Wow and Futter (or what I ate on my Holidays)

Scotland
Edinburgh, drizzly Saturday evening.
I ate a place called the Lot. It was inoffensive blonde wood and baby blue gloss railings. Reminded me a bit of a nursery.

I asked for a glass of white wine, and my waiter didn't ask me what kind of wine I wanted. Make of that what you will. Does that mean I didn't care? Was I supposed to ask what wine they had? Please advise, someone.

My starter was brie melted over salad leaves and artichoke hearts with an oil and vinegar dressing. It was very pleasant, and I think I will try this out at home. I was offered no bread with this salad. Again, should they have, even though I was glad they didn't because I would have been too full?

My main was a smoked haddock and salmon pie with goat's cheese mash. It came with a welcome salad. The only thing which spoiled the pie was the breadcrumb garnish on the top, which just tasted a bit like burnt toast and were too hard to chew.


Germany
My next foray into food was Cafe Vux in the Neukoelln district of Berlin. They had very impressive vegan buffet;
feijoda made with tofu, an incredibly yummy white bean and lavender dip. I find lavender very strong and associate it with sweet food, but this was amazing. Also, the vegan Heringsalat was something I will have to try to make at home. There were little cups of rice pudding with dessicated toasted coconut and pistachio and rose cupcakes. I also really liked the apple and celery salad. The trick with celery is to cut it up into tiny cubes; each side should be no more then half a centimetre long. Go there if you go to Germany's capital and want (vegan) food inspiration.

I was tempted to bring home a jar of Zwiebel Schmalz, which is as disgusting as it sounds, but remember, I like some really awful stuff e.g. Cherry Lambrini and Dairylea (not together). Schmalz is the German for "lard", but with less negative connotations. Still, it's lard; it was a savoury spread made of vegetable fat, yeast extract and those dried fried onions you can get. I decided it wasn't worth bringing some home.

I did bring home some Harzer Rolle or Handkaese, which is this disgusting rubbery very low fat cheese which looks like a Babybel sized round of congealed Vaseline.

Sunday evening, Boitel made a lovely Pumpkin risotto and a lentil soup flavoured with mint. My contribution was a very sharp salad dressing made of lemon juice and tahini which needed sweetening with agave syrup. I ended up eating most of it. I think it was too far out for my dining companions.

Other highlights was a Vietnamese dish of rice with tofu in an orange coloured sauce which had flavours of coconut, lemongrass, star anise, chilli and salt. On top of it was a very fresh salad with toasted peanut crumbs on top. It was delicious.

My final evening there, Boitel attempted an Auflauf - a much better word than "bake"- but as time was short, it ended up not seeing the inside of an oven. Nevertheless it was a huge glorious heap of mashed potato mixed with fried onion, fried smoked tofu, white sauerkraut- deliciously thin and vinegary- with a mushroom sauce. Delicious and not a clove of garlic in sight.

Winter is truly here, which means it is time to self-medicate with food.