My great discovery was the basement food floor of Japanese depatos.  Each town or city had a fair to opulent selection of department stores.  And fortunately no depato was without a food floor.  Counter upon counter of tea ceremony sweets (okashi), individually packed crackers sweet or salty, picked vegetables (oshinko), salted plums (umeboshi), tofus, seaweeds, fried vegetables, miso-pickled vegetables, cured fish, fresh fish, o-bento boxes, seaweed wrapped onigiri and on and on.  The beauty of this floor is that most of the vendors pass out tiny samples of their offerings.  Japanese customers will rarely take a sample, but as an obvious foreigner, you can get away with ignorant impoliteness and actually accept the tasty offerings.  So if you plot your path through the floor plan correctly, you can start with appetizers, some green tea, maybe a beer, some side dishes, a little tempura, some grilled eel, pickled vegetables, and then finish off with a variety of desserts indigenous and foreign.

Nearly 15 years later, I decided to try the old scam out today, to see if it’s still doable AND enjoyable.  But first, I went to Kappabashi Dori in the old eastern part of Tokyo.  This street is known for its several blocks of kitchen supply stores.  You can find everything for the Japanese kitchen or restaurant.  I bought some bamboo skewer-like picks to use for canapes back in Berlin, and a large ceramic mortar for grinding spices, sesame, and hopefully herbal pestos next summer.  I contemplated buying a small wasabi grater that could also be used for ginger, garlic, and daikon, but I couldn’t quite discern the qualitative difference between a 800 yen grater and a 4000 yen grater – both the same size but one of stainless steel and the other of copper.  I passed rows of tiny almost dollhouse sized frying pans, strainers, and ladles. And dainty baskets for serving tempura, lacquered wooden and plastic trays, and ceramic platters, plates, soup bowls, and tea bowls to please nearly any taste.

And then I went to Mitzukoshi.

The original Mitzukoshi department store is still glamorous, but dated.  But the BF1 level was as lively as ever.  I did not have a good plan of attack, so I started with mochi rolled in ground black sesame seeds, followed by cucumbers pickled in spicy sauce followed by some very garlicky kimchi.  I neutralized the garlic taste with a spoonful of brown rice cooked with adzuki beans and ten grains and then a selection of salted plums – the first too sweet for my taste, the second pleasantly salty sour – perfect with a morning cup of green tea and bowl of rice (An umeboshi a day keeps the doctor away…).  Then I had a perfect chocolate truffle.  Thereafter I paused for a real lunch of unagi – grilled eel on a bed of rice accompanied by very crisp lightly pickled cucumbers, cabbage, and daikon radish and a broth with eel and herbs.  Back out on the floor, I had a chestnut from Chuo, two kinds of pickled daikon, and a very crumbly nut cookie.

Had I planned better, the flavors could have  been enjoyed in a less startling order.  But I was too excited to explore everything at once, and to see the autumn tea sweet offerings which were at this very moment focussed on chestnuts.  The sweets are individual art works, crafted with much love and patience to reflect the flora of the season and sell for several hundred yen and upwards per piece.  But there’s really no reason to buy them if you’re not equipped to prepare a nice bowl of strong and slightly bitter matcha – just enough to drink in two and 1/2 sips – to go with an okashi.

Thankfully you can get a decent unsweetend matcha latte at Koots shops around Tokyo these days.  It’s become my daily vice of the visit.  And thankfully I’m not on the graduate student budget anymore.  There are endless fabulous meals to be savoured in Tokyo’s restaurants with friends.

Some restaurants I’ve enjoyed:

Ume no Hana.  A tofu restaurant that has several outlets in Tokyo.  We went to the one in Aoyama, Minat0-ku.  The restaurant used to be in Bell Commons, but recently shifted to a shopping center across the street.  A multi-course (and 809 calorie!) set of tofu dishes costs 2,600 at lunch.

Takeyabu.  A soba restaurant in Roppongi Hills. A friend has taken me twice to this lovely small soba restaurant.  We started the meal with some very dense fresh tofu served with wasabi and ground sesame.  We also had scallops grilled on a hot stone on the table served with miso.  The soba is cut by hand and cooked al dente and can be either ordered cold or in broth.

Hinone Mizunone. A modern izakaya (charcoal-grilled food) on the 39th floor of Yebisu Garden Place with a spectacular view of Tokyo (get a table by the window).  We had grilled fish, squid, chicken beef, and camembert.  Hey, it’s Tokyo.  We also had some great vegetables and tofu skin.  And a lot of sake.

On the agenda are still ramen, tempura, and sushi.  Recommendations to come.

