1. Mai 2012

May 1st is Labor Day in Germany.  It is celebrated quite differently than the Labor Day in the US where schools are closed, but shops are open for big sales, and it is the last open weekend for beach season.  For me while growing up Labor Day meant school would open the next day.

In Berlin, it is a day for revolution.  Schools are still closed but so are most stores.  The restaurants and cafes being open as most people have off and can go to them.  There are political demonstrations and often riots.  It is a day to throw rocks and bottles at police.  (Which doesn't sound like the best of ideas in my book.)  Since the late 1980s the biggest demonstrations take place in Kreuzberg around the Kottbusser Tor area.  To try to reclaim the area from a day of rioting they have introduced MyFest, which is a street fair around the Kottbusser Tor area on May 1st.  I read somewhere that the police help to throw the fair to offset the riots, but I am not sure if this is true.  We were told that it was a fun street party for most of the day, but to make sure to leave when it seemed like most people were leaving.  We decided to give it a try.

So we headed out to the U-Bahn.  We are not very far from Kottbusser Tor, so it was easy to get there.  Because so many people go, the trains were running every minute making it even easier than normal.  This is an excellent strategy I think to keep people from being too packed in and to keep tensions down.

Once we arrived we joined the stream of people walking in the blocked off streets.  There were tons of food stands.  Some were the typical food stands at any fair or festival, some were outside stands for the restaurants behind them, and some were from people who lived in the apartments that lined the streets taking advantage of the throngs of people invading their streets.  Kreuzberg has a heavy Turkish population so it was not too surprising that most of the food available was Turkish.  Beer and mixed drinks were also easily available at every turn.


Music was everywhere too.  Because the street fest was spread out across several streets in the area there was no one place for a big stage to be set up so that everyone could listen.  Instead they set up many little stages here and there along the street.  As you walked you would go from being able to hear one band or DJ to the next.  Our favorite band was Puto Production, which is the group of guys playing drums seen here.  They were pretty good and their show was a lot of fun, so they drew a big crowd of listeners and dancers.  They played for quite a long time before taking a break too, which was quite impressive.  They played near another stage that was piping out a CD through speakers and this band kept playing louder as the music through the speakers also got louder. 

In the end we did not stay all too long because of lack of sunblock and a list of other things we had to do.  So we didn't get even close to the time where people start throwing things at police.  People were still out with their kids.  Some people almost complain that May 1st is getting too tame now, and that it's turned into just another street festival.  But I don't complain about it being a street festival.  I enjoy them.  And this one did not disappoint.

Ostern

We missed Easter in Germany this year.  We celebrated instead in Croatia which I will also tell you about in another post or two.  However, we were back to Berlin on Easter Monday.  Berlin is not the most religious of cities in Germany, however it is more so then in some places in the US, where for example schools were open the day after Easter.  Here not even the grocery stores reopened until Tuesday. 

When they did I found that the Easter Bunny had left some wonderful surprises at the grocery stores.  Candy at 50% off.  After the holiday is my favorite time to buy holiday treats!

Of course since I was in the US in February I picked up some of the full priced American Easter staples (to me at least...) Cadbury mini-eggs, Reeses Peanut Butter Eggs, and Starburst Jelly Beans.

And now I had to check out what German treats there were.  I was surprised that there really weren't any jelly beans.   The real shock about the candy is that it was mostly Lindt.  Not that I am complaining that they put high quality chocolate on super sale, but I am used to less fancy options.  I was not surprised to find that there were eggs filled with Marzipan, different types of Nougat, as well as chocolate and hazelnut chocolate creme (like Nutella).

There were also eggs filled with 2 cremes side by side in a variety of types.  I chose a mixed package with Egg-Liquor and Vanilla Cream together, Cranberry and something called Zabaione, and the last is Cappuccino and Cream.  They also have spoon eggs (Löffel Ei) which look like chocolate egg shells (the size of a real egg) with pudding inside that you eat with a spoon. 


And of course last but not least, Kinder Eggs.  I had heard about these from a friend before moving here who was lamenting that they could not be sold in the US.  They are chocolate eggs with toys inside of them.  The US has deemed them a safety hazard.  It made sense to me.  Who wants to bite into chocolate and have a toy come out?  But now that I have had one (they are out all of the time here) the whole problem seems silly.  The eggs are scored so that you can break them in half with your hands before you eat it.  It is just the shell (which in my opinion would be better filled with dark chocolate cream) with a small toy in a container inside.  The kids love them and they are fun.  (The toys are pretty advanced as you can see.)  And there is a big sign on them that says not for kids under the age of 3.  Seems reasonable to me. 

