Christmas in the Rockies

January 10th, 2014

We love the mountains! With both of us having grown up in the mountainous northwest, the mountains are our favorite place to be. (Right up there with Walt Disney World and home!) This year we had added incentive to travel to the Colorado Rockies for Christmas: our third grandchild, Alan Hollister Meredith, arrived in mid-December. We flew to Denver International Airport early on Christmas Day where we were met by our son, Andrew. It was good to see him. Our last time with him having been in August for Scotte’s parents’ 60th wedding anniversary.

Andrew and his wife, Patricia, make their home in the small Colorado town of Buena Vista in the Collegiate Mountains of central Colorado. It’s a three hour drive from Denver. In spite of his new-parent sleep deprivation, Andrew was cheerful and talkative. A great chauffeur.

It seemed no time at all and we were arriving at Spring Canyon Camp where Andrew lives and works. Spring Canyon is an Officer’s Christian Fellowship Camp. Located in the heart of the Collegiates at 9200′ elevation. The camp serves military families from all branches. In the winter and summer, families gather at Spring Canyon to reconnect and restore. The camp is beautiful, situated as it is at the foot of several “fourteeners”.

The highlight of the trip was, of course, seeing our kids and meeting baby Alan. We spent loads of time holding the cuddly little bundle, changing diapers (at least Renae did), burping him, comforting him and just getting to know his sweet little self.

As a family we played games (including one that Andrew is developing), watched Christmas movies, ate wonderful cheese fondue, got caught up on Sherlock, and shared dinners with the military families at camp. New Year’s Eve dinner was corned beef and cabbage, potatoes, and black eyed peas. The incredible dessert buffet was prepared by Andrew’s sister-in-law, a CIA (Culinary Institute of America, NY) trained pastry chef and a baker in downtown Seattle, at Yellow Leaf Cupcake Co. Catie served up cannoli, peppermint bark cheese cake and a gluten free cake with caramel Italian cream icing.

Our week with Andrew, Tricia and Alan was wonderful, but too short. Too soon we had to leave for Denver and our Southwest flight home. Before he took us to the airport, Andrew wanted to make sure we had a great lunch. Neither of us have eaten at Chick-fil-A®. Our son was on a mission to make sure we did before we left for the Chick-fil-A desert of Washington State (our nearest is 282 miles away in Meridian ID.) I have to say, “When, oh when, will Chick-fil-A® come to Eastern Washington?”


We’re home now, looking back on our photos and our memories of time shared with family over Christmas in the Rockies.

Magic of sauerkraut, updated

January 10th, 2014

This is an update of a post that appeared first in October, 2011. Winter is a perfect time to eat sauerkraut, though we haven’t found a season where we don’t require a little bit of sauerkraut to make our Leavenworth visit complete. It seems a good time to take another look at one of our favorite Leavenworth treats: sauerkraut.

From the original post: One of the things we look forward to in Leavenworth is eating sauerkraut. We rarely eat it at home, with the exception of using it to top a hotdog at a local baseball game. But when we get to Leavenworth it only takes one whiff of sauerkraut in the air coming from one of the several restaurants serving German cuisine and we’re planning when we’ll get our first bite. And if you walk by München Haus when you’re hungry? ….Forget about it!

What is sauerkraut?
sau·er·kraut/ˈsou(ə)rˌkrout/
Noun: Chopped cabbage that has been pickled in brine.

“Sauerkraut is a great source of iron, vitamin K and vitamin C, which is another reason it was popular on seafaring vessels. It also helps the good bacteria in your body stay healthy and, in turn, keep you healthy. It is a great food for people taking antibiotics to eat because the medicine kills both good and bad bacteria.” Read more at eHow.

There are many other vegetables that are preserved by a similar process.
Korean kimchi
Japanese tsukemono
Chinese suan cai
Filipino atchara

“Sauerkraut is made by a process of pickling called lacto-fermentation that is analogous to how traditional (not heat-treated) pickled cucumbers and kimchi are made. Fully-cured sauerkraut keeps for several months in an airtight container stored at or below 15 °C (59 °F). Neither refrigeration nor pasteurization is required, although these treatments prolong storage life.” Wikipedia

Some of the 101 ways to eat sauerkraut from the Accidental Bavarian Eat page:

  • On a brat!
  • A little bit with each bit of whatever bit you’re eating
  • With scrambled eggs
  • A sweet sauerkraut with pork roast
  • With a dollop of fancy mustard
  • Mit Deutsch Kartoffelsalat (potato salad)
  • Mixed up with spatzle
  • On a corned beef sandwich
  • On dark Bavarian rye bread
  • Straight from the jar
  • On pizza
  • Twirl vs slurp?
  • On waffles
  • Maybe a sauerkraut milkshake?
  • Under mushroom sauce
  • With onions
  • Under melted Swiss cheese
  • Winekraut and Schweinshax’n

Still unconvinced? Rather than eating sauerkraut plain, try it as part of a sandwich or on a delicious German sausage. One of our favorites, a grilled Reuben sandwich. This classic pastrami sandwich layered with swiss cheese, thousand island dressing and sauerkraut on rye bread and served toasty hot, can be found at a number of eateries in Leavenworth. We’ve had very good versions at Ducks and Drakes and The Soup Cellar. At Andreas Keller you can get a Bratwurst Reuben at lunch. A bratwurst is substituted for the pastrami and the delicious house-made Weinkraut is in place of the typical sauerkraut. You can also find sauerkraut on breakfast plates, and on pizzas in Leavenworth.

