The Krapfen is the best thing since sliced bread - or in Bavaria, since the monks began brewing beer. During Carnival season or Fasching, the bakeries explode with these delicious pastries. But there's an interesting history behind them, too.

Germans are so careful about maintaining their cars and they build their houses so well that they are practically airtight. But on New Year’s Eve, their sense of caution quite literally vanishes into thin air.

On a trip to the Christmas market in Munich, I was inspired by the holiday cheer and the number of foreign tourists and was especially impressed by their boisterous enthusiasm for holiday wares.

I loved Christmas cookies growing up and thought they were pretty good, but have since discovered that German holiday confectionary is in a league of its own – the premier league.

Germans don’t celebrate Thanksgiving but they celebrate Christmas half the winter. Starting at the end of November with the first of Advent, it culminates on January 6th, Heilige Drei Könige, Three Kings’ Day, or Epiphany, which is the Eastern ...