Note: We love having our sweet friend Alison Chino write this week’s Foodie Friday post for us. We’ve missed her while she’s been exploring faraway places, but we’ve loved reading all about them on her blog and in her newsletters. XOXO

Our family has recently returned to Arkansas after living a year in Germany. One of the fun things we have done as we have lived in and traveled to different places is to try all the local foods. And it’s always interesting to me how what I think of as German food or French food or Chinese food has been influenced by how we prepare those different kinds of foods in America.

Eating German food over the last year, and not just any German food, but specifically Swabian food, has made me recognize the recipes we already make that came from Germany. Like this long time favorite at my house, the German Apple Pancake.

I actually got this recipe from the junior league cookbook in my hometown and have used it for over twenty years, baking it in cast iron skillets on cold mornings for my family. But it wasn’t until I lived in Germany that I noticed that in the cookbook, the author wrote: “My German grandmother used to make these for us!”

I met several German grandmothers during my time in Swabia this year and even was gifted a cookbook with recipes for some of the treasures we tasted this year. Most of these sweet ladies have apple trees growing in their front yards. Right now the grandmothers and grandfathers, mamas and papas will all be gathering apples in wooden crates to keep for the winter. This time, last year, the whole town smelled like apple cider.

It makes me smile to think we spent a season walking through German apple orchards and eating apples straight from the trees.

These are the sweet gifts I remember as we slice apples for our version of this German recipe. READ MORE

 

 

Alison Chino has spent the last four years living and traveling with her family in Europe, but she will always call North Little Rock, Arkansas home. She loves it when there are faces from all different cultures gathered around her table.