I’ll be the first to admit: Michael and I have a relationship that revolves around food.

Clockwise from top: Beef Gulasch, Bratwurst & Sauerkraut, Red Cabbage, German Mushroom Salad, and in the middle, Bread Dumpling

That said, in observing our 10+ years of knowing one another, you’d see that our initial attraction came about due to our mutual love of numbers (that’s right…accounting class….pretty sexy stuff, people!) and our competitive streak on the intramural fields/courts at IU.

German Mushroom Salad from the Glen Eden Cookbook

Even though we were just friends, and dating other people, no less, a relationship formed during our college years. After a few classes together, a few bars, and a few intramural championships, slowly but surely, I started feeding Michael. This was way before any flare of a romance, let alone a relationship, had even begun to bud. Way before The Forbidden Kiss (a story for another time). In accounting class, the bean pole that Michael used to be would show up starving and sit down next to me. Sidenote: somehow he had coerced me into sitting in the back row of the classes I had with him. I’m a front-row-sitter normally (hate me if you must). Every class, it seemed as though the kid hadn’t eaten in weeks. Perhaps the three jobs he worked in addition to his full course load just didn’t earn him enough money for beer, travel, ladies and his stomach. I, on the other hand, never skipped a meal, or a snack. I’d bring food to the business school each day to make sure I wouldn’t starve. Celery sticks, rice cakes, baby carrots….if it was healthy and tasted like cardboard, I had it on me at all times in class. Another sidenote: I was no light eater. I was known by my roommates freshman year as the resident cleaner-upper in the cafeteria….I would finish up whatever they didn’t eat. AND I’d sometimes eat 2-3 bagels a day for weeks on end. I guess my healthy snacks were just to compensate. I’m not sure if it was Michael’s hunger, or his undeniable interest in me, that made him so interested in my cardboard snacks. Regardless, I fed him.

Apples, pretzels, and sweet jalapeno mustard.

Thus began a classroom friendship of hasty note-taking (on my part) and voracious snack-eating (on his). He didn’t have to study, because he’s one of those, and he sure as heck wouldn’t help me out – ever. Why this fact didn’t make me stop sharing my snacks, we’ll never know. I swear though, his mostly A’s report cards should be partly owed to the food I provided his brain.

Brats, kraut, beer, and butter. Nothing not healthy ’bout that.

It wasn’t long before I summoned the courage to bake him some cookies. Those who are observant might note that he still had a long-term high school relationship going at the time. I know what you’re thinking, that I’m some kind of home-wrecker cookie whore. I know it looks bad. I even showed up to his place of work, in the middle of him tutoring a student, to drop them off. To this day I’m not sure what I was thinking, but I didn’t see anything wrong with baking cookies for a friend that happened to be a boy. I didn’t think I was interested in him at all, I just thought he might be hungry! These weren’t just drop-and-bake, run-of-the-mill cookies either, these were sugar cookies, decorated in some sort of Christmas funk. I still feel bad to this day….you see, I felt that I was innocently practicing my craft. I’m sure Michael’s then-girlfriend would beg to differ, and she was probably right.

Almost a year later, and a few months beyond The Forbidden Kiss, I asked him out on our first date. I’d like to think it’s because he was too intimidated by my beauty and cunning personality for him to ask me, but he’ll tell you a different story. Fast-forward a few years, and we got married (at least I let him propose to me, rather than the other way around!). During our wedding ceremony, I literally vowed to love him “as much as ice cream.” Sidenote: I would have been ok with saying “more than ice cream,” but he refused to allow his similar vow to be anything more powerful than “as much as Kentucky basketball.”

Beef Gulasch – this tasted a lot better than the photo looks!

Our almost four years of marriage have come along nicely. I eat ice cream all the time, keep my mouth shut while he {rather insanely} watches his precious basketball, and we enjoy food together. He helped put me through part-time culinary school, and I fed him more food. He’s my number one fan and isn’t afraid to tell people about it.

While things have gone swimmingly so far, there are two things Michael and I just can’t seem to see eye-to-eye on: 1) German food. Michael loves it, I don’t; 2) Where to end up. I see us living somewhere rural….somewhere….Northern….somewhere “Michigan-y” someday. Michael prefers Denver.

Frozen beer (at least wintertime is useful!) and our hosts, Mike and Alison

No worries, we’re not moving anytime soon, if in fact, ever. These are just pipe dreams for both of us, as I’m fairly certain our locale is one argument we’ll never reconcile. But the German food….maybe I could work on that. Of all the cuisines out there, Michael says German is his favorite. And of all the cuisines out there, it’s probably my least-favorite. Michael’s home-made German specialty? Throwing a jar of sauerkraut (Sidenote: I deplore sauerkraut….Something to do with an old 5-gallon bucket of it rotting in my parent’s garage for a long, hot summer when I was younger) and some bratwurst into a covered casserole dish and baking it “until the brats split.” Seriously, that’s how he says he knows it’s done cooking. Nasty. Gassy. Sorry if you like brat’s and ‘kraut, but it’s just not for me.

How is it that my cooking could talk him into dating me, marrying me….doing housework even….but yet, he’s still on the German kick, and still not on the same [Michigan] boat as me?

