American Food in Berlin

Last year everything in Berlin was so new I didn't often miss the food I ate before I moved here that I couldn't get here.  Sure, when I went back to the US there were things I would need to get (bagels with egg and pork roll, pizza, and Mexican food) but I was able to cook enough things that we were normal to us that it didn't matter that much while we were here.

During these dark days of winter we can go for a week with grey clouds and no real sun (rather reminiscent of South Bend, Indiana) and the sun rises when I am almost at work and sets before I leave, so I have been feeling the pull of old comfort foods more.  Luckily we've found some things to help, but we've also seen some sad misses.

This past week has been a real example of what I mean.  Last Saturday I wanted pancakes for breakfast.  This is actually something I eat rather rarely in general and even more so since we've lived here.  Usually if we want pancakes we plan ahead when we go grocery shopping to buy buttermilk and then we make them (no box pancake mix here unless you want to spend a near fortune on it).  This time I remembered that Atlantic on Bergmannstrasse has an American breakfast that consists of pancakes, maple syrup, and fruit.  I had not tried it before because it seemed silly to order an American breakfast when we're eating out.  I was quite excited as I waited for my pancakes to arrive.  When they came what I saw was something like a very thick crepe with powdered sugar sprinkled on top and the thinnest syrup ever.  It tasted a bit like funnel cake or like 5 crepes stacked on top of one another maybe. So don't get me wrong; they were good.  But they were not pancakes.

On the other hand we had recently found that the Colombian restaurant near Gneisenaustrasse sells canned tomatillos and poblanos, along with a variety of other packaged South American/Mexican food items, and their homemade hot pepper salsa.  So when I was looking at what to do with a pork tenderloin we had and came across a recipe for Tequila Pork with Tomatillo Guacamole I decided that was the winner.  We haven't been able to find tomatillos really before this so I had been ruling out all such recipes.  Since it is a giant can, I decided to also make tomatillo salsa.  And the grocery store helped out by actually having cilantro, which is by no means a sure thing.  So we planned 3 Mexican dishes for the week to use up the salsa and pork and while it wasn't authentic Mexican, it was pretty good Tex/Mex for Berlin.  Of course, there are two places in Berlin where you can get decent Mexican, Santa Maria and Ta Cabron, but the options are limited, and it was good to cook it at home like we used to.

This week I also had Cherry Coke.  I had not been able to find it at the grocery store, and it definitely isn't served at any of the good burger places where I would want it to be, but then I found it at the grocery store in the train station on our way back from some trip or other.  I didn't care that I had to carry the bottle across town, I needed it.  Then I saved it until this week when I decided it was time.  I know that Cherry Coke doesn't really pair well with Mexican food, but they both remind me of home and I didn't really care.  I also found last week that they now sell Cherry Coke at our grocery store so I can buy another bottle to save for the next time I need it.

This weekend I picked up bread and made myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  So I guess I am still in need of some American comfort foods.

While I don't often need an American food fix, it is nice to know that it is possible.  There is a NY style bagel place Barcomi's (where the bagels are decent, but not really like those from NY), a new place that sells pulled pork or brisket sandwiches (which are good despite being American/German fusion), and a new American diner that I have yet to try.  Cooking at home also helps as long as you are careful to pick dishes where you can get the ingredients you need. 

Now that the sun has started to rise earlier and set later every day and we have begun to see it shine more often from behind the clouds and we even had a week of false-hope spring, I imagine the need for comfort foods will decrease, but it was nice to have them while I wanted them.

Visit Szczecin, Poland

When we talked to friends from Berlin early on about day trips from Berlin some people mentioned Szszecin, Poland.  After living here for a year we finally decided it was time to go to Poland for a weekend.  From Berlin, you can cross into Poland within about an hour depending on where you are headed.  So we thought back to what people had said about Szczecin in northern Poland.  Then I started to do some research looking up what to do there and whether we should spend the night or come back the same day as it is only a 2 hour train ride.  After several blogs and other sites the general impression I got was- "Don't go."  It seemed people much preferred the day trips within Germany.  I started to waver and was thinking about alternatives.  