Of course so far this sits unopened.  I had opened the candy from the US on Monday and it will take quite a while to go through it without overloading on sugar.  But it will last for a while and will be a nice treat in the upcoming weeks.

Wine and Chocolate

One of our favorite parties to host is a Wine and Chocolate Tasting.  We have had one in February or March every year for the past three years.  It is fun because they are both great things on their own, and it is fun to try to find combinations that make them even better.  We were especially excited to try this in Berlin with a new wine selection to choose from.


To start, the internet is a great resource for finding wines that pair well with chocolates.  People who work at wine shops have also helped us out a lot.  I make several types of chocolate dishes for different types of chocolates, white, milk, semi-sweet, and dark.  I try to stick to things that are more chocolate than anything as some things will change with the wine.  For example, I thought about making a chocolate cheesecake, which I love, but it is too heavy for me to eat with wine, so I left it out.  We also put out different chocolate bars for people to have small samples with the wine.  This year we also tried adding tea to the list of pairings as a non-alcoholic option, which seemed to go over well.


Another big change this year was the layout.  In the past, we've set out a large table with the wines and chocolates all arranged a long it. This year, we spread the pairings out across tables placed throughout our apartment.  The wines and chocolates that pair well together went together.  I used ribbon to color code wines that crossed-over types of chocolate.  But we always encourage people to try what they want.  You never know!  I think that spreading the food and drinks worked really well because people knew they had not tried anything from a section yet and were more willing to make sure they got to each table to try new things.  When all of the chocolate is on one table it is easier to keep going back to the same thing and never quite make it to the rest.


Here is what we tried this year:




White Chocolate:
White chocolate goes well with sweeter wines, such as Muscatos, Cream Sherry, sweet Reislings and sweet Gewurztraminers (especially Reislings can be quite dry, so look at the label or ask).  This year the big hit was the Cream Sherry with the white chocolate options.

Oolong and Herbal tea go with white chocolate.  We put out Oolong and a Mango Lemon Tea, which people liked, but I don't know how well it went with the chocolate.


For white chocolate I made Paula Deen's White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Fudge, posted on another blog.  It is more creamy than traditional fudge and goes amazingly well with Muscato d'Asti (which we could not find here sadly).  From the Food Network I made a White Chocolate Berry Fool that was supposed to only have blackberries but included some random Berlin berries such as Johannisbeeren.  This one has more whipped cream than chocolate so was a nice lighter alternative when you had a bit too much chocolate (in case that is possible).  I also made a White Chocolate Silk Pie from All-Recipes with an almond crust instead of chocolate so as not to mix types of chocolate.  I also left off the whipped cream and berries so it didn't seem just like the Fool.   I don't love white chocolate, but these were all really good.



Milk Chocolate:
Milk Chocolate goes well with a lot of wines.  Some of them include Reisling, Champagne, Muscat, Pinot Noir, Ruby Port, Hungarian Tokaji (which we thought we would find being so close to Hungary, but no), light Merlot, Italian Sparkling wines, and dessert wines.


The same teas that go well with white chocolate are said to go with milk chocolate so we put out the Oolong and Mango Lemon Tea.


Milk Chocolate is not my favorite.  I prefer semi-sweet and dark.  So I never make as much in this category.  I also find it hard to find things to make that are milk chocolate.  Most things that you bake are semi-sweet chocolate and or are non-chocolate things with milk chocolate in them.  But I hate to only have candy bars out so I made milk chocolate covered strawberries, always a winner, and milk chocolate mousse.  The mousse is officially  Peanut Butter and Milk Chocolate Mousse Parfaits from Food and Wine, but I just made the Milk Chocolate Mousse part.  The mousse wasn't as light as a traditional mousse.   It tasted like a thick custard, but a really good chocolatey custard.   The next day it tasted like frosting!  For me this was great, because I love to eat a few spoonfuls of frosting and they don't really sell pre-made frosting here.


Semi-sweet/Dark Chocolate:
We always have the most types of wines at this end because when you think of pairing wines and chocolates these are the types that you think of.  There are also a lot of wines that go well with darker chocolates: Grenache, Cabernet Sauvignon, Zinfindel, Pinot Noir, Merlot, Tawny Port, Sangiovese, Syrah or Shiraz, Marsala, Beujulais, and Bordeaux.


White, Jasmine, and Green tea are said to go well with dark chocolates so we had some of each.


