Meeting and spending time with John Giorno was one of the highlights during my time as a gallerist, and remains a gift I deeply cherish.  Besides John being a great artist and beat poet, he was a man full of stories directly connected to the many things I heard and read about when I was a teenager and young adult.  As a teen I was an 80s hippie. As I aspired to become an artist, my cultural interests were rooted in ideas of the 60s, 70s and 80s.

In 2012, my friend and cultural journalist Gaby Hartel connected me with John and proposed that I host a performance and exhibition in my gallery in Berlin. I met John in his loft in NYC. He welcomed me with his grand smile and sparkling eyes in his apartment, showed me his studio and also the basement, William Burrough’s bunker. We liked each other and agreed to a performance and an exhibition.

In Berlin, I was living with my daughter and our dog Loui adjacent to the gallery, a 180 square meter large old Berlin apartment with 4,50-meter-high ceiling, directly in the heart of Berlin-Schöneberg.  When John came, he stayed in the guestroom for several days. John was an avid Buddhist and meditated in between working on the drawings for the exhibition, having some coffee or tea with us in the morning and visiting friends.  The exhibition was entitled YOU HAVE GOT TO BURN TO SHINE and consisted of 33 water color works on paper, all square and framed in a white, simple frame. That’s what he wanted and it was beautiful.

The performance was a special gift, the exhibition a success. It was only natural to me, that after meeting John, I wanted to keep an artwork as a memory to this wonderful man and the time shared. As I often did, I gave my clients the right away, but kept an eye on I RESIGN MYSELF TO BEING HERE and decided to purchase it.

I had moved back and forth, between San Francisco and Berlin, twice in my life. The cities are very different from each other, in vibes, in architecture, in culture, in nature, in life style. These differences are part of a variety in lifestyle and surroundings I seek, but it’s only now, that I understand this being a part of me. I used to compare, make one worse than the other, probably to not miss it too much. I switched them around, hunting after the place where the grass is always greener. What I had imagined San Francisco to be, turned into something else over the years, making me feel uprooted and like a constant visitor. I wanted to be back in Berlin, left and visited San Francisco and New York regularly. The social and cultural attachments in all places were significant, and for a time, I got to a point of feeling fragmented. I had to learn to train my thoughts, changing the constant comparisons of what’s missing, into appreciating both worlds and the abundance this lifestyle entails.

Once you learn to listen to your thoughts, you also notice the self-degrading chatter.

Meeting John had sparked the impulse to really go into depths of practicing things like ‘accepting the moment’, ‘being in the moment’, ‘accepting what is’…We so easily say it, but it’s difficult to be it. John emanated such a calm and loving presence, sincerely listening and paying attention to anybody, no matter who.

I RESIGN MYSELF TO BEING HERE became an assisting tool to change my habitual thinking. The artwork is my visual mantra. I look at it consciously, when I feel I want to chase the greener grass, ignoring the one I’m standing on. It’s a reminder to count my blessings, to prioritize the important things in life, like love, respect for oneself and others, to appreciate. It's a reminder to be OK with confronting a challenge, a difficult time, because we know, all moments pass and new ones will come. 

John Giorno was one of the most loving, kind-hearted and accepting person I have met in my life.

Somebody once told me “Food and grief are closely intertwined in many cultures.” Really? Hmm … I remember when struck with heavy grief, food was the last thing I thought about. Even when my siblings and I had to think about the funeral food for our parents, it was more about the space, where best to hold the funeral dinner. I also remember the sense of appetite being distorted. I didn’t think about it, neither did I feel hunger. Only as I sat down and ate something, I noticed that I was hungry. However, the need to cook for people who grief seems to be pervasive, as a helpful thing to do.

Either way, it’s the time of the year to celebrate the dead and ancestry. Celebrations of remembrance and honoring seem to differ throughout the world: from gloomy walks to the cemetery and painful moments kneeing on hard benches in cold catholic churches in small towns in Germany, to the bright and colorful festivities of Mexico’s Dia de los Muertos.

