Opening of our Chocolate Shop in Knittelfeld, Austria

Finally!

After weeks of preparation, we celebrated the opening of our chocolate shop in Knittelfeld last Saturday. It was a lovely event with a good crowd of people who are interested in our products and the good stuff from our suppliers.

Josiah, the master coffee roaster from Jamila Coffee a local roastery, was present as well to hand out coffee. Michael and Gregor Regner (world champion pastry chef) were there to inform about their delicious ginger bread and filled Lebkuchen (Sekauer Lebkuchen). And, with a brief delay, Gerhard Frewein joined us to present his products made from and with our famous local pine tree called 'Zirben'.

I've started a new blog to represent the chocolate shop. Although it is in German, I've posted heaps of photos there:

Check it out at:
http://konfiserie.blogspot.co.at/2015/11/willkommen-in-unserem-schokoladegeschaft.html

And we made it onto Facebook, thanks to Heimo from Regionaljournal.at
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1262802853745195.1073742568.108960055796153&type=3
So for all you people on Facebook - feel free to like us!

I'm quite pleased with how the shop turned out. Now we need to get going!

The busy Christmas season is upon us and the days at work get longer and longer.

Autumn in Austria

Another few weeks have gone by and it feels that we've made progress on many fronts. The opening date for the chocolate shop creeps closer and closer, but so does the completion. I'm supposed to get the keys to my apartment in Knittelfeld this week, my wooden crate with the things from Australia has finally arrived and I feel very much welcomed by pretty much everybody I know. It's fun to train karate again and play in the table tennis club.

Autumn is a wonderful time in Austria, very colorful with a crisp blue sky (when the fog lifts and the clouds are gone). Took some photos yesterday when we were hiking along Ingering See, a small lake in one of the mountain ranges close by.

Ingering See

I met Will, a former colleague from Sandvik in Perth, who is from New Zealand, last week for lunch. He and his colleagues had the final exams for Sandvik Mining School in Leoben. Was great to catch up, and I'm still very happy that I made the change in my career.

Finished reading Irvin D. Yalom's"Staring at the sun: Overcoming the terror of death" and Milan Kundera's "Die unerträgliche Leichtigkeit des Seins" ("The unbearable lightness of being").

Both of them are great books from my perspective. Yalom, a psychiatrist with many decades of experience, works through the fear of death – appartenly one of the major drives of us humans. Very insightful and well written.

Milan Kundera's book is an excellent read, a novel, written in an interesting form, where situations are looked upon from different perspectives. Proably one of the very best novels I've ever read.

Another busy and very diverse week

11/10/2015

Another busy and very diverse week – I guess that is the pleasure of working in a small company.

From delivering chocolates, to designing and printing new labels for an awesome chocolate with Jamila coffee, from having tradesmen in the new shop to fix things, from planning the interior design of the shop to offering products for Christmas to companies in which I know people. Apart from that I did two short training courses, one about food labeling (all these rules from the EU!) and one on hygiene in regards to food. Both of them were conducted by a state food and hygiene inspector. Some of this stuff is quite onerous. Also joined the annual meeting of the Meisterwelten, a marketing cooperation of many different companies with master tradesmen. Quite interesting to talk to other entrepreneurs – met some great people there.

I've finished reading Daniele Bolelli's - On the warriors path. Great book which I can totally recommend to anybody interested in pursuing growth and perfection in their own life and people interested in martial arts. I intend to give it to Gunther next week to read, he is a second degree black belt in karate and the trainer at our local karate school. I also read a translation of the short book called 'The book of fiverings (Go Rin No Sho)' by Miyamoto Musashi, written around 1645. Quite interesting to read too, very much of a 'no-nonsense' approach to martial arts, both in duels and battles. Miyamoto was probably one of the most dangerous and efficient swordsman in his times, killing over 60 master swordsmen in duels with this two bladed technique. Again, very interesting book which is still being studied today, even by management.

Started to get back into sports again – rejoining my old table tennis sports club (and straight away beating some of the people playing there despite me not playing much for 6 years), going for runs (hell it hurts when you start again after a long break!) and did a karate training in my home town only to find out how stiff and slow I got by not doing any martial arts in 10 months. All of them were great and I was sore every morning after the training – a good sign! The latest run today was the first one in cold rain since ages. Luckily Christine pushed to go running despite the rain – I'm not sure if I would have gone on my own. As that was the third run in the last 8 days, I could see my form improve already a bit.

