Midsummer Issue 2023

COOKING
WITH SCRATCH ©
Tasting Home
by BARBARA SIMMONS
Photo by KAREN FUCITO
We just flew back from Amsterdam and,
boy, are our arms tired.
I know, corny.
It’s good to be home, though, and great to
come home to the Lake Hopatcong News issue
that my daughter, Erika, and daughter-in-law,
Brittney, wrote while we were away.
Hope you enjoyed it. I’ll have to ask them to
help out again!
In June, my husband, Aaron, and I went
on a river cruise from Budapest, Hungary, to
Amsterdam in the Netherlands. We had an
opportunity to visit with my family when we
were in the Rheingau (the Rhine District) near
where my mother was born.
It had been almost eight years since we
had been in Germany and the relatives hadn’t
been to see us in New Jersey since just before
COVID, so we were overdue for a visit. We
were so anxious to meet the new babies, see
as many cousins as possible, eat the local foods
and drink the wonderful wines. It had been too
long.
Our two days in Hessen did not disappoint.
We spent a day and a night with my cousin,
Sigrid Pfeffer, in Frankfurt and another day and
night with cousin Andreas Vahl, and his wife,
Jutta, in Wiesbaden.
Now, when I say cousins, I am referring to
Left: König-Adolf-
Platz in Idstein.
The author with
her cousin, Sigrid
Pfeffer.
(Photos courtesy of
Barbara Simmons.)
descendants of
the 26 cousins my
grandmother had.
I’m not that wellversed
in genealogy
to give specific
gradations of
relationships, but
my mother kept close ties to all of her mother’s
relative’s families and I do my best to do so, too.
It’s just easier for me to call them all cousins.
We spent a beautiful summer day with Sigrid
in her hometown of Idstein, which is an absolute
hidden gem. The half-timber houses painted
in gay colors were so charming and lovingly
restored. A rose garden was the highlight at a
castle that is now used as the local high school.
So gorgeous! We were smitten.
We returned to Frankfurt to spend the night
at Sigrid’s apartment, but not before stopping
in a real local joint, zur Stahlburg, for some
authentic fare.
Aaron ordered a grilled wurst, Sigrid had
Königsberger Klopse (featured in Vol. 14 No.
3) and I had pork schnitzel with the famous
Frankfurter Grüne Sosse or green sauce.
After tasting it, I knew it was going to be the
recipe I would bring home for my next column,
as requested by my editor, Karen Fucito. I
also enjoyed a couple of glasses of the local
Ebbelwoi (apple wine), like the one my father
used to make in our basement at our house on
Lake Hopatcong.
The sauce, which is so tasty, features seven
different herbs, yogurt and sour cream. Sigrid
told me that you can buy these fresh herbs
pre-packaged in supermarkets or—for those
among us with a green thumb—grow them in
your own garden.
She made a point of bringing us to the
Frankfurt Kleinmarkthalle (little market hall) the
next morning to buy packets of seeds for me to
grow the herbs at home.
We tearfully left Sigrid the next morning and
boarded a train to Wiesbaden, my mother’s
hometown, where Jutta picked us up at the
station. At her house, which has been our
home base for the last several visits, was Jutta’s
daughter, Ann Christin, who had come down
from Hamburg with her 4-month-old, Carlotta.
We were delighted to meet the newest
“cousin.” We had dinner at another great local
place, Zum Hirsch, where we enjoyed delicious
super crispy roast chicken, an assortment of
wursts and steak tartare. And more apple wine.
Cousin Ronald Neugebauer met us there on
his bike. Afterwards we went up Neroberg, a hill
overlooking Wiesbaden, and enjoyed a couple
of bottles of delicious Kloster Eberbach riesling
at the Chateau Nero as the sun set over the city.
Breakfast the next morning with Andreas,
Jutta, Ann Christin and Carlotta featured their
usual epic assortment of things to have with
spectacular fresh rolls from the corner bakery.
The table was loaded with dishes of cheeses,
cold cuts of every type, hard-boiled eggs,
yogurt, quark, steak tartare, tuna salad, three or
four different jellies, jams and fruit salad.
Breakfast at the Vahls’ is worth the trip alone.
Sadly, we had to leave that morning, and we
packed our bags to go and meet our ship. It was
too short, as it always seems to be.
We left with promises to see each other
again soon.
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LAKE HOPATCONG NEWS Midsummer 2023