Last week, we travelled to Germany to celebrate our friend Tims’ 50th Birthday. Eventhough we are quite close to the border of Germany; we have only briefly visited the country (Lake Konstance, Europa Park, Legoland) and so it was great to visit such a beautiful area as Deidesheimer. This is the Wine Region of the country and the countryside and little towns are just picture perfect. The party was held at the Deidesheimer Hof and I would highly recommend the hotel and food; and the “cellar” venue was especially lovely.

And for a little bit of trivia: The hotel Deidesheimer Hof with its “Nobelrestaurant Schwarzer Hahn”, once run by leading-edge cook Manfred Schwarz, is known above all for former Federal Chancellor Helmut Kohl’s visits, on which he often brought along state guests to entertain. Margaret Thatcher, Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin, among others, thus all got to know the traditional Palatine dish Saumagen (“sow’s stomach”). It sounds odd, but I had a little taste test – and it was good!