"Ich hab' noch einen Koffer in Berlin"
In one of the early episodes of this Telenovela (Hebrew for soap-opera
- pronounced TELE-no-VELA) I call my life, I once lived in Germany for
a few years. It was a long time ago and in those days there was the
Berlin Wall, and Checkpoint Charlie and East Germany and West Germany
- and never the twain shall meet. My then-husband was an officer in
the American Army, and as he had a top-secret clearance we were not
allowed to go to Berlin - "in case those rotten Communists picked us
up and beat us until we divulged all the secrets we were supposed to
have held". In all the years I lived in Germany I travelled all over
the country - but never to Berlin.
So - I always dreamed of going to Berlin - right - don't you always
want what you can't have? Finally, three weeks ago, the stars were in
the right place in the heavens, there was room on the flight we
wanted, my friend, Rosaline (who is my good travelling companion -
more about her at another time), had a week off because her office was
closed - and so we went to Berlin.
They say - whoever "they" are - that when you want something so much
and look forward to it so much - that you are inevitably disappointed
when you get it. Wrong! Berlin was fabulous. I can't now imagine what
I thought Berlin was going to be like and look like - but it wasn't.
Does that make sense? It doesn't look at all like the rest of Germany,
the food is completely different, the people are different, they speak
a beautiful and clear German (very unlike the terrible-sounding
Schwaebish dialect we spoke in Stuttgart) and the city is absolutely
elegant and very clean.
We stayed at a little boutique hotel off the Kurfurstendam - familarly
known as the Ku-dam - a boulevard very much like the Champs Elysee in
Paris - sidewalk cafes, restaurants, shops and people parading along
day and night. The Germans have a very well developed "cafe culture" -
do you know the kind of place I mean? - an inside, of course, but on
the wide sidewalks little tables with chairs side-by-side so you can
face the constant parade of people and watch the world go by. The cafe
near our hotel was called "Dressners" - to my mind a perfect name for
a perfect place. Don't ask why I thought the name was perfect -
somehow it just fit. And we drank large glasses of very milky coffee
which they called Latte - not a German name to be sure - but very much
like the delicious "cafe hafuch" (literally upside-down coffee) which
we have here. And most of the patrons were eating the most delicious
pastries - always accompanied by "shlag" - whipped cream. I don't even
like whipped cream - but I loved it there. Go know. And if they
weren't eating pastries and shlag they were eating what seems to be a
very popular nosh in Berlin - plates of "kartoffel ecke" (potato
corners) little pieces of roasted - fried? - potatoes accompanied by
sour cream. Now there's a nosh for you.
There isn't a typical Berliner cuisine - except for those kartoffel
ecke and a kind of sausage called "curry wurst" which you eat
on-the-go - on paper plates with plastic forks - don't ask. And of
course, there is the famous pork knuckle served with sauerkraut and
mashed potatoes and a portion of split pea puree. What knuckle - it
looks like the whole leg hanging off the side of the plate. Those of
you who have had the good fortune (!) to eat a meal with me know that
I will eat almost anything that isn't tied down - fish heads (the eyes
are the best part), brains, "beitzim" (bulls testicles if you must
know) - that pork knuckle just doesn't do it for me.
Lest you be worried, however, Ros and I didn't starve. The Berliners
serve wonderful Argentinian steaks - order it "English" (pronounced
AYN-glish) if you want it very rare and that's what you get - just the
way I like it. And good Chinese and good Italian and those lovely
pastries and and and....
I will never understand their pricing though - Ros is not a wine
drinker and I very definitely am - so at dinner I would order a glass
of wine and Ros would order a Sprite or a ginger ale - and my wine -
very good by the way - not plonk - cost less than her soft drink.
She's still carrying on about it.
I started to write about Berlin - and went off on a tangent about
food. How like me. I relate everything to food. Directions to
someplace - where is it in relation to a restaurant? Have I been to a
particular city - what did I eat there? So - next time I'll tell you
about Berlin - probably with a little food-lore thrown in.
By the way - the title of this blog is the title of a famous song sung
by Marlene Dietrich - it means "I still have a suitcase in Berliln" -
wherever she is in the world a part of her is still in Berlin. I think
I feel that way about Germany - strange, isn't it - but some very
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