In our experience, there are always the most left overs in this category because you are supposed to try them last.  So make things you like!  My old standby here is a Flourless Chocolate Cake from Paula Deen, which she calls Deep Dark Chocolate Truffle Cake.  You can find the recipe in this blog. She drizzles it with a white chocolate sauce, but I prefer it with a raspberry or other berry compote.  This cake is relatively easy to make and I had made it before for some of the people who were coming.  When they asked if I was making it I figured I would make two just to make sure there was enough (we did have about 20-25 people).  However, we never even started the other one and I brought it to work to share on Monday.  The other recipe I love is Truffle Tarts with Raspberries from Food Network.  I always use very dark chocolate for these and make them in mini-muffin tins so that they aren't so over-whelming and so you can try more things!   I do recommend just adding the chocolate to the liquid mixture you are heating otherwise my chocolate never melts and it is a bit of a mess.  Last but not least I made a Chocolate Honey Almond Tart, also from Food Network, that was amazing.   It was my new recipe here and is a winner.   I can't wait to try it again.



This party is always fun because people get to try lots of types of food and wine and can talk about what they like best or not.   I highly recommend trying one.  Just make sure to have a double boiler or a bowl that will fit in a pot with hot water.  It works much better than trying to melt chocolate in the microwave, despite what the recipes say.  Happy Tasting!

Random Berlin

 

This weekend marked the first nice weekend since the fall.  While it may be too early to say that Spring is officially here, I can say that we took full advantage of the sunny, warm days and not too cold nights.  We started our Saturday outside at Knofi, a cafe on Bergmannstrasse, eating breakfast and people watching. After dropping our coats and getting some sunblock, we went to Admiralsbrücke and met a friend.  We walked up and down the canal.  It seemed like all of Berlin was out.  We stopped for ice cream and a while later drinks.  The outdoor seating at all the cafes and bars were of course mostly full.  We also found this bar pictured here which I think has the best name.  We were on our way home at this point, but we will go back.

Later in the evening we headed out to dinner near Warschauer Strasse.  At the U-bahn station you come out onto a street that is raised.  On the sidewalk of the street below a DJ had set up a turntable, getting power from his car.  Few people were dancing yet, but the night was young.

After dinner we went back to Warschauer Strasse and crossed the bridge there to go to another friend's house.  While walking over the bridge fireworks started from the bank a little bit up the river.  We thought it would just be one or two, but it turned into a whole show.  The craziest thing was that a guy who was among the others who had also stopped to watch started playing the Star Spangled Banner.  I took a bit of video.  Listen and you will hear the end of the song.  (I was in too much shock to start near the beginning.)  It was a very odd Berlin moment on a St Patrick's Day night.   

You never know what may happen in a city.  And when the weather is nice and people are out it becomes even more random.

So Top-Secret, the Americans Don't Know About It

We were at a place for burgers a while ago and next to the ketchup was a white squeeze bottle hand-labeled "Hamburger Sauce."  We had no idea what it was so we stayed away from it. 

A few months later we went to a friend's house for dinner.  He was excited to have Americans try his burgers.  We love burgers, so this was a great idea to us as well.  He made the patties by hand and grilled them on the stove (it was winter!) while cooking potato wedges in the oven.  It smelled so good it was hard to wait.  When everything was done we went to sit down and eat.  He had all kinds of toppings on the table: pickles, tomatoes, lettuce, curry ketchup, regular ketchup, fig mustard, spicy mustard, and Hamburger Sauce.  I was so excited to ask a German what in the world this sauce was, so I did.  I got a quizzical look.  "Don't you know?"  I had no idea and had yet to even try it.  He was completely shocked.  I understood why when I looked more closely at the bottle. It says American Hamburger Sauce.  They sell it over here like Americans all eat this on their hamburgers!

This one at least says American "style."

We tasted it and have decided it is a mixture of mayonnaise and mustard and something like Thousand Island dressing (maybe due to pickle relish).  I feel like someone tasted a Big Mac and thought that was American Hamburger Sauce. Of course, it is actually pretty good on hamburgers.

A bit later, our friend's girlfriend, who had to work late, came in.  As she fixed her burger she reached for the Hamburger Sauce and he couldn't wait to tell her that it wasn't American.  But look at the flag, she said as she pointed to the bottle, of course it is American.  (And it is a US flag, so it isn't, say, from Canada or Mexico which could also count as American.)

I don't know who the joke is on, Germans who buy American sauce that doesn't exist in America, or the Americans who don't even get to buy the sauce they supposedly have.

Museums in Berlin

There are many wonderful museums in Berlin.  We went to a few when we were here for a summer a few years ago.  We didn't get to any this summer as it was tourist season and rainy, which seemed like a terribly crowded time to try to go to a museum.  However, now that we are settled in we are ready to take advantage of the collections here in Berlin.