Allyson, George, Lena, Mike, Alison, Kenna, Ben

In walks Supper Club….the decided cuisine? German. Bleh. Let’s just say while others in the Club focused on the red cabbage (Ew.), the brats and kraut (ugh.), the bread dumplings, the bland meat….it comes as no surprise that I claimed dessert as my assigned course for the night. Because I tend to choose sweets over any other fare 9 times out of 10 (unless of course I have been eating 3 bagels a day and I want to “slim up” by gnawing on rice cakes and celery!), and German food is just not my bag, baby.

Michael was pretty pumped for this round of Supper Club, to say the least. We even went to the German/Polish market up north the night before just to “get in the mood.” Guess what he bought? A huge jar of kraut and some bratwurst. And that wasn’t even for our Supper Club…he intended to make his German specialty the night after our supper club. Blech. German two nights in a row? No thank you!

Cherries and Kirsch from Gene’s Sausage & Pastry

I, on the other hand, spent my time at the German market looking for Kirsch, for my beloved dessert….a Black Forest Cake.

Black Forest Cake, loaded with Kirsch, whipped cream frosting, chocolate shavings and cherries

So, guess what happened at Supper Club? The food was actually pretty delicious, even for a non-fan such as me. Most of the recipes were decidedly authentic, coming from Alison’s brother who has been living (and dating) German for years (thank you Steve!):

 

Allyson’s homemade pretzels. AWESOME.

- Homemade pretzels with mustard
- Camembert cheese fondue with apples and bread
- Mushroom salad
- slow-cooked beef
- red cabbage
- bread dumplings
- slow-cooked brats and kraut
- Black Forest Cake

Bread dumplings, boiling in water (I know -weird recipe, but surprisingly good)

Obviously, Michael liked the heavy, calorie-ridden, fatty appetizers and entrees. I, very respectfully, thought they were pretty darn good. But, surprisingly, as we sat through dinner, I ever-so-quietly noticed that Michael did not go back for seconds. Was he foregoing another round perhaps to avoid the gas that comes with German fare….in hopes of some no-calorie “dessert” later? Was he trying to watch his weight? What was the deal, I asked myself. Did his affinity for German food somehow slide off the map?

Red cabbage cooking down

Then came my dessert. Michael ate two pieces of the Black Forest Cake. Two very large pieces. He saved room for the sweets instead of the brats, the cabbage, the meat.

And the next night, we ordered Italian….He decided night #2 of German food, his specialty of brats and kraut, could wait.

Hmm. Maybe Michigan’s a possibility after all.

Black Forest Cake

(I got the original recipe from here: http://www.latestrecipes.net/, however the link is broken – sorry!)
Ingredients
Chocolate Cake
1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
2 cups sugar
3/4 cup dutch process cocoa
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 cup buttermilk or milk
1/2 cup corn oil or vegetable oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup strong coffee
Filling
1 package chocolate instant pudding, prepared (so you’ll need 2 cups milk)
1 tablespoon Kirsch
1 large jar sour cherries, pitted and halved (or maraschino cherries), plus more for garnish on top of cake
Icing & Decoration
500 ml all-purpose cream
4 tablespoons caster sugar
3 tablespoons simple sugar syrup (1/2 cup sugar, 1 cup water, boiled for 1 min)
3 tablespoons Kirsch
6 ounces dark chocolate, finely grated (for the side of the cake),
3 ounces grated dark chocolate for topping

Directions
1) Preheat oven to 350F. Grease and flour 2 9-inch baking pans.
2) Make the cake: Sift dry ingredients twice in a bowl; set aside. Mix eggs, milk, oil and vanilla in another bowl, stir well and pour into the flour mixture, mix well with a wire whisk to combine. Stir in hot coffee. Pour into baking pans and bake in the oven for 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Take it out of the oven and cool for 5-10 minutes in the pan then invert in a wire rack to cool completely.
3) Make the instant pudding, adding 1 T Kirsch for flavoring.
4) Make the simple sugar syrup. Mix the sugar syrup with 3 T Kirsch.
5) Whip the cream and sugar until stiff.
6) Assembly: Level the top of each cake with a serrated knife; lay one cake in a cake platter or cake stand.  Brush the top and sides of the cake with the sugar syrup mixture. Spread a generous cup of chocolate pudding on top of first layer. Lay cherry halves on the cake, completely covering the layer, then spread 1/2 cup of whipped cream on top, leveling with a spatula. Carefully lay down the other cake layer on top; brush top with sugar syrup mixture and spread about a cup of whipped cream on top and sides of the cake, smoothing it with a spatula.
6) Pat grated chocolates around the sides of the cake using a spatula or your other hand. Put the remaining whipped cream in a piping bag fitted with a medium size star nozzle. Pipe mounds around the top and in the very center of the cake. Sprinkle grated/shaved chocolate around and then arrange a pile of cherries in the middle.

The cake didn’t arrive in one piece – let’s just say there was a small mishap with the dog, and I cut it out/covered it up with additional whipping cream, which then slid off in the car. Nothing professional about that, but it still tasted darn good.