Even the diaspora cuisine in Germany is not immune.  Show me an Italian restaurant in this country that does not have tagliatelle with a salmon and pea cream sauce on its menu.  Cream has the creepy ability to invade every course – in salad dressing and soups, on vegetables (mushrooms can be prepared without cream?) and meats, and of course whipped with your dessert.  And the pork?  Potato salad, green beans, fried potatoes seem not to survive without.  I read that in America these days, bacon is the ingredient you just can’t do without.  Many of my swine-o-phile friends are bound to agree.  In German cream and pork are know as “Geschmacksträger” – literally flavor carriers.  Well, I maintain that an awful lot of flavor can be found in fresh foods prepared without either ingredient.

As a result of my distastes, I have about 4 regular restaurants I will go to in my bourgeois West Berlin neighborhood.  If your tastes align with mine, you might just enjoy them.

Saigon & More

This small Vietnamese restaurant run by Turkish owner Ertugrul and his Mexican wife is an old standby in my neighborhood.  The kitchen does not cook with pork, MSG, or other additives and is turns out dishes that are consistent in their freshness and taste.  The spring rolls are greaseless and fried to order, the summer rolls are full of flavorful herbs.  Each main course can be ordered to your preference with tofu, chicken, crisp duck, fish, beef or prawns.  I like the rice curry duck, sauteed water spinach with shrimp, and the layered ga xa ot with chicken.  No cream in sight.

Dwin

When I am nostalgic for Persian food, I go to Dwin.  A family run Armenian place on Uhlandsstrasse, this restaurant is popular with Russian and Iranian expat families.  The menu is short and to the point.  Excellent quality of meat (lamb, beef or chicken) and rice the way it should be – boiled and then steamed, not one grain sticking to another.  Served with a pat or butter and a sprinkle of sumac.  There is a wonderful plate of mixed appetizers that will satisfy two or even three.  The bread is warm and laden with sesame.  I always take the grilled boneless chicken breast with pomegranate sauce. No pork served here.

Bejte Ethiopia

Indian food is not so great in Berlin. I once went for a dosa and was served a cilantro chutney that had mayonnaise in it.  Need I say more.  So when I am in the mood for some great spicy lentils, tangy mustard greens, and tomato salad tickled with chilies, I go to Bejte Ethiopian.  The restaurant offers a wonderful vegetarian combination plate for two – six veggie dishes served on injera.  For the carnivores, spicy beef tartar and chicken, lamb or beef stews are also available.  There is a nightly Ethiopian coffee ceremony – the cardamom laced coffee is passed around with popcorn – as soon as the place fills up.  And it always does.  Pork and cream free.

Lastly, when I am craving protein, I go to the oyster bar at the KaDeWe.  I like to go on a Tuesday and have a mixed plate of oysters (7 for the price of 6) and a glass of Sancerre without the weekend crowd!

Next weekend I’ll be in Vienna.

Enjoy!

When I first started travelling the world, I learned that when you come from a place like South Africa, you are the exotic, and not the other way around.  From my perspective, for example, Europe – with its splendid history and architectural magnificence – is exciting, aged, a place where tourists go.  But I quickly realized that the tip of Africa, with its safaris, its startling first-world /  third-world blend, its seething social history, was just as fascinating to “foreigners” as their countries are to me.  Correspondingly, tastes and combinations that I might take for granted will seem exceedingly exotic to a different cultural norm.  Prices will raise eyebrows.  Cultural range might surprise.

But with this one short essay I couldn’t begin to assault you with everything from Cape Malay biriyani to descriptions of dried Kudu with mustard seeds or the pleasures of Cape Salmon nigiri, freshly caught from the cold Atlantic – at prices that have made Swiss friends of mine weep with a desire to move here and just eat.

So I thought I’d follow Milena’s example, and go to the market.

I live in Cape Town, which is ever-so-slightly like the 1970’s Berkeley cross Tibetan Buddhist cross south coast of France cross Sydney surfer child of the African continent.  Ahem, yes, draw your own conclusions.  This past Saturday, I went to Porter’s Market – an organic-themed market set up on the lower slopes of the Table Mountain National Park above the neighbourhood of Constantia, where Simon van der Stel first started to grow wines in the Cape almost 400 years ago.

In what I assume to be a growing global trend, we too, here down at the tip of the mother continent, are edging towards buying produce that is grown locally, shying away from mass-production pesticides, trying to be more seasonal… but like the rest of the world, this trend only seems to have affected those who can afford it – the poorest of poor have always done so automatically.  The Porter’s Market parking area was littered with Mercedes SUVs, BMWs with their tops down, rich families who didn’t care that they were wearing their Crocs out in public, and the most hi-tech baby strollers the world has ever seen.  I felt a little guilty that the wonderful things to see, buy and taste were being experienced by such an elite few.  Perhaps in future I’ll have to venture forth into ‘townships’ where sheep’s heads (called “Smileys”) are put on display and sold to passers-by, where medicinal herbs are laid out on mats in the dust, where beer is served through rusty cages at the backs of illicit drinking establishments (called “Shebeens”)… but that’s another column.

