"austria" news and stories

I love Italian hot and spicy pickled peppers stuffed with provolone and prosciutto to serve at parties, but some folks can't take the heat. Now from Austria are Die Kasemacher stuffed peppers. These are a sweet pickled pepper from South Africa with only the tiniest trace of heat , similar to the South African Peppadews. The peppers are then stuffed with a blend of sheep and goat's milk cheese giving the sweet, tart, and crispy peppers a luscious creamy middle. Each one is small enough to pop in your mouth for a tangy treat that goes great with drinks. Die Kasemacher also makes several other Austrian cheese stuffed pickled veggies like olives, onions, tomatoes, artichokes, and mushrooms. I'm glad I found out about these so I can have something new to put out at all the holiday parties that are coming up in a few weeks, especially since they have such a great red and white festive look to them as well.

Plenty happening across the blogosphere in regards to wine news and comments -

1. FrenchDuck details the role Negrette plays in the little appreciated French region of Fronton.
2. BasicJuice is in Austria, blogging his travels (while modeling some nifty shirts), with the latest post detailing Rust.
3. Lenndevours is splashing around with Long Island dessert wines
4. Down in Australia Cam reports on a superb Sydney Wine Dinner at Borelli's
5. And in Tennessee Benito runs us through his impressions of A Toast to Tennessee Wine Festival.
6. With this being a Bank Holiday weekend in the UK and holiday in the US Good Grapes look at bbq wines is timely.
7. The Caveman is throwing wine around lobster
8. While WineCast links up with BasicJuice for more Austrian Wine Adventurers.

A little spat has broken out in Switzerland over a trademark dispute over a red ribboned Easter bunny.

Chocolate makers Lindt says it holds the right, copyrighted since 2000, to manufacture golden Easter bunnies tied around the neck with red ribbon. In neighbouring Austria Hauswirth also makes a similar product and has done for 50 years.

Hauswirth is a small company in comparison to Lindt and refused suggestions from Lindt's lawyers to replace the wrapper with a bronze one or the red ribbon with a green one. A court order prevented Hauswirth with selling their bunnies this year; a move that prompted them to give away thousands of chocolates to children across Austria.

A further court date has been set for June.

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To celebrate the 250th anniversary of Mozart's birth, January 27th, 1756, bakers from around the world are baking and thousands are celebrating. The Virginia Opera ran a contest to select a cake and in Vienna, Austria there was a Mozart themed chocolate showpiece competition. The Austrian embassy in China has put a slightly less edible cake on display in honor of the musical prodigy. This cake is covered in 3,000 gold coins, and its base is the world's largest gold coin, which weighs 1,000 ounces. It is worth $2.2 million and will be on display in downtown Tokyo until March 14th.

 [Thanks to Esther for the tip]

 

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The Hofburg Palace in Vienna, Austria recently hosted the fourth annual Austrian Chocolate Master competition and this year's theme was Mozart. Teams of chocolate artists were given 88 pounds of Belgian chocolate, a Grand Marnier cake, and the stipulation that non-chocolate props and artificial ingredients were not allowed. One 18-year-old entrant duplicated, in chocolate of course, all of the notes of the first page of Mozart's "Così Fan Tutte" before using them to decorate a torte. The piece pictured here took second place and is entitled "Rock Me Amadeus." The winning entry, which apparently took three weeks to complete, featured a milk chocolate figurine dressed in orange flower petals above a chocolate violin.

[Photo Hans Punz - AP]

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