Maggie Entenfellner on the trail of Easter crafts in Austria
Vienna (OTS) – Easter time brings colorful eggs, flowers, buzzing bees and cozy days with the family. In “Back to Nature – Easter Time” on Sunday, March 31, 2024, at 6:05 p.m., Maggie Entenfellner follows the trail of crafts, culinary and animal life around Easter time in Austria.
Artisan Stefanie Gebhart discovered her love and talent for painting Easter eggs when she was young. She now decorates around 2,000 eggs every year at her home in Kernhof, Lower Austria – from small quail eggs to large ostrich eggs. The eggs are then exhibited and offered at the traditional Easter market in Schönbrunn Palace. Her husband Josef diligently helps her with the complex work such as blowing out, cleaning or putting in the ribbons. The crank eggs or banner eggs from the Biedermeier period are particularly close to Stefanie’s heart. From a small slit in the eggshell you can pull out a ribbon with a small message, a nice saying, written on it.
Andreas Bamesberger decided when he was still at school that he wanted to work with flowers. However, he didn’t want to make bouquets of flowers, but rather create abstract works of art. At the age of 23 he opened his own studio in Vienna. He regularly decorated the Life Ball and is responsible, among other things, for the floral decorations in the traditional Hotel Sacher.
Josef Floh is a third-generation cook and innkeeper, so he basically “grew up in the inn”. He cooks mostly organically and sources almost all of his ingredients from within a radius of less than 100 km. The birth of his daughter in 2010 and his own need for quality food led him to this idea. The chef is always creating new dishes because he first buys them and then thinks about what he will do with them. He puts a special dish on the menu for the Easter holidays. The starter is white asparagus, which he pickled himself last year. For the main course he prepares braised lamb, which is studded with vegetables. For dessert there is a special chocolate Easter egg: a balloon is dipped in chocolate and made to burst. The Easter egg, which is open on the top, is then filled with mousse and rhubarb.
The Wiener Neustadt native sees the fact that Katharina Tschann’s workplace is a baroque palace in Marchfeld as a great privilege. But above all, it is the animals that the zoological director at Schloss Hof works with every day that make her job what it is. The estate next to the castle is home to 200 animal residents. The white baroque donkeys are a special feature. Their light fur and bright blue eyes represent the only donkey species recognized in Austria. There are only a few hundred of them across Europe. Here they are bred under the supervision of Katharina Tschann – an important contribution to the preservation of the species.
Brigitte Kirchner from Carinthia grew up on a mountain farm in the Metnitztal. She became a beekeeper when she was almost 50 years old. She and her neighbors had fewer and fewer fruits and there were too few bees to pollinate the flowers. Brigitte didn’t want to stand idly by. She took a beekeeping course, bought three colonies of bees and got started. At first just a hobby, working with bees quickly became a passion. Brigitte now has up to 30 colonies and she sets up the beehives in different locations every year, all of which are between 800 and 1,200 meters above sea level.