Ony a Week Ago * Kaiserschmarren a Plate of All Your Christmasses and Thanksgivings on One Plate

I cannot believe it is only a week since we were in the Dolomites enoying the clear air, delightful walks and cable car rides, visits to fabulous museums and frescoed castles, not to mention the delicious food and incredible service and hospitality that you find all around this area - even up in the refuges at 2,500 metres, the cooking is sublime! Richard and I came down off the tops and stayed in the Val Gardena. From here you can visit all the 'tops' by cable-car - and at some of those tops you will find restaurants and cafes with great food and loungers for recovering! You can also explore the valley and its delightful towns by frequent bus.

We stayed here, the Lanzinger Garni, a family run hotel, personally overseen by the dynamic, multilingual, Martha Lanzinger. It was a perfection on a plate. A short walk to cable cars and to the bus-stop, a hop to shops and restaurants, yet wonderfully serene and quiet.

Rooms were roomy and impeccable.

And there was a different cake for breakfast each day. What was there not to like!

And, I am told it is just a heavenly in winter. I don't know why I am telling all this as we really want to keep the place a secret....sssshhhhh! But if you love places like this as we do, just click here for more information.

Dropping down to a refuge after a couple of days' of hard scree walking, we were both tired and couldn't work out what we felt like eating. So we chose something on the menu called Kaiserschmarren because I translated it a little wrongly as a sweet omelette - I thought it would be nourishing, easy to eat and would appeal to R's sweet tooth. We had a plate each. Honestly, this was bliss on a plate. Forget Christmas Pudding, I'm Kaiserschmarrening forever now. It is a hot, fluffy pancake studded with rum soaked raisins and doused with powdered sugar and served with a hot plum or cranberry sauce. It is eye-wateringly delicious. And after we had finished and rested a while we were back up those mountains on Kaiserschmarrenpower! Click here for a recipe - remember to presoak the raisins in rum (or Earl Grey if you don't like the alcoholic kick). Better still, get someone to cook you one 2,000 metres up in the Dolomites. Rugs are provided on the chairs.....zzzzzz.