How do you like your sauerkraut? Have you eaten this classic German side dish in unusual ways?

A weekend in Leavenworth, part two

November 20th, 2013

We woke up Saturday morning to a steady rain. The neighborhood was quiet. The table and chairs on the deck looked like an inviting place for morning coffee and a muffin. But this morning was unusually cool and wet for September in Leavenworth WA, so I started up the gas fireplace and got comfy in the living room. Scotte was up soon after I and we spent a leisurely morning planning our day.

Lazy Saturday morning

Lazy Saturday morning

This is the second post about our recent trip to Leavenworth during the Washington State Autumn Leaf Festival. For the first post, which includes a full description and photos of our accommodations at the beautiful Bavarian Mountain Suite, click here.

The street outside the condo was soon blocked off from traffic, as the festival parade would be staging right outside our door. I also spent some time watching a city worker hanging festival banners from the street lights. We were loving staying right downtown in the heart of the village.

After breakfast we set out to explore the village. The weather was still cool and rainy. We dressed in layers and warm socks. We saw others throughout the day carrying umbrellas, but in spite of the steadiness of the rain, it wasn’t really coming down hard. We walked first up the alley to Front Street. It was fun to stroll the familiar sidewalks, check out some new businesses and scout out a spot from which we’d watch the parade later.

From the gallery we headed back to Front Street and enjoyed seeing all the visitors like us, getting the lay of the land. The street had been blocked off from parking the evening before. There wasn’t nearly the crowd there might have been, had the weather been drier, but there was a good crowd gathering and people had already staked out spots for watching the parade. We were fortunate to find a prime spot, under a cover out of the rain and at the end of Front Street where the parade would be turning to travel up toward the highway.

How long has it been since you watched a small-town parade? It’s been years for us. Boy is it fun! The Autumn Leaf Festival Grand Parade has it all… local and regional marching bands, vintage automobiles, horse drawn wagons, floats from far and wide, local civic leaders and beauty queens. In spite of the drizzle the crowd and the parade participants all seemed to be in good spirits. We were even able to sit for awhile while watching, thanks to some generous neighbors who gave up their spot on a bench to us. We had a wonderful time. If you have the opportunity to be in Leavenworth for the Washington State Autumn Leaf Festival Grand Parade, we highly recommend making time to take it in.

After the parade we made our way back to the condo to get the car and headed out to Snowy Owl Theater at Icicle Creek Center for the Arts. Since Renae is a theater professional in Spokane, and Scotte is a developer of theater management software, we were both eager to return to the theater and get a behind the scenes tour. What an amazing facility! We really enjoyed our tour with the technical services manager, Cameron. He very proudly showed us around the beautiful state-of-the-art facility. Snowy Owl seats 240 in a warm and inviting auditorium equipped with flexible seating and high tech sound and lighting equipment. The theater is optimized for live music and dance performances and can be used as a movie theater. It’s also designed to show live satellite feeds from the Metropolitan Opera’s Live HD broadcasts. It was easy to see how the Snowy Owl will become an important community center for arts performances in the Leavenworth area. You can read more about Snowy Owl, and its place in the arts community in this Seattle PI article. And check out this YouTube video for more photos of the theater and some information about the design and designers.

Andreas Keller

Andreas Keller

After our visit to Snowy Owl we ended our day with dinner at Andreas Keller. Scotte and I both love the schnitzel there. Scotte gets the traditional Schnitzel Weiner Art, breaded pork cutlet served with lemon (Scotte asks for extra lemon) and a side of German potato salad. Renae’s favorite is the Jaeger Schnitzel, a grilled pork cutlet served with brown mushroom gravy, spaetzl and red cabbage. You can ask for the breaded and fried cutlet in place of the grilled if you’d rather. Andreas Keller has live German music and has a traditional Rathskeller atmosphere. They feature imported German and local beers on tap. We were happy to be joining Andreas Keller in celebrating their owner, Heidi Forshemer, as Leavenworth’s Royal Lady of the Autumn Leaf. The Festival is celebrating its 50th year, and Ms. Forshemer has been representing Leavenworth all over the region throughout the community festival season. On this weekend Andreas Keller was offering drink and dessert specials to celebrate Heidi’s accomplishments.