Then I talked to a friend from work who is from Poland.  He has been to Szczecin and said that if people go there thinking they are going to a big European city like Rome or Paris, they are often disappointed.  Also, much of the city was destroyed in World War II, so it is not as old as some other destinations in Poland, so it has less of a sense of history about it.  He felt that the town was a bit grey, but it was a nice place to walk around and was worth seeing.  Also it would be a taste of Poland: the culture, the people, the food, while also being close to home.  Not only is not far from Berlin, it was for a time part of Germany and only went back to Poland after WWII.  In German the town is called Stettin.  I recently saw a map of Europe from during Frederick the Great's time and Stettin was on the map as part of Brandenburg.  In the end we decided to go.

We tried to book train tickets online but could only get them mailed to us.  We decided that since it was less than a week a way that might not be the best plan.  So we went to the station and got them a few days in advance.  This turned out to be a good plan.  Online the only option was about 60 euros per person round trip.  At the train station we got tickets for only 20 euros round trip per person.  This made it definitely worth going to just get out of Berlin for a couple days.

We of course picked the rainiest weekend in weeks, but since we had tickets we stuck to the plan.  Even in the rain, I really enjoyed walking around the city.  It is really a good place to walk around.  There is a tourist path (drawn in red on the sidewalk, even) with historic and important sites to stop at (all numbered and everything).  We didn't really have the walking tour book and didn't care much to take out paper to read about what we were seeing since it was raining.  While parts of the city are a bit grey and looked even more grey in the rain, the buildings were cool.  I know nothing about architecture, but the architectural styles around town were varied and interesting.  Some of the old part of the city have been redone with bright colors, so that made everything a bit more cheery.  There are museums but they apparently don't have much labeled in English, so we didn't go to any of them.

As a significant port city, they have a nice waterfront walk in front of the Maritime Museum and Nautical Academy, which impressively sat upon a hill overlooking the water.  As you walked along the river you could smell chocolate from the chocolate factory on the other side of the city.  In the future they will be creating gardens in the water where the river is too shallow for large ships.  Apparently you can also rent kayaks and canoes, although it was a bit too cold for that in October.  

 

 

There is a castle of the Pomeranian Dukes, which supposedly has some exhibits, but really was just a cool building to walk around.  In the warmer weather they do open air concerts in the courtyard.  And the space inside is also used for weddings which we saw as well. 

We ended up meeting with my friend's friend who lives there and she took us around the city a bit.  Two things she showed us which we would not have done on our own were to visit the cemetery and to go up to the 22nd floor restaurant to overlook the city.  I had seen that the cemetery was one of the things to see in Szczecin, but as it was a bit outside of the historical district (so you needed to take a bus or tram) and we don't speak Polish I figured we wouldn't bother.  I am glad that we did because it was unlike most cemeteries I've been too.  Szczecin at some point decided to move all of the cemeteries from around the city into one place.  What resulted was one ridiculously large cemetery with some sections specific to certain religions and others more general.  There are fountains and statues.  Also, there are many many trees.  I am used to no trees and being able to see all of the graves.  I think about the military graves from the civil war where you can just see lines of the white crosses forever.  But here the graves sites seemed more intimate, with personal touches like gardens and benches and they are hidden from the roads and pathways with clear sections between graves.  I liked the feel much better.  Although I suppose that this cemetery has a different intention than the military ones where they want you to feel how great a loss it was.  

 

Overlooking the city was also fun, although would have been nicer on a nice day.  You could really see how green the city was with all of its parks from above.

 

The food was also amazing, which makes the train ride worth it on its own. For lunch we went to a brewery that opened a year ago called Browar Stara Komenda.  The beer was great and the food was awesome!  Not all of the food was traditional Polish but we tried a more traditional soup (I think it was a cabbage soup), bread with schmalz, and what we decided was a Polish hot pocket (only actually good).  

