food: austrian goulash, viennese sachertorte
wine: sattler zweigelt 2005
The journey has almost ended. Tom and I are one Portuguese wine/meal away from completing our second journey around the world. And unlike a previous post suggested, I did not make this moment happen before my husband’s 30th birthday.
But still, this will be an epic moment. Since Christmas 2006, I have been treating my husband to (almost) monthly theme dinners. The idea was this… dedicate the night to one country, it’s wine, it’s food, it’s cinema. We have gone from Chilean Cabernet to Australian Shiraz, from Grecian white to Israel red. I’ll save the full wrap up for that fateful night next month where I pop open the wine from Portugal, because tonight was all about Austria.
how to make a good goulash
In just about every goulash recipe I found, there was a key ingredient… patience. Well, patience and paprika, but those actually go hand in hand. The dish is fairly simple to make. Meat, spices, onions, wine, broth, and loads of cooking/stirring/waiting/tasting. Luckily I was also taking this time to bake a cake and clean the kitchen, so I got to see the magic of a 2 hour simmer unfold before my eyes.
Around half an hour in, I actually accidentally burned some of the sauce. I was tempted to start over out of perfectionist sake, but I’m glad I didn’t. The reason why the two hours is needed is because it breaks down the meat, but also because it mellows out the otherwise bitter paprika. The same theory applied to a slightly bitter taste of browned sauce. By an hour in, I started to notice all bitterness going away and turning into a richness. By an hour and a half in, my meat turned from tough leathery stew meat to disintegrating at the touch of my fork. And by two hours, I had goulash.
the necessary evil, chocolate cake
Reading the “true way” to do this dish was again a life saver. A Viennese Sachertorte should not be mistaken for a rich flourless chocolate cake that melts in your mouth. This cake is fairly dry, which is why the Austrians always eat it with a dollop of whipped cream (yum!).
While I created the batter, which involved a lot of fluffing and folding, I had a hard time imagining this would turn into anything but a moist, rich cake. But low and behold when it came out of the oven, it was surprisingly light in flavor and slightly dry in texture… not stale dry, just “fluffy”. It is a great contrast to the rich ganache topping and the sweet apricot jam filling, which could otherwise create for a combo that is just too rich.
drinking a varietal that starts with “z”
Finally, although the Sattler Zweigelt 2005 is hard to find, the flavors weren’t terribly exotic. It smells of white pepper, shoe polish, and blackberry. The taste was dark and rich, with great fruit and a crisp dry finish. The loads of pepper help it cut through the rich meat of the goulash, but there was still enough fruit in the wine to pair fairly well (not ideal) with the cake.
According to Appellation America, the best and only place to get cartoon characters of varietals, the Zweigelt is virtually unknown in North America as vintners don’t want to take a chance on a wine with a funny name. But those in cold climates, who already gamble quite a bit, have started taking a risk on the grape. Which is interesting, because the only other place I have seen a Zweigelt before was from the Pelee Island Winery in Ontario. I seem to remember it tasting very peppery as well, but quite good for the price. Maybe we’ll start seeing more in the future!
life: deciding it’s time to join a cause
A lot has happened in the past month. Some of which has changed my perspective on the world I live in… but let’s start where we last left off:
I spoke at my first conference, Web 3.0 in Santa Clara, where I met many semantic web enthusiasts and interesting people. I walked away buzzing with all sorts of ideas and ended up writing a 5 part series for ThreeMinds, Organic’s blog, which might lead to a feature for Advertising Age (stay tuned).
Then, we elected our first ever YouTube president:
My opinion to the now president-elect has gone from curiousity to true hope-filled inspiration. During the campaign, it seemed that all people could talk about was the economy, while I sat patiently wondering if Obama’s technology plan would ever come to fruition.
Now that the campaign is over, it seems that technology is ALL people can talk about. How the internet changed the race? How will Obama use social media to change government? Let’s just say, it’s a good time to be a blogger in the social media niche.
The day after our monumental US election, I attended the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco. It would be an understatement to say that the conference inspired me. Smart people from around the world were putting web 2.0 tools to work to not just sell products and services, but to actual make the world a better place… to create transparency in areas that are lacking, to make consumers smarter about the choices they make, and to bring people together to solve problems they couldn’t have solved on their own.
Obama talks in his first YouTube address about:
“…new spirit of patriotism, of responsibility, where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and not only look after ourselves but each other.”
Some might view a spirit of looking after each other as akin to socialism. And still others will see it as the American way. We help each other out in times of need, and come through for those who have been our allies. I’m not going to get into a political discussion, so much as to say that I am feeling an itching desire to DO SOMETHING… something actually useful, something helpful, something worthwhile.
I also realized something else at that conference. I love Michigan… I really love it, and in case you haven’t heard, it’s not doing so hot right now. I’m about ready to root myself and my future family in this area for good and the economy is collapsing to all sides of me. And I am not terribly confident that government, including our new YouTube president, is going to be able to do anything about it.
We are on our own, and that might be for the best. The change Michigan needs is going to come from the groundswell, from movements like CEOs for Cities and the dozens of pro-Michigan blogs online. We need tools that connect online enthusiasm to offline activity, like Obama’s social network managed to bring local people together for events and grassroots efforts. It’s a good time for social media tactics to really have a positive impact, and I’m not talking ROI on ad dollars.
For the first time, I feel really proud to be in the industry I am in and proud to be living in this sad, but beautiful state. So sign me up. I’m ready to join the Michigan brigade for change. I’m ready to put my social media strategy skills to the test. Who else will join me?
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