We visited a small wool manufacturing farm yesterday as part of mum's birthday present. Quite interesting to see how sheep wool is manually being made into various items. As part of the little tour we made a key ring pendant using a felting technique.

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There are more than 54000 sheep held in my state in Austria, ranging from wool sheep to meat sheep, from sheep that like flat lands to the ones that can be up in the mountains (in summer!)

Felted lamp shades

The name of the place is 'Wollgenuss' - roughly translated into 'wool pleasure/enjoyment'

Little Lisa

My sister and grandma spinning some sheep yarn

Colorful sheep wool, which we used for the felting

Afterwards the whole family went for lunch at a typical rural village restaurant and afterwards we ate a super tasty birthday cake, professionally made by dad, because of my sisters birthday earlier this week. Great to spend some time with all of them, including the two little ones!

I love dad's handwriting, especially in chocolate on a cake!

Lorenz and the birthday cake

During this week I got confirmation that the apartment that I intend to rent which is currently being renovated should be completed by beginning of November. Fingers crossed!

Furthermore I sold my camper van in Australia, thanks to Lucille's help by showing it to a nice couple from Albany. Great to see it go to a couple that will enjoy traveling with it too and despite having to drop the price, I'm relieved to have it sold and hence off my books.

Another full on week – getting started

4/10/2015

Lots of things needed doing this week – we moved the packaging from our basement to the new facility in Knittelfeld, dad and I drove to Ulm, Germany, to attend a one day chocolate seminar, the new computer was delivered which I had to set up and return to the shop as we have some hardware issues, hundreds of small tasks had to be done, meetings with bank, tax advisor, bookkeeper, looking for and applying for an apartment in Knittelfeld and besides all that, the normal day to day business involving thousands of pieces of chocolates and pralines. This is how we roll! :-)

The one day course in Ulm was fantastic – Pascal Brunstein, a chocolate and pastry genius from France (first Meilleur Ouvrir France Chocolatier from 1991, and 1993 World champion pastry chef) did some amazing chocolates, truffles, pralines and chocolate bars. I brought back heaps of outrageously great chocolates! Long drive but definitely worth it! Ulm, the German town where the course was held, is quite beautiful too. My dad was great - he took it upon him to cut up the two interpretations of a “Sachertorte” by another world class pastry chef and hand it out to all the participants of the course. The only difference of these cakes was that one made with highest quality Domori chocolate, the other one just normal chocolate. I was able to taste and tell the difference and so were several other people there.

The master at work - the French tricolore on his collar is for him being Meilleur Ouvrir France Chocolatier

Interesting presentation of chocolates

Dad cutting cakes

Interesting interpretation of a Sacher torte - totally different than the original, but very tasty (and better than the one that I had in Hotel Sacher in Innsbruck by a million light-years)

A sculpture made of sugar - unbelievable

Some of the stuff Pascal made over the course of the day

Some of the stuff Pascal made over the course of the day

 

Downton Ulm - an Apollo camper (and I've seen a large number on them on my trip around Australia) on display!

The Ulmer Muenster - the highest church in the world, stunning 161.5 meters!

Found an apartment in Knittelfeld about a kilometer away from our shop, nice and sunny and currently being renovated. Should be able to move in by 1 November 2015. Yeah.

The great thing about my current occupation, beside a super steep learning curve, is that I can interact with so many positive people that are appreciative of the good and tasty things in life. Some of our clients sell many different specialties from the region – organic produce from farmers nearby, cured game meats, awesome cheeses, and a lot more. One of them, Hofladen Herk, have free range chicken eggs that are just amazing. The chicken have huge pastures, enjoy the sunshine, grass, fresh earthworms and whatever else they find out there – and the eggs they produce are just delicious.

A vending machine outside the actual shop so that you can get free range eggs and organic milk 24/7

On top of all that, harvesting fresh produce from our own garden is just a blast. The salad, tomatoes, capsicum, raspberries and all the other vegetables have so much taste, my taste buds are loving it! This is what I have missed for many years!

Fresh from our garden!

Many more things to do though, and we're getting on a critical time-line to open punctually beginning of November, getting business processes in order to survive the onslaught called Christmas season.

St. Nikolaus is coming soon to the people - already arrived in our basement though!