For dinner we went to Karczma Polska Pod Kogutem, which both our Poland tour book and the hotel recommended as good for traditional Polish food.  It was a bit hokey and touristy (people on one side of us spoke German and on the other side English), but the food was good.  We had Bigos (cabbage stewed with pork in a bread bowl) as a starter, then Polish pierogi with bacon and barley, and pork knuckle village style.  Overall, it was a lot of cabbage, but all so wonderful.  The pierogis aren't at all like the ones we get in the US and in fact not what we had at the Culture Festival in Berlin either.  (This was a bit of a shame, as the Berlin ones were the best.)  We again had beer, which was great.  We were tired from the long day and rain so we didn't move on to vodka.  Some say Polish vodka is the best.  I am not in a position to say, since I don't drink vodka often.  But it is cheaper and they have a great variety so we did bring some home with us!

If you are visiting Berlin and don't have much time, it may not be worth going to Szczecin.  There is plenty to see in Berlin and Potsdam.  But if you are in Berlin for an extended stay or are living here, it is definitely worth it.  I would recommend going in nice weather and maybe when you can go kayaking.  It is a perfect mini getaway that makes you feel like you have gone much further.  Plus you get to train through the countryside to get there.

Kartoffel Fest

Potatoes are not my favorite, but they sure are a staple here in Germany.  There are even potato based restaurants in Berlin like the Kartoffelkeller.  We haven't been there, but even I am interested in seeing what the restaurant is like.

So when it is potato picking season, what better than to have a Potato Festival?  There is one on a farm in Dahlem, a section in southwest Berlin.  As festivals are generally fun, we went to check it out.

I learned how they pick potatoes.  A tractor goes and pulls up the plants from under the ground.  Then the potatoes can easily picked up off the ground.  There were lots of kids waiting for the tractor to come past so they could scoop up a bunch of them.  People were walking away with huge bags of potatoes.

I also learned that there are a ton of different types of potatoes, besides white, blue, purple, and sweet.  The sad thing was that they didn't have any that you could taste.  It would have been interesting to find out what the differences were.

 

We had some excellent kartoffelpuffers, which is similar to a potato pancake, but different than any I've had in the US.  These I actually like to eat, even.  We also had Federweisser, which is a fall drink of freshly fermented grape juice.  It tasted a bit like a apple cider (the non-alcoholic American kind).  Sadly we have bought some since at the store and it is not half as good as the glass we had at this festival.

There are so many festivals in Berlin.  They are fun and rarely disappoint. 

Feigen

Every once in a while we would buy some new exotic fruit from the grocery store, look up online how to cut and eat it, and try it.  In this way we have tried Lychees, Dragon Fruit, Tamarillos, and a variety of other fruits.  One that I never tried were fresh figs.  I eat them dried and love them.  But whenever there would be a few fresh ones at the store they were so expensive especially compared to the packages of dried ones that I never bothered.  I figured it was better to try something I had never had in any form.

Here in Berlin, fresh figs, or Feigen, have become a fall treat for us.  They are in season in Turkey and get shipped here.  You can buy them for most of the year and they are still cheaper than in the US.  However, when it is the height of the season, they reduce in price to about a pound for 3 Euros. 

They make a great quick dinner after a long day of work.  Slice up a fig, put it on some fresh baked bread with some prosciutto and arugula (which the Germans love and eat on everything including pizza) and add some Balsamic vinegar and you have a great sandwich to go with your favorite sides.  I am not a big sandwich-for-dinner person, but these are worth it. 

This summer while back in the states I picked up a Food Network magazine that had several jam and preserve recipes.  One of them was a Fig and Ruby Port Preserve.  I have never been tempted to make my own jam, but this one called to me.  I have had fig jam before at La Femme, a Turkish restaurant near Hermannplatz that makes their own jams to go with their simit rings (sesame bread rings) for breakfast.  I love all of their jams.  Generally they serve strawberry or some other berry, but every once in a while you will get fig instead.