Instead, I bit the bullet (notice the clever use of a food-based metaphor with socialist tendencies) and decided to taste what was offer.

I started at a cheese stand, where unpasteurized cow’s milk, fermented for just one week, formed the base for a range of cheeses flavored with everything from vynbos (indigenous, fine-leafed plants, many of which are considered medicinal, with often subtle, herb-like flavors and fragrances), to fresh chili, to the ubiquitous olive and oregano favorites.  These were all on offer for R170/kg, which equates to around 15.50 Euros per kg (the South African Rand currently trades at about R11 to the Euro, and around R8 to the US Dollar).

Near to that was a Cape-influenced variation on a fishmonger – local and international fish, smoked and pickled (most often in a sweet onion-based brine), and sold as either filleted portions, or pâté.  Smoked pepper Snoek (a long, dense-fleshed, bony fish) was on offer for 1.30 Euros/kg, Angel Fish done the same way was 2.40 Euros/kg.  These are excellent as pâté, smeared generously on crostini or melba toast and enjoyed at a picnic.  Spread out before me at 10 o’clock in the morning, I was somewhat overwhelmed by their heady aromas, and had to work hard to put myself in a lunchish frame of mind to consider which flavors I might enjoy.

As it was, I eschewed the fish, and bought a hand-span sized quiche filled with roasted butternut, chunks of blue cheese and caramelized onion with vaguely discernible sprigs of thyme sprinkled on top for my lunch (2.30 Euros), accompanied by a chunk of chocolate cheesecake brownie (0.90 Euros) the size of a small novel, which ended up lasting through into Sunday morning because it was so rich.  This was washed down with ridiculously expensive cappuccino, considering that it came from a mobile dispensing unit topped with cream from a can.  South Africa is not only a melting pot of cultures, it’s also a clash of gastronomic and beverage influences, from the insulated take-away coffee cups of New York sidewalks to the toughened shot glasses of Morocco, filled with mint-steeped sweet tea.  Prices range from mere cents to reasonable to Euro values transcribed into Rands; it’s luck of the draw, depending on where you are.

I meandered past the organic veggie market where rich people fought to out-green each other, and paused for thought at the stand selling wicker-woven baskets, hand-made by blind people.  A few years ago, the South African government decided to make everyone pay for plastic bags in an attempt to reduce the number of yellow, white and sun-bleached olive tatters that littered wire fences across the land.  Micron count of the plastic was upped to ensure that they could be re-usable or viable for recycling, and everywhere you go, supermarkets will ask you if you want bags before charging you the 3c (Euro) that authorities told us would go towards national recycling projects and similar developments.  Years on, and I’ve recently read an article that claims that no one actually knows where the millions of Rands in revenue that have been raised by charging for plastic have actually gone.  They’re just gone.

But the intent is there, and those of us that bother, dutifully store our shopping bags or use cloth ones whenever we go to the store.  Woven wicker baskets are the next step up, and the half-round wheelie version with a walking-stick handle was on sale here for 32 Euros.  Large picnic baskets were going for 14 Euros, and laundry hampers cost 55 Euros.

Before I headed home, I spent time trying out various chili pastes, which, the lady who ran the stall informed me, were made according to traditional Mauritian recipes.  My favorite was a subtle mix of  a purple-colored chili, chopped dates, assorted nuts, and a fair amount of peanut paste – almost satay-like in flavor, but with an even more exotic edge.  I wasn’t sure if that was because she’d told me it was of Mauritian origin and I was being influenced by aural ingredients… but isn’t that the point?

Because that is the essence of what these stories do for us: we pause for just a fraction longer when we consider the adventure that each bite of what we’re munching might hold.  How do those lemons smell?  Name the flavours underlying your glass of Merlot!  Is your potato a purple one, or brown?  Consider the complexities of lettuce!

I hope I’ve done my hostess’s request justice.  Thanks for the opportunity M; I look forward to wondering around a market with you again soon, so you can show me how it’s really done!

From 25˚C of mid-wintery Cape Town,

sTiv

First, the lukewarm “capuccino” two parts whipped cream to one part coffee sipped endlessly on chilly November days on the southern shore of Lake Balaton.  We were bunking at Club Aliga – a then just-post-socialist elite retreat that is now, I hear, a retro-socialist elite retreat.  I had a red rotary phone in my room which rang mysteriously one night – a guard called to tell me that one of the 28 vehicles in our Engine Roadshow fleet had been left unlocked.  How nice of them to check!

And second, a death-invoking lunch of langos and Unicum on the top floor of the red brick market hall at the end of the pedestrian zone of Pest.  Langos: best described at fried dough, smothered with grated cheese and sour cream.  It sits like a lead ball in your stomach until you drink some shots of the herbal digestif Unicum, which cures the stomach but brings pounding to the head.  Lesser of two evils!

