It has been way too long that I have drunk a virtual coffee with you, so let’s do that now. This time I invite you to Dresden and Radebeul. We got to spend Easter in Dresden and Radebeul. Dresden will always be in my heart as it is the city I first studied jazz piano in at the Carl Maria von Weber music conservatory, and later switched to the Technical University in order to study languages). Moreover, Dresden is the city I got to meet my Colombian husband and where we got married after many months of red tape and many hurdles. Needless to say that Dresden will always have a special place in my heart even if I still don’t like the Saxon dialect.
During one of our walks to Altkötzschenbroda; the church you see in the back is where we got married 13 years ago
Of course we had to revisit some of the special places. One of them is the café Aha at the Kreuzkirche (cross church) in Dresden. This was the cafe my husband and me had our first date at, we actually repeatedly met in this cafe when we were dating and got to know each other well. This time around I got to eat the extremely delicious chocolate mousse cake you see pictured below. It reminded me of my own chocolate chocolate mousse cake I deparately need to make again. Said cafe almost had to close after Covid and only managed to stay alive due to a crowd funding event, I am so glad it still is around and highly recommend it to anyone visiting Dresden (I was not sponsored to say this).
As we spent Easter in Radebeul and I have a lot of relatives living there, I was asked to bake something special for Easter. Well, maybe I volunteered, but who cares? Since my relatives like simple dishes, I decided to make this lemon tart, it is tangy and I was fortunate enough to use the lemons harvested from their lemon tree. It was decorated with lambs for Easter. Yes, the tart was gone within minutes and everybody enjoyed it immensely.
The lemon tart decorated with lambs and made with lemons from their lemon tree
As my uncle was born in Russia and lived in Uzbekistan and Estonia during his youth, we were in for a treat. First he made the famous borscht, a soup made with reet beet and cabbage, this was followed by the national dish of Uzbekistan, which is called plov. Of course I watched him closely, wrote down ingredients, amounts, and procedures. Maybe I will publish these recipes on my blog at some point, update, you will find my borscht recipe here. As my grandma lived with us for a while, I had eaten these treats before. She was born in Odessa in the Ukraine. However, she is not alive anymore so I hadn’t had the pleasure of eating these dishes in a long time. Also, my husband had never tried these before. He enjoyed the plov a lot, but also wanted a second helping from the borscht.
On the left borscht is pictured with the classic sour cream and dill, on the right you see that plov consists of rice, lamb and carrots
My husband and me were also asked to cook something. After some discussions we decided for Colombian bean stew. We were asked to prepare this dish for 20 people. Since my husband always uses fresh ingredients and to make everything from scratch, we decided to start the night before for the vegetable broth. He was pretty nervous, he had never cooked for that many people before, but he got support from me (of course) and some of the children. In the end we had frijoles for two days, each time more than 10 adults and many children ate from it. We may have miscalculated the amounts for 20 people, but everybody was happy.
Colombian bean stew, frijoles served with rice and minced meat
We left Dresden on a nostalgic note, we truly enjoyed our trip. Dresden bid farewell showing its blossoming cherry and magnolia trees (see also featured picture). We will be back for sure!
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