coming to america

I came to America via Austria & Germany many years ago. Somehow everyone’s major move in life is a memory they hold dear perhaps due to nostalgia over the home they lost or excitement over the new life to be explored. My experience was different in that I was equally excited about our intermediary stops in the two countries as well as a permanent move to the US. I was pysched to leave a war-torn country!

Equipped with our luggage (one of which was stolen on day one in Vienna’s train station) and my knowledge of English, my parents, brother and I left home. My very crazy cool uncle who never finished high school, never moved out of his parents’ house, and was the most amazing person I knew at the time due to his knowledge of all things related to Bruce Lee, UFOs, and card games, had once spent a summer in Germany as a teenager. With his help, I learned how to count to 20 and order half a rotisserie chicken in German. “Eine halbes henschen, bitte” (a half a chicken, please) was all I could order which is what we mostly ate there. My parents' English was very weak back then and their German non-existent. We survived on my language skills for a while. And while most Austrians and Germans speak English, they are also proud of their heritage, telling me in response to “Excuse me, do you speak English?”, “I do, but I don’t.” So I stopped asking.

In Vienna we went to the famous Schloss Schönbrunn, visited Mozart’s statue at the Burggarten park, rode the city trams and got our US visas. I quickly learned how warm and friendly Austrians were when the owner of the B&B where we were staying would take my brother and I to her room every morning after breakfast and give us a Toblerone bar. Next was Frankfurt where we stayed with friends, I ate turkey for the second time in my life, and was amazed at how green and un-desert-like Germany was. Little did I know that my next home in the little tiny town of Springtown with only a general store, fire station, dairy farm, post office, gas station, and real estate office (what more could a person want in a town with a population of 150 people?) outside of Bethlehem, PA was surrounded by acres and acres of green corn fields with deer in our own backyard.

We were all relieved to land at JFK and go straight to McDonalds for my first meal in America back in the 80’s. While as a novelty the Big Macs were tasty, nothing came close to the lovely rotisserie flavor of the chicken we had been eating. Over the last two decades, every German-speaking person I have met has heard me count to 20 after I explained why I just ordered half a chicken from them, followed by the above story. Its an obsession of mine because it reminds me of the exciting moment of coming to America.

Twenty three years later, all grown up and now married, my husband and I went to other side of the world to Australia to explore and experience yet another group of warm friendly people. In search of unique and traditional Australian cuisine, we were delighted to find out that our trip dates coincided with the Sydney International Food Festival. The food festival hosted Night Noodle Market in Hyde Park with a variety of vendors selling Asian street food. We also tried many pricey “award-winning” restaurants only to find out back in San Francisco we have higher criteria for giving awards. Meat pies at Harry’s Café de Wheels were consistently good and a nice treat but are meat pies uniquely Australian or British? And if kangaroo or crocodile was on the menu, we avoided the restaurant all together as those dishes are prepared for tourists only. One day we ran across a TV program hosted by Huey who showed us how to cook his mother’s Cock-a-Leekie (chicken, leeks and prunes soup) recipe. Was that a traditional Australian dish or Scottish? I gave up. We left Sydney for Cairns where by day we snorkeled the Great Barrier Reef and by night ate the most delicious fresh seafood: bay bugs (Australian lobster), barramundi (Australian seabass), and Tasmanian salmon.

On the last leg of our trip we toured the Hunter Valley wine region outside Sydney known for their Semillon whites and softer styled Shiraz (unlike the heavy Shiraz styles from the Barossa Valley we are familiar with). Besides the kangaroo families residing on the grounds of Tidaki Lodge, the highlight of the stay were our B&B hosts, a lovely couple from Germany & Austria respectively. Manfred & Suzie (short for Siglund) greeted us with glee and joy in a way I don’t believe other guests at their home have seen. Manfred loved having a Dutchman, my husband, as a guest. And Suzie would stare at me in joy, telling me how beautiful I was, treating me as I imagined like her own daughter. Instead of wine tasting, we spent the afternoons talking to them about Persian carpets and roofing materials, my father's and Manfred’s specialties, respectively. We felt warm and cared for in their home and to us that was more precious than anything else. For breakfast Suzie made us fresh fruit salad and served it along with bacon, scrambled eggs, and an Austrian recipe of roasted tomato with fresh parsley from her garden. In the morning, while we swam in their salt water pool, Suzie watered the garden while Manfred had received his one-day license to burn wood on the property and was busy managing the fire. After a fun filled relaxing day of wine tasting, tired of eating out at restaurants in Sydney, and longing for a homey meal, we ran across the Smelly Cheese Shop and picked up a rotisserie chicken to have with our bottle of Semillon at the B&B on the patio that night. Of all the meals during the trip, this eines halbe henschen was the most memorable dish we had in Australia. Was it a uniquely Australian dish? Who cares! It was a lovely roasted chicken universal to all cuisines and as tasty as the ones I had on my way to America as a teenager. I was once again on my way back to America leaving not Germany and Austria but a German and an Austrian in Australia.

Back home we unpacked our bottle of Peterson Semillon and served it with our San Francisco local version of eines halbe henschen, a half rotisserie chicken from RoliRoti as we toasted and counted our way from 1 to 20 in German: “Ein, zwei, drei. vier, fünf,…. zwanzig”.

where to buy:

RoliRoti can be found at various farmers markets in the SF Bay Area. Click on shop for more information on where to find the rotisserie chicken trucks.