Five years ago, almost to the day, I embarked on my semester abroad in Strasbourg. This morning came DCist’s mention of L’Auberge Chez Francois, an Alsatian restaurant in Vienna (whose owner is a friend of a gentleman who guided many of my travels through Alsace), and shortly after that, an email from an old friend (and fellow culinary adventurer), pointing me to this piece in the Times, hailing the virtues of Alsace’s signature dish, choucroute.
Now I’m hungry and desperately miss Strasbourg, with its cheap, plentiful, amazing food and even more mind-blowing wine (I was there in the better days of the dollar). The article does a nice job in describing how good choucroute can be – even I, shy of pork product and anything cabbage-like, cannot resist its warm, tasty allure – but of course sticks to its theme, and does no more than mention any of the other amazing foods available in this oft-invaded region.
Below is a recipe for one of my favorites, the above-mentioned Tarte