Translate this post

Tuesday 26 February 2013

The Green Room

They say the grass is always greener, and it certainly was last weekend. Our oldest daughter was in the Snow Queen - a ballet by the local ballet school with over 200 performers.

This is the green room - literally. It's usually a classroom in the local high school but it is where the grass hung out whilst waiting to perform.  Here they are all lined up in the backstage corridor getting ready to perform.



As they were there for more than 3 hours on Friday, Saturday and Sunday for the grand performances, there was lots of grassing around. Hands up who likes grass?  





Although completely biased, I must say the grass group did an excellent job. They were 2 grass down but performed their dance perfectly -  it looked like no one was missing. Very professional. Each member knew their dance and so no one let the group down. Here they are on stage. They worked as a group, then broke out into 3 groups, back again etc. Excellent choreography, crappy photography.



Hand ups for the grass!




Sunday 17 February 2013

The Cake Buffet

Don't read this if you are hungary. It's pretty much only about cake and some other food. In fact just think of it as the upside down food pyramid blog piece.

My youngest sister in law got married! The wedding was on Silvester (which is what they call New Years Eve in German speaking Europe). 

The food arrangements were as follows:
6.00pm - Prosecco and traditional Burgenland snacks - Saltzstangerl and Grammelpogatscherl (low calorie carbs).
7.00pm - Soup, 2 types. 
7.15pm - Boiled beef, horseradish, apple sauce and a bread sauce thing that tastes nicer than my description.
7.30pm - Schnitzel, chicken and sides plus a salad buffet.

It was a real feast to "line the stomach". A process that is absolutely necessary as the Burgenlanders are hard core party goers. 

In addition, there is a Burgenland tradition that guests provide cakes for the "Cake Buffet". An excellent tradition in my opinion. 

Here is a long view of the cake buffet. Just to get your mouth watering. Apparently the yellow cake was delicious, but I never even tried a piece. I'm devastated and may need therapy if I keep looking at it.


Getting a little bit closer, so you can see the wonderful decorations. There are hours of work in many of these cakes. They are each a work of art.


Some adorable hedgehogs. They look almost too good to eat. But I smuggled one home in a napkin to be eaten the next day.


This was a LOVE cake and it is one of my all time Austrian cake favs - Diplomat cake. There was nothing diplomatic about my huge piece, except that I shared the lurid coloured icing with my daughter. We were both happy with this arrangement.


Sweet mini cupcakes that tasted even better around 3am. They were the perfect size to just pop one in your mouth on the way to and from the bar to the dance floor.


This was my youngest gals favourite cake. You know 3 year olds have exquisite taste....bright green base and princess pink on top and lots of silver sugar beads. One level was a Sacher torte and the other a chocolate nut cake. She went to bed before the buffet was opened, so I promised her I would bring her a piece. It is what she ate for breakfast and she was overjoyed.


Can you see the little lamb family back there, gorgeous. A young man was eyeing off those or maybe it was the pink round things. They are full of rum drenched vanilla and chocolate cake then covered with a thin pink icing. They also taste good for breakfast.


And finally the wedding cake. What an amazing cake. My brother in law is about 2 meters tall, so that might given you an idea how large the cake was. My mother in law made it. We were "caked out" by the end. Which is shocking given that I am VERY partial to cake.


Here are 2 lovely girls after the wedding ceremony. Although not cake, they are sweet as it....most of the time!



I am now fully recovered and looking forward to my next Burgenland feasting and cake buffet.