The nice thing about living here is that the year pass is so cheap.  A year museum pass to all Berlin state museums (which include the big ones I will mention below) is only 40 Euros (about $53).  This does not include special exhibits, but we found most of the special exhibits we cared about are private and wouldn't be covered by year pass plus (which is still only 80 Euros).  3 visits to the more expensive museums covers the cost of the year pass, so it is a good deal if you go to museums.  It is also nice because you can go for an hour and leave and not feel like you wasted your money.

Market Gate of Miletus

We used our new passes at the Neues Museum (the New Museum).  It was closed for renovation the last time we were here, so we had not been before.  The name New Museum is misleading however, as it includes the ancient Egyptian collection, the pre-history and early history collection, and the part of the collection of Classical Antiquities.  We took advantage of being able to return whenever we wanted and only explored the first floor.  It had lots of ancient Egyptian artifacts, which is my favorite thing to see at a museum.  The thing that struck us most so far about this museum is that it is not well organized.  It seemed that some artifacts didn't fit with others and the exhibits didn't really tell a story.  We enjoyed it never the less and look forward to seeing the rest of it.  I also look forward to the new exhibit they are putting together on how the war impacted the museum.  I know that many of the artifacts were taken and some are still in other countries or missing.  Others were destroyed.  It will be interesting to see.


We have also been to the Altes Museum (the Old Museum).  When we were there last it housed the famous bust of Nefertiti, which is now in the re-opened Neues Museum.  Because they had put a significant portion of the Egyptian collection here, I am anxious to go back and see what is there now that all of that is gone.

Section of the Gates of Ishtar

My favorite Berlin museum so far is the Pergamon Museum.  It is named for the Pergamon Altar, from Turkey, that is reconstructed inside the museum.  The altar is huge.  In fact this museum is gigantic!  It has several reconstructed parts of several story buildings.   The Market Gate of Miletus (also from Turkey), which is a two story tall stone temple-like front from 120 AD is there.  And my favorite thing to see is the Ishtar Gate, one of the city gates to ancient Babylon constructed in 575 BC.  This is one of the coolest things.  I just couldn't believe all of the color!  There are lots of other things to see here, but these are the highlights for sure.  I can't wait to see the things we missed last time and see some of the exhibits again.

The Germans did a lot of excavating throughout the world.  You can of course always argue about museums and their acquisitions and whether things should leave the country of origin or not.  However, if you are in Berlin, it is worth the trip to see the things that are here.

Turkish Breakfast

Brunch is big in Berlin, especially on Sundays and especially when the weather is nice. People go out and sit at a restaurant or cafe for hours! (And no one at the restaurant cares that you sit there all day even if you order nothing more.) We have definitely become big fans of this tradition. However, now that the sun goes down at 4, you don't necessarily want to be eating breakfast for all the hours the sun is out. We have discovered that really our favorite Berlin breakfast is Turkish breakfast. There are many Turkish immigrants in Berlin so there are lots of good Turkish options.

The reason to love Turkish breakfast is that it is somewhere between the more traditional Berlin breakfast and American breakfast. Berlin breakfast is as you would expect for Continental breakfast: meat and cheese, fruits and vegetables, bread, and maybe a hard boiled egg. And butter. The slab of butter they give you for the bread is sometimes bigger than a slice of cheese! Imagine a large slice of brie.  Now imagine that it is butter. I don't know how a person could eat all of it. The Turkish breakfast we get has the meat and cheese (although Sucuk, garlic sausage that looks a bit like pepperoni, and wiechkäse, a Turkish table cheese), olives, and vegetables which is similar. However instead of bread, you get a Simit, a sesame ring. And the real winner is scrambled eggs! I don't know why I feel that a scrambled egg is more breakfasty than a hard boiled one, but it is. It really feels like I get to eat breakfast and lunch.

The cheese slab that stands alone, is really butter.

Our favorite place to go is called La Femme. We usually get the sampler platter seen here. It is always good. One of the things that makes it extra wonderful is that they make their own jam. Usually it is strawberry or berry of some sort, which I like. One time they made fig jam which was amazing! I am not ashamed to say I finished it with a spoon (why put that whole chunk of fruit on my bread?)

Another place that we like to go is a cafe on Hauptstrasse between Kleistpark and Akazienstrasse which is convenient as it is near a Turkish grocery store where we can pick up the things we like to have around at home: garlic sausage, cheese, loose tea, and some cheap and wonderful fresh dates. What I find most interesting about the food at this place is their one dish that has eggs cooked over hard with the garlic sausage cooked into it. They must put some slices of sausage in the pan before they break the eggs over it. I have not really seen eggs and sausage cooked this way, but I really like it.

When we were going back to the US for two weeks we needed to have Turkish breakfast before we left and as soon as we returned. We will need to improve our Turkish cooking skills for when we leave Berlin, because we will not be able to go long without it!