So I went for it.  I bought a few canning jars and a bunch of figs and tried the recipe.  I had to use Tawny Port as it is difficult to find Ruby Port here (3 stores, 2 of them wine stores and still no luck, which is crazy considering they come from Portugal which is in the EU).  I am also pretty sure that the La Femme puts honey in their jam so I traded out about 1/4 a cup of sugar for honey.  Since I tripled the recipe it took about triple the time to cook down, but it was completely worth it.  The preserves were amazing with strong cheese, on scones, and I bet will be the best on vanilla ice cream!  I can't wait till I have time and cheap figs again!

Ping...Pong

For the most part it doesn't get so hot in Berlin that it is unpleasant to be outside.  This is good since there is almost no air conditioning here.  It is also not as humid as the east coast of the US.  That means that on a nice summer day it is fun to go to a park.  And Berlin has a ton of parks.

Victory Column

There are big ones like Tiergarten in the center part of the city.  This park contains the Victory Column (Siegessäule in German) and is right near the Brandenburg Gate.  It is hard to tell how big the park is when you are in it because it is broken up by a streets and rivers and lakes and also sectioned off by trees and paths.

Soviet Memorial in Treptower

One of my favorite large parks is Treptower Park.  It is in eastern Berlin along the Spree.  Along the river there are cafes and snack stands.  The most appropriate one seems to be the smoked fish stand.  Here also there are many paths and sections to the park including open fields, flower gardens, and wooded places for shade.  Treptower Park also has a large Soviet War Memorial which I enjoy walking through.  The most interesting thing about the park is the SpreePark, an abandoned amusement park.  It is all fenced off and there are many trees that make it difficult to see into the park, but you can see the ferris wheel and a beat-up fiberglass dinosaur or two.  Apparently this park was open until 2001.  But it seems much older and creepier because it seems overgrown.

Can you find the ferris wheel?

Dinosaurs

The other large park we go to is Tempelhof Airfield.  According to Wikipedia it gets its name because the land was originally owned by the Knights Templar in medieval times.  As I have mentioned this airport is the one used for the Berlin airlift when allied troops brought in food and supplies to West Berlin while roads and water routes were closed off between June 1948 and September 1949.  The airport building, rebuilt by the Nazis, was at one point in the top 20 largest buildings in the world.  Now the building is used for events like a large fashion show.  And the airfield is used as a park.  There are areas to grill, dog parks, mini-golf, and gardens.  And you can rollerblade, bike, or skate sail on the runways.  This is a park you don't want to come to if you are looking for shade though.

Viktoriapark- looking up to the monument

There are many smaller parks as well.  Viktoriapark has a lot of space for picnics and walking but its main thing is that you can walk about the hill (one of the very few in Berlin) and look out over the city.  There is a monument to the war against Napoleon at the top of the hill and this is a great place to watch the sunset.

View from top of Viktoriapark

A park we recently went to is Volkspark Hasenheide near Hermannplatz.  You can almost walk from this park directly to Tempelhof but you have to go on the road for a little bit to make it between.  We went here just to walk through a park on a nice afternoon.  What we found was that this park also has mini-golf and a mini-zoo (camels and llamas plus more). 

There are also mini-parks with just a playground and some shady spots and some sunny spots dotted throughout the city.

The one thing that most of these parks have in common (other than Tempelhof maybe) is that they have ping pong tables.  These are smooth slab tables with metal "nets" so they don't get ruined by weather.  You can bring your own paddles and balls to most parks and play a round or two.  While I am not the biggest ping pong player, I find this a nice thing to do at a park.  Something to think about in the parks in the US.

Overall I think that the parks in Berlin offer something for everyone:  shade, sun, history, water sports, ping pong, grass, walks, and all without having to be too far away from home.

Olympics 2012 in Berlin

While I am usually an avid Olympics watcher, this year I did not watch as much as I would like.  Instead I was busy traveling and visiting people.  But once we were back in Berlin we were able to take advantage of being able to watch the Olympics at Tempelhof Airfield.  They had a big screen set up airing the Olympics all day.  We brought some beer and sat in the grass watching the Mexico vs. Brazil soccer game.  It was a perfect day with some sun and some clouds and 70 degrees.

