After a beautiful weekend in the village of Stockerau, I am finally rested and ready for another week!
This is the first rosehip (hope this is the right word for this kind!) in this year and I am looking foward for all the other amazing things that are on the way as well! :)

I have finally entered the Cocolate room and participated in making 600 milk chocolate hazelnut bars + filling up chocolate shells with nut marzipan filling.
This here is ''Katzenzunge'' which is an authentic Austrian chocolate shape chocolate and it means cat's tongue :))

Yep, I did it! I do this actually every morning. Some 6 and some 5 braided :)
The stripes were giving me a hard time at first; they have to be thicker in the middle a thin on the ends, otherwise it doesn't look nice, but practice makes perfection! ;)

6:40 AM and I'm leaving the house, making sure I have everything with me, with an anticipation what this day would be like. There is almost no one on the street, but as I'm approaching Demel, I see through the back door people wandering around already covered with sweetness and all that good stuff :)) The atmosphere you get in Demel while it's still not open to public is stunning. While I'm taking out still warm pastries, I feel like I am stuck in the 19 century.
It was one of those good days today. I made quite a bit I have to say. From brioche dough, lots of apple strudels, packed lots of cakes and pastries, brushed with chocolate some fruit tart shells, finished off the jelly candies with Wolfgang (the cool guy I work with!) and met 1 Croatian and 1 Serbian lady who work there and are suuuper nice.
By the way, I finally have my locker now and I don't have to share it anymore, because this morning for example, this girl I shared it with, didn't come to work and I was left with no hat, pants and shoes! Thank God I have amazing people I work with who helped me out :) As I said, if there's anything I am happy about, it's the people that surround me.

Here is the amazing chocolate I bought today from one of the best chocolate shops I have ever seen - Xocolat. The last one is with raspberries and cream and the other one is Latte Machiatto. Divine.

And the picture down are the jelly candies I made ;)

I am sure I wrote and erased this first sentence like 5 times, because I just didn`t know where to start! Got you all excited now, huh?? And so I don't forget, this is my 100th post!
WELL, I will begin my story with last night's dinner with the family Haas. Mr. Michael Hass, a great personality, the first cousin of the friends I am stying with here in Vienna, was someone who helped me tremendously with making my externship happen and was there for me. And for those thigns, it is hard to express your gratitude enough. I will also take this chance now to say a big THANK YOU to everyone that was involved in this, for every action, every word, it was worth it. Even if it didn't go through, there are again no words to express my appreciation.

Now, to go back to the story. Family Haas invited me for dinner last night and I enjoyed it so much! We had this special Viatnamese soup and then a beautiful platter of sushi. Boy oh boy. I am not huge fan of that food, I am just not used to it, but the real reason behin it was that a never had a real sushi before. That was SO good, you have no idea. I have never thought I could enjoy in that so much. And the soup? Amazing. A clear soup with rice noodles and thin slices of some kind of (cooked, but not sure what kind) meat. Then we had the pear tarte tatin which I made, but I confess...I had to buy the pre made Pate Sucree or in America, cookie dough. It was the first time in my life that I bought that and I had to do it just because I could't make one, because I don't have scale. It was very disturbing. I know Fanny from Foodbeam wouldn't be so proud of me...But I hade slef picked pears that tasted heavenly and then served woth some amazing Viennaise whipped cream. We had a nice chat and I met Michael's wife and his son and daughter. They were all so nice and I have truly enjoyed that evening with them :)

And so I woke up, bright and early. I don't ever need an alarm, because when I know I have to get up, it just happens! But since I was so paranoid that I will be late (as usual), I set an alarm and + put it on snooze (Thanx Stacey!)
And so I got up at 6:30, got ready and left an hour or so later. My ipod was with me, making me less nervous.
It was a beautiful morning and I truly wished I had gone earlier to sit down and have coffee...
So I got through the back door and everyone was alreday there, taking care of their jobs for the day. They were all so nice to me, helped me settle in and I was feeling welcomed.