By the time we finished dinner (with dessert to go) we’d had a full day and were ready to head back to our cozy condo on the edge of downtown. We started up the fireplace and put on our jammies and settled in for a quiet evening in our favorite home-away-from home.

The next day started leisurely. We had coffee and breakfast at the condo, then checked out and headed into the village to do a few more errands before we headed home to Spokane, via Wenatchee’s Pybus Market. We had a wonderful weekend in Leavenworth. Can’t wait till next time.

In Search of Schnitzel!

October 9th, 2013

We have an interesting guest blog post today.

We got an email from W.J. Shilts, of Westminster, MD. He said… well, let me let him tell you himself.

“My wife and I spent 6 nights in Leavenworth in September and devoted ourselves to reviewing all the schnitzel we could find. Please consider posting our attached review on the Accidental Bavarian. We devoted a lot of energy (oh, what a sacrifice) sampling Leavenworth’s finest offerings and would hate for that effort to go to waste!”

So without further ado, here is their review.

Where to find the Best Schnitzel in Leavenworth, Washington

W.J. Shilts
October, 2013

Leavenworth, Washington is the center of all things Bavarian in the western United States (and arguably, the whole of the USA). But, for the occasional traveler with only a day or two in town, choosing the quintessential “German” restaurant can be daunting with so many choices in town. My wife and I recently spent 7 days and 6 nights in Leavenworth sampling our way through mounds of schnitzel, red cabbage, spatzle, and sauerkraut to come up with our best recommendations on where to sate your craving for a taste of Germany in Leavenworth.

To be fair, we didn’t try everything on the menu. We focused on Wiener Schnitzel. Why…because Wiener Schnitzel is as basic as it gets. Usually made of pork or veal, it’s pounded, then breaded, fried (nobody said this was healthy), and usually served naked. Most other schnitzels are built on this basic schnitzel by adding various sauces or toppings (Jaeger, Ziguener, Rahm, Champignon, etc.). If you make a good Wiener Schnitzel you’ll probably make a good any other kind of schnitzel.

Keep in mind this review is about schnitzel, not all the other German food you may love. The ratings don’t take into account furnishings, oompah music, or quality of the bratwurst. We do comment on some of these factors however, and share our favorite German restaurants in Leavenworth (regardless of their schnitzel rating).

Restaurant Weiner Schnitzel
Rating
Comments
Café Mozart gold-stargold-stargold-stargold-stargold-star Superb wiener schnitzel, available in veal, pork, or chicken, and uber tender. Fine German dining (rather than a gasthaus atmosphere) with all the trimmings.
King Ludwig’s gold-stargold-stargold-stargold-star Good schnitzel, veal or pork, but smaller portions. Very Bavarian menu but much more of a beer hall atmosphere, oriented to tourist clientele. Few extras (such as, no soup or wurst sampler on the menu).
Andreas Keller gold-stargold-stargold-star The ultimate traditional Gasthaus experience in Leavenworth! But alas, the wiener schnitzel was a disappointment… deep fried… to a curled at the edges, cooked to a crisp, throwable object. But their grilled Swiss jaeger schnitzel was wonderful… don’t understand the disparity. Other than the wiener schnitzel, great fun, authentic German eating.
Baren Haus gold-stargold-stargold-star Pork schnitzel (no veal available) was breaded and pan fried but was way too crispy to enjoy. It had the look but was just too crunchy. And aside from the wait person being clad in a dirndl, not much German atmosphere.
Café Christa gold-stargold-star Although the sign out front purported Café was under new management, the veal wiener schnitzel was still the worst we had in Leavenworth. It was tough and gristly. On the other hand, the red cabbage was great… but not worth enduring the schnitzel.

 

Our bottom line…If you’re looking for a superb schnitzel, and impeccable German dining, go to Café Mozart. If you’re looking for the best traditional German ambiance… fun, music, atmosphere, and food (not counting the Wiener Schnitzel)… go to Andreas Keller.

(And lest you think we’re not qualified to judge schnitzel, we’re from some pretty long German roots (Hessian soldiers), we lived in Germany for three years, and I have traveled to Germany twenty times in the last decade alone. We can spot a good schnitzel at a hundred paces!)

 

We want to thank the Shilts’ for their guest blog. If anyone else has reviews or a guest blog, please send them to us for consideration.

A weekend in Leavenworth WA

October 5th, 2013
Traveling under a stormy sky

Traveling under a stormy sky

We had the delightful opportunity to get away for the weekend to our favorite home-away-from-home, Leavenworth Washington. It had been a long time since we visited the village during a festival, but we were given the chance to stay in a condo right downtown over the weekend of the Washington State Autumn Leaf Festival. We jumped at the chance and eagerly anticipated seeing Leavenworth in all its Autumn Leaf Festival finery.

