leftover epiphany

We are hunkered down here in Hamburg, in for the long haul of cold, wet and gloomy that will be life in this part of Europe until April. I find this time of year challenging - sunrise at 8:20 makes it hard to get out of bed with any kind of enthusiasm, all the more so when you can't really tell the sun is up because the clouds are so thick. On the other hand, we get the occasional bursts of sun that are pretty spectacular, and I get to feel virtuous for getting up before sunrise, which never happens in the summer.


I find myself craving spicy food at this time of year, needing something with a good kick to keep me from complaining. Mapo Tofu has become one of our standard winter meals, hot and tingly and seriously good. Good Asian food of any type is hard to come by here, as is anything remotely spicy, so we mostly make our own when we need a fix. We actually make this quite often during the week - most of the ingredients are in the pantry, so once we have them we're good to go for a while. Plus, the leftovers make an excellent lunch, especially to thaw freezing toes and raw fingers.


We don't have a microwave at home, and I was surprised to discover that I am quite content not having one. Our apartment is small - the kitchen isn't tiny but counter space is still precious. The only time I ever missed it was when reheating leftovers - until I discovered that I can do it in my regular oven! (Anyone with cooking experience in the pre-microwave era, feel free to roll your eyes.) A little over a year ago I acquired a small porcelain covered casserole from a flea market for 5 euros, thinking that it would be good for making one or two-serving meals when Zoli is away.



It turns out what I mostly use it for is reheating leftovers. (Incidentally, it is also great for roasting beets.) The first time I made leftovers in the oven I was totally impressed with myself - until it occurred to me that it would probably also work with a foil-covered regular bowl, not just my little dish, which it does. Then I just felt rather silly for taking so long to figure it out.


Regardless of how the leftovers are reheated, the Mapo Tofu is delicious and warming and the polar opposite of 2 degrees and drizzly. Right now, that is pretty darn good.



Mapo Tofu
adapted from Land of Plenty by Fuchsia Dunlop
Serves 2-3 as a main dish and doubles easily


1 block soft tofu, drained and cubed
3 tablespoons peanut or other vegetable oil
6 oz (170g) ground pork
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 bunch scallions, thinly sliced at an angle (save a handful for garnish) - one small leek also works
1-3 Tbsp Sambal Oelek (what we use) or chili bean paste
1 Tbsp fermented black beans, rinsed and chopped
1/2 Tbsp Sichuan peppercorns
1 c chicken stock
2 tsp white sugar
2 tsp soy sauce (more to taste)
4 Tbsp cornstarch mixed with 6 Tbsp water

Toast the Sichuan peppercorns in a dry pan (I normally use the same pot I will use to cook the Mapo Tofu) until they are smoking slightly but not burnt. Transfer to a spice grinder or mortar and grind until relatively finely ground.

Heat the oil in a heavy pot over medium-high heat. (I use my big enameled cast iron dutch oven - a wok would definitely also work.) Add the pork and stir-fry until it is crispy and a little brown but isn't dry. Reduce the heat to medium, add the garlic and scallions, and cook until fragrant (a minute or two, careful not to burn the garlic). Add the Sambal Oelek, black beans, and 1-2 tsp of the ground Sichuan pepper. Cook for another minute, stirring to combine everything.

Pour in the stock, making sure to scrape up any browned bits from the bottom of the pot. Add the sugar and soy sauce, mix well, and let the mixture come to a gentle simmer if it isn't already there. Taste for seasoning and for spice - if you want it a bit hotter add more sambal oelek, more tingly add more Sichuan pepper. (I normally start with two Tbsp sambal oelek and sometimes add a third, but we like it quite spicy.) Add the tofu and incorporate it into the sauce by gently pushing it down with the back of a ladle or large spoon. Try not to break up the tofu. Simmer for about 5 minutes, letting the tofu warm through and absorb the sauce. Add about half the cornstarch mixture and mix well but gently, letting the sauce thicken. (You want it to just coat the back of a spoon.) If it needs to be thicker, add more of the cornstarch mix. Serve hot, over steamed rice and garnished with scallions and the remaining ground Sichuan peppercorns.

away we go

A few weekends ago we took a ferry down the Elbe to an island in the North Sea - a practice vacation, as it were, to prepare us for our real vacation. Our real vacation that started when I left the lab this evening. I hope we practiced enough - there are beaches calling my name. Enjoy the tail end of summer, I'll be back in a few weeks.

bring it on

Summer is here and it is glorious. Days in a row of 35 degree temperatures, swimming in the sea and the pool, sticky weather that demands gin & tonics, watermelon and barbecues in the park. Northern Europe has been going through a heat wave for the past few weeks, and while the temperatures can't compare with what the east coast of the US has been coping with it has still been pretty damn hot. There is no air conditioning here, not at work nor at home, so days of constant 35 degrees add up. But when the heat means skirts and sandals, train trips to the beach, fun with (young) old friends in Amsterdam, and more summer produce than I know what to do with, I am one happy chicken.

