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What is better, to lift the sill in the hen house and gather two warm eggs, to crack them later into a tiny cast iron skillet and eat them with fresh brown bread, to gather rocket and mustard for the evening's salad, or to open the hen house door at dawn and watch the chickens rush out for their morning meal? Certainly it's the last that I go on dreaming of, now far from Devon.
For my few beloved devoted readers: I am off to Devon for a week and will write again on my return.
This is quite profoundly neither here nor there, but the sleek style of this little office offering opportunities for Germans to work in and emigrate to Norway was too much to be overlooked. What looks like a white box on the wall - my camera is not so good - is a backlit, heroic map of Norway.
PersonalArena, Sredzkistr.18 (map)
On spotting the 'SchokoBar' sign flapping in the wind, I immediately crossed the street. The area around Linienstrasse is the land of the little shop, and I do love exploring it. I noted the extensive range of Erich Hamann chocolates (made in Wilmersdorf) and the bevy of hot chocolates to order at the little bar, and cheerfully tried a couple of samples sitting out in white ramekins. I don't really need any chocolate, I thought, and left, smiling at the friendly salesman as I did, but the smoothness of the last truffle stayed with me, and after walking almost to Alte Schönhauser I skipped back across the street again to buy a cellophane cone. 2.90 EUR for about twenty truffles: 'Guyaux' the man spelled out for me.
SchokoLaden, Linienstr. 45 (map)
Open Mon-Fri noon to 7 pm, Sat 1 pm to 6 pm
Tel. 49 30 818 599 77
It's usual, on the walk from Rosenthaler Platz to Hackescher Markt, to be arrested by the new, and so I was unsurprised but still pleased to see fresh display windows near the corner of Rosenthaler and Linienstrasse. s.wert design offers architectural motifs from Berlin reenvisioned as pillows, lamps, wrapping paper, and postcards, with a focus on now-demolished postwar façades; I think the freshness of their colours contrasts nicely with their subjects. One wall boasts samples of Daniel Ginelli's Dump Art: droll pairings of a photo with a deadpan German product.
s.wert design, Rosenthaler Str. 71 (map)
Open Mon-Sat noon to 8 pm
Tel: + 49 30 400 56 65 5
My vegetable ennui of a few weeks ago has not lifted entirely, but one Greens' recipe that succeeded in stirring my fancy was their 'White Winter Vegetables Baked in Cream.' Soup has been the way I've solved the question of the many unfamiliar vegetables that crop up in the cold months, but this dish suggested itself as a more sophisticated vehicle for fennel, leeks and potatoes. I replaced the celery root with parsley root and added shallots as well; as the authors say, the recipe lends itself to variation.
The soothing activity of preparing the vegetables took about half an hour at a leisurely pace, and we are looking forward to the leftovers we've packed to take to work, nicely macerated now in the thyme-fragrant cream.
White winter vegetable gratin
Thinly chop the white parts of the leeks, putting aside the greens for stock. Core the fennel bulb if needed and cut into thin slices. Thinly slice the parsley roots and potatoes too. Butter a gratin dish and rub it with the garlic clove.
Preheat the oven to 375 F. Put down half the vegetables, sprinkle with salt, pepper and thyme, then top with the rest of the vegetables. Pour over the cream and dot the surface with two tablespoons of butter. Cover loosely with a piece of aluminum foil, then bake for 30 minutes. While the vegetables are baking, melt 3 T butter and toss with the bread crumbs. After 30 minutes, remove the foil and top with bread crumbs, then bake for another 30-40 minutes or until the vegetables are tender.
Serve with bread to mop up the sauce and some lemony greens for contrast.
I told David I'd made breakfast berry bread because I liked the ring of it, but the internet holds me to other standards and I will confess here that in fact it is cake, if a mildly sweet one quite suited to breakfast. Its base - the yogurt cake - is the first recipe I ever made from a food blog, shortly after discovering Chocolate & Zucchini via Vinography. This morning, the two tubs of yogurt languishing in the fridge plus forest berries in the freezer made this recipe a shoo-in. (The Waldbeeren you can buy here - red currants, blueberries, raspberries and blackberries - provided the perfect bracing tartness.)
I followed the original to the t, really, though to draw out the bustling domesticity I did first beat the eggs, then add the sugar, then the yogurt, then the oil, vanilla extract and the lemon zest (which I substituted for the rum). This turned out well, but mixing up everything at once is quite certainly just as effective. Fold in a generous cupful of frozen berries at the end and you're done.
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