Liptauer: A Savoury Bread Spread from Austria

Austrian fresh cheese spread - Liptauer

Recently I was invited to an Austrian dinner. The dishes served were entirely vegetarian which some might find surprising. It is often the famous Wiener Schnitzel that pops to mind first when thinking about Austrian cuisine. That dinner however was a testimony that an entirely vegetarian Austrian menu is possible and needless to say delicious to the degree of culinary achievement higher than some of the vegetarian restaurants can boast with.

This was the first time the host introduced me to Liptauer. Despite that the name Liptauer funnily had something of a military sounding quality in it (some Austrian - Hungarian officer perhaps who used to dip his bread into such spread every Sunday morning?) I was reaching out for a second helping of that smooth and utterly flavourful orange sauce. 

While I was spreading the bright orange Liptauer on a piece of bread, the host was explaining that it was made of Topfen, the Austrian word for quark (or fresh cheese if quark is not known in your country), paprika powder, garlic, soft butter, .... Voilà. That explained why it tasted so smooth and had almost a melting quality to it. Butter, say no more, gives every dish a lift-up. 

I bet every household in Austria has their own favourite Liptauer recipe. I have made it for a few times now and my recipe, if you really need the measurements, is here as a start to bring you closer to your own favourite version of it.

Liptauer - a savoury bread spread 

Ingredients

250g Topfen or quark or fresh cheese, at room temperature

50 g soft butter

1,5 tsp sweet paprika powder

0.5 tsp hot paprika powder

1 tsp caraway seed powder (or whole caraway seeds)

a good pinch of salt

a pinch of black pepper

1 tbsp mustard

1 small clove of garlic, crushed

2 small marinated cucumbers, cut into small cubes

0.5 red sweet bell pepper, cut into small cubes

1 -2 tbsp finely chopped chives

In a bowl mix together quark, soft butter, paprika powders, caraway, salt, pepper, mustard, garlic and whisk into a smooth mass.

Add the vegetable cubes. 

Garnish with chives and serve with fresh bread or toast.

Liptauer spread

Cucumber and radish salad

Radishes are bitter, you say? Indeed, on their own they can be. That bitterness can bring a blessing when combined with other ingredients that are mild and benefit from a stronger companion. One of such ingredients is cucumber. Garlic, red onion, mint or radish render a supporting arm to the slender cucumber in popular salads.

When I was a child, the radishes were more of a late spring and early summer vegetable. Further into the summer they developed a bitter taste that no one enjoyed. The weather or the varieties of those days somehow were not suitable to grow a young second crop. Now one can find the young radishes at the market almost throughout the year.

On a hot day cucumber is an additional source of hydration thanks to its high water content.

Breathing in the smell of freshly cut cucumber and eating a cold cucumber soup or salad refreshes like a gust of cool mist bursting from nozzles onto sweating customers in a terrace restaurant on a piazza in Italy in the August heat.

Cucumber and radish salad

Ingredients for 2-3

1 long salad cucumber, peeled and thinly sliced

1 bunch of ca. 10 radishes, cleaned and thinly sliced

a few sprigs of fresh dill, chopped

(optional: young dill flowers)

Sauce

1 tsp honey

1tbsp (Dijon) mustard

1 tbsp apple vinegar

3-4 tbsp rape seed oil

salt

freshly ground black pepper

Place the cucumber and radish slices into a bowl.

For the sauce  mix all ingredients together until a thicker sauce is formed.

Mix the vegetables and dill with the sauce. 

Leave to marinate in a fridge for 5-10 minutes.

Or serve separately as I have done here.

You may also like:

Roasted radishes

Cucumber and melon soup

Cucumber salads and chilled soup
Chilled cucumber and strawberry soup

Mushroom and blue cheese crostinis

A true Italian Mamma will probably call my way of making bruschettas a blasphemy, but since I don´t own a brustolina, I am not going to go without serving these crispy slices of bread with simple toppings of tomato and basil or more special goat cheese and pears. 

Brustolina, a grill pan for grilling slices of bread for bruschettas, would be another gadget in the kitchen that would claim space that is already at limit of scarcity and fortunately it is impossible to get one here.  Clear that a gas top would bless even a slice of bread with that special taste created by real fire but you can´t always have everything. At the end it is just food. 

So an oven will do or a toaster in a breakfast hurry. The result is jolly crispy anyway. 

Let me call them crostinis then - grilled or toasted bread with a topping.

