with it.

Boil knodels in water until they float.

Straight out of the oven where they have been kept warm for us.

Split them open...

...drizzle with lots of homemade honey.

cracker time.

I wanted savory snacks but I didn't want processed rubbish.

The good thing about European bread is how much more salt and spices there are. They are so flavourful it seemed like a shame to only taste it in bread form.

So I took some leftover dough, let it proof some more, rolled it out really thin and baked it off in the oven.

I now have wholesome, naturally made beer snacks that are as good as the breads.

a white winter is a hard winter.

This is considered one of the better days - at least it's not raining.

The last leg of the journey - a 200m trudge.

We've heard overly dramatic and unreal hardship stories before - the ones that go : "I wake up at 4 in the morning, walk for miles in the snow, do a hard day's work, stopping only for water and a hot bread roll for lunch, walk back in the snow, only to do it all over again the next day."

Well, life is a bit like that now.

It has been snowing and blowing hard in Vienna. It isn't easy getting up  in the morning, even though I get up at 7 instead of 4. Changing into a cold set of clothes is difficult, putting on all the winter gear is dull and labourious. It's a good 40mins to get to the bakery, I finish at 5 in the evening, get home by 6.

To get to the bakery, I have to walk pass the famous St Stephen's Cathedral. It's an impressive building, both inside and out - people come to Vienna for this, they marvel at it for a long time and take lots of pictures. It is even prettier now with all the Christmas lights on and warrants even more attention.

The famous St Stephan's Cathedral which I pass by everyday. 
It's an impressive building and huge tourist attraction but not for me.

I should be so lucky - having to go pass it is so much better than having to go pass nondescript glass lined metropolis buildings. Still, the cathedral loses out to the bakery despite its architectural magnificence and heritage. The warmth and the work in the bakery are much bigger attractions.

I must be missing some gene to think this way and to want to keep doing this.

the hand knows what it is doing.

Making hand semmerls.

Rolls stacked for sale.

The past 2 days have been exceptionally good. My hand semmerl's are a lot better than the first ugly batch I made.

My hands are getting a better feel of the folds, I am chucking out fewer rolls and none of them are getting sent back into the bakery after baking.

I have been helping the bakery make money by the mere fact I'm helping them out for nothing. But now, I feel like I am making money rather than costing money.

everyday is salad day.

The nice thing about staying in a farm is the abundance of fresh fruits and vegetables even when summer is long over.  And they enjoy eating it too. A salad is never a special request, I never have to feel apologetic asking for it.

Here are just some of the pictures I remembered to take.

Tomatoes, homemade vinegar, salt, pepper, pumpkin seed oil and spring onions.

White sweet potato, celery root, lemon juice, cream, salt, pepper and hazelnut oil.

Topinambur (Jerusalem artichoke), carrot, celery root, creme fraiche, cream, salt, pepper, lemon juice, cress.

Boiled warm cabbage salad, speck rendered in oil, honey, homemade vinegar, salt, pepper.

it costs half a tree.

At the start of the picking.
We marked out the branches in the middle and said where we would stop.

It is officially winter. Any fruit seen left on trees is just going to go to waste. No one is going to bother picking them in the cold weather. Plus, it will snow any day now.

It is all good news for Bernhard who is looking to make more yummy goodies out of any fruit he can still lay his hands on. So when he spied with his eye a mispel tree still full of fruit, he asked if he could have some of them. The neighbour said yes and instead of a cash transaction, a barter was struck.

For half a tree of mispel, we gave them a 2kg loaf of the bread Mattias baked which would cost 12€. It was a good trade apparently, we got about 35-40kg of fruit from half the tree.

It didn't look like much but the baskets started to fill up quickly.

Half a tree means half a tree.
We picked everything up till where we said we would stop.

fruit leather.

When Bernhard mentioned fruit leather in a conversation, I thought something must be lost in the translation. So I asked him to repeat what he said and basically he makes his own fruit rollups, for those more familiar with supermarket terminology.

He makes these because, as he says, he grew up with them and it makes for a more energy sustaining snack when hiking through the mountains.

These, of course, will be too expensive to make with bought fruit. He makes them with the fruit grown on the farm or through some other bartered means. Here are some of the ones he made from last summer when fruit was available.

I tried them all and it is indeed fruit leather. Having worked on The Natural Confectionery Company, been to their factory in Melbourne and eaten jelly snakes fresh from the flour mould and still warm and stretchable as they rolled out from the machine, this is fruit jerky. The other difference is, the fruit leather taste of a lot more fruit than sugar, which I much prefer. Unlike processed sugar products, there isn't the annoying coating that gets left on teeth after eating.

At the time of writing, he is still at the farm, slowly processing 80kg worth of quince into another batch of chewy, yummy fruit leather.

Mispel.

Strawberry.

Cherry, Sloe and Elderberry.

oi, that's really good.

My two new favourite oils at the moment.

Now that I have tasted pumpkin seed oil from Styria, I can't get enough of it. It amazes me how extremely nutty it tastes and smells. It's so intense, you'd hardly expect for it to come out of something orange in colour or out of something seed-like. 

The colour is a deep green, known to stain hands and clothes. But for something that tastes so good and is so unknown, I'd proudly wear the stains.

The other is hazelnut oil. If you can, get your hands on pure versions of both to taste the real deal at least once. And then you'd be hooked forever. Trust me, salad dressings are never ever going to be the same.

I guess you can say the Austrians are a bit nutty about their oils and quietly enjoying their little secret whilst the rest of the world is still stuck on extra virgin olive oil. I've been trying oils from various brands for comparison and I have a couple of secrets myself as to where the best ones come from.

Seriously, go for an oil change and go nuts.

it's like home economics class.

The apprentice bakers at Gragger are very nice.

They make me a batch of dough everyday so I can practice making hand semmerls.

They said it will be perfect after I make 10,000 semmerls. It is not a joke. They spent 2 years of their apprenticeship making these. I have about 2 weeks or so.

They can't teach me anymore beyond the steps. My hands need to be able to judge the dough, where to place the folds, how much pressure to apply and how to handle it to give me what I want.

I take my ugly semmerls home everyday because it is too embarassing to leave them in the bakery or let anyone on the train see them.

knotty brioche.

These are the brioche I make at Gragger's.

Very pretty but I can't eat any.

Too many eggs.

hager momma / mega momma.

Counting out cash for the market.

Mattias picked me up after work and we went to visit Hager Momma at one of the markets.
On Fridays, she sets up shop in 2 markets all on her own.

She works at the bakery.

Wakes up at 2am or 5am, to deliver bread or run a bread stall on her own at one or two outdoor markets, depending on the day.

And rummages through the big farm house for warm clothes for me  to wear, feeds the central heating in the house with firewood, drives to the dairy farm to pick up milk for the house and then comes come to cook a wonderful lunch or dinner for us.

And tries to communicate with me in English.

Very thankful I am.

c is for christmas, c is for cookies.

The tops and bottoms of Ischler Kekse.

Stacks of them.

Johanna - Bernhard's sister making cookies.

"Gefuellter Lebkuchen" Austrian gingerbread (but it doesn't have any ginger in it).
Foreground : Normal ones with eggwash.
Background : Special ones without eggwash for me.

They are filled with homemade jam with a festive slosh of rum.

And then dipped in chocolate.

At first I wanted mine to be covered ENTIRELY in chocolate but
decided it was too indulgent. This is what I settled for.

Christmas cookies are everywhere. These were bought from the market
where Hager Momma was selling bread that day.

 

 

 

 

Good things coming to an end.