Ok… it’s not actually called Jelly Meat. It’s actually called Aspic – or in Austria – Sulz. But I call it Jelly Meat. Because that’s what it looks like. It reminds of the old Whiskers ad… Whiskers time, chunky tuna; Whiskers time, jelly meat… remember that one? No? Just me, then.
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In mid July, I went and did something crazy… I took a trip Italy.
Italy, as you surely know, had major problems with Covid early on, and it’s pretty much still seen as a no go zone by most. Almost everyone I know cancelled their planned Italian holidays this year.
But when a friend wanted to take me away for my birthday weekend, all we really wanted was to see the ocean, smell the salt and swim in the sea.
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Austrians tend to do the reverse of what I’m used to – they eat a big lunch and then only need a small snack in the evening, rather than a full cooked meal. One of the most common evening ‘snacks’ is Jause. I’ve already written a blog about Jause, but I’m going to take it one step further now. Because Jause, although when you order it at a Jause Station or mountain huts, will be served with specific meats or spreads, is really just a general term for ‘putting stuff on bread’. Essentially it’s an open sandwich.
I’m originally from Melbourne, Australia. If you haven’t heard, Victoria (the state where Melbourne is located), is currently in the middle of a pretty serious lockdown. This was even reported in Austrian news, which means, it’s huge. Melbourne is now in week 4 of a six week planned lockdown, but from the numbers it seems like they’re going to be stuck in there longer.
I’m quite often asked in Austria if I learnt German at school. My answer: “No, I learnt Indonesian,” is usually met with very blank stares.
When I began high school in Australia it was mandatory to learn one semester each of French and Indonesian.
I have a bit of an obsession with food wastage – as I’ve already mentioned in a previous blog, it kind of upsets me. In an ideal world, I shop once a week and have a basic idea of what I’m going to eat each day. Back in my bachelorette days this often resulted in very boring weekday meals. Because if I bought a whole broccoli, then I was forced to eat broccoli almost every night to use it up.
The more people you have in your household, the more variety you can purchase without wastage. And when you’re just one… well it can make it difficult.
You know 
how it goes these days… it seems that everyone is on some kind of special diet… everyone is intolerant to something. Look… it’s not like I don’t believe them, because I know plenty of people who have legitimate intolerances… but it’s almost like sometimes… well… I don’t really believe them.
This is not helped by the fact that it seems there are those who practice ‘selective’ intolerance. They make a big deal to get a gluten free meal in a restaurant, but on Sunday afternoon gorge on ‘standard’ pizza with apparently no ill affect.
Austria is well known for many different types of food – some you will definitely have heard of: strudel, schnitzel, goulash etc. Each region also has specialities they call their own. Though consider that Austria has nine states in a total of 84,000km² (compare that to Australia’s 8 in 7.7million km²) – this means that a dish ‘local’ to one area is very often found in other places too.
I live in the state of Carinthia (Kärnten) and I work in the state of Steiermark (Styria), so I’m familiar with quite a few.
We’ve already talked about Kärntner Reindling, Kärntner Nudeln, Jause and Glundner Käse and this week I’m focusing on Backhendl.
In my town the opening of the local outdoor swimming pool was delayed by two weeks due to COVID-19. You might already know I’m a keen swimmer. You might also already know that I’m no stranger to overdoing it. Living in a land with a swimming pool that’s only open for 3.5 months per year just exacerbates my desire to make the most of the season and swim as much as possible. So what happens when Coronavirus wipes two weeks off that measly 3.5 months… what do I do, you ask?
I flat out panic.
We all know that sitting all day is bad for us. After I slipped discs in my back, I was under strict instructions: from here on I would need to balance out time spent sitting with movement, be it walking or standing.
At the time, because I couldn’t drive, I created a standing desk at our dining room table – two cardboard boxes created the perfect height for my laptop. I’d stand for half an hour and then I’d sit for half an hour, and so on. Soon after, we installed a standing desk in my home office, and thankfully my company provided me with a standing desk at work. So I was set.
an aussie in austria 