Mushroom and Gorgonzola crostinis

Ingredients for ca. 10:

Base:

1 baguette bread or other bread, sliced

olive oil

garlic

Topping:

2 tbsp olive oil

200g champignons or other mushrooms, sliced 

white part of 1 leek, thinly sliced

50g blue cheese like gorgonzola

black pepper

dill

Place the bread slices that have been sprinkled with a few drops of olive oil and spread with a clove of garlic on a baking tray and bake in an oven at 180 degrees Celsius until slightly brown and crispy. Alternatively toast the slices of bread in the toaster. For the extra taste spread a little olive oil and garlic on the bread after toasting. 

Heat 2 table spoons of olive oil in a pan, cook the sliced leek in the oil for 5 minutes, then add mushrooms and cook another 5 minutes. Take off the heat and let cool for a couple of minutes.

Transfer the slightly cooked mushrooms and leek into a food processor bowl and crush them into a rough paste. Add the blue cheese and black pepper and mix everything into a smooth paste. Taste, if a little extra salt is required.

Serve on grilled or toasted bread. Tastes especially good with dill.

Beetroot carpaccio with goat cheese and Estonian "kilu"

On the 24th of February 2015 Estonia is celebrating it´s 97th birthday.

In the era of global access to everything we are exposed to innumerable possibilities. A perfect Indian curry in England, decadent Austrian cakes, the freshest seafood served in Barcelona, a delightful plate of simple pasta in Florence or divinely delicious scoop of freshly made ice cream that hooks you into its spell and leaves you wanting more at Lago Maggiore, indescribably seductive eclairs in Paris, the best oven roasted lamb one can imagine in northern Spain, the delicate fatty herring in the streets of Amsterdam, the best bread in the world made by masters in Germany, tantalizingly tempting chocolate in Belgium, a glass of mango lassi that you never forget in Interlaken and many many many more delicacies of different cuisines in Europe are within one or two hour flying or train ride away. One can play the game of tastes, give in to curiosity and invite yourself or be invited to experiment and entertain your palate in any way you wish.

There is theoretically no reason to ever eat the same food again, the possibilities to experience new tastes are endless. 

And yet, every now and then we get bored or tired of the culinary affairs and indulgent episodes of excitement and we go back to some foods and dishes we have grown to...................love.

So it does not come as a surprise that thinking of the menu for this anniversary of Estonia I am tending towards the down to earth ingredients that are widespread in our northern cooking. At the moment I haven´t got further from the starter, but I am thinking beetroot, garlic, horseradish, little salty fish we call "kilu". Kilu is similar to anchovies, but made slightly differently with spices like allspice, bay leaf, pepper and canned in salt brine. Some goat cheese to give the dish a special modern flavour. Keep it simple and let the ingredients do the talking.

Ingredients for 2:
a handful of lamb lettuce (Feldsalat in Germany, Nüssler Salat in Switzerland), or rocket (Rucola) as an alternative
2 beetroots, boiled and sliced into very thin slices
goat cheese, cut into 0.5 cm slices
2 cloves of garlic, cut very thinly or crushed
honey
walnuts
1tsp horseradish paste or grated horseradish
3 tbsp creme fraiche
1 can "vürtsikilu" filets or anchovies
black pepper

For the dressing combine:
1 tbsp apple vinegar
1 tbsp cold pressed rape seed oil or olive oil

Heat the oven to 200 degrees Celcius.
Place the slices of goat cheese on a sheet of baking paper on a baking tray.
Spread a little honey and a little crushed garlic or some slices of garlic and a half of walnut on each piece of cheese.
Grill the cheese in the oven until the top is bubbling as it melts or slightly golden.

Mix the horseradish with creme fraiche and a pinch of salt.

To serve place a small handful of lamb lettuce on the plate, arrange the beetroot slices in one or two layers in a circle.
Version 1: Top the beetroot carpaccio with grilled goat cheese

Version 2: Top the beetroot carpaccio with horseradish cream and fish filets

Sprinkle with the dressing and season with freshly ground black pepper.

Happy Birthday Estonia!

For more "kilu" and beetroot recipes check out:
Kilupirukad - pies with kilu filets
Beetroot soup with sauerkraut

Roasted figs with goat´s cheese and thyme

Roasted Figs with Goat´s Cheese @ Lime Or Lemon

Compared to a few years ago figs are conquering the way more and more into my kitchen. Starting in August I look forward to the fig season that culminates in late September and October. It has been a generous crop this year.

