Ham on buttered pumpernickel with halved Mexican sour gherkins
German Schnittchen, the open-faced, bite-sized sandwiches served on a board, instead of a plate, at dinnertime, are cultural manifestations of the square, fuddy-duddy German lifestyle known as “spießig” in German. In the same ilk as garden dwarfs, if you know what I mean. Continue reading
Last Saturday I woke up to snowfall. It was pretty to watch from my friends’ fifth-floor apartment in a quiet residential street in Berlin. Yet my mind was elsewhere. More than 80,000 refugees have arrived in Berlin, and I wondered how they managed in this weather. In the newspaper I had just read about a scuffle in front of a warming tent at a refugee camp, and about the controversy surrounding new temporary container housing for 7,000 refugees near the former Tempelhof Airport. Continue reading
Custard Pastries with Apricots, made with vanilla custard made from scratch
Next week, it will be 18 years since I immigrated to the United States from Germany. I have fully settled into a new life, with an American husband, children, and passport. Meanwhile I still feel very much connected to my German self by the language in which I do most of my work, and the food I cook and grow in my garden. Continue reading
Spoonfuls of Germany 