Walnuts cinnamon bread-rolls for a breakfast oversea

This is being a year full of lovely friends and travels.
All started in April when I had the chance to meet sweet Pamela of My Man's Belly and hubby. Luckily enough they were in Düsseldorf for some business and that means below 1h of train of distance from me.

After convincing them in meeting up in Bonn instead of Cologne, we enjoyed a very lovely day coffee hopping and belly filling; usual routine for when foodies get together, right? You might say that only one thing might be missing from the foodie-madness picture and that is actually the picture taking itself; do not despair we did also that! You see, one of the reasons (or baits) I used to lure them into my German lair were the lovely Japanese cherry trees planted along my street that were in full bloom in that period.


The weather wasn't perfect, we actually escaped quite a few strong showers while prophetically sipping on some coffee but the sun pierced through the thick layer of clouds and we got some pretty nice shots of the pinkiness around us.

Better than bread and water: Bierbrezeln

German gastronomy is pretty a mystery to most of us, I have been living in Germany for the last 5 years and still eludes me. Walking around the streets of Bonn or Cologne, you rarely see restaurants specialized on German food. Mostly they are brewery offering rich creamy meat dishes, stews or schnitzel to have with their beers.

The decision has been made

Here we go, also for this month the PaperChef challenge has gone by and, judging from the submissions, surely not unnoticed; the hosts (Ilva and Mikey) have received in total 10 submissions.
As monthly co-host my duty was to choose a winner among them. Let me first remind you the ingredients you were supposed to use in your creative efforts: Dried cranberries, dates, candied orange peel and flour.
It was very interesting to see what these magic four have inspired in you. The entries may be divided in roughly 3 groups: leavened goodies, savories and baked desserts.
Let's start with the breads and rolls.

To Karen from Prospect in the Pantry, the monthly ingredients were simply speaking tea-times with her siblings in Scotland. She wanted to share with us the relaxed and elegant atmosphere of these occasions with a Date-Nut Bread with Cranberry Orange Cream Cheese.

It’s a Chickpea Affair

This was Carnival l week in old Europe and here in Nord Rhine Westphalia were I live, this is a deeply felt festivity. It all goes by the number 11, they start planning it the 11th of November and the party this year started the 11th of February at 11am (Carnival takes place always the week-end before the start of Lent period). In other words, do you like beer not only in October? Come by this region around February to get loaded up and see Germans through new eyes.
I am not a big beer fun and decided to stay home enjoying the falling snow and doing some cooking. Lucky enough, the monthly Daring Cooks challenge http://thedaringkitchen.com/ involved Lebanese Mezze; namely Pita bread and Hummus and few other optional dishes (thanks to Michele of Veggie Num Nums for the choice).

Let's blow those candles all together!

The past week Jamie of Life’s a feast, a good friend of mine and inspiring blogger, had her birthday. This month, she is hosting the ritual Bread Baking Day and to make it special we are bringing all our breads to her place for a cosy birthday party.
I haven’t baked bread very often, I guess you can easily count the times I did on the fingers of one hand. Probably it was just out of laziness since wherever I lived I could find great breads just around the corner and I am in love with my home town bread: Lentini’s bread.

A pure durum wheat bread made from locally grown plants, baked in traditional stone oven, fired with olive tree wood and almond shells. At first sight, a thick cinnamon brown crust tempts your senses, perfect tiny sesame seeds stud its surface; the intricate shapes in which this bread is usually baked leaves plentiful of tiny dollops that you will just tear away to hide it in your mouth, looking around to make sure mommie isn’t looking.
Its crumb, golden yellow, dense but porous has a sweet aroma and delicate flavour; the crackling of the crust fills your hears, the warmth of the bread make you want to cuddle it like a teddy bear, you squint your eyes in pleasure when the crumb start releasing its incredible aromas. You just need a pot of hot spicy garlicky tomato sauce (better if made from canned tomatoes) and… Oh my, what memories.

It is true that bread can talk to our soul trough our nostrils, as Leonardo might through our eyes.