Categories: uncategorized
Date: 24 October 2008 21:26:09
Not sure if that's in the right gender actually - help me here, kerensa! Anyway, after having a happy hour (in the literal sense, not the cheap drinks one) with my friend from Australia who's here on holiday, I decided there was no need to go home immediately, and went to the Tube station to rehearse easy ways of getting from Victoria to Kensington Gore. As there turned out to be a direct bus (no 52, since you ask), I launched out into the unknown and went to the Vienna Café exhibition again, without aged parent and without rib pain. The object was to get the cake I didn't have last week because of having chosen the wrong one. Unfortunately the desired cake (a sort of raspberry mini-pavlova) was no longer on the menu, so I ended up with a 'Millirahmstrudel' which is a light-as-air curd cheesecakey thing, and which was delicious (and also warm from the oven). Mini-pavlova - pah, I can make this at home.
By the way, one thing I learned from the exhibition is that Viennese pastries, such as the ubiquitous strudel, derive from Turkish pastries. Of course, it all makes sense - both baklava-type desserts and strudels use filo pastry. So the Viennese got not only their coffee but their cakes from the fiendish Turks. What I still haven't worked out is how this happened when the Ottomans only got to the gates of Vienna but no further. Perhaps some of them liked the look of the place and stayed behind?