Gray duet II (Winter in Berlin)
In Kreuzberg.
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4 posts from January 2013
Cake, vacant lots and der Fritz
The day after New Year's day, and the city still half in sleep. For the first time I note the pinched tenement windows as S and I walk down the still-pastoral street towards lunch.
The black cat licks the last spot of cheese from the floor. After cake, I watch the clouds chase other clouds. Beneath that expanse of sky, the empty courtyard across the street has been torn open, heralding a building that will block the view.
Kristina sends me home with the second issue of Eva-Maria Hilker's new magazine Der Fritz. The next morning over tea, I leaf through the luminously photographed articles on soap-makers in the Uckermark, caviar from Neuruppin, and a tattoo parlor in Panketal.
PS: The cake, by the way, was this one, with a quarter-cup of cocoa powder substituted for a quarter-cup of flour. I am obsessed with duplicating a chocolate poppyseed cake I ate recently in Karslhorst. Good, but not quite chocolatey enough: will try a third-cup of cocoa powder next time, and a chocolate ganache.
A welcome to the new year
These photographs are relicts from a canalside twilight in Kreuzberg as the days contracted. Between the years has seldom felt so still. The expanding light is the faintest stir in the air. The new year a welcoming movement I'm eager to echo.