I wonder about the various food made served during rituals. Often, it is special food prepared for the occasion, served in dedicated vessels or leaves from a plant, or food used to represent something else.

The Japanese Obon festival is directly related to the Chinese Ghost festival, a tradition Taoists and Buddhists celebrate in numerous East Asian countries. Ghosts and spirits, including those of deceased ancestors come out from other realms to visit and sometimes need guidance to not get lost, when traveling between the worlds.

For example, during Obon, cucumbers and eggplants are transformed into vehicles for the ancestors to travel or ride back ride and forth. Simply by sticking wooden chopsticks in as legs, the cucumber becomes a spirit horse Shōryō-uma and the eggplant Shōryō-ushi a spirit cow.

As a big Hayao Miyazaki fan, I’m reminded of the film Spirited Away, with the many always eating, never restless and unsatisfied ghosts, tormented by an insatiable hunger, constantly needed to be fed with tons and tons of foods.

Pitru Paksha, a Hindu version, honors their ancestors through special food offerings, which must include dishes of sweet rice with milk,  sweet porridge, rice, dal, spring bean and pumpkin, all served in silver or copper vessels and placed on banana leaves.

When creating something dedicated to the memory of a person, someone you love and miss, it makes sense to choose sugar as an overall choice for taste. In Sardina, Su Mortu Mortu, is the celebration of the dead commenced on October 31st, our Halloween. Sweet baked goods are made and when setting the table, an extra table set is placed for the deceased, with the exception of forks and knives. I guess here is some suspicion left.

My mother liked this canned meet stew called Ragout fin (French ragoût fin, "fine ragout"). It's a ragout served as an appetizer of classic German, especially Berlin cuisine, made of white meat and offal in a white sauce. Prepared from veal, sweetbreads, calf's brain, tongue, back marrow and chicken breast, depending on recipe sometimes fish, it is all cooked in light vinegar water or steamed in butter and cut into small cubes.Second ingredient is a white sauce made of light roux, broth, white wine, anchovies, lemon juice, cream and steamed mushrooms, alloyed with egg yolk. Cubes and sauce are mixed, heated in a bain-marie and then baked in cups, scallop shells or vol-au-vents (puff pastry molds) with breadcrumbs, cheese and butter. Ragout fin is subsequently seasoned to taste with worcestershire sauce and lemon juice.

I mean, check out all the animal products in one single dish. (it reminds me again of Koanashi) ...no wonder, Berlin is the vegan capital of the world!!!

When my father was younger, he loved pea and lentil soups, kale with potatoes and sausages, and his self-raised smoked trout. When aged, he loved potato latkes with a sweet turnip molasses (Rübenkraut) and Viennese Sacher Torte.
I don’t remember my grandparent’s favorite food. But I do remember what my grandmother like to make (Quark cheese cake with sweet  mandarines from a can), I think my grandpa loved to eat sausages with mustard.
Food trends change, a bit like fashion. The dishes I remember from childhood seem to me a kind of “forgotten food”. But without cooking and eating dishes like Ragout fin, I guess I still honor my mother by remembering this. After all, times and circumstances our ancestors lived in, are also reflected in the food they ate and prepared.

I share a recipe from my cookbook modern german food from a berlin kitchen, available as an Ebook here, remembering that this salad was served in lots of restaurants when I was a child.

Typically served in traditional German restaurants, this salad can consist of a variety of grated raw root vegetables, like beets, carrots or celery root, served with sauerkraut or grated cabbage, canned corn, small pickled cucumbers or pearl onions, green butter lettuce in spring, summer and fall or potato salad in winter. You can add grated apple for sweetness and nuts for protein in any combination you like. Typically these salads are served along meat dishes, like steak or schnitzel.

You can be very creative here, allowing whatever the seasons have to offer guide you or whatever the weather calls for. As I rarely use canned vegetables, this recipe is made with fresh, raw vegetables with nuts and pickled pearl onions. Feel free to create your own recipe.

