When I asked Camille what word best describes our family, she replied, "Curious." I hope my family will grow up with curiosity and delight about a lot of new things, including travel and foreign food. On February 20 and February 27, 2022, I focused my cooking efforts on two captivating cities--Vienna, Austria, and Seoul, Korea.
Vienna is the home of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, ruled by the Hapsburgs, home of one of my favorite artists, Klimt, and home of the fried cutlet named after Vienna--the wienerschnitzel.
Camille's husband, Steve, was a missionary in Austria and, reputedly, was known as the "Wienerschnitzel King" because of his love for that Austrian favorite.
I wished Steve was my sous-chef on February 20, supervising frying the schnitzels. Our menu included
apple cider with homemade pretzels; pork
schnizel with kasespatzle; asparagus; rye bread; and sachertorte. I took a class on
making sachertortes recently, and it sounded so delicious that I built an
Austrian dinner around it. Sachertorte is a rich chocolate layer cake, with the
layer split in half and filled with apricot jam. The cake is also iced with apricot jam, with
a smooth layer of chocolate ganache over all. We had a small group—Mike, Heidi,
and Audrey; Michael K, Rebekah, and Audrey; Alan and Shauna; Dave and me. Sometimes small groups make the best
dinners. We had time to talk with Heidi
about how she is feeling, during these last weeks before Calder Burke is born, to hear about Mike's recent adventures in Colombia, and to compliment Rebekah
and Michael K, yet again, on Lily’s alert and pretty face. As Rebekah said, “I like that face, too. It’s mine!”
Seoul, South Korea, is on my bucket list to visit. I drive a Korean Subaru car and I have a friend who was adopted out of a Korean orphanage, where she had to fight for her food. A client I am particularly fond of was an LDS mission president in Seoul. But that's about all I know.
I do know I love Korean food! We had
bulgogi
(teriyaki-marinated flank steak), bibimbap (Korean fried rice), stir-fried
shrimp, and stewed pears with homemade vanilla ice cream.
It is a treat to watch the family babies play, before and after our family dinners. Audrey loves my doll collection, housed in
the china cabinets in the family room.
“Dada?” she asks Heidi, wondering if there are any male dolls among the
“Mamas”. No, I admit, back in the 1950s
when I was collecting dolls, there was not the “Ken” culture, matching the
“Barbie” one. Only girls played with
dolls (at least admittedly), and so almost all dolls were female.
As I greeted Jon and Sarah at the door, they both exclaimed,
“You seem just like Camille, from the sound of your voice to what you say, to
your mannerisms!” Jono says he always
feels loved when he visits our house, and I wonder if that is partly because it
feels like his own home!
We savor every visit of Grant and Meg, because they will so soon be gone. Grant has been accepted into medical school in Dallas, and he and Meg will leave for Texas in November. Naomi, Spencer, and little Eliza will linger with us longer. They will move to Dallas in December, where both Naomi and Spencer will work with the McKinsey consulting company.
Mike is an appreciative regular, although he also will be gone frequently the year, as he travels to Nepal, Norway, Iceland, and Ireland. And it was a special treat, this week, to have Dave's sister, Janice, and her husband, Mark, join us. They are just back from Hawaii, where they built a house.
Alan, Shauna, and Carol are other favorite guests.
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