Red Peppers at Green Week

Since we're on the topic of food anyway, I thought I would share a few photos from Berlin's recent "Grüne Woche," or Green Week. I'm too lazy to describe the event, so here is what the website says:

Established in 1926, International Green Week (IGW) is taking place for the 78th time in 2013. The IGW is a one-of-a-kind international exhibition for the food, agricultural and horticultural industries. At the same time, the IGW is the point of origin for the Global Forum for Food and Agriculture (GFFA) with more than 60 departmental ministers. Producers from all over the world come to IGW to test market food and luxury items and reinforce their brand image. Renewable resources, organic agricultural and products, Fair Trade, rural development and gardening continue to gain importance at International Green Week.

The Bavaria Section

Different countries and German states had booths and sections where you could try their delicacies (samples for free, dishes for a fee). South African wine was EVERYWHERE (I'm not complaining). I obviously had to wander past the US section to be supportive of the homeland but all I found was one measly soft serve stand! Is that really all we have to offer the world?

Found somewhere in between "Thailand" and "India"

I tried many things, including a mackerel sandwich, South African wine, German red wine, more South African wine, Indian chicken curry, red Thai curry, more German red wine, Spanish red wine, German white wine, and coconut gelato. Yes, in that order.

Then there was this cuteness:

That I guess eventually becomes this:

Sorry to my vegetarians, but this wild boar roast was literally right next to the live animals! I guess it's all about knowing where your food comes from. And then covering that knowledge with mustard and tossing it into a Brötchen.

The Case for Food Snobbery

Last dinner in Bethesda with the family

It's no secret that I am a bit of a foodie and eat (and drink) pretty well. Besides travel it's probably the number one thing I splurge on. I blame my family, since growing up with a dad, sister, and aunt who all cook really damn well meant I had high standards from a young age. The travel hasn't helped either, because once you have sushi in Japan or wine in Mendoza or gelato in Rome or seafood in Brittany or chocolate in Switzerland it's hard to go back to the mediocre stuff. I also don't know why being a "food snob" has to have such a derogatory connotation. Smokers have their preferred cigarette brands, no one rolls their eyes when people say Starbucks makes bad coffee, so why is it so bad if I say I'd rather not eat at Olive Garden or Chili's? I'm not going to sneer at anyone who does, I'm just not going to be sitting at the table next to them slurping up overcooked fettuccine drowning in a bath of bland cream sauce.

Galettes with Giovanni (extra egg on top for good measure)

Discovery of a new Weinbar with Kelly in Kreuzberg

I also think food snobbery gets conflated with people just trying to be high-class. I'm not talking about fancy food here, just good quality food. When I lived in smaller towns I ate plenty of "peasant" food like spaetzle and pretzels in Ludwigsburg and Tuebingen and galettes in Lannion, and I loved it. But the problem with living in small European towns like those was that although local cuisine was tasty and of high quality, there was absolutely no diversity. Tuebingen had one mediocre Chinese buffet and Lannion had... a Subway. Thankfully, Berlin is a large capital city with most cuisines on offer, and on top of that it is cheap. Not everyone seems to know that about Berlin. But yes, Berlin is very cheap and you can eat (and drink) pretty well at a reasonable price. So this foodie does! 

My ongoing search for Berlin's best cappuccino at an Italian cafe

Sunday brunch with Max and Kelly in Prenzlauer Berg

Pizza, salad, and wine night

Chicken curry at "Gruene Woche"

Fortnight

  

I can't believe it's been 2 weeks since my last post! I really don't mean to disappear like that. Things have been kinda busy I guess, partly due to my resolutions that I've been following through on. Primarily #3 has kept me busy outside of my normal routine, and I have to admit that dating is hard work! I'm not used to going out with guys I don't really know and most of the time it feels like an interview that I thankfully get to mitigate with a couple glasses of wine. I don't think actively hunting like this is going to last for long, but it's an interesting experience for the time being. Resolution #2 has also been moving slowly but surely, and #4 will get a kick-start in a few days when I commence a weekly study schedule. As for #1, a potential trip to Croatia and Macedonia is in the works for the summer (Kate!), I have my eye on a three day weekend at the end of March for a possible getaway to Scandinavia (actually just thought of that as I was writing this, pretty good idea though right?), and the 2013 PJS reunion weekend has been booked for London in April. All in all not bad for a few weeks work.