INGREDIENTS
serves 4

• 1 to 2 medium red beet
• ½ large, or 1 medium size celery root
• 3 to 4 carrots
• 200 g red or green cabbage
• 50 g pickled pearl onions or
• cornichons
• 40 g walnuts or sunflower seeds
• a few sprigs of chives

dressing

• 5 tbsp oil
• 2 tbsp white wine vinegar
• ½ t sugar
• salt and pepper

°°°°°°°°
INSTRUCTIONS

1. wash and peel all root vegetables
2. grate root vegetables and set each aside in separate bowls, so you will have 3 different salads, plus the cabbage slaw
3. grate or finely slice cabbage
4. add ½ tbsp salt to cabbage and knead it for least 5 minutes until it produces a milky liquid, also set aside
5. mince chives
6. prepare dressing in jar, mix well
7. pour a bit of dressing over each of the grated root vegetables in their individual bowls and mix
8. chop walnuts roughly and roast quickly them or sunflower seeds in a frying pan

arrange on platters anyway you like and serve with a few pearl onions, or cornichons and scatter the chopped walnuts or sunflower seeds on top.

To go on a two or three mast sail boat onto the ocean, is a dream I carry within me since a child, from when I played pirate, building imaginary ships in the woods. I carried it into young adulthood and now it feels like a natural part of me. I have not gone yet. I had signed up for a turn to the Caribbean in 2020, but the pandemic interfered.

Recently when meeting a friend at a bar in Berlin, I had a glass of  special red wine from the Languedoc region in France, brought by the Tres Hombres brigantine via Denmark to the Netherlands, then by post to Berlin. It was the third time, that I heard about this sailing ship Tres Hombres, named after three friends who started a clean shipping movement in 2007. This engine-less brigantine transports organic cargo, like rum, cocoa, coffee, honey & canned fish, between South, Central and North America and Europe, promoting alternative sail-powered cargo shipping worldwide.

Again, a reminder that this archetypal dream is still within me, but that it is also inspired by Justin Quinn’s drawing of Melville’s Moby Dick, Chapter 86. It hangs in my bedroom. It is the first piece of art I see in the morning when I get up, and the last drawing I glance at in the evening, before closing my eyes.

In Chapter 86, Ishmael tries to describe the tail of the sperm whale, but finds that his words are deficient. The descriptions of the anatomical specifications and shape end up in metaphorical comparisons in art and literature. But he does get specific, defining five great motions of the tail:

1. used as a fin for movement
2. used in battle
3. in sweeping
4. lobtailing
5. in peaking flukes

Justin Quinn was one of the artists we kept in our artist roster, when taking over Michael Martin’s Gallery in San Francisco, together with Marina Cain. Intrigued by these most delicate drawings, in which the letter E is used an artistic element, a primary starting point, we quickly learned about Justin’s deeper quest pursuing the transcription of Melville’s epic Moby Dick. He uses the letter E as a surrogate for all letters in the alphabet, presenting a universal, yet unreadable language, and by this exploring the distance between reading and seeing.Here we find a transformation of a classic text into strings of letterforms, differentiated by specific chapters. In the drawing Chapter 86- or 12,713-times E the labyrinthine and spiraling compositions easily remind of the movement of water, getting swirled, spiraled and pushed by the enormous strength of the whale’s tails.

from Chapter 86, Herman Melville, Moby Dick.

Besides seeing the moving water though,  I find the fainter strings of letters so beautiful. To me they suggest the fleeting moment, that time is in constant flux, and that all things, at some point, disappear to make space for the new. If I imagine a timely sequence to the pronounced and fainting forms of Es in the drawing, is it 30 seconds? a minute? two or three?

I went whale watching several times. Of course, it’s a whole different perspective from what Ishmael observed up from the mast. And then there is today's sonic landscape, certainly so different from the time Melville wrote Moby Dick (1851). Back then, I imagine the sounds of  sails fluttering in the wind, of waves hitting the wooden sides and bow of the ship, maybe some talking, mumbling, yelling or singing by sailors, maybe them scrubbing the boat… but certainly no loud engines of several whale watching boats meeting at the hotspots with screaming tourists going ‘Ah’ and 'Oh’ and a biologist, whose voice reverberates over the water, explaining what a whale might be doing and why.