Gone are the days when eating out with the team in Budapest meant a dinner at Fatal, where half ducks, whole pig knuckles, and giant hunks of other meats are served on large wooden boards with bacci ball sized dumplings and heaps of cabbage.  In the past years, some fabulous restaurants have opened up around the Basilica in Pest and in the student area of Liszt Ferenz Ter.  I didn’t get to Mensa last week, a place I’ve liked for both its 70s decor and short but discriminate menu in the past, but between the chicken paprikas, schnitzels, and neverending supply of brownies (I was force-fed them by my colleague Zsofi), I had several delicious dishes.

At Cafe Kor, an expat favorite on Sas Ut, just past the Basilica, I started with a deliciously simple chilled blackberry soup.  It was neither too heavy nor too creamy.  The sourness of yoghurt balanced the exploding sweetness of the blackberries, several of which were floating whole in the bowl.  I followed this with a salad of arugla and thin shavings of home-smoked duck breat and slices of orange.  In the 36 Celsius heat, both dishes were light, crisp, refreshing. Cash only!

A more savory starter was found at Remiz, a restaurant just at the end of Budakeszi Ut that is favored for its pleasant outdoor garden seating and lava-stone grilled meats.  There I sampled a wonderful grilled ewe’s cheese the size of a potato latke, served with a berry coulis and salad.  Why don’t we find this in Berlin?  Main courses come with a choice of side dishes, but the most wonderful option are the croquettes, hand-formed and thus not uniform, puffy and light, with a hint of nutmeg inside them.

The most wonderful nouvelle dish was to be had at Dio, also on Sas ut: housemade nettle noodles with triangles of pumpkin, wild blueberries, some nuts (I don’t remember which ones!!) and these wispy thin shavings of green apples.  The colors delighted and the flavors and textures melded together harmoniously in the mouth.  The dish was an absolute highlight.  Christian and I wanted to go back for it again on our last night, but our team made all decisions democratically and this time the schnitzel-eaters won against us 3 to 2 for a dinner at Mo.  I like to think that this dish is a nouvelle interpretation of the classic Hungarian egg noodles with cottage cheese, sour cream and pork cracklings that I tried (minus the cracklings) at the end of my stay at a wonderful restaurant on the bank of the Danube in Szentendere.

In Szentendere we all ate halaszle, a wonderful fish stew served in mini-cauldrons tableside.  The broth made of carp is rich with the essence of  tomato, onion and sweet paprika and has chunks of catfish in it.  Chilies, salt and pepper are found in small containers on the table, allowing everyone to “season” and “spice” to taste.

The best dessert was also the best breakfast food.  At a small cafe in Esztergom, I sampled makos-meggyes retes, a strudel of poppyseed and plums.  Now my grandmother was an excellent baker of both poppyseed cake and plum cake, but never combined the two in one.  The plums are abursting with flavor right now in Hungary (as are the apricots, the watermelons, the peaches) and they show their best here in the paper thin struedel dough.  Everyone should go to Esztergom to see the Danube bend, enjoy the view from the Basilica and poke around in the bakeries for some special treats!

I am not surprised by the bounty of delicacies the week offered.  On the way from Esztergom to Szentendere, we stopped at the newly reconstucted Royal Palace of King Matthias – a magnificent museum with historical and ethnographical displays, an orchard and herbal garden.  King Matthias was a foodie of his time; his recipes 0f 1460 generally ended with the instruction to “add a good quantity of ginger, pepper, and saffron.”  My favorites, too for the delicate nuances they bring to any dish.

Now if you’ve come to Budapest in search of Argentinian beef and New Zealand lamb, the place to go is the Haraszthy Vallejo Winery in Etyek, a 45 minute drive to the west of the city.  We spent the week there eating the buffet group menu (nothing at all to scoff at) but the true menu in the restaurant Cinnamon has some delightful offerings dreamt up by the multi-national kitchen chefs which I plan to try the next time I am there: white tomato soup with pesto; shrimp salad with apple, mango and fennel; lemongrass sorbet with fresh passionfruit.  The clientele is mostly British and South American;  the pool is very inviting; and the staff will remember your favorite drink and attend to your every need (including getting a 17 meter long 20 tonnes yellow vehicle transporter in as close as possible, should you like to travel with one as I sometimes do).   And of course, try the wines!