Turkish figs

Just last weekend a colleague of mine kindly gave me jar of self-made fig chutney. Her fig tree has blessed them this year with abundance of figs. Now I am looking for a suitable occasion to untie the red ribbon of the jar with a self decorated label and try her spicy chutney.

I have confessed  earlier on the blog that the fresh figs used to look kinda scary to me. I think the bizarre scariness came from their unique softness that no other fruit really has. They possess certain seductive and addictive qualities, it seems. Dish after dish the love of figs has grown and by now I am a convinced fig worshipper. Figs are truely wonderful! 

They taste great both in sweet and savoury dishes.

I don’t have a fig tree, but was happy to grab some plump and syrupy figs of Turkish origin from a supermarket sale. I made a portion of fig jam, my first ever. 

Lime Or Lemon´s first fig jam

While cutting the figs for the jam, their succulent purple flesh was so appetizing that I left a few for a quick lunch or supper later on.

  

Roasted fresh figs with goat´s cheese:

100g goat´s cheese, cut into chunks 

6 fresh figs, cross cut on top

thyme (or rosemary)

olive oil

Preheat the oven to 220C.

Fit the bottom of a baking form with baking paper.

Place the figs into the baking form.

Divide the cheese between the figs and put a piece or two on each fruit.

Season with a little thyme and drizzle with olive oil.

Roast in the oven until the cheese melts or takes on a golden crisp.

Crispy goat´s cheese and roasted fresh figs

Serve warm just like that or with some fresh olive bread.

   

More fig recipes:

Fresh figs with feta cheese

Sweet and savoury fig and feta tart

Wild Garlic and Broccoli Dip

Spring began this week. I noticed this at the market because the wild garlic had arrived. I also noticed that in a small supermarket where I and my colleagues sometimes buy soup for lunch a new spring selection included wild garlic soup.

Wild garlic is also known as ramsons but as I understand not many people know what ramsons is (are?). Let´s stick to wild garlic in English then. In Estonian as well as in German this green garlicky leaf is linked to bears and is called "karulauk" (Est.) and "Bärlauch" (Ger). In fact the question is why in English it is not relating to bears? The Latin name of wild garlic is "Allium ursinum" where "allium" is leek and "ursus" is a bear. In Finnish it is called "karhunlaukka", in Lithuanian it is "meškinis česnakas", in Polish "Czosnek niedźwiedzi ", all include a mention of a bear.

In Danish it is "ramsløg", in Swedish "ramslök", in Norwegian "ramslauk", all have a similar word root of "rams" as is found in the English ramsons.

So here is my personal etymological theory, the vikings from Scandinavia knew wild garlic and while they were ravaging on the island now known as Brittain around the 8-10th century somehow perhaps seasoned the game they caught with ramsons that they knew from back home.

In many other countries on the European continent the etymological linkage must have spread from German, Latin or Slavic languages where this forest herb is mentioned in relation to bears who after waking from the winter sleep are looking for the wild garlic bulbs in the forest. And bears in these countries are common forest inhabitants.

Enough of etymology, now back to food...

Wild Garlic and Broccoli Dip

Ingredients:
1 broccoli head
a small bunch of wild garlic (ca. 20 leaves)
3 tbsp crème fraîche
1-2 tbsp lemon juice
salt
pepper

Ciabatta or sliced bread, toasted
Extra virgin olive oil

Cut the broccoli into smaller pieces and steam for 5-10 minutes until soft. I recommend steaming to boiling to avoid that broccoli becomes too watery. Let it cool down or quickly cool it by dipping it into ice water and pat dry.
Place the broccoli, wild garlic, crème fraîche, lemon juice, salt and pepper into a food processor and crush the ingredients into a smooth spread like paste.
Taste and season as you and your fellow eaters please.

Instead of broccoli kohlrabi or cauliflower can be used as well.

Serve it with toasted slices of ciabatta or any bread.
Sprinkle a little olive oil on the bread and either spred the dip on the bread or just dip pieces of bread into the dip.

Spinach, Feta cheese and peppermint pies

Spinach, Feta cheese and fresh peppermint pies

The inspiration to use fresh peppermint in new combinations recently has been ignited by my friends whose garden produces this herb half wildly in massive quantities and a Middle Eastern stand at the farmers´ market that has very generous bunches of Moroccan peppermint.

The minty avocado and new potato salad was a refreshing green light meal a few days ago and chilled cucumber and strawberry soup  was seasoned with fresh peppermint leaves.

Something quick and easy today for a light supper or an idea for an apero table.

