Last Saturday wasn’t exactly my day. I’ve been canning and preserving for many, many years, and consider myself familiar with the whole process – you give me fruit and I can turn it into some delicious jam without having to look up instructions or recipes. And yet, my self-confidence didn’t prevent me from turning my kitchen into a sublime mess.
When I crossed the door step of Bar Centrale on a sunny Thursday a few weeks ago to meet our friends Sherry and Bob from Sausalito, it had been almost 4 years that we had first met – at the very same coffee bar. They have become dear friends of ours and we make sure to meet at least once a year, may it be in California, in France or in our Bavarian capital.
In this particular case, the answer is not 42. But what is the question to begin with? Well, one of the most frequent questions I get is about my favorite kind of food. The super generic “What’s your all-time favorite dish?” as well as “What kind of comfort food do you turn to?” or “What would your last supper be?”, seem to rank high on the question charts. And they’re tough ones to answer.
Over the past years it has become a tradition to welcome our friends from San Francisco with a very informal get-together, a so called Brotzeit. The term is used quite loosely and open to all kinds of interpretations. Putting aside regional differences it’s essentially a cold snack, coming with all kinds of bread, sausages, pickles, radishes, cheeses and what not. And of course, sufficient supply of Bavarian beer!
