Alpine Snack-time!!!!!

One of my favorite things to do when I visit my parents in Georgia is to visit "Your DeKalb Farmers Market."  Starting in 1977, this market features foods from around the world and is a massive warehouse of ethnic delights. The store hires a lot of recent immigrants, encouraging them to bring their cultures and recipes.  They also feature a cafeteria where you can sample some international dishes and beverages.

So, while there I decided to pick up some Alpine snacks to share with my family. The result was delicious!!!

Well, obviously, I had to get some Swiss chocolate!  I went with some Lindt - I went for the "Swiss Classic" which was dark chocolate with crushed hazelnut. Oh man, delicious!!!! I love dark chocolate, but sometimes it can get a tad bitter, but not the case with this delicious specimen!!!!

Also, I picked up some swiss cheeses - Alpenhorn and Raglette.  Alpenhorn is a gouda produced in an Emmentaler style and is known to have sweet, nutty flavors.  It looked kinda like swiss cheese to me - it has holes and was kinda firm.   The Raglette is a Swiss mountain cheese and supposedly has a mix of wine and fruity aromas. It was melt-in-you-mouth smooth and soft, really yummy!

We picked up some fresh soft pretzels from the market's bakery - they remind us of the ones we used to get back when we lived in Pennsylvania Dutch territory..mmmm delicious! Pretzels are very German and are popular in the Alpine Bavarian region. I picked up some specialty mustards, including a French one to try to tie in another country that the Alps runs through. 

And, since the market has a great wine and beer selection and helpful staff, I picked one wine worker's brain to find an Alpine wine. He recommended an Austrian wine - the 2009 Kurt Angerer Gruner Veltliner.  Now, I am horrible in describing how wine tastes...like for this I'd say "it's nice and light  and not too sweet and is easy to drink!" which says basically nothing, so I looked up a bit more and found out that it is is "singularly associated with Austria" and has "a bright, slightly vegetal scent with notes of flowers and white pepper accenting the green berry fruits"