Spinach, Feta Cheese and Fresh Peppermint Pies
Ingredients for 4 small pies
Dough
135g flour
40g olive oil
35g water
salt

Filling
100-130g fresh spinach leaves, washed and roughly chopped
olive oil (1 tsp)
100g feta cheese, crumbled
10 peppermint leaves, finely chopped
1 tbsp Greek yoghourt
salt
pepper
2 tsp honey

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius (400 F)

Feta cheese and spinach pies flavoured with mint and honey

1. Mix the dough components together. It is good to work the dough by hand until well combined.
2. Set aside until you make the filling.
3. Heat a pan with a little olive oil, 1 teaspoon is enough to wilt the spinach.
4. Place the chopped spinach into the pan and cook on medium heat for a few minutes until the spinach is soft.
5. Press the excess water out of the spinach.
6. Place the crumbled feta cheese into a bowl, add the mint, yoghourt and soft honey. Mix all together, season with salt and pepper.
7. Set 1/3 of the dough aside. Roll the 2/3 of the dough to a 3-4mm flat sheet, cut portions and fit the dough into small pie forms. If needed, place a piece of baking paper at the bottom to prevent sticking. This step is not necessary if you are using already non-sticking forms.
8. Portion the spinach onto the dough and then add a tablespoon of the feta filling on top.
9. Now roll out the remaining dough and portion for covers. It is also fine to leave the pies uncovered. Both versions work well.
10. Bake in the oven for about 30-35 minutes until the dough is cooked.

Serve warm or cold.

Covered or not, the honey, mint and cheese meet in a merry union

Cold cucumber and strawberry soup

A refreshing soup in the strawberry season

I had an eye-opening moment this May when I realised that the lunch take-away places had stopped serving soup. I checked out all my regular soup places and sighed my way out shoulders sinking lower at each door. It seemed like all of them had agreed to stop serving soup as of first of May. It slowly sank in it that this must be the normal practice. Soup is served in winter and replaced by green and mixed salads in summer. OK, makes sense.

The thing that didn´t quite make sense was the fact that this year the whole May was an extension of winter. The maximum day temperatures swinging between 8-13 degrees Celsius. Far from the weather that calls for a cooling salad. Moreover, the prepared towers of salad boxes did not seem to be selling as fast as oven warm bread at all. But rules are rules or traditions are traditions. No soup after 1st May regardless of the outside temperatures.

The other thing that didn´t quite make sense for me, an eager soup fan, was a selfish question of what if I wish to eat soup all year round. The answer to that would be to make your own soup or go to a sit-down restaurant as they still serve soups all year round.

I can hear the nutritionists in the West, East and ayurvedic rush to explain that the hot weather requires cold or moderate temperature foods. Fair enough. In summer, there is a place for cold soups.

Gazpacho in Spain, šaltibarščiai Lithuania, cold beetroot and buttermilk soup in Estonia, a chilled cucumber soup or a highlight last summer a cold lemon confit soup at Le Pré Verre in Paris,  all a blessing in the heat. These are just a few that immediately flash through my mind when I think of cold soups.

Ingredients for the cucumber-strawberry soup

Cold cucumber and strawberry soup
Strawberries go well with black pepper and peppermint and let combine in a savoury dish equally gracefully.

Ingredients for 2 portions or 6 small appetisers
half a long salad cucumber, peeled and cut into small pieces
250g fresh strawberries, green tops removed, cut into small pieces
1-2dl tomato passata or any tomato sauce a nature
1 small clove of fresh garlic, chrushed
a small bunch of fresh thyme, finely chopped
a small bunch of fresh Moroccan peppermint leaves, finely chopped
juice of half a lemon
salt
black pepper
1 tsp sugar
extra virgin olive oil


Mix the cucumbers and strawberries with herbs and seasonings

Mix the cucumber and strawberry pieces with the tomato sauce, garlic, thyme, peppermint,  salt, black pepper, sugar and leave to marinate for 30 minutes.

Purée in a blender or with a hand mixer until smooth.
Taste for salt, sweetness and spice and ajust if necessary.
Keep refrigerated until serving. Serve with some extra virgin olive oil sprinkled on top.

The soup has low calories, however does fill the stomach quite well.



