we spent 2 hours at lowe's today purchasing home and garden supplies, from front porch pots to bathroom paint. unfortunately, the rain has quashed any grandiose ideas we had for yard work. the only good thing about rainy sundays in the spring is the lack of a line at zip dip.
the weekend started off right friday night at mecklenburg gardens. i met some friends for happy hour hefeweisens, and it stretched into dinner and a little more beer. as a kid, i was resistent to german food. let's face it, a lot of german food smells bad and looks funny. limberger cheese. sauerkraut. sauerbraten. and what's up with the white hot dogs? i hated the suprise of going to my grandparents' and finding out it was sauerkraut day. that smell seeps into the curtains and i am convinced to this day that sauerkraut is a large component of that "old people smell" we all recognize. (i wonder if that smell varies by region?) the only "german" food i would eat was german chocolate cake. ok, and goetta, but that's more of a german immigrant thing
however, as i grew up and my tastebuds started to numb a little, i started to love german food. i think i finally tried it out of a sense of duty to my heritage. during my trip to austria, i probably gained 10 pounds from schnitzel alone. my friend and i wanted to come back to cincinnati and open a restaurant called 'the wurst place in town' dedicated to the various wursts and garden gnomes we had encountered in our travels. but i digress. german food has found it's place in my heart and stomach. and i have to say, mecklenburg's is my favorite. it surpasses hofbrauhaus by far. the atmosphere is great, it's never over-crowded, and the owner has a handlebar moustache that rocks. a few of us pharmacy students are there pretty regularly, enjoying the aforementioned hefeweisen, pretzels and bier cheese, and sauerkraut balls. great happy hour prices. and the dinner is blissful - spaetzle, apples and red cabbage, sauerbraten or weiner schnitzel. i always forget to leave enough room for dessert, which is unfortunate because they have cream puffs and mecklenburg pie (an original creation of pecan chocolate chip crust with mocha filling and mocha mousse). yum.
a little additional family history on mecklenburg's: my great, great uncle bruno was a waiter there for 42 years. he ran book out of there as well. you can see his picture by the hostess stand. he's the dreary looking one who resembles lurch from the addam's family.
1 comment:
My husband, whose mother was Swiss, refused to try sauerkraut for years. When he finally did, he was kind of mad at his parents for not making him try it sooner. His dad shrugged: "More for me when you didn't like it."
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