One time a year... Happy Easter!

One of the things I like most about Easter is the traditional Austrian Easter meal. It’s unique and I only get it this time a year, therefore it’s really special to me. Another reason why I am so attached to this custom is that it has stayed the same since I was a kid. For as long as I can remember I’ve joined my grandmother to the “Fleischweihe” (i.e. the blessing of traditional Easter food) in our local catholic church on Holy Saturday (the Saturday before Easter). Even though I’m protestant, this is the one time a year I attend a catholic service.
Back to the food: This year the pastor told us how the food we eat at Easter is actually connected to the spiritual reason behind Easter. Our traditional Easter meal consists of:

- Easter bread (which is sweet and has sugar on it but somehow still tastes like bread and can be combined with meat as well as with sweet stuff like jam). The pastor pointed out that it should remind us of Jesus as “Bread of Life”.

- Easter ham
Interestingly enough I learned that in the past lamb was eaten instead of pork. That is why it also served as a symbol for Jesus, the “Lamb of God”.

- Easter eggs
Probably the most famous food product eaten at Easter. Customarily, the eggs are colored. They stand for the resurrection, because like the chick leaves the darkness of the egg by pecking its way through the shell, Jesus left his tomb.

Apart from these three essential products, there can be added a lot more to make a perfect Easter meal. Some suggestions would be: vegetables like tomatoes, radish or carrots and something spicy like salt, pepper or horseradish. The Easter bread also tastes delicious combined with nothing but plain butter. I think there is a wide range of options for each kind of taste.
Finally, I’d like to show you a picture of my Easter meal 2013:

What the fudge?!

When I went to Michigan to visit some acquaintances last summer, they took me to a place called Mackinac Island. It is located in the northwestern part of lake Huron, almost on the edge to lake Michigan.

What really impressed me about this place were its peculiarities, starting with the pronunciation of “Mackinac”.  Most people are tempted to pronounce it with a hard “k” at the end making it sound like this: Mack-i-knack. However, I learned that the correct way to pronounce it is “Mackinaw“. All this confusion was caused by the French conquerors, who tried to pick up on words spoken by the local people and write them down in their own language.

Another remarkable fact about this island is that there are no motorized vehicles allowed on it. Therefore, all the traffic consists of bikes and horses. When a tree is cut, for example, the remains will be carried away by horse-drawn vehicles.

You can also take a tour around the Island on horse-drawn caravans. They will take you to magic places like Arch Rock where I took this wonderful picture.

Apart from all those experiences, my absolute favorite place on the island was (as I like to call it) “chocolate paradise”. It was actually a fudge store called “Murdick’s” on the main street of Mackinac Island. Up to that point I haven’t known fudge and therefore was barely impressed when I was told that Mackinac Island is famous for it. My opinion changed, when I entered Murdick’s. Oh, and by the way I'm not trying to promote Murdick's, there are many fudge stores lined up on the main street, but this was the one I happened to enter.

The air was filled with the sweet, mouth-watering smell of chocolate and on my left at the counter several different types of delicious, chocolaty fudge bars were displayed. On the right, even more impressive, the chocolatiers were working on their new creations and all the customers in the shop could watch them. I haven’t seen anything similar before. They poured the batter on a table and started to… well I can’t really explain this so I’d like to show you a video to get a better imagination of the process:

After working on the chocolate mixture for some minutes, creamy fudge bars slowly started to form. They were sliced into hand-sized pieces. Finally, all the spectators were given small squares of fudge to try. It was simply delicate. For me, being a chocolate addict, it was one of the best experiences ever.

I wish you sweet Easter holidays !!

a student's life

How often do you think about food?

To be honest, lately I’ve been thinking about food a lot. Not so much because I’m always hungry (although I could eat most of the time), but because I am forced to organize my daily meals on my own since I’ve moved to Graz. When I still lived at home I had a very easy life where cooking was concerned. I came home from school and went straight to my grandmother where a deliciously smelling, steaming dish was waiting for me on the kitchen table. In short, I was pretty spoiled when it comes to cooking. Also, I never had to think about which dish I would eat the next day, let alone plan the shopping.

Well, obviously my life has changed now. I’m living in a dorm in Graz and I try to plan my meals a day ahead, since my brain is not of much use once I’m hungry. I guess I have coped with the situation quite well so far, but I have to admit that I cheated. I spend the last few weekends at home and managed to persuade my grandmother to provide me with some extra food that I could take with me to Graz. The other days I lived on junk food or frozen food. The microwave turned out to be my best friend.

However, last week my guilty conscience caught up with me. So I adopted the resolution to start cooking (and I mean actual, preferably healthy meals). The first problem I encountered was the shopping. Did you ever notice that it is an almost impossible task to buy food in reasonable amounts for just one person? A lot of things are only offered in big packages and therefore the food is in danger of going bad at home. I mean seriously, what am I supposed to do with three onions, if I only use half an onion? Why do I have to buy a liter of vinegar? Or what do I need 6 eggs for?

I know, I could cook the same dish for a couple of days, but it’s just more fun to eat something different everyday, I can’t help it. Maybe another solution would be to be more creative and find various dishes that consist of similar ingredients. Unfortunately, I lack experience in this respect. However, I’ve just bought a cookbook and I decided to start experimenting with the ingredients I have bought so far. And by the way, if anybody has some good advice or knows recipes for easy dishes, he or she is very welcome to share them with me. I would be really thankful. :)

Let's start blogging! :)

Hy there, I’m Lisa and I’m 19 years old. I guess that’s how most introductions start and of course I could continue to tell you about how I was raised in a small Styrian town, that I grew up as an only child but next to my cousin who is like a sister to me, that I’ve just started studying TKK (English and Russian) in Graz or that I love to travel.
However, you’d probably rather hear something more „interesting“ about me – and that’s what I’m thinking about since I’ve got to know that we are supposed to set up a blog for our English class.

I’ve never been a big storyteller or extremely talkative, usually I’m rather the attentive type of person, who listens to her friends and tries to give them advice and help them solve their problems.
That’s why I was a little worried about setting up a blog and just randomly telling the world about my thoughts. I also wondered if I would find enough topics to write on. And don’t get me wrong -  as this is only my first post I’m still a little concerned about those things – but the reason why I’m using the past tense in the sentences above is that I came to the conclusion that I should give it a try. In the last few days actually a lot of topics flashed through my mind (issues I am interested in, unfinished thoughts or memorable stories I have heard of and I would like to put into words...).

I’m not sure if it’s gonna work out the way I plan it to, but I’m going to give my best. Actually, I’ve already warmed to the idea of blogging. So, I hope it’s gonna be as much fun as I expect it to :)
Enjoy! :)