Impressions of Austria

Tonight is Daniil Trifonov with an all-Bach program, but I wanted to do another general post about Austria--and Europe. It is always interesting cooking in Europe which I can do on this trip as I have an apartment with a small but nice kitchen. The neighborhood restaurant is Italian and while they do pretty good pizza, their pasta is, in my opinion, inedible. My idea of Italian food is quality ingredients prepared in simple, effective ways and every pasta dish I have had here has been over-elaborated and over-cooked. Yesterday I made a simple dish of olive oil, garlic and tomatoes that was excellent. The secret, and the reason I made the dish, was the tomatoes. Mexico has very good tomatoes year-round, but whenever I go to Europe I am impressed with their amazing tomatoes (and garlic). Here is a photo.

I don't know why, but I never see tomatoes of this quality in North America. The garlic is also more flavorful. And of course, every supermarket has an excellent selection of wines. Mind you, they all close on Sundays, so bear that in mind!

Let's see, some tafelmusik by Telemann would seem to be appropriate: