Food and Food for Thought

In the food department: part of traveling abroad is always googling 'what to eat in (enter the city of country)' and then doing our best to accommodate. That means that we ate pierogis and drank "wodka" in Krakow. Gorged on goulash and beer in Hungary. While here in Salzburg we have had meatloaf sandwiches (that turned out to be really more like bologna), pretzels, and brats, schnitzel and boiled beef (really like a roast) and lots of Veltliner wine in addition to beer. And across the board, I have to say that there is something crazy, awesome about potatoes here in this part of the world. Waxy and buttery. Great roasted but sublime mashed.

However, all over Salzburg are photos of their famous dessert, Nockerl. It looks like some kind of Baked Alaska but is, in fact, a triple peaked soufflé. So tonight, after a lovely cheese platter and a sampling of three different veltliners at a nearby wine bar, we set off to try the local dessert.

 

A huge portion for just two people, to be sure. But very tasty.

 

Now, back to the food for thought. As I mentioned before, we cannot seem to drag ourselves away from always checking on the political happenings back in the States. We couldn't watch the last debate but we watched the highlights. Every day we are checking online or reading comments on facebook so that we are staying nearly as current as we would have been back home. That is not surprising. As much as everyone wants this election to be over, it is hard to turn away in the meantime.

 

What is always surprising, however, is how riveted the rest of the world is by our politics. Everywhere we have been so far...and I mean in EVERY single city, at least one person has approached us and asked us how we thought this circus was going to turn out in the end. Tonight, at the aforementioned wine bar, the woman at the table next to us leaned over to me to ask if we were Americans. And then asked if she could ask me a question. Who did I think the next president of the United States would be? Without going into excruciating detail about the conversation suffice it to say that she was old enough to have lived under communism and wanted to recommend against choosing leaders with autocratic tendencies. And was also incredulous that we would be so far behind the times by way of anyone questioning a woman's fitness to lead.

 

So far, then, we have yet to talk to anyone in any of these countries who is not (1) sincerely worried about what this election means to the ENTIRE WORLD and (2) who is not terrified at the thought that Donald Trump could become President.

 

The world is watching.