The older sonic landscape seems inherent in Justin’s drawing. It calms me. Maybe that’s why I intuitively hung it in my bedroom.

1991.  My girlfriend Anja and I decided that we want to see Venice. We booked an overnight train and a hotel, all without internet. Back then, one had travel guides in form of a book. With such, I prepared myself to discover various aspects of Venetian culture and history. Yes, food was already a sincere interest of mine, and in this travel guide, I read with excitement about the history of a Venetian dish called sarde in saor, along with a recipe.
Sarde in saor was a method of preserving sardines in order to keep food on board lasting as long as possible. Sardines, fried in oil and deglazed with vinegar, together with onions prepared the same way, were layered in terracotta containers. It is said, that as time passed, the recipe was refined and raisins were added to help with digestion and to sweeten mouth and breath of its eaters. Modern recipes call for pine nuts, which I think turn this sailor food into very elegantly tasting dish.

Because sarde in saor was eaten often long time after the moment it was prepared, the savored taste and aroma is of a preserved product. Today, when preparing sardines in saor, one supposed to let the dish settle for at least one day.  

After the trip in Venice, I made this dish during hot Berlin summers. I got the sardines at the Turkish market in Kreuzberg. We would get a bottle of nice Chardonnay, a fresh baguette and head out for a picnic at the lake.
What a precious culinary memory! If you are somewhere in the world, where warm weather kisses a gorgeous waterfront, be it lake, beach, or marina, there is nothing nicer and tastier then savoring sarde in saor with some friends.  

INGREDIENTS

• 750 g white onions
• 200 ml white wine vinegar
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 tbsp sugar
• 50 g pine nuts
• 50 g raisins
• 3 to 4 tbsp olive oil
• pepper + salt
• sunflower oil
• 2 tbsp flour

°°°°°°°°
INSTRUCTIONS

1. finely cut the onions into rings, salt them and gently fry them for about 30 mins in olive oil until golden
   
2. soak the raisins in warm water for 10 mins, then squeeze them to remove water.
   
3. quickly roast pine nuts. Set aside.
   
4. add a spoonful of sugar and drizzle with half a glass of white wine vinegar. Set aside.
   
5. wash, dray and flour sardines and fry them in a frying pan in oil, deglaze with vinegar.
   
6. use a deep rectangular glass or terracotta dish and layer some of the sardines, onions, pine nuts, raisins. Add a bit of salt to each layer of sardines and onions. Finish the top layer with onions.
   
7. let settle for at least 24 hours in a cool, dry place. Enjoy with some Chardonnay or your favorite white wine.
   
   

October 2014. I was in London for a studio visit with the wonderful artist Lilian Lijn. We went together to the opening of “JOHN DUNBAR: Remember When Today Was Tomorrow” at Jane England’s Gallery. I didn’t know much about John Dunbar, but was immediately intrigued by his free-flowing creativity manifested in multiple artistic disciplines and that he acted in various professions, as an artist, a film maker and a galerist.

He is best known as co-founder of Indica, the avant-garde London gallery in the 1960s, defining the art and music counter-culture, togehter with Paul McCartney, John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Mark Boyle, Liliane Lijn, Takis and others.

The exhibition featured Dunbar’s legendary notebooks, displayed for the first time, accompanied by other works and films he created during the last 50 years.
There was the match. It now hangs on the wall behind my desk and provides me with a daily simple message to “strike an idea”.  I don’t think a light bulb, carrying a similar meaning, would have had the same effect on me. I find ‘striking a match’ much more active. There is the sound that goes along with it. An almost archaic swissshhh and sizzle, deeply connected to fire. The speed by which the flame is ignited, reminds me of the speedy moment in which a thought is produced.

