The Hamburglar has been moonlighting as a secretary.
A 34-year veteran of the Westfalen Construction Association in Dortmund, Germany, was fired after eating a burger from her boss's lunch cart.
The 59-year-old secretary, Magdelene H. (her last name was withheld due to German privacy laws), was fired after eating a frikadelle (flat, pan-fried meatball) and two halves of a roll without permission from a buffet she had just finished preparing last July for her boss and his guests, Spiegel reports.
I'm not sure how this myth got started -- I used to believe it too, before I met my husband, who grew up in Germany. Every time I tell someone I'm making schnitzel for dinner, they talk about hot dog buns and sauerkraut. Then they try to convince me that I really meant sausage and they will go as far as to ambush random passersby to help corroborate their story.
In truth, the word schnitzel comes from the German term "schneiden" which means to cut, so schnitzel means cutlet. Thus, Wiener Schnitzel is not a cut-up hot dog, but rather a "cutlet from Vienna or Wien." See how I make it after the jump.
I'm posting images of sausage counters the world over each weeknight (and occasionally weekend) witching hour until I run out. Please use the comments section to post links to your Flickr or personal site faves, and perhaps you'll see 'em posted here late some evening.
Metzger in Steinbach, Germany. From Flickr user aniika.
I'm posting images of sausage counters the world over each weeknight (and occasionally weekend) witching hour until I run out. Please use the comments section to post links to your Flickr or personal site faves, and perhaps you'll see 'em posted here late some evening.
I'm posting images of sausage counters the world over each weeknight (and occasionally weekend) witching hour until I run out. Please use the comments section to post links to your Flickr or personal site faves, and perhaps you'll see 'em posted here late some evening.
This weekend's New York Times reported that as of last Tuesday dairy farmers in Germany are striking. It's a classic case of supply and demand. The EU decided to raise milk quotas, leading to more supply and lower prices. Meanwhile feed and fuel prices have gone way up, which has put the pinch on German dairy farmers. In response, they're attempting to create demand by striking.
However, as the NYT points out, this situation is a little different than the Italian pig farmers, because these dairy farmers must continue to milk the cows. Because their goal is to keep the milk out of the market, they end up pouring it out, literally dumping food down the drain. It's an unfortunate situation, especially since worldwide there are so many people who are struggling with food shortages and hunger.
Jamie Oliver is known for his super fresh, simple cooking, so it's no wonder that he says he would never cook a heavy meal for a date.
In an interview for Men's Health, the German edition of the magazine, he said that heavy foods eaten during a date won't leave much room for more, later, of you know what I mean. The thing is that Germans like heavy food, such as kloesse dumplings.
I guess that'd be like telling an American not to have steak and potatoes for the main course while on a date. But then, as this article notes, Jamie is married to a model, so maybe he knows a thing or two.
Do you feel like you never get good service at a restaurant? Are you impatient with the inefficiency of the wait staff? Then here is a restaurant that you would love. It's called 'sBaggers and it is the world's first fully automated restaurant (except the cooking).
'sBaggers was opened recently in Nuremberg, Germany by business man Michael Mack, who wanted to "create a whole new restaurant system." The patrons order from touch screens and the food and drinks come to the table via a system of metal tracks. It looks like a roller coaster system has been set up inside the restaurant.
You can check out a video of how the restaurant works here. Did I mention that you can use the touchscreen consoles to send emails and text messages? When did they say they were opening one in the US?
The European Court Justice ruled that Germany can keep calling that hard, salty, crumbly cheese often grated on top of pasta and pizza "parmesan." Italy and the European Commission had filed suit against Germany for labeling their non-Italian-made cheese as Parmesan even though it had not been made in the Italian region of Parma.
Wait, I'm pretty sure that the grated "Parmesan" they sell in those green-topped plastic bottles at the grocery store for $2.99 isn't from Parma either.
It was a chocolate raid, and we're not talking about Oprah's Book Club storming through the candy store during that time of the month.
We mentioned before that there was a suspicion that chocolate makers in the US were colluding (for those of us who slept through our Econ 101 classes, that means they agreed to fix prices). Apparently, it's a global thing, as Germany's antitrust organization raided and seized documents from the offices of Nestlé, Kraft, Mars, and Ritter Sport last week. The Federal Cartel Office had reason to believe that the candy makers agreed to not undercut one another in raising prices of their products. What information comes out of the seized documents has yet to be seen.
Bummer. I was hoping they marched into those offices and ran off with crates of Mars bars.
Recently, German researchers fed lab mice separate "human" and "chimp" diets, and within just two weeks, were able to notice distinct psychological and genetic differences in the rodents.
There were three different diets: a raw food-only diet; meals from the researchers' local cafeteria; and a pure fast-food diet. The researchers found a huge difference in the livers of the mice with a chimp diet versus those with a human diet (I'm scared to hear about the difference in their hearts and arteries!) They found thousands of differences in the genes expressed in the mouse livers, which they think may be caused by our differences in diets.
...You got all that? Okay. The scientists also found that said genes seemed to evolve faster than other genes.