I spent one hour this Sunday at the Bastille market, which fills the median on boulevard Richard Lenoir between rue Amelot and rue St. Sabin.  Entering the market from the Bastille roundabout, I was amused to find the very first stalls setting the tone of the market and in a manner of sorts, introducing the dramatis personae of vendors and shoppers of the quartier.  To the left, young Moroccans with crates full of brightly painted earthenware – café au lait bowls 3 for 10 Euros, water pitchers, small plates for small mezze and larger serving plates adorned with painted fish.  Factory seconds from the pottery outlet everyone goes to in Meknes.   To the right, racks and racks of nighties- meant as daywear?  The modern, summery and slightly slinky housecoat, perfect for the lounging, cooking, cleaning housewives I was about to encounter in hoards.

This is not the chic 6th arrondissement with its organic-only market on Raspail, this is working class Paris.

This Parisian market on a Sunday is not a place for lingering, for sipping morning latte and leisurely with your loved one indulging in tiramisu as your first nourishment of the day.  Aside from a few Lebanese vendors, who offer moitié-moitié wraps of za’atar and tomato coulis, or hummus or kibbe, the stall owners do not intend for you to eat sur place.  No fresh squeezed juices, no espresso or deca.  Come to shop, chat in line a bit with the lady in front of you, select your produce and then go home to prepare the Sunday family meal. In Paris, at least, it seems that there still persists a culture of eating together.  At home.

The loudest vendors always seem to procure prime spots in the markets.  “No photos!, merci” shouts the fishmonger. I had wanted to ask him why he is selling oysters (for 4.40 Euros per dozen) in a month without “R.”  But there are other, friendlier fish stands with plentiful offerings.  I have to cross-check back in land-locked Berlin, but the prices seem lower here, and the fish certainly fresher.  How nice to be able to serve turbot or dorade at Sunday lunch and know it’s fresh and slippery:

Turbot: 22.50 Euros per kilo

Dorade (medium-sized): 16:95 Euros per kilo

Wild St. Pierre: 22.50 Euros per kilo

Sole: 24.50 Euros per kilo

Crabs small and large,  and in increasing size crevettes, shrimps, prawns, langoustines, and some rather to my Maine-mind puny looking lobsters from the Atlantic coast.  Sardines and mackerel looked wonderful, and I found a whole side table of fish heads large and small – delicacies for the West and North African clientele.

Only in France will you find stalls with the descriptions “Triperie” or “Chevaline.”  Only here can buy scoops of celerie remoulade and potatoes slow roasted in the drippings of herbed rotisserie chickens – a whole chicken, flattened for 10.60 Euros.

I join the longest line for fruit and briefly contemplate purchasing two French canteloupes for 5 Euros, but they would take up too much space proportionally in my tiny hotel room, so I settle for a bag of near ripe nectarines.

Among the bulk produce you can find some delicate treats: heart of beef heirloom tomatoes, tender radishes oblong rather than round, perfect haricots verts for just 1.90 per kg, baby green asparagus, flat peaches, fresh almonds still in their soft green shells, mountains of apricots, ready to be made into tartes, jams, and purées, and small firm artichokes for an excellent barigoule…

Artichokes barigoule:

This is my favorite way to prepare small artichokes.  It’s not an inexpensive dish and it takes some patience in preparation, but resulting flavor is deliciously rewarding.

Count on at least 2- 3 small artichokes per person.

Fill a bowl with water acidulated with the juice of a lemon.

Using a sharp knife, cut off the top of an artichoke just above its base.  Pare down all the outer leaves and use a melon baller or measuring teaspoon to scoop out the inner choke. Cut off a bit of the stem and peel it down some, but leave the stem on (it is delicious).  Rub all over with ½ a lemon and place in the bowl of water.  Repeat with remaining artichokes.

Heat a few spoons of olive oil in a large low saucepan and add some slivers of garlic, slices of lemon and sprigs of mint to your taste.  Some thyme is nice, too and parsley if you don’t have mint. Place the artichokes hearts down.  If the stems are too long, cut them off and lay them down in the pan. Sprinkle generously with freshly ground pepper and a bit of sea salt.  Add some white wine, cover, and gently braise the artichokes until they are cooked through, not mushy.  Remove the artichokes and reduce the sauce by ½ or more and adjust salt/pepper/lemon to taste.  Serve room temperature with sauce.  I think even my favorite non-artichoke eater will like them!

For the last week, I’ve been walking my 600 meters to work across the dreary chain-cheap store, chain-bakery, chain-mobile phone shop dotted pedestrian area of downtown Offenbach.  The coffee is lousy, the ambiance is grey.   The chain stores seem to have made a pact to suffocate and squeeze out any sign of individuality, mom-and-pops, or boutiques.   The scene could be Anytown, Germany with its Ditschs and Rossmanns, a Saturn and some O2′s.  Note to Kafka: if you thought bureaucracy was stifling it’s good you didn’t live to see globalization of the brand.

So today, after an extended morning that alternated between watching Christiane Amanpour’s loop of commentary on Iranian protests and trying to reach by phone my friends in Tehran, I leaned out the hotel window and discovered the Mainufer Fest just meters away.

