Matters of Taste

Mr. Toad's Wild Ride: Slovenian-Style

Yesterday we drove from Austria’s wine country to the Bovec basin, in Slovenia’s Julian Alps. When I Google-mapped the route, I found three options, all of which went around the imposing mountain mass called the Triglav National Forest. But I could see on a map that there was a road, up and over that range, the Vrsic Pass. The road is renowned, a mercilessly steep ascent and descent with a combined 50 hairpin turns that redefine the word hairpin. It was built across the pass for military purposes, to supply the Isonzo front of World War I. Opened in 1915, it is known as the "Russian Road" in honor of the Russian prisoners of war that were forced to build it. 

                                     

I was nervous about driving a road that Google Maps tried to hide from me, but was intrigued enough to give it a shot. Things started smoothly out from Kranjska Gora, the border town with Austria. We climbed, twisted and turned, awed by the surrounding mountain peaks. There were very few cars on the road (we enencountered fewer than ten in the whole hour-long adventure) but many motorcycles driven by lunatics.

About 15 minutes into the adventure, we came to a screeching halt when we rounded one hairpin and found an enormous tour bus stuck on the next turn. With its butt scraping the road and one of its back wheels suspended in air, that bus was going no-where. Scores of people lined the road along with police cars, tow trucks and a few totally perplexed worker bees attempting to right the ship with long wooden 4x6s.

                                  

With a U-turn was out of the question, we figured we’d be stuck there for hours. But after much feverish chitchat by the assembled cops, I was told I could squeeze around the far side of the bus. Really?  There seemed no possible way that that was going to happen, but I gamely inched my rented Hyundai toward the back of the bus and saw on the other side a strip of road that MIGHT have accommodated half of my car.

The cop in front waved me forward. Really? As I crawled forward, rounding the left corner of the beached whale, my husband gasped and said I wasn’t going to make it, that I was less than an inch from the bus. The police woman continued to wave me forward, directing me to steer straight which put my left wheels off the road, onto a steeply declining shoulder. With gravel crunching and breath held, I crept a few more feet and was free. Stunned and relieved, I chugged upwards, passing a few parked downhill cars that the police had deemed too big to make the turn.

                                   

At the top of the pass, we parked on the side of the road to admire the views, and found a steep, gravelly hiking path that took us in 15 minutes to even better views. Returning to the car, we found yet another “roadblock.”  This time, a posse of some 40 or 50 baaing sheep jammed the three-foot trail -- an obstacle we could not by-pass even with the help of 4x6s or Slovenia’s Finest.

                                    

The downward spiral of curves was hair-raising but spectacularly beautiful, and our destination town, Bovec, with what I am calling my Hershey’s Kiss mountain, was a welcome sight.

                                    

 

What Marie Antoinette COULD Have Said

Early on my first morning in the coffeehouse-crazed city of Vienna, Austria, I did the unthinkable. I went to Starbucks. It was strictly a matter of necessity. I hadn’t had time to stock the kitchen in our rented apartment; and the city’s elegant, centuries-old coffee houses hadn't yet opened for the day.

 But, I’m glad I went, because I also discovered the Duffin. 

                                     
 

I knew nothing about this muffin-donut hybrid --- in the U.S. the cronut seems to get all the press.  But I now know that it was developed in a London tearoom a couple of years ago, and that last fall “Duffingate” exploded when Starbucks UK’s factory supplier (Rich Products) trademarked the name, threatening the livelihood of poor little Beas’ of Bloomsbury.  (Photo above by Bea's of Bloomsbury.) Nothing like a flap over global corporations trampling the under-baker to work up your appetite for a funny-shaped donut.

The Guardian and Grubstreet can tell you all the details. I’m here to tell you that it was pretty darn delicious --- moist and cakey, with a hint of buttermilk tang, a tiny pocket of raspberry jam, and a dusting  of sugar on top.  It’s the only decent pastry I have ever tasted in a Starbucks, on any continent.

                                     

It seems fitting that I had my first encounter with a Duffin here, smack in the shadow of Vienna’s Hofburg, family palace of the Hapsburg dynasty.

You see, this was the birthplace and home of Marie Antoinette, one of Empress Maria Theresa’s 16 kids. From my windows I can see the wing of "palace apartments" and the Burg garden where the kiddies played.

                           

The Starbucks Duffin is photographed on my terrace roof, with the Hofburg in the background.

If only Marie Antoinette had let the angry people eat Duffins instead of cake, she just might have held on to her head a bit longer.

Poutine: Another Taste

If you found my recent post about Poutine mouth-watering (or weird or gross or inspiring), you'll definitely want to check out an entertaining Wall Street Journal piece on the notorious Canadian conccotion of fresh cheese curds, french fries and gravy.

In "Quebec's Baddest Poutine," author Adam Leith Gollner tells about "Poutine Week" in Montreal, an event where chefs, professional and otherwise, attempt to gild this already-over-the-top lily. (WSJ photo by Will Lew.)

                   

The article is informative --- "For a cheese (curd) to squeak its utmost, it needs to be less than a day old;" and pretty funny, too --- "The problem with aiming to make poutine fancy is that the dish is meant to be trashy. Trying to improve it is like adding a penthouse to a mobile home."

Gollner goes on a roadtrip in "poutine heartland" and shares with us the good, the bad and the inedible. (Chez Ben, below, falls into the "good" category.

"This may all sound a little off-putting (off-pouding?), but I can testify, as a native Quebecer who grew up making poutine as an after-school snack, that a good poutine is often a bad poutine. When you're craving one, you don't want something exquisitely prepared with seasonal heirloom veg. You want a down-and-dirty dish."

                   

"Unlike other lowly-yet-delicious foods like mac and cheese or pizza, there's not much of a range between the best and the worst poutines. Even at its zenith, poutine is still kind of gross. As pleasurable as it can be to eat one, you never feel better afterward—unless you're hung over."

Read it (in WSJ) and weep. Or make your own. Or book a flight to Quebec.