Our walks or rather hikes in the region around Lake Garder had already brought us a little closer to the giant parasol mushrooms, a type of mushroom that we had not previously had on our radar.

Honey is considered a healthy, aromatic sweetener that is used in many recipes around the world, not least because it is much healthier than beet sugar or even sweetener.

We were on our way to the Turkish metropolis of Izmir by bike, and our starting point was once again the small campsite in Güzelbahçe, where there is already an impressive infrastructure for cyclists along the coast that we hadn't expected beforehand.

We arrived in the south of Germany in time for Easter, where on Good Friday we had already informed ourselves extensively about the custom in Franconia of decorating the village wells with pine greens and blown out and then hand-painted eggs.

You probably don't necessarily have to be a wine drinker to enjoy wine as a grape. Whatever the reason, there are things that are not so easy or even impossible to explain.

Hardly any national cuisine is free of influences from the neighbourhood or even from far away. Dutch cuisine also has strong overlaps with the cuisines of neighbouring regions.

In almost every international cuisine there are similar recipes, sometimes with completely foreign names, sometimes just the form is completely different than previously known.

After our extensive and sweaty mountain hiking tour, Rino invited us for a refreshing drink in a mountain village during the descent.

Our friend Silverio invited us to dinner over the weekend because he wanted to show us his city and especially his cooking skills. For years he has been dealing with local cooking customs, some of which can be traced back to the ancient Romans in their recipes, and even partly reflect their recipes and eating habits.

In our article "Almost a national dish - Hamsi Kizartma" we reported on the fish dish of fried anchovies, which is particularly popular on the Black Sea and the Aegean coast and was served to us by the Senyer family during our stay in Istanbul.

In the meantime, Philipp and Micha have reported again, but this time from a somewhat unusual place, at least as far as their other activities are concerned: a Georgian bakery on the flat lands.

There are no other vegetables with so many anecdotes and myths about them as about asparagus, at least in Germany. Long before the asparagus was used as food, it found versatile use as a medicinal plant.

In every country, and often even in the respective sub regions, there are special foods and dishes that not only make experiencing unforeseen taste sensations but also often new cooking ideas in general.

As a typical pastry of the pre-Christmas season in Germany, the speculum, which originally came from Belgium and the Netherlands, are a daily addition to coffee or tea. In Dutch language is referred to as speculaas, French as spéculoos.

We had arranged to meet friends for a coffee in the Harz mountains. Since we hadn't seen each other for a while and therefore had to exchange and discuss a lot of information, we chose a restaurant at the Oker Talsperre as a meeting point, which is known far beyond the borders of the Harz Nature Park for its large and always fresh cream puffs.

After the successful musical conclusion of Sunday by the local band "Backdoor Connection", who had already travelled to Turkey several times for concerts, we set out on our last tour of the festival grounds for the day.

At this point we would like to continue the description of our typical Black Sea menu in the Senyer family's house. During a visit from friends to Ayvalik, we first heard about and tasted the delicacy of fried anchovies, which can be eaten as desired with or without the inner main bone.

At the end of Emin Senyer and his wife's visit to our trade fair stand in Istanbul, we were invited to dinner in the apartment of the well-known shadow theatre player (Karagöz and Hacivat).

Our visit to the new outdoor and ski centre at Erciyes was understandably primarily aimed at getting to know the options and offers for outdoor activities that have already been completed, but as always and everywhere, also the local cuisine.

The cocoa plant needs the tropical, humid climate of the rain forest. This became clear to us once again when we looked a little more extensively at a small museum near Amsterdam on the subject of cocoa, the plant cocoa tree and the seeds, and the products made from them.