This is the season for street fairs, melas and the like in this part of Germany.  Last night I was torn between the Schweizerstrassenfest in Sachsenhausen and the Johannisfest in Mainz.  Mainz won out, only because I’d spent the two evenings prior in Sachsenhausen and it was time for change of scenery.  German summer street fairs resemble German Christmas markets.  Some rides, some handicrafts and wooden knick-knacks, industrial-sized bags of caramel popcorn and stale gingerbread hearts brightened with pastel phrases of sweet nothing.  And lots of beverages.  In Mainz there was black Riesling and cherry beer.  Sweet, sweeter, and not quite so sweet sparkling wines.  Flammekuchen with ham and/or cheese, pretzels with whipped cream cheese, and quite a lot of beer.  We met up in the Leichhof, where corpses must have once been kept, put the deposit down on some wine glasses and got a bottle of this, a bottle of that.  The ambiance is cheery and festive; the crowds very white.

What a delight to find in my grey Offenbach a street fair of diasporas, friendship clubs, religious groups, and activists.  My mistake?  To fill up with deliciously light fried apple slices before turning the corner to find the most fabulous array of people and their foods:

The Portuguese were grilling octopus and whole fish;

the Palestinian ladies were ululating while baking paper-thin lavash.

Greek-style mocha was available across from injera and sauce at the Eritrean stand.

You could support the movement against the expansion of Frankfurt airport or learn about the education and social beliefs of the Baha’i.

Turkish-German clubs fried of hamsi – tiny sardine-sized fish served on a bed of raw onions and sumac.

The Spanish were frying up a fresh batch of paella, but also offered gambas a la plancha.

The Free Masons were across from the Portuguese Catholics and a bake sale organized by kindergarten moms.

Tapas and mezze were available as sampler platters at the Lebanese, Turkish, Spanish, Syrian, and Bangladeshi stands.  The Banglas (both Bengali and Bangladeshi) dominated the scene with their pakoras, samosas, bhajis, and papadums.  Ladies were frying up a storm in restaurant-sized kadais.  I saw someone walk past with a steaming pile of jalebis but never found the source.

The Celtic-German friendship club was a euphamism for “Guiness sold here.”

There was something for everyone, even the everyday German who, at 4 p.m needed either some Kaffee and Kuchen, a large glass of summer white wine with strawberries, or just a good old sausage and .5 liter glass of BEER!

I first had sorrel soup in Dolores’ 57th street apartment a few decades ago.  Dolores’ kitchen was more of a walk-in closet with a window.  Almost European in style, it featured a mini-fridge, a large porcelain sink, a wall hung with copper pots, 2 gas burners and a wartime gas oven with two temperatures: on and off.  Out of this mid-town kitchen came the earthy clean tastes of Provence – without the garlic.  Dolores abhorred garlic.  Well into her 90s, she would get herself crosstown to Zabar’s once a week to buy on sale overripe and – in the American sense – inedible corners of French cheeses.  When you went to visit somethings were always the same: the door unlocked, a box of finest dark chocolates on the coffee table with perhaps, some crystalized ginger.  And there was always something special and of the moment to be found in the kitchen.  A bowl of rhubarb compote with ginger, a pint of mango sorbet, sliced tomatoes with tarragon, or a simple soup with sorrel.

…

Potato sorrel soup for two

1-2 small sweet onions, diced

3 medium new potatoes (firm flesh, not starchy), scrubbed, peeled, and cut into small cubes (1/2 cm or smaller)

1 bunch of sorrel, washed, tough stemmed removed and cut into 1 cm strips

a few sprigs of lemon thyme

freshly ground pepper (preferably toasted before grinding)

sea salt

water or a quick broth made from the potato peel and sorrel stems.

I am not a huge consumer of butter (I do not yet have a cow), but use butter or olive oil as you prefer.

Heat 2 spoons of butter or olive oil in a pot and add onion.  Cover with lid until softened, add potatoes and thyme.  Cover again and let the potato cubes get a bit browned, stirring occasionally.  Add 2-3 cups broth or water and simmer for 5 minutes.  Grind in some black pepper and add some sea salt to taste.  Throw in sorrel leaves, cover, and remove from heat.  Microplane some parmesan on top if you like.

You might as well surrender to endless strand of stalls proffering the “Super Angebot” of the day:

- three 500 g packages of Spanish strawberries for 2 Euros (also available: Spanish watermelons and honeydews, Spanish green asparagus, Spanish arugula…)

- long skirts, zippers, flowery bold-colored headscarves, glittery tops, bejeweled “Oriental” skimpywear, and bolts of poly-blends at 2 Euros per meter

- “Restposten aus Paris” – bulk clothing remnants from Paris (Paris, Texas or France?)