To strike a match is most likely a conscious and careful act to create a controlled fire, like a fire in a furnace, in the wild, in the fire place, or to lighten a gas stove, a candle, a cigarette, or a firework. We all know that a fire, without supervision, can be very destructive. Connecting this to the association of producing a thought, let’s me think about a 'controlled' idea. Thoughts seem pervasive and from all the millions of thoughts we have, probably most are uncontrolled. A single idea however, that’s first ignited, thought through, defined, and carefully executed, can bring upon a similar satisfaction to our creative self, as a warming fire can do to the body.
I love that Dunbar scored the paper to depict the flame. It makes it interesting to look at and creates a surreal element. Any drawn, painted, sculpted or photographed single object easily calls for a search of symbolism. What does it mean? In our contemporary visual world however, overloaded with of millions of visuals of single objects used as symbols for marketing products, events, services, religious or cultural meanings, the very private meaning easily gets lost, overlooked, or may seem frivolous, or tacky, not worth thinking about.
It’s the delicacy with which Dunbar drew the match. It sits upright, perfectly placed on the lower 3/4 page, with the just right amount of scorched paper for the flame in a gentle amber color. But wait, maybe the scorching is not the flame, but the smoke that appears when you blow out the match?
'Another small fire' provides me with a gratitude for our creative thinking. And the title reassures me, that not all ideas have to be big and grand and successful. Some remain private and can carry on forward, igniting an ongoing process of forming an idea.

I love (wild) herbs. I grow them on the balcony and forage them in wild gardens, parks and fields. Through a re-discovery of their usage in German cuisine, I have discovered many stories, some true, some false, some fiction or saga. Among them is the story, that Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was fond of the Frankfurt Green Sauce, a pesto like sauce that is made from spring until fall with at least seven herbs in the state of Hesse (and beyond). The story goes that his mother, nicknamed Aja, was the inventor of this delicacy and a master at preparing the recipe, and that Goethe repeatedly asked her to cook it for him and then even had it brought to Weimar by stagecoach. However, according to scholars, Goethe never mentioned any of this in his writings or correspondences. It is assumed, that the sauce came to the area from France through the Huguenots, who settled in the region at the end of the 17th century.
So here we are 400 years later with Google spitting out more than 1.460.000 results for the search of 'Frankfurt Green Sauce'. Fascinating to me is, how eating culture and history is often told through good stories. These of course are tied to the availability of resources, which have come to us by agricultural or technological advancement, or disappeared through natural or man-made, ecological catastrophes. The longer and the more colorful the stories are told – adorned with an array of repackaged products to be sold to locals, newcomers or tourists – the more it is believed that this story must be true.

In  my research I discovered that there is a Frankfurt Green Sauce monument! The artist Olga Schulz, commissioned by Regionalpark RheinMain SouthWest, built seven small buildings on concrete foundations, modeled after greenhouses and placed in a row. Each of these greenhouses have transparent polycarbonate surfaces in different shades of green, representing the seven different herbs: borage, chervil, cress, parsley, burnet, sorrel and chives.

So last, but not least I share with you my recipe. I learned that I'm not allowed to call it 'Frankfurt Green Sauce', which is a certified and geographical bound protected name... another humorous prove, of how culinary obsessions can manifest itself.

Note:
! it is important to achieve a balance of herbs; use even amounts, but use tarragon sparingly as it is very strong and can overwhelm the other flavors.
! do not use a food processor to blend the sauce: it will break the fibers and the sauce will separate into water and fiber


makes about 300 g

• about 300 g of at least seven or more of the following herbs, minced: borage, burnet saxifrage, chervil, chives, dill, parsley, sorrel, tarragon and watercress.
• juice of ½  to 1 lemon
• 1 tsp mustard
• 3 to 4 tbsp yogurt, quark or sour cream*
• salt and pepper
• vegan version
• use 4 to 5 tbsp of olive oil or a plant based alternative

1. wash and clean all herbs thoroughly and remove thick stems
   
2. strain and dry well
3. mince all herbs very fine with a large knife or mezzaluna chopper on wooden board
4. add to bowl
5. mix in sour cream, yogurt or quark, mustard, lemon, pepper and salt
6. taste and correct seasoning with salt, pepper, lemon and mustard until it’s well balanced, (mustard and lemon should be nuanced and not overpowering)
7. refrigerate for at least 1 hour before serving

Recently I had 3 students, all men from New York. All of them love food and I could tell right away that they like meat. After giving a brief sum-up of my culinary biography and a short perspective on what makes modern German food German and modern, we decided to cook a seasonal summer stew with meat balls. Vegetables being the most important ingredients in my teaching and cooking, we browsed the Winterfeldtmarket for what’s in season, picking the most fresh and regional produce possible.

