Hesse & Bienenstich

I said yes before doing the math. We remember our firsts without much effort. Our first car, dog, house, or phone bill after traveling abroad... What fades away is whatever came directly after, like a sequel nobody asked for but felt obliged to watch anyway. My first trip to Germany sits exactly where you'd expect. However, the second trip is the one that left a dent in my memory, and not for any reason I saw coming when my mom asked if I wanted to come along. The trip was a two-week coach tour with thirty-eight other people who were still mostly strangers by the end of it. Together we traveled a route that pulled us across a generous slice of the country. None of that struck me as a problem when I said yes. I was too busy congratulating myself on seeing as much of Germany as possible while doing almost none of the planning, which felt, briefly, like getting away with something. However, there was one small detail I had not fully prepared for. I am an introvert with a social battery good for about three hours before it starts flashing red, and I had just volunteered to live inside a tin of sardines on wheels for fourteen days. If you can be around other people longer than that without needing to go find a quiet alleyway, I salute you. Despite my best efforts, I am not that way. I remembered this rather important detail of my personality somewhere between the second and third rest stop. Which was also roughly the same place I learned which of my fellow thirty-eight sardines had strong opinions about the coach's air conditioning. Frankfurt was the city I landed in and started off from. The architecture filled my camera roll, but it was the smell of roasted almonds that filled the rest of me (there may have been some Apfelwein as well). That last detail doesn't need a photo to easily recall. After all, taste is one of the best triggers for memory. It also turns out Frankfurt is the front door to a part of Germany most people walk straight through on the way to somewhere else. Their loss. The half-timbered towns and the Riesling villages are actually closer than the skyscrapers let on. → Discover the Hesse Region It was a small pop-up fair with a number of stands selling roasted almonds that naturally took me somewhere else. Bienenstich (bee sting cake) is made almost entirely around that same sweet, cracking nut topping, and my mom's version skips the yeast dough that usually convinces most people it's too much effort. Find the recipe here → Bienenstich (no yeast) P.S. If you've ever taken a coach tour anywhere, how did you find it? It's two years on, and I'm still taking notes.

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Hesse & Bienenstich

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