We left Spokane on a cool but dry Friday afternoon and we knew that the forecast called for rain most of the weekend, but we were looking forward to our first weekend in Leavenworth in months to be very worried about it. We just made sure we packed lots of layers and warm socks and comfortable shoes. I love to wear hats and rainy weather is the perfect opportunity to do that.

By the time we got to Wenatchee we were driving in a light rain and hadn’t made as good a time as we hoped, so we drove straight through Leavenworth and to the Snowy Owl Theatre at the Icicle Creek Center for the Arts. We had tickets waiting for us for the Amberleaf Theatre community presentation, Brats in Space: the Continuing Voyages of the Starship Overpriced. It was our first look at the newest addition to the Icicle Arts/Sleeping Lady Resort complex. The Snowy Owl Theater is a state-of-the-art 240 seat venue built to resemble Wenatchee Valley barns and to blend in to its natural surroundings. It was beautiful and fascinating to see firsthand.

 

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Snowy Owl Theater at Icicle Creek Center for the Arts”

The Amberleaf Theatre production was a silly romp through space with lots of inside local humor. The small company took advantage of the cutting edge technology with multi-media elements such as projections and closed-circuit video feeds. As the Captain, Spot and the poor red-shirted ensign traveled the universe to track down the elusive Trader Jo and work to bring him to their home planet of Leavenworth, they run into a familiar cast of characters, including Santa and St Nicholas and visited planets covered with candy houses and divided east and west by a major highway with a confusingly complicated interchange. It was a fun and “Leavenworthy” way to start of our Autumn Leaf Festival weekend.

After the curtain closed we drove back to Leavenworth in a light rainfall. We pulled up outside our home for the weekend, the Bavarian Mountain Suite. The Rubin family very generously offered us the use of the suite for a weekend stay. Their only request was that we let you all know what we thought of our stay and the accommodations. I’m thrilled to tell you that we couldn’t have been happier with our stay. The condominium was immaculately kept and comfortably decorated. It sleeps up to 6 with two comfortable bedrooms and a hide-a-bed. It was easy to imagine staying there with another couple or two, or with our kids and grandkids. The kitchen was well equipped and roomy. There were a few basic supplies, such as baking powder and some spices but you’ll want to do some meal planning and shopping to stock up if you plan to do your dining in rather than eat at the numerous restaurants in Leavenworth. The dining room would easily seat 8 comfortably. It would make a great place for friends to get together during one of Leavenworth’s many festivals or during a wine tasting weekend.

Icicle Owl

Icicle Owl

The ground-floor Bavarian Mountain Suite is conveniently located on Division street right behind Leavenworth’s FestHalle. So it’s in easy walking distance to downtown. As a bonus, the condo has a garage, so you can park in an enclosed garage and not have to pay for parking or waste a lot of time hunting for one of a limited number of free parking spots on the street. When you’re in the garage take a look at the Wall of Sleds–a number of sleds, both vintage and new, for your family to use for wintertime fun. You can see more (and better) photos of Bavarian Mountain Suite and book your stay at Comfy Cabins. You’ll also find a comprehensive list of amenities and rates and fees. When you book your stay, please be sure to tell them that the Accidental Bavarians sent you!

Scotte and I explored the condo and snapped a few photos, then we got over to the nearby Idlewild Pizza (nowBlewitt Brewing Company), celebrating its opening night. We were there late enough to miss the dinner rush.

Idlewild is a Leavenworth’s first wood-fired pizzaria. They offer local brews and unusual pizza toppings. Unfortunately they were out of das German which promised créme fraiche, brats and onion. We settled on the Delancey, a four cheese variety with garlic. It was delicious and we devoured every bite. The crust was crisp and scorched nicely for all sorts of yumminess. It was the perfect thickness around the edge to be crispy on the outside, chewy on the inside. Idlewild is decorated in an industrial style warmed with wood walls and modern lighting. They have a roomy patio which will be a great place to eat in warmer weather. We really enjoyed our meal at Idlewild and it will definitely make our list of must-eat places. As of this writing the website linked above is still listed as “Coming Soon.” You can also find them on Facebook.

After running a quick errand for supplies like coffee and half-n-half, we were eager to return to our condo. We changed into pajamas, started up the gas fireplace and settled in for a cozy evening with our books and iPads. We were so happy to have wifi in the condo. Scotte had to spend a few minutes figuring out the complicated Audio/Video system. Once he read instructions provided it worked out just fine. There’s a closet filled with family games, and the electonics system features cable and satellite.

Before we knew it, it was time for bed. The king sized bed of the master suite was as comfortable as it looked and we had no problem falling off to a deep and restful sleep.

In future posts we’ll talk about the rest of our visit to Leavenworth and the Washington State Autumn Leaf Festival.