June/July is a time of abundance.  Whereas in April and May vendors sell mostly fresh produce from Italy, France, Spain and Turkey, we now have all the local produce too: green string beans, yellow wax string beans, salad cucumbers and frying cucumber (yes, did you know? we fry big fat cucumbers and they are delicious!), tomatoes from Brandenburg, fava beans, peas, and devour the last white asparagus, and of course the carrots, beets, fennel, celeriac, potatoes, scallions, onions...

“I suggest boar or deer meat for our meat balls”, I said.
“Oh no, no deer, please”, was the quick reply by one student.
“Is it because of Bambi?” I asked.
“Yeah, I have to confess and no can’t do it.”

I have come across people with "the Bambi effect*" several times, leaving me amazed how Hollywood managed to brainwash our culinary preferences. A good friend of mine couldn’t eat duck for years because he carried Donald Duck in his heart. In the beginning I laughed, but realized quickly how serious this was. Once our brain carves such a strong neurological pathway, especially when connected to one of our senses, any chef can try all kind of miracles, but will remain unsuccessful breaking the pattern, unless we are tricked.
 
(*The Bambi effect is a term used primarily by hunters, mocking people with irrational emotional objections to the killing of "adorable, cute" animals, regardless of whether they eat animal meat otherwise or in consideration of environmental and economic realities. "Bambi" is an animated film by Walt Disney's from 1942, in which hunters kill the mother of the deer Bambi. The actual act of killing is off-screen, but the scene brutally and realistically portrays our bloody relationship with nature's animals.)

So, boar we agreed on. But what’s my point?

So many of us, it seems, have conflicts about eating meat. I hear people (me included) say: 'Yes, I eat meat, but very seldom, and only if its sustainably raised, organic meat from local farms or hunters.'  I go through paranoid periods of ecoside, and I think I have to stop eating animal products entirely. As an omnivore loving food in general, these doubts remain. And how often have you thought, ‘oh no, not again, I can’t have this discussion again.’?  (I have to confess, that I did call some hard-core preaching vegans fundamentalists before, and that's really not cool...sorry!)

Here is my point. Don't you think, staying engaged in the discussion is our responsibility? Realizing that there is no easy answer, shouldn't we keep on thinking, talking and learning about what’s on our plate and where it comes from, even if it’s wearisome?

Louise O. Fresco writes in Hamburgers in Paradise, a book I highly recommend:
In a stubborn form of cognitive dissonance, many people are concerned and express their outrage at the production methods of meat and dairy products, but at the same time they close their minds to the causes and take advantage of the low prices that result from those production methods. The willed blindness of consumers in rich countries makes it possible for the majority of the population to profit from the abundance of cheap animal products while not knowing the unpleasant details. We end up with a difficult balancing act, cherishing the romantic image the small farmer looking after farm animals as if they were beloved pets, as opposed to the horrors of the battery cages ad abattoirs used by the very same farmer. Both images are a distortion. (...)*

Bambi, after 80 years, is not forgotten and now a symbol of distortion, of how complicated food consumption in our modern world can be.
Let's stay engaged.

* HAMBURGERS IN PARADISE, Louise O. Fresco, Princeton University Press, 2021

INGREDIENTS
filet of cod
bunch of beets with leaves
salt and pepper
olive oil
2-3 cloves of garlic
 
carrot green pesto
makes about 200 g
1 bunch organic carrot greens (usually the greens from 6 to 8 carrots)
150 g sunflower or pumpkin seeds
230 ml sunflower or olive oil
juice of1 lemon
salt and pepper
1 ice cube


INSTRUCTIONS
 
carrot green pesto
Are you among those still tossing out their carrot greens or feeding them to pets, not knowing how yummy and nutritious they are? A pesto made of carrot greens has a tart, fresh flavor and can be eaten just like any other pesto. Carrot greens contain many nutrients like vitamins A and C, calcium and iron. This pesto is especially delicious with pumpkin or sunflower seeds. Use organic greens only.
 