- kilo-sized packages of tea (Ceylon dominates), tinned sheep’s cheese and garlic sausage links

- high stacks of halal meats

- freshly baked gozleme, borek, and sticky sweets

- and amongst the standard offering of dried nuts and fruits, bags of fresh Tasmanian walnuts at 3.95 Euros per kilo.  How did you arrive in Kreuzberg, oh ye walnuts?

I see many of the Turkish produce sellers who also keep stands at the “68-ers” market at the Winterfeldplatz.  But none of the Germans.  The Turkish businessmen are more linguistically adaptive here; proffering their veggies to the once alternative student rebels-turned-retirees on Saturdays and to their Kreuzberg kinswomen on Tuesdays and Fridays. Both constituencies, it seems, like to buy cheaply and in bulk.

Berlin’s largest minority was once its assimilated Jews.  Now it is the Turkish population – a diaspora that was never meant to stay, plant its roots and flourish.  But 40 years after the first guest workers arrived, the community has blossomed.  The city still struggles – on both sides – with issues of integration.  In this serpentine market the Berlin-Turkish microcosm becomes a haven within itself.  And in my mind I photoshop out the male vendors and wonder… without them there, might these young women begin to unveil?

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So what can you do with a bag of fresh Tasmanian walnuts?

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Fesanjun (chicken in walnut/pomegranate sauce)

This recipe was given to me by my friend Valeh, who moved away to Catania.  Persian cooking often follows the Unani (ancient Greek) classification system of hot and cold which is based on how foods affect the body’s metabolism.  “Hot” and “cold” ingredients are combined in a dish to achieve balance and harmony: eggplants with mint, carrots with cardamom and saffron, walnuts with pomegranate.

You can find a Unani food classification chart under My  Links.

4 chicken legs with thigh, skin on, bone in (you can add bone-in breast, too, but don’t let it get too dry)

2-3 small yellow onions, chopped coarsely

1 8 oz/250 ml bottle of pomegranate concentrate, sometimes called pomegranate molasses.  In Persian rob-e-anar.  I have found that the Iranian product is a bit less sour than the Turkish varieties.

1 and 1/2 cups of fresh walnuts, chopped fine but not pulverized

Sea salt to taste

Put your washed and dried chicken parts in a pot with the chopped onions and a cup or slightly more of water.  Cover with lid and bring to a boil, turning chicken every now and then.  Lower flame and simmer until the meat is tender.  Remove the chicken from the pot and the skin from the chicken.  Add the walnuts to the liquid and simmer until the walnut oil separates from the nuts and floats to the top.  Puree with your handheld mixie.  Slowly add about 3/4 bottle of pomegranate concentrate.  The sauce will turn dark brown.  Taste it every now and then to see if the sweet/sour balance is to your liking.  Remove the cooled chicken from the bone and shred some, then add to the pot.  Add a bit of sea salt to taste. Serve with steamed Basmati rice, preferable cooked in a Persian rice cooker that makes a crust and some of your delicious homemade yogurt on the side.

Tender young spinach is available at the market right now, so I decided to make a bright soup with it as a first course.

This recipe is loosely based on Alice Water’s version in Vegetables.

1 pound/500 grams of spinach, soaked, leaves separated from stems, and resoaked.  Get all the dirt out.

olive oil

2-3 small onions, and maybe a clove or two of young garlic

a large splash of leftover white wine or prosecco (for some reason I always have a bottle with 1/2 cup or so leftover)

handful of flatleaf parsley

maybe some sorrel leaves

a few  tablespoonfuls of finely ground almonds

1 cup yogurt, mixed with your favorite herb of the moment (tarragon or chives or chervil) and some sea salt.

Saute finely diced onion in some olive oil until transluscent.  Add a splash of leftover white wine, just enough to cover the onions.  Reduce some.  Add about 1 liter/quarter of boiling water or – if you have time – veggie stock made with the spinach stems, a carrot, an onion.  Throw in your parsley leaves and spinach leaves and a few sorrel leaves if you like (I like the sourness) and immediately remove from flame.  Let stand 5 minutes covered and then puree with a handheld mixie or in your food processor until smooth.  Transfer to another pot/bowl and let the soup cool in the sink filled with cold water for some time.  Add salt to taste.  Here I add the ground almonds for a nice texture and extra protein.  Reheat and serve with a dollop of herbed yogurt.  If you have time, finely julienne some ginger and fry it crisp in olive oil.  Sprinkle on top for a nice crunch.

The boys loved it.  I think it makes a nice lunch with a few slices of baguette and chevre d’Argental (goat’s cheese) toasted.

