In this second excerpt Luisa Weiss recounts what I have struggled to appropriately describe in the past; that moment when I have become overwhelmed with that utter bliss that comes after a well-prepared meal, surrounded by loved ones and often times in a beautiful setting. 

I am happy to report that my life has been made up of a string of these moments: on my many travel adventures, whilst on our precious Isla Mujeres,

a sunset walk on the beach at our summer house and indeed, even in my own backyard-lying in a hammock, or cuddled up around our fire pit or sitting under the blossoming plum tress that have been strung with white lights.  I think what I am trying to say is that Luisa Weiss “gets” me and I “get” her….

But pavlova felt too fussy for this languid afternoon.  I leaned back on the couch and closed my eyes, hearing the faint hum of the traffic from the outdoors and thinking about our day.  I remembered the buttermilk we’d shared, creamy and sour.  It occurred to me that buttermilk and berries would make the perfect summer dessert.  In my collection of clipped recipes from so long ago, I found the recipe I was looking for almost straightaway: buttermilk pannacotta.

The dessert consisted of not much more than buttermilk, heavy cream, and sugar, with a a little gelatin for suspension and wiggle.  To serve with the pannacotta, I decided to sugar red berries, letting a syrupy, ruby-red juice form.  Their sweet-sour pop would be a good contract to the nursery-dessert quality of the pannacotta.

The pannacotta was simple to make, but when the time came to unmold the set cream from its ceramic mold, I struggled to loosen it from the sides.  Max walked into the kitchen just as I was starting to lose my cool and ended up helping me, the two of us giggling at the pannacotta’s luxuriant wobble as it settled onto the serving plate.  Then I spooned the juicy berries and their syrup all around the pannacotta, almost obscuring the creamy mound.  As Max drove us to Muck and Jurgen’s house on a leafy street in Zehlendorf, I held the serving plate gingerly in my lap as the fruit syrup slid back and forth precariously.

Out on their deck at dusk, we ate pink-fleshed lake trout poached gently in fennel broth, small boiled potatoes, waxy and sunflower-yellow and dusted with chopped parsley, and a little salad of soft greens studded with toasted sunflower seeds.  There was a cold bottle of Riesling and a sharp and creamy horseradish sauce mixed with grated apple for a bit of sweetness to dollop on the fish, its flesh tender and barely warm.  Later, when the sky had grown dark and we sat outside in candlelight, full of fish and potatoes and wine, everybody oohed and aahed as I spooned out trembling portions of pannacottaand sweet-sour berries into little dishes that Muck had brought out.

As we ate, the buttermilk cutting the richness of the cream and the sugared berries a sharp contrast to the soothing blandness of the pannacotta, we listened to the neighbor’s children play in the garden next door.  The table soon fell quiet and as our spoons scraped against the china and I saw the light draining from the sky, my world suddenly felt so stunningly complete, so full and rich and just as it should be, that I almost lost my breath.

 Kath’s quote: “Life is not measured by the breaths you take but by its breathtaking monents.”-Michael Vance.

Love-that is all.

No secret here-I love to read.  This winter, I have averaged 2-3 books per week and I have a stack of them waiting for me on my night table.  Although I have been drawn to fiction all of my days and have had dalliances with some non-fiction travel writing, I am crazy about what I call the newest genre- the blogger/book author.   I too have a book in my head but not enough hours in the day to actually get it out of there or to put my “real” work aside, (the work that pays the bills while I support my “writing” habit).  So I am fascinated by the bloggers turned authors who have managed to pull all of this together.  And I love the authenticity with which they write: recounting the disappointments and indeed heartbreaks  but also the joys and triumphs in the kitchen and in life.  Luisa Weiss is my latest fascination.  In this excerpt she is writing of her relationship with her Dad which has so many parallels to my own.

My sweet Dad was as much my food mentor as my Mom.  I inherited my Dad’s inventiveness when I make “refrigerator” soup and I would attribute my natural instincts of knowing what foods will pair well together from him.  My love of salty/sweet is all about my Dad.  Just this Christmas, I was so hoping that someone would ask me about my recipe for the ham glaze because I intentionally mimicked my Dad’s style: throw open the fridge door, get your head and arms in there and start pulling out jars and bottles of sauces and chutneys and marinades, mixing homemade preserves with Asian, Italian and French concoctions.  The result was fabulous (in my mind at least) perhaps because it tasted like “Christmas past”.

And so here is an excerpt by Luisia Weiss. But do not limit your reading to here, go out and buy My Berlin Kitchen.

But best of all, my father gave me a family tomato sauce.  He says he got the recipe from my mother’s mother, Nini, whom he adored, but my mother says that couldn’t possibly be true, because Nini hated to cook.  They always like to argue about who was right on this count.  “Ree-chard, don’t you think I’d know if my mother ever made that tomato sauce.” Oh, get out of town.  Are you telling me that I don’t remember who taught me how to make it?”  I didn’t mind the arguing; it was nice hearing their voices together in the same room.  And besides, I didn’t really care where the sauce came from-to me, it was his sauce.

It may seem a little funny to talk about tomato sauce.  Chances are you scarcely need a recipe for one.  The thing is, this is where it all starts for me.  This sauce was one of the first things I ever made.  It’s the only thing I tend to cook when there’s nothing in the kitchen and I need a quick dinner: its what I cook when there’s nothing I’d rather be doing less than cooking.  It’s what I make when I need steadying and reassurance.  Its smell reminds me of my father and my Italian Grandmother and I like to think that, one day, it’ll be the first recipe my children inherit from me.  If it’s not a family heirloom, then I don’t know what is.

To make it, he would dice up an onion and throw it along with a clove of garlic into a pot of olive oil warming on the stove.  The smell of the cooking onions would drift past the pantry into the living room, where I’d sit in anticipation.  When the onions were soft and fragrant, he’d add chopped carrots and canned tomatoes into the pot and the whole thing would simmer together until it got sweet and saucy and I could hear my stomach growl.  He’d boil a pot of water for spaghetti and break the long strands in half to cook them.  Then he’d dress the whole thing.  We’d sit down at the drop-leaf table in the kitchen and we’d eat together and talk about the day.

Sometimes before bedtime, after he’d finish singing to me and he’d said good-night, he’d turn at the doorway, ready to switch off the light, and tell me I was the apple of his eye, the love of his life.  But I’m not sure he ever really needed to.  I knew it all along.

Kath’s quote: “Keep me as the apple of your eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings.” Psalm17:8

Love-that is all.