Otherwise it's business as usual. A few little surprises at work, half-marathon training in the persistently below freezing temperatures (though running through the deserted and snowy Tiergarten last night amongst the bunnies was nothing short of spectacular), and lots of meeting friends for dinner and drinks. My Opa was also just in town for a few days which was lovely, and now I have a few leftover hunks of wurst in the fridge to remember him by. Anyone want some chunky pork products?

Oh, and the picture. That's just an advertisement I saw weeks ago at the S-Bahn that never fails to make me giggle. Hehe.

Got My Berlin Groove Back

Bye, bye Christmas

After 6 days, I feel I have finally gotten my Berlin groove back. Yesterday I described coming back to Berlin after a long trip home a "hangover," because that was the best way I could think to explain it. My head is spinning from everything I did, all the places I visited and family and friends I saw, and then all of a sudden I'm opening the door to my apartment in Berlin and am supposed to resume whatever it is I've got going on over here. It's like flipping a switch, turning on one life and fading out the other.

Solo Sunday trip to the Berlinischer Galerie

The first couple days are never easy. There's the unpacking, of course, the follow up emails and calls to tell everyone at home you've landed and are fine and to stay in touch, etc. Then there was returning to work and reorienting myself to a normal schedule after 3 weeks which is hard enough in itself. And then there was the fact that 3 of my close Berlin friends were still out of town, which meant a somewhat lackluster social calendar. So on Monday and Tuesday it was staying at work late, staring at a computer screen, to come home exhausted and watch movies on another screen. It's not a good pattern, but it's hard to break when you're tired and all you want to do is watch things on a screen. Sure enough though, as always, things turned around in the middle of the week, and a productive day at work coupled with a great jog with my running group last night was all I needed to whip myself back into shape. Now Kelly and Giovanni are also back, and my weekend calendar is filling up quite nicely.

Hope you all had a lovely holiday season, and have fully recovered from your respective hangovers, whatever type they may have been.

Resolving Realistically

Leaving NYC

Hello, 2013! I'm writing from the comfort of my childhood home and am at the tail end of what has been a lovely 2 and 1/2 week vacation home (and in SC, CT, and NYC) for the holidays. Since it's January 1st and all, I thought I would take this opportunity to revisit my resolutions from last year and see how I did. They were the following:

1) Eat less foie gras.

2) Get a full-time job.

Success on both fronts! To be fair, my list was kinda ridiculous. #1 was just silly, and #2 was pretty crucial to becoming a real person in Berlin. But now that #2 is taken care of, I can focus on more "frivolous" resolutions like going to yoga regularly, trying new recipes, or reading the news more. Though I've never been much of a resolution maker. I think it's great to be conscious of your lifestyle and try to make positive changes, but I recognize that these changes take time and believe steadily trucking along toward a goal rather than a drastic overhaul is necessary to make any change sustainable and realistic. For example, I'm happy that I now generally limit myself to one row of Ritter Sport chocolate rather than devouring the whole bar in one sitting, but that took a few years of practice, not one chocolate-less January.

It's kinda fun though, to look back and set goals, so I'll throw out a 2013 list just for kicks:

1) Travel to three places just for fun (outside of trips home to US). You'd think this was an easy one for me but since I've had my job, I've barely traveled outside of work trips. In that vein, I'll count an extension on a work trip that gives me some time to explore. Now that I have a real salary, and real European vacation time, it's time to start taking advantage of the fact that I live in Europe and can jet off to places like Stockholm or Slovenia for a long weekend. 

2) Follow through on a side project outside work that I'm not yet ready to talk about. Sorry for the secrecy, just don't want to get myself excited by sharing before the time is right.

3) Date more. Yes, I said it. Now that I have a job, I'm ready for a guy. Or a "cousin" (that was for my friend JD who is convinced all the guys I like/date look like they're related- don't worry world, I am not actually planning on dating a cousin).

4) Work on my German grammar.  Adjective endings and prepositions, I'm coming for ya.

#1 and #3 seem too fun to be resolutions (well, let's see with #3...) but again, it's all about being realistic. I'm especially interested to see how #2 turns out, and promise to report back. As for #4, well let's just say there was a reason why Mark Twain wrote about "The Awful German Language."