If there's anything to wish on the first day, my wish came true. As for the rest of the day, it was like in school like the first day of a new block. And If you didn't know, I am not very fond of that. You don't know anything and you have to get used to everything and everyone. Tomorrow should be definitely as interesting as today. I am looking foward to it :)

And next time....I am making my own Pate Sucree.

Roasted and peeled, seasoned with salt, fresh black pepper, garlic, parsley, olive oil and white wine vinegar and marinated for a day. Best eaten on a thin slice of bread like this. Simple delicasy.

Since it was a beautiful day I decided to have a walk around Prater which is Vienna's famous amusement park. It truly is stunning. I was there as a child, but I wanted to refresh my memory. I only took a ride at a Vienna's signature Giant Ferris Wheel which you can see at the photo below. Beatiful view from up there ;)
I was also craving for a good coffee; I am always craving for a good one, as usual. So after 2 attempts of really bad coffee (now you see how desperate I was to get a GOOD one) I entered McDonalds. Yes, McDonalds. And I ordered Eiß Kaffee (Ice Coffee). For all of my US readers, I have to point out that there isn't such thing as ''Eiß Kaffee'' in the States. There you get coffee with ice cubes, but in Europe you get coffee with their amazing cone ice cream. Make sure you try that.
That has truly made my day + I found a dance studio and I think this time, it will not be classical ballett....

To start off, the BIG news. I start my externship this Friday! Ah, I can't wait! I am starting to get nervous now. It should be interesting :))

The second thing is that I met with Merisi who, if you know is one of my food blog buddies and I was so excited about it! We spend a couple of hours together chatting about what not and she showed me and told me lots of new and interesting things. Thanx Merisi! :)
And I bought myself a book, I hasitated for a while because it was on german, but I can do it. I am very excited to read it, it is called '' The cultural history of Italian cuisine ''.
And then I got home, had lunch and of course, I am always craving for something sweet. So, what do you do when you have an egg, milk, sugar and semolina (Grieß)?!

Then I remembered what Frau Groll made once, and it was a polenta souffle-kinda cake. So, I asked her then how she made it and I gave it a try.
This is something you don't need a recipe for and if you do not have a scale like me at the moment, it's driving me nuts! SO, I cooked 1dcl semolina with 3 dcl of milk and one tbsp sugar. When it boiled and got thick, I transfered it to another bowl and added another dcl of milk to make it more loose and cool it down. I stired it for a while and added 1 egg yolk. Then I whpped the egg white with some salt and one tbsp of sugar and folded in the semolina mixture. I poured it in a greased and with sugar sprinkled souffle form, sprinkled some more sugar on top and baked it at medium high temp for about...oops, i have no idea how long that took. I think it was about 20 mins. Depends of your form of course. It was beautiful and high, but inside light and fluffy. You can serve it with some more powdered sugar and a fruit puree, or just stewed fruit would be great. Here it's often eaten with stewed plums. I personally wished I had some raspberries!
Nevermind the fruit, I ate it all :))



Song of the week: Bubbly

I just wanted to say that if you wish to leave a comment, but you don't understand the instructions (obviously), there is like a chat box on the left hand side that I added for you to make it easier ;)
And now, I have a task for you...Give me a suggestion for a pear based dessert? I have plenty of them since my family here in Vienna have a pear tree which was packed with pears and they are beautiful. Except eating them on regular basis, I would like something sweeter out of them :))
p.s- The other day I poached them in red wine and served with red wine reduced sauce and vanilla ice-cream. Stunning.

It is hard to believe that after 4 weeks of struggle, we made it. I can say at last that I'm staying in Vienna to complete my externship. Thank God and everyone who participated in this battle, I really have no words for it.
NOW, to celebrate this wonderful thing I made the first gnocchi in my life. I also insisted to buy an appropriate wine to go with it, and it was the Chianti Classico 2005. M M M. That's all I can say. My parents were as content as I was and now they can finally go back home to Split after a week being here with me in Vienna.
Here I'm sharing with you some pictures and recipe from my ''debut gnocchi'' which were fun to make and not that hard, but still a bit demanding.