Cold soup of cucumber and strawberry served as a small appetizer

Roasted Carrot and Chickpea Hummus

Roasted carrot and chickpea hummus

 I happened to see an interview with a popular Estonian writer and a respected thought leader Mihkel Mutt. Shooting many thought pearls from his sharp cannon he was talking about why we should read and re-read the classics.
If we only read whatever new comes along there is a risk that people will adopt bad as acceptable, acceptable as mediocre, mediocre as good and good as genius. The classics help us to re-calibrate the important criteria in life.

I was thinking about this all day and while the tought was inspiring to always aspire perfection it rang a bell in a culinary sense as well. The classic recipes are classic, because they are good and are treasured by millions of mouths because the classics make them happy. The classic cooking methods are classic again because they have worked for long and will continue to attract new generations.

Adopting eating habits that lead to diabetes in early ages as acceptable, aisles of packaged ready-made food as satisfactory, fast food as good nutrition and a plate of take away "pasta bolognese" as genius is crying out for an occasional visit to a real quality restaurant or Mom´s kitchen or foodie friends to re-calibrate the main criteria.

Roasted Carrot and Chickpea Hummus
Ingredients:
200g carrots, cut into 1-2cm pieces
2-3 tbsp cooking oil
salt
cumin powder

1 can chickpeas
2 tbsp tahini paste
1 clove garlic, crushed
2 tbsp olive oil
juice of half a lemon
3 tbsp cold water
1/2 tsp salt
pepper
1/2 tsp cumin powder
1/2 tsp coriander powder

Add more colour to pale hummus with roasted carrots

Heat the oven to 200 C, place the carrots into a baking tray, sprinkle with oil, a pinch of salt and a pinch of cumin powder and roast the carrots until soft, ca. 30-40 minutes. Cool them down.

In a food processor mix the roasted carrots. Add chickpeas, tahini paste, garlic, olive oil, lemon juice, water, salt, pepper, cumin and coriander powders. Mix until smooth and well combined.

Drizzle olive oil and sprinkle some more cumin powder and serve with crisps, tortilla chips or thin roasted bread slices.

A more northern taste of classic hummus, with roasted carrots

Octopus carpaccio

Octopus carpaccio

Octopus belongs to the "Love it, hate it" foods. Some just adore the purple and white meaty  bite, others get shivers just by looking at, let alone touching or eating, the knobby tentacles of this sea animal.

2 x ca 1 kg raw octopus

For those who love octopus the Galician style pulpo a la gallega or pulpo and shrimp cocktail from Mexico are well known. A cold variation of preparing pulpo is as carpaccio. Octopus in a cold dish is a gastronomic gift that keeps you cool and fills the belly just to the right level on a warm day. Even if served warm and you are eating outside, when the food starts to get cold on the plate it still tastes great, unlike a piece of meat that one would like to re-heat to continue eating.

Cold octopus carpaccio

The preparation of carpaccio di polpo is simple.

Cook the pulpo in water. (Instructions can be found here). Mid-way, taste if your octopus needs salt and if yes, add to the cookin g water. Let it cool in the cooking water so it does not dry out and starts to build the gelatinuous jelly. When cool, fold the whole piece tightly together and place it in a plastic bag. Tie it with rubber bands if necessary to keep it tighly together. Leave in the fridge for a few hours or over night until it becomes firm.

Carpaccio di polpo

When ready to serve remove from the plastic wrap and cut thin slices with a very sharp knife.
Serve with some thick balsamico or fig vinegar, some olive oil and flakes of seasalt as a cold starter or light meal with some fresh salad.

Octopus carpaccio with balsamico

Fresh Herbs Series: Sage Butter

Velvety leaves of sage

Some restaurants have the habit of bringing bread to the table while the hungry guests are waiting for their orders. The choice differs from place to place. Here are some examples:

-         just bread

-         slices of bread in a plastic bag (Why in plastic??)

-         various rolls

-         various warm rolls

Sometimes the bread comes with an accompaniment of some sort to make the waiting a bit more adventurous. The choice may include:

-         butter

-         olive oil

-         black olive tapenade

-         herb butter

-         a mix of the above

The places that serve fresh home-made bread or a variety of (mini)rolls are my favourite. The smell of the inside of the bread provides the clue. Dipping pieces of bread into olive oil while waiting for your plate of pasta may take the conversation to the olive tree groves, olive harvest, oil pressing, oil tasting, the debate who produces the best olive oil, why Greece exports so little, the olive oil “mafia”, who likes green or black olives, …

Any place that serves herb butter that makes my mind search in the taste bank somewhere in my brain guessing and looking for the name of the herb that has been used in the particular butter definitely raises the chance of a higher tip and verbal praise at the end of the meal.

