One has to watch one’s diet, hasn’t one? But not today, today’s the weekend, it’s Saturday, I have better things to do than to watch anyone’s diet, I’m me today, and me, myself and I, we all want carbs! “One” is therefore overruled. And let us tell you, “us” being the carblover’s pluralis majestatis, we had twelve of those little sugar-coated things, and they were just great! On Monday, we shall turn into decent people again as one has to watch one’s diet, hasn’t one?
As nobody, and I mean nobody at all, has given me any flowers for Valentine’s Day, I had to present myself with something a little more soothing than some tulips (it’s quite pathetic to buy red roses for oneself, isn’t it?) and so I went for some cheesecake, the most soothing cake there is. Sooth and smooth. Nonetheless, I added a little more vanilla than usual, just to make sure of it. Vanilla has quite soothing effects on my mind, too. The cheesecake turned out fine. Quite yummy. Very soothing, indeed. Almost mind-numbingly soothing. You see, I really have totally forgotten all about these flowers I didn’t get today. Today, not just any day, no, on Valentine’s Day! I need more cheesecake. Now!
It’s been just another grey winter’s day in Berlin, quite depressing. The moment, I woke up, I knew I needed something to cheer me up big time if I wanted this Monday to be a day worth living. That’s when I started thinking of tart. A very special tart, actually. A tart, I couldn’t bake myself. A tart, I had to get out of bed and run into town to get some at the KaDeWe, short for Kaufhaus des Westens, Berlin’s high-toned department store whose food halls took in some French people answering to the name of Lenôtre, the very people that own that very tart’s recipe. A tart so yummy, I would not dare to wash it down with milk or tea or coffee, not even champagne, just to make the aromas linger forever on my tongue. A dough rich of pistaccios and cherries to make it irresistible, some vanilla custard to make it creamy, a crumble topping to make it crunchy, and some maraschino cherries and powdered sugar on top to make it look fancy. This was the very tart that got me through the day. I’m still high on serotonine, so I guess, it’ll get me through the rest of the week as well…
It was not a typical day to be spent outside, the weather forecast for that day had insisted on us staying in, it was really rainy and windy, puddles all over the place, leaves everywhere, but we felt like catching some air in the garden, it was neither the perfect place to have crêpes, the table was ever so wet and quite dirty, too, nor the perfect time, it was way too close to dinner, we’ve had tea hours ago and so we were about to ruin our appetite, but however more of a hindrance than an invitation the moment did appear to us, we couldn’t help ourselves and have crêpes, drenched in sugary Cointreau, right that moment, right then and there… Boy, were they yummy!
When you are supposed to put rosemary on a cake, you know it’s going to be different from your usual hazelnut extravaganza. Truth be told, this fine herb was the only exceptional ingredient of this recipe, all the rest, puff pastry, plums, sugar, cinnamon, and quince jelly, sounds rather familiar, doesn’t it? But once you’ve put the plums casually on the puff pastry and sprinkled the rosemary on it, your eyes won’t believe it’s not butter, sorry, they won’t believe it’s not pizza. Only when it’s out of the oven and into your mouth, its case is closed. It’s cake. No doubt. A very yummy, very Mediterranian cake. If you want to challenge your eyes, do try this at home!
Normally, for a nut cake, I need lots and lots of grounded almonds and some chopped walnuts, but yesterday I only had a tiny sachet of grounded almonds, just a mere 100 gramms, some bitter joke of an amount, so to speak, and if I weren’t as stress-resilient as I am, I might have burst out into tears. But then, out of hunting destiny down and kicking its ass, I decided to replace the grounded almonds with caramelized hazelnuts, the brittle priorly reserved for the glaze, and, while I was at it, use whole pine nuts as a substitute for the chopped walnuts, lots and lots of whole pine nuts. The result? Best nut cake ever! Unchanged recipes are for losers!
Luxembourg is known for gathering politicians from the European Community, some tax-friendly banking and its Grand Duke. It’s much lesser known for its flour. Why that is, I cannot tell you. It’s perfectly fine flour. Admittedly, neither wholemeal nor organic, at least the packaging gives no indication of it, just a fancy crown, meaning it’s of somewhat aristocratic origin, maybe the Grand Duke has a mill, who knows, Louis XVI was into crafts too, he loved making keys, metalworking or milling, where’s the difference, anyway, I’m very fond of this flour, however politically incorrect, and as for organic baking ingredients and political correctness, my apples take full responsability, they’re totally organic, all seven of them, and they take the lion’s share of that cake anyway, so it probably won’t pose a health hazard. Alerted as I was, I tasted the rum at large, just to make sure its aroma would complement the other condiments, vanilla pulp and cinnamon, finding myself totally at ease with my partially conventional, inorganic and man-made apple cake. Totally.
Instead of posting another yummy dish or even yummier dessert, I give you the place where I cook and eat: my kitchen. Don’t get fooled by the current cleanliness, it’s just because the maid has just left (the maid being me…) and I’m off for some days, normally you find the place filled with pots, bowls, vegetables, cereals, flour, nuts, fruit, spices, herbs (sage, rosemary, and basil), bottles (olive oil, vinegar, wine, Coke Zero, and Evian) and lots and lots of coffee mugs, tea cups, glasses of all kind, candles (not scented, never in the kitchen), plates and tureens, and some Italian opera going on on iTunes (a cliché from the 1980s that just keeps sticking…). Anyway, this is my kitchen and I hope you like it.
I am a devout devourer of jam, marmalade, jellies, confiture, and all other kind of preserves. First, because they all taste so very good, second you can eat them on/with almost everything, orange marmalade especially. Lately, I tried it on French pâté which looks like German leberwurst but is in fact some fine pâté, some ducks died for it, which always makes me sad as I love ducks, but every once in a while somebody brings duck confit or pâté de canard in order to amuse my taste buds and instead makes me mourn and cry out loud for the poor creatures. But since I don’t want them to have died in vain, I spread the pâté on baguette or German bread and always eat it up, every last bit of it—call me a hypocrite. Anyway, whatever concerns you might have, you should forget all about them and try some pâté with some (or even lots of) fine orange marmalade, it’s just too yummy. I understand, they make pâté from less lovely creatures, too…
One day, when on my way home from work, I changed trams on Paradeplatz in Zurich, just like any other day. This particular day, however, was not an ordinary day at all, it happened to be a very particular day, it was the day Sprüngli had changed their windows for Easter. Now, when you’re a chocolate addict like me, you’re about to lose control over your itinerary, you stop paying attention to anything else, least of all your connecting tram, you can take the next one, or the one after that, but on this day, I lost control over time and space altogether, I was mesmerized by a chocolate Easter bunny, the biggest chocolate Easter bunny I had ever seen, ever!, it was huge, gigantic in fact, who could ever eat it up, I wondered. I think, this was my last self-controlled thought, then, this Easter bunny’s face started to mesmerize me, what expressive features, such character, I felt like I had entered Alice’s wonderland, as if that bunny was about to address me, saying something like If I lose my temper, you lose your head, it wouldn’t have surprised me at all, I took a deeper look in its eyes, one look too many, and da war’s um mich gescheh’n, it spoke to me, it sang to me, my fate became quite plain, half drawn by it, I glided in and was not seen again.
Clovis Sangrail 