The In My Kitchen series is on summer hiatus while our host Maureen recovers from surgery.  I thought it would be nice to go ahead and post anyway, especially since I have some loot from our trip to Europe.

I’ve lived in both Austria and Germany several times over the years so I already knew the food and culture very well.  In my mind I had ideas of what I wanted to buy to bring home as well as things I wanted to eat while there.  Needless to say I didn’t get to it all, especially with our crazy schedule.

I did get the tea spoons and cake forks though.  I have a couple sets of silver spoons and forks I’ve gotten at flea markets in Paris and London over the years.  This time I wanted something more every day and these ones from WMF are perfect.  The boys are awaiting their first proper afternoon tea (though we’ve used the spoons for ice cream several times and forks for cake after dinner)!

The boys ate their first Curry Wurst at a gas station and quite enjoyed it.  It’s simply a sausage sliced up and soaked in curry ketchup.  Served with hot fresh fries and it’s a winner.  So of course we brought home some curry ketchup.  At our friend’s cookout we also ate some mango curry sauce made by Heinz but couldn’t find it in the stores we went to before our departure.  We did find this fig dijon mustard though…

We lucked out and were there during strawberry, white asparagus and apricot season.  The boys also tried their first fresh currants which aren’t grown near us.  In addition to all the fresh produce I wanted to get my stash of apricot goodies.   After having a wonderful apricot schnaps at a friend’s house I knew I needed to get a bottle of that.  I also wanted some apricot jam.  Unfortunately I wasn’t able to find exactly what I was looking for, something homemade or small batch.  Darn that busy schedule and not enough time to shop all over the place.  I did come up with a bottle of apricot schnaps though, even with a cute hat on it!

These cracker coated peanuts were a huge hit with the boys.  We would get several bags and snack on them during the whole trip.  Paprika was the favorite flavor, as well as honey and salt.  These are two new flavors to try out at home.

We visited my Karin in Salzburg and had lots of fun with her.  She gave me all this Ritter Sport and as you can tell we’ve opened a couple flavors already.  We’re all intrigued by the tortilla chip one, that’s a new flavor for us.  The chocolate hazelnut wafers are also a favorite, the boys LOVE them!  They tried so many delicious treats there but we had to limit what we could bring home.

And finally here is a cookbook Karin gave me.  It is filled with scrumptious recipes and pictures of local Austrian specialities.  Several of the dishes I recognize from living in Austria or my travels, many more are completely new to me.  I’m looking forward to testing out some recipes very soon.

We brought home more, though some of it was eaten before I got any photos!  Or maybe I did, feel free to check out the older InstaGram pics and you may find something…