One of my favourite herb butters is the one with sage.  I find it a real pity that the velvety touch of fresh sage leaves gets lost in any way of cooking and preparing sage.

There is no exact recipe, just use the ingredients as you feel is right for your taste.

As a guideline for a small portion of sage butter:

50 g butter

10-15 leaves of sage of all sizes

Juice of one slice of lemon

A pinch of salt

Bring butter to room temperature.

Finely chop the sage and mix the sage, lemon juice and salt with butter.

Place the herb butter into a small bowl or if making a bigger quantity form into a roll in the cling film. Refrigerate.

Enjoy with bread just like that or in a sandwich.

Herb butter with fresh sage (Est. salveivõi, Ger. Salbei Butter)

Kaiserlinge - Caesar´s mushrooms

Luxurious Caesar´s mushrooms

Amanita caesarea, Kaiserlinge, Caesar´s mushroos are egg-shaped when young, whitish with hidden orange, of size between a quail´s egg to bigger than a large hen´s egg…10 times more delicate than champignons, ridiculously expensive, luxurious…

Amanita caesarea, Kaiserlinge, the Caesar´s mushroos

The expert mushroom merchant at my fresh market was explaing to customers in his lovely French accent that the Kaiserlinge can be eaten raw or just briefly cooked.
The ones I bought from the market came from Italy, the ones sold at the top end foodstore Globus in Switzerland were of Bulgarian origin. Brief Internet research says that the caesar´s mushrooms can be found in the Mediterranean area in Europe. On my own mushroom foraging trips to the forests I have not seen such, but then again, Estonia is much further north.

Raw Caesar´s mushrooms

I am still looking for convincing evidence on the nutritional value of the mushrooms in general. I have seen views published that mushrooms barely have any useful nutritional content and only serve as stomach fillers or very recently that a chanterelle salad provides you with useful minerals and nutrients. Still deciding what to believe…

What I am sure of is that for those who love mushrooms it is enough to enjoy the different mushroom tastes, texture nuances and be intoxicated by the smells arising from cooking the mushrooms. The Kaiserlinge deserve to be cherished as a standalone dish without lots of additions. They are expensive to serve as a filling in a pot with other ingredients and don´t have a strong distinctive smell like say chanterelles to be used to give the mushroom note to a bigger dish. They are worth indulging on the pure taste of their own.

"Kaiserlinge" mushrooms are delicate and need very brief cooking time

Preparation:
Cut the mushrooms lengthwise into ca 5 mm slices. Heat some olive oil in the pan on medium and fry the musrooms 2 minutes on each side.
Serve just like that or add a few grains of salt, drizzle a few drops of lemon juice, thinly chopped parsley or pepperoncini oil to add a little spice.

Easter Farmers´ Market – goat’s cheese or chèvre chaud on spring greens salad

Tulips in the market

The time of the year calls that bunnies, coloured eggs both real and fake, chicken from feathers, clay or cloth, hens of every possible colour, tulips and heaps of greens have conquered the April market.

 

Easter eggs

Onion peel for colouring the eggs, 2 francs a bag

Easter Bunnies

Two new cheese stands have also sprung out of somewhere this spring. In one of them there are lots of interesting goat’s cheeses, however their selling methodology seems a bit uncoordinated with four people behind the counter and only one visibly engaged in direct selling activity. The others are trying to make way past each other bumping into each other from left to right and the other way round with pieces of cheese in their hands. It seems like Brown movement of molecules in slow motion. After waiting in line for 5 minutes without any particular movement on the other side of the counter and listening to one of the sales force talking to himself most of the time and asking pointlessly who was next and doing nothing about the answer I left and turned my steps to another small cheese stand.

I was after some goat’s cheese for my lunch and just as to turn around the bizarreness of the other stand I had disappointedly left behind there was a most beautiful kind of Romanesque young man as friendly as one can imagine and I got exactly what I wanted immediately – the last piece of the round goat’s cheese that I was looking for.

Cicco rosso

Among the things that I could eat anytime are the grilled goat’s cheese bruschettas or grilled slices of bread with melted goat’s cheese on top. On a bed of fresh portulac, rucola or rocket, young cicco rosso and verde leaves mixed salad the chèvre chaud makes my belly smile. A salad dressing made from some orange juice, olive oil, salt and pepper gives the salad and the goat’s cheese the necessary fruity note.

Chèvre chaud - grilled goat´s cheese salad

 Bruschettas with goat cheese persimmon