Berlin Reified: Food, design and life in Berlin

Elders in bloom (Domäne Dahlem)

Outside the Chinese restaurant

Cherry blossoms (Lychener Straße)

Can you believe the dreamy elegance of this playground blanketed in spent blossom?

Recalled to life (II)

Oh, but I have been gone a long time, and you have despaired. Life interrupts, with oti bharna parties, farewell parties, family visits, then recedes. Now seems to be the moment of the long afternoon, where there is much to say and more time to say it, so stay tuned.

Allet Gute kommt von oben

This graffito has made me smile on twilight walks for some six years; I am not a great one for dirges, but seeing the vacant lot now shorn and foundationed sent a shiver through me.

En passant (Kuglerstraße)

Sometimes it's odd how this place has become home.

February paperwhites

I never really understood the bulbs that filled flower shops in the winter, until I bought a pot of paperwhites and watched them bloom and scent the flat.

January Tulips

Tulips have debuted in shops and cafes. Have they always been out this early?

Zionskirchplatz (The Branches)

I still have not decided whether I'd like to try the cupcakes at the Cupcake bakery, but enjoyed the sight of branches and people passing while I sat at Zionskirchplatz, contemplating that question.

New Year's Day (Batata vadai, snow)

The tumult of the holidays almost over, and now to settle down to a quiet plate of batata vadai with some fiery green chutney while watching the snow flurry down. Fans of Maharashtrian snack food should ink January 19th into their calendars: I'll be bringing this dish along as my contribution to the next Grub (theme: cook something from where you're from). For those food lovers who missed the fun last time, do try to join us this month; just email me and/or grubberlin at gmail for details.

Happy New Year!

PS I'm still refining my recipe for these spicy potato dumplings -- so crisp outside, so innocently fluffy inside -- and should have the details by the time they make their official debut at Grub.

The 24th

Winter branches Berlin

Oh, that sort of weather, that sort of day...

Kinski club

Autumn on the lake (Grunewald)

At this time of year, there is no better place to enjoy autumn's elegaic atmosphere than the Grunewald. Around the lake, people appear newly bulky in their winter coats, while dogs frolic wildly along the water in packs of five. After a turn around the lake, you're hungry, and there's the somewhat grand, somewhat kitschy Forsthaus Paulsborn just waiting for you with its array of cakes and fall specials.

As you walk back to the bus stop, a few leaves falls from an oak. 

One year/Autumn

But now one senses the season's tip into winter. I remember this day last year as more luminous - sitting on the sofa, searching out my first photos, trying to wrangle the Typepad software into doing what I wanted it to do. People seem to commemorate their anniversaries, so here's mine; and on this occasion I can note that writing Berlin Reified makes me pay close attention to the world and brings to that  observing the joy of knowing I have a single radiant someone to share that world with (for I imagine you as one particular reader, reading this as I write). And reader, what do you make of it all, I wonder? And what do you like, and what do you like less?

Fall keeps going

This autumn just keeps going.

A branch in the fall (Kreuzberg)

I was very fond of this bough.

Strolling through Mauerpark (II)

This Sunday stroll feels very distant.

Berlin Service

On my last visit to the Prater I found the most pleasing abandoned vending machine...

Autumn along the train tracks

Wittgenstein in Berlin (Tag der Deutschen Einheit)

A long walk with Gideon to explore Kreuzberg in greater detail. Once I spotted Wittgenstein flanked by his duck-rabbits, I was sold.

Strolling through Mauerpark

Fall in Berlin

Sunday, autumn equinox, fall in Berlin...

Illustrative 2007 (Berlin)

Encountering Lorenzo Petrantoni's massive, intricate black-and-white tick-tocking wall was easily the most thrilling moment in Illustrative Berlin 2007; I was also fond of Olaf Hajek's apes and lilies, as indeed many are.

Art Cube at the Haus am Waldsee

What a vision of home! The Art Cube at the Haus am Waldsee was perfect spotted in a clearing through the late-summer trees, and the view above was to die for, though the bathroom (I found myself thinking heretically) felt like nothing more than one you'd find in an Ibis hotel room. But still, for those who read this late, it must be lovely when the surrounding trees go autumnal.

Tevót & other pieces

My favourite moments of the concert? The arrhythmia near the beginning of Thomas Adès' Tevót, and the extraordinary horn line in Janáček's Sinfonietta op. 60 (itself no rhythmal slouch).

The game is on / Devon

For my few beloved devoted readers: I am off to Devon for a week and will write again on my return.

PersonalArena (Arbeiten in Norwegen)

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)

Trailerpark Berlin

The Fernsehturm Espied

Oderbergerstraße (Stadtbad)

New Year's at the Brandenburg Gate

David's office overlooks the Brandenburg Gate, and so we were lucky enough to get resident passes to enter otherwise blocked-off Pariser Platz and watch the revelry from above. My favourite moment was the spontaneous waltz some waitstaff broke into, cued by the Strauss playing from one of the banks.

Happy New Year to all!

Love waits for you to find someone to look at

Just back from 'A Flowering Tree' (why not 'The Flowering Tree', I found myself wondering), surprisingly easy music with a lovely pageantry, the magic of a mid-winter fairy tale, the deflected or doubled action of the dancer-shadowed singers: I found myself teary-eyed during the final scene. Afterwards, sitting in Billy Wilder's making plans for the holiday weekend, David saw John Adams walk past and leapt out of our booth, programs in hand, and returned with signatures (his and Jessica Rivera's) and an email address. Exciting stuff!

Haus Schwarzenberg (entryway II)

The Christmas markets (Domäne Dahlem I)

There is excitement and there is excitement, and walking into the Domäne Dahlem Christmas market was most firmly the latter. Easily the best of the four Christmas markets I visited last weekend, the treasures of Domäne Dahlem resist summary, but let me count my non-food favourites.

1) Where else can you find a working apiary that offers candle-making during advent, complete with nifty wooden tables inset with deep tubs of hot wax? Much less adorable children busily fashioning conifers, snow people, stars and other figures?

2) Or a female blacksmith forging lengths of iron into Christmas decorations?


3) Or an indigo dyeing workshop, run by the same family for generations, complete with dye stamps?

4) Or a weaving workshop, full of colourful handmade fabrics from local wools and other fibres?

5) Or an old-fashioned take on bumper cars, with the vehicles powered by muscles rather than creaking fairground motors?

Stay tuned tomorrow for edible highlights – and I encourage anyone in or near Berlin to ink a visit to the market into their advent calendar.

Domäne Dahlem Adventsmarkt, December 9th-10th & 16th-17th from 11 am-7 pm. Admission is 1 EUR for adults, 0.50 EUR for reductions, and free for children. (map)

Lychenerstraße

Every month there are fewer such façades in Prenzlauer Berg.

Thanksgiving

My first Thanksgiving in Berlin! Complete with syrupy sweet potatoes topped by a crispy marshmallow crust, a burnished beautiful turkey, and cranberry-studded stuffing. Hearty thanks to our hostess Tammi & photos to follow...

Haus Schwarzenberg (entryway)

Poetry Hearings 2006

A brief post by way of congratulations to Alistair Noon, for another envigorating installment of Poetry Hearings!

Clärchen's Ballhaus (Auguststraße)

Clärchen's Ballhaus (now Ballhaus Mitte), a 1920s dance hall in Auguststraße which continues to offer dancing and dining in style...

Ballhaus Mitte, Auguststraße 24, 10117 Berlin

Kammermusiksaal (Philharmonie)

Back from the Philharmonie, this briefly, before I go to bed ...

Oderbergerstraße