Morning libations. Some tea, a ceramic cup of steaming hot ginger flavoured the-sugar-is-already-in-it brew bought for a few rupee coins from the chai-wallah (Chai-wallah now a part of the everyday American/Academy Award follower’s vocabulary, thanks to Slumdug Millionaire).  The cup small enough to nestle in the palm of a hand like a Tiffany box blue robin’s egg that also resembles one of those sugar-dipped Jordanian almonds that the French like to pass out at weddings.  It is tenderly caressed and slurped from, that cup, before it is tossed down now empty onto the growing pile of broken earthenware and swept away by someone known only as the sweeper.  Passengers clutch their half liter paper cups of coffee, mochaccino, frappaccino, venti, reinforced with cardboard holders and plastic sippy-cup covers that must bring back comforting memories of toddler days. With umbilical I-pod cords trailing out of their ears, backpacks, and amorphous luggage they descend towards the train.  I buy for 7 dollars a toasted bagel with cream cheese (enough of which to feed a family of four) and a natural green surprise juice, which with my eyes closed tastes much like the red surprise.  I think I detect a note of kiwi (1/2) or maybe apples (2 and 1/3) but it’s just a thick puree, not too sweet, but not quite tasting of the freshly shredded ginger/beetroots/carrot I savor on Saturday mornings in Berlin, either.

The train ride up along the Hudson is magnificent; the river at times wider than the Mekong.  Early March, its surface is clotted with broken up chunks of ice that remind me of the curds that separate from the whey when I slowly add strained lemon juice to near boiling milk to make paneer.  The temperature of the milk must be just hot enough for the index finger to tolerate immersion up to the first knuckle for at least a second but no more than two.  What a large slotted ladle one would need to skim the ice chunk-curds from the river. The river bends, landmarks, bridges appear in the correct order of my memory –the George Washington, the later ones at Tarrytown, Newburg, Poughkeepsie, and just before my station of disembarkation, the Rip Van Winkle.  If you turn around and look southwest towards the Catskills from just before passing under this last bridge, you can see the outline of old Rip, still slumbering on his back in the mountains after all of these years.

I’ve motorboated, sailed, canoe-sailed, and ice-sailed on this river.  Gotten a mast stuck in the sludge (going over, going down, going under). Floated southwards on a pontoon of oil drums (welded in the carriage house) with a Cadillac shell cabin and a sail of parachutes (sewn on the lawn), known as the Argo.  My first appearance on the six o-clock news; a brief lapse into responsible parenting even showed me properly outfitted with an orange life vest inside the Caddy cabin. I can flashback to that movie still.  The Argo made it as far as New Paltz, or was it Newburgh?  The trip was over when the beer ran out.  Or was there a crew mutiny?  I was outside of the camera’s frame again by then…

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If you travel up the Hudson, get out at Beacon to visit Dia:Beacon, a former Nabisco-box printing facility that houses the Dia Foundation’s collection of art from 1960s onwards.  Spectacular naturally lit rooms of Judd, Serra, Lewitt, Flavin and Chamberlain works, to mention but a few.

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Curd (yogurt)

You need some wonderful FULL FAT milk, clearly organic, and preferably from the cow that, like me, you are now housing in the courtyard of your city building.  You also need a starter – your favourite FULL FAT unflavored yogurt.  Seek far and wide to find a tasty (tangy, yet not sour, creamy to your liking) yogurt full of lively cultures.  If possible, bring some back in a small ceramic bowl covered with local newspaper from a milk shop in India.  If not possible, look for artisanal yogurt from a small farm or supplier.  Remember – FULL FAT.

Make sure your hands are clean!  Bring your liter/quart of milk (either from the cow, from the plastic bag thrown onto your threshold early in the morning, or from the tetrapak from the organic food store) to just before a boil.  You should be able to submerge a finger to the first knuckle for a second but not longer. Do not let it boil! Take it off the flame and pour it gently into another very clean stainless steel pot (I have a special curd pot with lid that I got at Raja Stainless Steel in Chennai, but anything will do).  Let the milk cool until it is a bit warmer than body temperature. The milk should feel like a bath that is just a touch too hot to soak into.  Take a generous spoonful of your starter and lovingly stir it into the warm milk.  Cover the pot, wrap it in some dish towels and then a warm blanket and place it in a draft-free location until it has set.  I put it in bed, under my duvet.  The setting time will depend on your location.  Here in bleary Northern Europe, it takes about 5 hours or so.  In the sunny tropics, the curd will set in no time.  Once it is thickened and set, keep it in the fridge.  Scoop out a heart spoonful to set aside as your next starter!

Homemade curd is wholesome and delicious.  Strain it to make make a fresh cheese spread.  I like to combine strained yogurt with chopped fresh herbs or freshly ground toasted cumin and some sea salt.  Whip it with some water and sea salt and your favorite addition to create a raita or tzatziki (grated carrot, grated radishes, grated cucumber, chopped tomato or cooked potatoes).  I like to pop some black mustard seeds in a splash of olive oil and stir them in at the end for a little kick.