Greetings from London, where I’m congregating with family members visiting from all over the world and making the most of being treated to some of my favourite home-cooked food (perfectly roasted leg of lamb with perfectly roasted potatoes, check). I’m totally overexcited about Germany having beaten Argentina to win the World Cup last night but gutted not to have been there to feel the earth move beneath a nation of ecstatic football-supporting feet as Germany scored their winning goal. My husband’s morning-after report of the celebratory proceedings detailed beer-drinking and street-partying aplenty, and I’m sad to have missed out on such a momentous occasion.
The rhythm of my last few weeks has been largely dictated by football, and I’m sad that World Cup fever must now subside for another four years. My evenings were initially spent being tortured by the inadequacy of the England football team and continued, following England’s high speed elimination, celebrating the successes of the Germans. We took turns with friends and family hosting football-viewing parties, sustaining ourselves with mezzes of kofte and baba ghanoush and generous spreads of chicken wings, sweet potato wedges and turkey meatballs with roasted pepper dip.
The days have passed mostly in a haze of glorious summer sunshine, though I’ve dodged the occasional thunderstorm (and falling tree!) to walk through forests, orchards and vineyards, visit markets and countryside taverns and, one weekend, watch the band of some very old friends playing on the ZDF Fernsehgarten, a (seriously painful to watch yet totally cult) German television program broadcast live every Sunday from Mainz. I know this is far from food-related but if you like the sound of rather eccentric folk-y, jazzy-y, gypsy-y rock music then Gabby Young and Other Animals‘ Fernsehgarten performance is available to watch on YouTube.
So, the football season may be over but in Germany, thanks to all the plentiful sunshine and rain, summer fruit time is in full swing. The strawberries are now far and few between but the raspberries plump and sweet and the plums and apricots so excessively juicy I almost need a bath after eating them. My seasonal guide to what to eat this month will be up later this week but until then, here’s a selection of articles I’ve been bookmarking this past couple of weeks. Happy reading!
Food news and recipes from Germany…
★ 10 things I stopped asking myself at the German supermarket
★ The 5 Best Brewing Hotspots in Bavaria (for your craft beer discovery tour)
★ Kiel’s annual international food market
★ The best doner kebab in Berlin
…and further afield:
★ DIY: iron-on veggie cloth bags (very cute)
★ 10 refreshing recipes for perfect summer drinks
★ How to use the pits from fruits that have stones in (ingenious!)
★ A fab-sounding summer recipe: grilled BBQ beer chicken and apricot flatbreads
★ How to select, store and eat blueberries.
Have fun in London you lucky thing you… Sorry you didn’t get to watch the match here though, Bavaria has been incredibly sleepy today though – more so than usual! I wonder why! 😀
Thank you! By all accounts Wiesbaden has been just as quiet as with you. Can’t begin to imagine why! 😉
It’s amazing how the World Cup can sweep you into a football fever. I so sad it’s over, I’m considering taking up football myself. Though with a severed ligament, I’d better not 🙂
Have a wonderful time in London!
Thank you! It’s really hot here, which was a bit of a surprise. I’m really sad the World Cup’s over – I didn’t watch anywhere near as much of it as I usually would and it’s all gone for YEARS now 🙁 Ah well, soon back to the Bundesliga 😀
Yes the world cup win was great! I was in London as well and was gutted to miss the whole atmosphere in Germany. But having the opportunity to eating an English roast is (almost) worth missing all this 😉 x
Haha! I had roast lamb for dinner right before kick off: the best of both worlds. Almost 😉