Some of dad's own creation, the famous Zirbenkugel (the green one - the one we produce most of with awesome Zirbenschnaps), Steirische Koestlichkeiten (5 different local specialities crafted into filled chocolate balls!) and Feinschmecker Kugeln (5 different filled chocolate balls without alcohol)

Roasted pumpkin seeds

Chocolates with cranberries, dark chocolate crisps and goji berries

One of my favorites - dark chocolate with cranberries

All 9 types - the bottom one with roasted pumpkin seeds dodged the photo

On the reading front I've started and finished Jesse Berings book 'Perv – The sexual deviantin all of us' on the train rides in Germany – a very insightful book about human sexuality, different orientations and a review of academic literature. Besides a lot of information and the most interesting perversions that you couldn't believe exist, it is nicely written, entertaining and flows really well. Was hard to put the book down at times to change trains.

I've also continued reading Benjamin Franklin's autobiography – great read and it shows how much the English spelling and the use of words have changed over the last 250 years. English school teachers would have crunched through many red pens to bring that one up the current spelling rules!

I've also started with Daniele Bolelli's – On the warriors path. Daniele Bolelli is an Italian-born writer, martial artist, university professor, and podcaster whom I've already mentioned a couple of times on the blog. The first few chapters were awesome, looking forward to continue reading it. Deeply philosophical but on an understandable level for people with an open mind, awareness and martial artists. Like his podcast, it the book is entertaining, thought provoking and inspiring at the same time.

Daniele - an awesome teacher who even answered my emails

Last weekend we had a  family reunion celebrating my return to Austria. I finally met little Lisa, my brothers cute little girl, who was born just after me returning to Australia middle of the year. We met up at a local Buschenschank - that's how the locals eat, only the best made fresh on the premises surrounded by vineyards. Have a good one!

Transition Australia to Austria

24/9/2015

Had a great First Class Emirates experience on my way home – especially the A380 is amazing in First Class. The spa – a huge bathroom including a shower, with heated floor, and everything you can imagine – makes it almost surreal. Taking a shower after 9 hours of culinary indulgence at 40,000 feet in the air, traveling at a speed of more than 850kmh (and after a considerable amount of Dom Perignon and expensive wines!) was quite an experience.

No description needed - quite special stuff!

Me with a bottle of the 2003 Dom Perignon Rose and the wine list, making sure the flight is not too boring for the stewardesses

Dining in style - and that is just the starter!

Lamb for the main course

And Godiva Chocolates and the 2005 Dom Perignon for later

The food was amazing, the bar/lounge in the back of the upper deck of the plane that is being shared with the Business class was a great place to hang out for a while. We were only 3 people in First Class, and all the people in business class preferred to sleep or watch movies, so there was not much interaction going on, except between the stewardesses, the alcohol and me.

Medium rare steak in the First Class lounge in Dubai - probably one of the best steaks I ever had!

A 'standard' drink of 2005 DP before we hit the runway to Vienna

Everybody has a little mini-bar in First Class - push the button and it rises up

Fresh flower bouquet, more champagne and a nice flight in the Suite 1A

Well, I tried the French white wine 'Y' with the starters this time

That would be heaven for Lucille...

... and some more Godiva chocolates, not bad, but far below the quality standards of my dad's produce

Had a 12 hour stopover in Dubai, enjoyed a fine breakfast and a few hours of sleep in the Le Meridien. The flight to Vienna was nice too, and I worked myself through the second, very different wine list, including a 40 year old Port wine that went down nicely with the cheese board. This is a very different style of traveling, a style I could easily get used to!

Dad picked me and my 70kgs of luggage up in Vienna and we arrived home in Obdach late at night.

Immediately started to help out in the business the next morning, and haven't stopped much since. There is always plenty of work to do, especially with winter and Christmas moving closer every day and I'll have to modernize some of our computer systems too as they are very dated.

Spent the weekend in Graz at the 'Aufsteirern' – a huge traditional festival with up to 100,000 visitors. Dad and I presented our chocolate specialties and sold almost everything we brought along. This is one of the most 'beautiful' festivals, with lots of eye candy in traditional 'Dirndl' dresses. They became trendy again a few years ago and I can honestly say that I like seeing them worn by lovely women. :-)

There was a fashion show right next to our booth

... and some music

We were presenting our stuff at the Meisterwelten - a collection of small business of master craftsmen. The Zirben lounge that you see here looks amazing.

... and I had to try it straight away and got photographed by the project manager of the Meisterwelten

And for my friends around the world, a few impressions from our business:

Some of our products, measuring them for a potential client for Christmas presents

The insides of a 'Steirische Koestlichkeiten' gift box

Chocolates waiting to get packaged

St. Nikolaus is coming soon!

50g filled chocolates for the Maturaball event in Judenburg