1. remove greens from carrots, and leaves from stems
2. thoroughly wash greens, remove any brown leaves and cut leaves with scissors
into smaller bits, so they don’t wind themselves around the blade of the food processor
3. add all ingredients including the ice cube (which will keep the color bright green)
and blend until smooth
4. transfer to jar or bowl, add a dash of olive oil on top, preventing the surface from
turning brown
5. keep cool until serving
 
Baked beet leaves
 
Beet leaves are delicious and can be eaten as well as the stem. Of course, as with the carrot greens, you only want organic or pesticide free leaves.
 

1. cut of the leaves and stems from beets
2. wash thoroughly and cut of stem and keep.
3. on a baking tray spread out the leaves, add salt and pepper and olive oil, and massage the leaves
4. bake at 120°C with the fan on, until crisp
   

 
Carrot-beet vegetable medley
 

1. peel or wash carrots
2. peel beets
3. cut onions into thin rings or small cubes
4. cut beet stalks/stems in any way you like
5. sauté onions in olive or quality vegetable oil, season with salt
6. add all vegetables and season with pepper and salt
7. sauté until tender and keep covered aside

 
Fried Cod

1. wash fish and dry with paper towel
2. peel and cut 2-3 cloves of garlic
3. heat oil or butter in saucepan
4. brown fish on each side, add pepper, salt and garlic

 
Assemble all on plate.
Bon appetite.

A few days after the lecture at the German-American Heritage Museum, I created an served an experience dinner at the residency of the German Ambassador, Dr. Emily Haber. Was very honored!  A 8 course menu as a journey through modern culinary Germany, with an explorative course in spices and herbs in the past, present and future. I was not sure how this will be perceived, but everybody loved it and all food was eaten and enjoyed.

My passion about using food and art as cultural connectors for conversation and bringing together people from various sectors of our society remains and actually is in its necessity confirmed.

I was invited by the Consulate General of Germany in DC to hold a lecture about Modern German Food, based on the cookbook. It was held at the German-American Heritage Museum. Again, I was impressed of how many people are interested in the topic of food culture. I do see myself as a cultural explorer, rather than a chef. We made some yummy tastings, even though here they look a bit weird, as the juice ran all over the  napkins.

Ingredients for 12 4 oz jars

- 1 kg fruit
- 1 sweet potato
- 3-4 cloves garlic
- 1 chili pepper *
- 1 large onion (red or white)
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1 tsp turmeric
- 1 tsp coriander seeds
- 4-5 juniper berries
- 1 tsp pepper
- 1/2 tsp ground cloves
- 1/2 tsp anise seeds
- 1 tbsp ground ginger (or minced fresh)
- 1 star anise
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tbsp vinegar
- some vegetable oil
- 4 tbsp of sugar

* you determine the spiciness by removing/leaving the seeds.

In my experimental garden, I do have to make some room once in a while. I remove some weeds in between the plants.  But other than that, we just watch what happens.  While weeding, I accidentally pulled some mini carrots, green and red orache, some borage and was able to harvest cauliflower and kohlrabi.  I picked some currants too.

Sautéed the veggies, including the kohlrabi leaves and topped them on a salad of orache leaves. Amazing lunch.

It was cucumber day! We made a cold cucumber herbal soup, because it was so hot in Berlin. A delicious red beet leave salad, with the leaves we got for free from Lazlo at the Winterfeldtmakret. (People never want the greens, but if they are organic and in good shape and fresh, they are most delicious!)

Yes, sautéed zucchini flowers!
Yes, Frankfurt green sauce!
Yes, carrot green pesto!

A great restart of the experience market tour + cooking class + lunch!