Landjager is a traditional, dried German sausage made in Southern Germany and Switzerland. Though the name literally means "country hunters," there's nothing gamey about the taste of landjager. It's a popular snack food in Germany and Switzerland (like beef jerky for the U.S.), and also a popular meal for soldiers because it requires no refrigeration -- landjager can be eaten cold, right off the deli rack, or taken home and cooked (to reduce fat, cut holes in the sausage casing before boiling). Landjager usually comes in pairs of fat, flat sausages -- like Slim Jims on steroids, but with a heartier, meatier taste.
When I heard about Schreiner's Fine Sausage -- a family-owned business that's provided Phoenix with fine meats since 1955 -- I was ecstatic. As I approached the unassuming red-and-white building with retro-looking signs on Seventh Street, I felt like I was on a school field trip. Once inside, I gazed with salivating wonder at all the homemade meats in the deli case and fired off questions with carnivorous enthusiasm: "Is the Cajun Boudin sausage beef and pork?"; "Do you make your own veal loaf?"; "How spicy is the Jalapeno cheese sausage?" (The answers: No, yes, and not very).
Guten tag, German food fanatics! If you haven't been getting your fix of schnitzel, sauerkraut, and strudel, head on over to Tonto Bar & Grill in Cave Creek for their Oktoberfest celebration.German chef Ernst Andreas was brought in from Tonto's sister restaurant, Stables Ranch Grille, to prepare authentic Deutschland cuisine. The menu includes potato pancakes with apple compote, sausage with sauerkraut, veal wiener schnitzel, and black forest cake. Tonto is also offering some hard-to-find
I'll be the first to admit that my interest in baseball has everything to do with the beer and the ballpark food -- hot dogs, bratwursts, fries, you name it. This is the kind of food I should've been eating all summer, but for some reason I didn't make it to any D-Backs games this year.
