Whatever you want to call it...

I had this post all nice and typed up for yesterday and my computer ate it! I guess those brotchen looked too good for it to resist! Let's try this again...

While we were on our trip, I was already expecting to encounter one blast from my past. While we were in Austria, I encountered another...brotchen! Chris grew up calling them Kaiser rolls. I can clearly remember the packages of these rolls that my Opa would bring home from Germany that had a solider on the front of the bag. They're about the size of hamburger buns but instead of being soft, they're quite crispy on the outside. I can remember sitting at the table with my Opa while he cut open a brotchen and scooped the inside out with his fingers. My eyes would watch him deposit the unwanted glutenous filling next to his plate and then I would immediately pounce! I'd grab the bread and stuff it into my mouth and I'd wonder all the while how he could resist not putting away every last morsel of these delicious things! When I got older, I realized that it's easier to butter the inside of the rolls if you scoop out the extra bread. However, I still eat what I remove from the brotchen!

These rolls are hard to come by in the U.S. Oma and Opa live near a Vietnamese bakery that has a pretty good brotchen but they aren't round. They're still tasty and when I visit, they always make it a point to have them for breakfast several times! My Opa is probably their best customer.

While we were in Austria, I kid you not when I say that I easily ate a dozen of these things in four days. I should rename this blog The Brotchen Diet.