You could set up camp there all day either bringing in packed food and drinks or buying things from the stands set up around the area.  They brought in a bunch of porta-potties too.  They cost 50 cents to use, but they were clean! And outside there was a real sink with soap and water.  I really don't mind paying to use a bathroom when I know that it will be clean and have toilet paper. 

And if just watching the Olympics makes you feel like getting up and being active you were in the perfect spot.  You could go onto the runway and rollerblade or bike.  If you didn't have your own bike you could rent one or if not into biking you could rent a segway.  They also specially set up a soccer field, hockey field, volleyball court, and badminton court for people to play in.  And apparently in the mornings they had free yoga and pilates classes.  If only we'd found out about this before the second to last day!

Erdbeeren

As Spargel season started to come to a close, it was time to move on to another seasonal love--Strawberries.  You know when the start of strawberry season is close because the little strawberry-shaped huts where the best strawberries can be found start popping up.  One appeared one day at the U-bahn station I get off at for work.  We then had to patiently wait until they opened.  But one day I walked out of the U-bahn station and smelled them!  I don't know what is so different about these strawberries, whether they have less chemicals sprayed on them, are not genetically enhance to grow to enormous sizes, or whatever, but they smell so wonderful.  And you don't need to put your nose towards them, you just need to be in the area.  Granted, there are a lot of strawberries in that little hut on a given morning, so it may be quantity that leads to the strong aroma.  Whatever it is, it made the trip to work that much more pleasant.

As strawberries became more at their peak the prices got better.  Then I also learned that if you buy them in the morning and not on the way home from work they are even cheaper!  You can get 2 kilograms of strawberries for 5.50 Euros.  That is 4.4 pounds of strawberries.  I am sure that you can buy them cheaper sometimes at the grocery stores here, but these strawberries always look and taste so much better.  We also find that the ones at the grocery store often have many strawberries that need to be thrown out (especially in the off-season you to need to buy twice as many to get the amount you need).

If I can find something to do with 2 kilos of asparagus, I can surely find things to do with that many strawberries.  So we had a strawberry dinner.  Thanks to foodnetwork.com, I found many options to choose from without having to look any further.

For an appetizer we had Brie with Strawberries on Crostini.  I added more strawberries than the recipe calls for (one strawberry for 6 servings is ridiculous!)  Next time I will dice them though and sprinkle them on so that it is easier to eat.

Then for dinner we had Roast Pork with Cumin-Spiked Mixed Berry Sauce, spaetzel, and Strawberry Salad (where I substituted bacon for the speck).  The pork was especially good.  I recommend trying it.  I used blueberry preserves instead of boysenberry and would add more strawberries next time.  I also cooked the sauce, which was quite runny, with some flour to thicken it before serving.  The halloumi made the salad different than most strawberry salads with balsamic vinegar.  It really hit the sweet/salty mix just right.  We had a Montepulciano D'Abruzzo with dinner.  This is one of our favorite types of red wine and is quite easily available in Berlin.  It is much lighter than most but still has some good flavor.  We didn't really plan the wine to go with dinner (a friend brought it) but it was a perfect pairing.

To finish the meal we had strawberry rhubarb crisp.  The recipe wasn't my favorite, so I won't link it here and will look for another one to use for next time.

Beyond my strawberry dinner, we have been having strawberries more in general.  In Berlin one of the big things to have is a Strawberry Bowle.  This is a strawberry punch.  There are many other flavors as well, but strawberry is the one that I am drawn to.  We didn't end up making any so that we wouldn't overdo the strawberries in the dinner, but it is worth noting.  At one street festival I had one that was more a large cup full of strawberries with some strawberry wine to fill in the crevices.  This was perfect in my book.  Although usually there is more liquid than strawberry like in this picture.  I guess it is a matter of preference.


I just hope that the strawberry season is nice and long.