Tiptoeing through the Baerlauch

I promise, I won't only write about food. It's just that the sunny weather this weekend and a strange cold that won't go away no matter how much I sleep, kept activity at least fairly limited and focused on soaking up (generating? i feel like a battery?) some vitamin D and relaxing.

So after the rather uninspiring squid on Saturday night, I turned to seasonal vegetables and herbs for Sunday. The Germans love their white asparagus, which I find pretty tasteless, mushy, and sorry, boring. But the green - those are another story completely. Toss them in olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper and throw them in the oven (or better - grill them! i just don't have a grill), for a few minutes until they lose their crunch and you have one amazing spring vegetable.

And it was obviously time to do something with baerlauch ("bear garlic") which grows wild and profusely in the English garden - just a couple hundred meters from our apartment. So after the gym and a shower, i grabbed a blanket and a book and my bike and rode over there to relax and people watch. Lots of students hanging out, and kids playing soccer (football...i know..football), and women working on achieving the perfect summer glow...but really a good mix of everyone, including horses - everywhere - leaving evidence of their comings and goings.


So I spent an hour lying around staring at the sky, and then went and collected some Baerlauch, which is actually not a good substitute for regular garlic. It's pungent in a different way, somehow a bit milder. You know when baerlauch is in season here because when you walk or ride your bike through the english garden, you can smell it even if you can't see it.

So there you go - a few photos of what it looks like...




And while I might make some bread with it later this week, baerlauch spaetzle (the ever-present german equivalent of pasta), hit our plates next to a piece of salmon and those asparagus.


Getting ready for work now...