My first potato gnocchi

There isn't any special recipe for this, I actually searched the web a little and looked through some books and got my own recipe!
-To start off, I read in Jamie's book Cook with Jamie, that he roasted the potatoes first which I found very intriguing so I went for it. I baked like 8 small potatoes for the three of us for an hour, but I have to mention that those potatoes were bought at the local farmer who has, no joke, the BEST potatoes I ever had, so of course the gnocchi were amazing, so make sure you use the best available potatoes.
-Then I peeled them and and mashed them (you can do this with a fork, potato masher or a ricer). I used the fork since I didn' have anything else on hand and it turned out great. Then I salted them (VERY important!) and added some freshly ground pepper as well (of course, I put black pepper in everything, even in my hot chocolate :))
- Now I added 1 egg yolk and plain white flour untill I formed a nice kind of dough, not sticky. ATTENTION: not too much flour, rather let them be a little sticky or they'll be to dense and heavy.
-Roll the dough in a sausage like form and cut in small pieces. Boil a lot salted water and boil them in batches, so you have more controll over them. When they come out on the surface, leave them for a few more moments and take them out, leave to drain.

I have just drizzeled some extra virgin olive oil and sprinkled with grated pecorino tartufo with some ground pepper, OF COURSE, and not forget to mention, as Frau Groll here would say, ''Und meine liebe hand!'' meaning ''And my dear hand''.

This is so cool! That was my first reaction to this very unusual fruit. I've seen it in NY before, but I never tried it. This time, at the biggest market in Vienna - Naschmarkt, I gave it a try. I have to say, it was pretty good. It tastes similar to kiwi fruit and I scooped the flesh out with a spoon since it's the same texture as a kiwi (If you are wondering, yes, my tongue was pink!).

Yesterday I was shopping with my mum here in Vienna and I had to enter a huge bookstore (as usual). I really cannot hold myself from books, cookbook actually. Well, baking relate books to be more precise...So, as an enormous fan of Jamie Oliver if you haven't already know, he was and still is the biggest influence for me. I truly thank him for that and I know I'll meet him one day eventually...
But for now, I am more then happy with a new cookbook of him. Fantastic.

Raspberries are beautiful berries. Especially, if you eat all of them....and then you realize you shouldn't. Yes, the lady who has the raspberries told me few days later how angry she was that all of her berries are gone, that this never happened before! She said, Damnit! Somone snekaed in and ate all of my rasperries! Oops. I had to change the subject...

p.s - I posted the recipe for the souffle ;)

Austrijsko i Korčulasnko jaje. Pogodi ;)
One egg from Austria and one from Korčula. Have a guess ;)

Interesting. Weird. Tasty!!! Interesantno. Čudno. Ukusno!!!

While waiting for my externship to get sorted out, I have to say I am enjoying myself, exploring new places, food (of course!) and all kinds of stores. Today I will be off to Mariahilferstrasse (that's a long one, isn't it??) which is like the main shopping street. I was there yesterday, but it got kinda late so I went home with only seeing a small part of it. The weather is terrible which is too bad...It is cold, unbelieveable and it rains occasioanly. Well, that won't stop me anyways!

Dok sam u iscekivanju sto ce se dogodit sa mojom praksom, vrijeme provodim u istrazivanju cari Beca sto ukljucuje svakodnevno ipijanje fantasticne Becke kave na drugom mjestu, razni ducani, kulturne znamenitosti, fina hrana (naravno!), te samo upoznavanje grada. Danas cu dovrsit obilazak Mariahilferstrasse sto je ogromna shopping ulica i nema cega nema..uh....otkupila bi cijelu ulicu. Vrijeme je jako lose i to vec par dana zaredom - tmurno i hladno te povremeno kisovito.
ALI, to mene nece sprijecit da ne odem vani :))

After the famous Sacher torte, you actually know you're in Vienna. By the way, the cake was exactly how I expected it to be. Not right for my taste, that's all I will say. Still, the atmosphere was beautiful...

Napokon je i Sacher torta dosla na red. Sam okus je bio ocekivan, ali ne skroz po mom gustu, rado bih ja tu izmjenila par stvari....ali dobro, atmosfera je bila prekrasna i nakon toga se zaista osijecas kao u Becu.