So, basically, our ancestors' adoption of meat and cooked foods may have shaped us into the carnivorous, brownie-eating, beer-guzzling beings we are today.
Warning: the following story doesn't give you permission to start downing dark chocolate by the case.
As someone who has high blood pressure, I welcome any new news that eating certain types of food can help bring the numbers down. Of course, if I just exercised more I could lose some weight and that would probably take care of 97% of my problem, but in case that doesn't happen, I like hearing news like this. Researchers in Germany have discovered that small portions of dark chocolate might help people who are in the early stages of high blood pressure. 24 women and 20 men, aged 56 to 73, were given both white and dark chocolate over 18 weeks. The white chocolate didn't have much effect at all.
I'd write more but I have to run out to the store and get some dark chocolate.
We are not big fans of Burger King's creepyad mascot, The King, and we know that we're not the only ones who feel a little uneasy when his commercials come on. Burger King, and the various advertising firms that represent them, likes to take their promotions into that extreme zone, though, so perhaps we should just be glad that their advertising isn't worse than it already is.
For example, take a look at this Burger King Germany wrapper, which contains instructions for building a throne to your Whopper out of ketchup packets and french fries. According to the person who photographed the wrapper and submitted it to Instructables, the directions say that the throne is for resting your burger and worshiping it.
Let's be glad that they haven't incorporated this idea into their King-centric US advertising yet. Can you imagine how strange the commercials would get?
Schlichte Steinhager Dry Gin 40%abv / 80 proof is a traditional Steinhager gin from Germany and the original and world's oldest brand of Steinhager. Made in Steinhagen, Germany under the German purity laws. Steinhager is made from three and only three ingredients; triple distilled grain neutral spirits, water, and juniper berries and... that's it, nothing else. It's rarely seen in the US but is unmistakable in its tall brown ceramic bottle. Currently there are only two brands of Steinhager being made, I think the other is called Schinken Hager, which I have never seen and couldn't find any info on it.
The aroma is that of light juniper with the faintest of faint hints of butterscotch and caramel. The taste is basically the same, light juniper flavor and faint hints of butterscotch and caramel. This is so light and one dimensional that it barely tasted like a gin. More like the ghost of a gin. I thought that Bulldog Gin was light, but this stuff was barely there. It's crisp and clean and that's all there is to it folks. I wonder if I'll ever finish the bottle, or will it become a ghost gin, haunting my bar forever. End of story.
The German beer supply is in danger as a result of British World Cup fans' unquenchable thirst. According to a recent article in The Mirror, the 70,000 England fans visiting Nuremberg drank about 17 pints each-roughly 1.2 million in all. One calculation put that at 200 pints per minute. "The hardest thing for the breweries is keeping up with the thirst of the English," said one brewery spokesman. I'm a little curious about how they attribute beer sales to certain groups of fans. Sure, a beer vendor can say, "Wow, the people in the ___ jerseys were sure poundin' em'," but how do you pin large figures on one group? Surely those vendors must have been selling to other fans as well. Nevertheless, there are the personal accounts. "Never have I seen so many drink so much in such little time," said one bartender. As Andrew noted, his people are a hungry bunch, too.
Last week we wrote about the news that Italian pig farmers were going on strike. It turns out that they're not the only ones. 
Jamie Oliver is known for his super fresh, simple cooking, so it's no wonder that he says he would never cook a heavy meal for a date. 
Do you feel like you never get good service at a restaurant? Are you impatient with the inefficiency of the wait staff? Then here is a restaurant that you would love. It's called 'sBaggers and it is the world's first fully automated restaurant (except the cooking).
Recently, German researchers fed lab mice separate "human" and "chimp" diets, and within just two weeks, were able to notice distinct psychological and genetic differences in the rodents. 
Warning: the following story doesn't give you permission to start downing dark chocolate by the case.
Schlichte Steinhager Dry Gin 40%abv / 80 proof is a traditional Steinhager gin from Germany and the original and world's oldest brand of Steinhager. Made in Steinhagen, Germany under the German purity laws. Steinhager is made from three and only three ingredients; triple distilled grain neutral spirits, water, and juniper berries and... that's it, nothing else. It's rarely seen in the US but is unmistakable in its tall brown ceramic bottle. Currently there are only two brands of Steinhager being made, I think the other is called Schinken Hager, which I have never seen and couldn't find any info on it.
The German beer supply is in danger as a result of British World Cup fans' unquenchable thirst. According to a recent article in The Mirror, the 70,000 England fans visiting Nuremberg drank about 17 pints each-roughly 1.2 million in all. One calculation put that at 200 pints per minute. "The hardest thing for the breweries is keeping up with the thirst of the English," said one brewery spokesman. I'm a little curious about how they attribute beer sales to certain groups of fans. Sure, a beer vendor can say, "Wow, the people in the ___ jerseys were sure poundin' em'," but how do you pin large figures on one group? Surely those vendors must have been selling to other fans as well. Nevertheless, there are the personal accounts. "Never have I seen so many drink so much in such little time," said one bartender. As Andrew noted, his people are a hungry bunch, too.
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