Oktoberfest is here again. Time to enjoy the traditional German wursts, pretzels and bier. Since I'm half German, and from the southern part of Germany near Munich, Oktoberfest is an important time of year for my family. Time to savor favorite foods such as sauerbraten, red cabbage, sauerkraut, rouladen, and many types of sausages particularly the weisswurst which according to German tradition is eaten before noon. And even better for my sweet tooth are all the wonderful desserts, apfel strudel, schwarzwalder kirsch torte (black forest cherry cake), and many other delightful pastries. One of the things that probably confuses many people is why Oktoberfest starts in September. It was moved up a bit to September so the nights would not be so cold so people could enjoy drinking beer outside, but Oktoberfest always ends in the beginning of October. I usually prefer to drink red wine, but will happily drink the Oktoberfest beers, and my favorite is a Weissbier (wheat beer) from Spaten . This is a light smooth beer. Not much of the bitter after taste which is what I don't like about many other beers.  Or maybe a dark beer, which almost tastes sweet. Some of my fondest Oktoberfest memories are of my German relatives and friends singing German songs, while drinking beer and cheering each other on to drink more beer with the traditional toast of "prost" or "eins, zwei, drei, prost".

So if large crowds of beer drinking people, wearing lederhosen and dirndls, sounds like fun, you still have time to head over to Oktoberfest. Otherwise get some sausages and German beer and have a party.

People tend to get religous about pizza.  That's not really me.  I like several different styles of pizza but they have to be delicious even when delivered. While growing up I was subjected to many pizza variants most of which fell into the stereotypical pepperoni, tons of cheese and bland sauce category.  But lately my parents found a good pizza place and now, primarily because they want to keep living, they tend toward vegetable pizzas with more reasonable amounts of cheese and (thankfully) decent sauce.  Of course where I grew up, in Buffalo NY, not alot of places fulfill those requirements although the Pizza Plant certainly does and I highly recommend it if you ever happen to be nearby.  One thing I really like about the Pizza Plant is they not only have pizzas but also what they call pods (like a calzone) and stuffed pizzas combined with several choices for dough including spinach, whole wheat, white, sesame and garlic.  They also have a really great desert called Ice Screamers which are two homemade (or at least they used to be) chocolate chip cookies with vanilla ice cream in the middle and topped with fudge and whipped cream.  The Screamers are even better if they warm-up the cookies.  But be warned you will be full so share with someone!

But I digress I was talking about pizza.  I'm amazed by how few truly great pizza places exist.  It seems each area can only support one really great place. In Houston that place is called Star Pizza.  It has an awesome casual and comfy atmosphere and very good pizza.  Or it did when I last visited several years ago.  I'm assuming they are still around and still excellent.  Also they had yummy appetizers to keep you settled while you await your bounty. But other than Star, Houston doesn't (or didn't) have any other really good pizza just lots of junk pizza (or at least we didn't find it in the 5 years we lived there).  Given that Houston has a very large number of extremely good restaurants I always found this strange but it did explain why Star was always doing a good business.

Even in the San Fransico Bay Area not alot of really great pizza places exist.  For the occasional "I feel like pizza but don't want to go very far to get it nights"  I goto a local place a short drive from my house called Pizz'a Chicaco .  They have a few locations but I've only tried the downtown San Jose location.  Generally they are very good and have some funky pizza names.  I say generally because once we did have a problem but when we called to complain they delivered another and resolved the problem.  I particularly like their "Al Capone" pizza which has fresh spinach, ricotta cheese, onions and pecans. They also have apricots as a topping choice which I enjoy occasionally.  But while they have good pizza they are not my bay area favorite. 

The best I've found in the entire SF Bay Area is Zachary's which has locations in Oakland, Berkely, and now San Ramon.  The pizzas are simply awesome.  They have a good variety of toppings, choice of thin crust or stuffed and excellent flavorful sauce.  The only down side is they are always (and I really mean always) very crowded.  And while the pizzas are outstanding they don't offer alot of temptations to keep you passified while you wait for the pizza too cook other than salad.  While that's understandable given how strong a business they already have one can dream that someday they may have cheese bread or something in addition to salads. 

We recently tried another Bay Area place called Patxi's which has locations in San Francisco and Palo Alto.  From what I understand Patxi's was started by a previous chef at Zachary's.  Once husband and I learned this we had to try it.  Could it be we can get a pizza as good as Zachary's but not have to drive over an hour to get it?  We tried to get something similar to what we like at Zachary's so we ordered a deep dish, spinach, mushroom and onion.  As with Zachary's Patxi's doesn't have a lot of appetizers so we had salads while we anxiouxsly awaited our pie.  It looked good but as soon as the pieces were served we noticed alot of water run-off.  It also tasted good but the sauce was not as good as Zachary's. 

So perhaps a Patxi's can be a close second but we will still need to drive to the east bay to get Zachary's when we want truly great pizza.  Which brings me back to my hypothesis of only one excellent pizza place per region - or it could just be that I'm picky.  Sigh - either way I guess that maybe I am a bit religious about my pizza!

Here at Project Foodie we've been thinking up food related polls.  One poll we'll be posting soon is "How often do you eat dessert?". (For list of current/past polls goto Foodie Polls ).   At first it seems like a simple question but once I started thinking about it I realized perhaps its not so simple to define dessert and thereby how often we eat it.  Husband and I try to eat healthy - watching our sugar and fat in-take.  So typically after we are done eating our main dinner entree we have fruit.  Is that dessert?  We call it dessert asking "What would you like for dessert a plum or some grapes?".  But somehow it doesn't seem to fall in the same category as a piece of cake, ice cream or a nice piece of apple crisp.  Hence the question what is dessert? As with most things I turned to the web to find out.

According to Wikipedia  dessert is: 

"Dessert is a course that typically comes at the end of a dinner, usually consisting of sweet food but sometimes of a strongly-flavored one, such as some cheeses. The word comes from the Old French desservir, "to clear the table.""

Hmmm. Fruit can be sweet but not always and I'm not sure I'd call it strongly-flavored at least not in the tone of cheese.  However cheese and sweet food do have something in common that fruit doesn't: they both have lots of calories (and typically fat!).  But what about the "typically comes at the end of a dinner" aspect of the dessert definition.  We always eat the fruit at the end of the dinner but then we also eat it after lunch, in the middle of the day or in the evening.  The same can be said of a sweet food but less typically of a cheese course.

Off to another web source. Dictionary.com  had a rather different definition of dessert as:

"1.    cake, pie, fruit, pudding, ice cream, etc., served as the final course of a meal."

"2. British. a serving of fresh fruit after the main course of a meal."

"The word dessert is most commonly used in Ireland, U.S., Canada, Australia and France, while sweet, pudding or afters would be more typical in the UK and some other Commonwealth countries for this course. According to Debrett's, pudding is the proper term, dessert is only to be used if the course consists of fruit, and sweet is colloquial."

Pinotage is a South African grape variety that's a cross between Pinot Noir and Hermitage grapes.

It has a wonderful, full flavor that goes especially well with some of the local foods: bobotie (a minced meat casserole with nuts, raisins, and spices with an egg custard top), springbok (like venison), and fish. 

To find out more about Pinotage wine, take a look at the Pinotage Association in S. Africa. 

Unfortunately, many of the really fabulous tasting Pinotage wines are not available in the United States. However, several from larger wineries are available so you can start your Pinotage exploration. At a local wine store, The Wine Club, I attended their South African wine tasting event which did feature a Fairview Pinotage along with one of my husband's favorite white wines, Chenin Blanc, also popular in S. Africa. Chenin Blanc has a crisp flavor, definitely different than Chardonnay, which is very popular in California, but not as much to my taste buds. I much prefer red wines.

So branch out to other wines of the world such as Pinotage.