I meant to make a list of things I wanted to do this summer, but summer arrived before I had a chance. We have already had a birthday barbecue in our neighborhood park, rented a Strandkorb on the Baltic (so silly and yet so practical), eaten basil spaghetti, slept with only a sheet and had some quality balcony sitting. There is yet more to come - a weekend on a North Sea island, hopefully another train trip to the beach, peaches and apricots and baby artichokes, tomatoes tomatoes tomatoes, and maybe a trip to Berlin. Last but not least will be vacation in the US to see family and friends and enjoy the tail end of the east coast summer. Corn on the cob, I'm coming for you.

Cherry season has been going for a few weeks now, and my absolute favorite thing to do with cherries is make clafoutis. Any kind of cherries (or really, any other fruit) will be delicious, but I think the best are dark red sweet cherries. Here they are called Knubberkirschen and there are countless varieties, but they are generally similar to Bing cherries. (Knubber somehow refers to the fact that they are kind of crunchy and meaty.) The best part is, there is no need to pit them, you're supposed to just spit out the pits as you eat. I've made this twice in the past week and somehow I don't think I'll be stopping any time soon. As long as I can say knubberkirschen and clafoutis, all is right (if slightly linguistically confused) in the world.


Cherry Clafoutis
(adapted slightly from this ceres & bacchus recipe, via smitten kitchen)

I like to make this in an oval ceramic dish, but a high-sided pyrex dish or pie plate also works well.

2 heaping c (12 oz, 360 g) sweet cherries, rinsed and drained
3 eggs
1/2 c (3 3/4 oz, 108 g) sugar
1/2 c butter (4 oz, 113 g), melted and cooled
1 c (4.5 oz, 130 g) flour
1/4 tsp salt
1 c milk (whole or low fat are fine - with that much butter skim would probably also work)
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 tbsp kirsch (or rum)

Preheat the oven to 400 F. Grease the baking dish well with butter and add the cherries, distributing them evenly over the bottom of the dish. In a large bowl, whisk together the sugar and eggs until they are well mixed and lighten a bit in color. Gradually whisk in the butter, then add the flour all at once, along with the salt. Whisk until the mixture is smooth and thick (not lumpy). Add the milk a little at a time, whisking well to incorporate. (The mixture should be smooth and thin, like crepe or pancake batter.) Add the vanilla and kirsch and whisk to fully incorporate.

Pour the batter over the cherries in the baking dish (the fruit will move around a bit - no problem)and place the dish in the oven. Bake for 30-40 minutes until quite brown, puffy around the sides and set in the center. (I normally check with a sharp knife - it should come out fairly clean.) Cool on a wire rack for at least 15 minutes before serving, but it is also great at room temperature. It is just as good the next day for breakfast or cut into little one-cherry cubes for a snack. Really.

Serves 4 (with a little leftover for breakfast)

home improvement

While I have been rather quiet here things have been happening. Specifically, things around the apartment. Zoli has been putting his carpentry skills to good use in order to improve our kitchen and the results are quite fabulous.

First he made us a pot rack, which made me inordinately happy. (This was back in February. I'm a little behind.)


Then we got our act together and made a decision about how to add some eating space in the kitchen. One long wall was bare except for the heater - wasted space unless you counted the top of the (safely turned off) heater, which served as a very narrow shelf. We had been talking about getting/making/building something since we moved in and after much bickering and disagreement about how it should be done this is the final result.

Zoli took the bus to the lumber store for the very large, very heavy piece of wood, I took the bus to Ikea (in a snow storm! Highly recommended) for the legs. Zoli got to make measurements and saw some stuff and make a mess, I got to melt beeswax and walnut oil together for the finish and make a mess.


We both got to use the drill. All in all it was an excellent compromise. We even found some stools without too much difficulty - so now I can sit in the kitchen in the morning and eat breakfast, looking out at our suddenly-green courtyard. It really is finally spring.

Hamburg on ice

It has been snowing here like nobody's business - I saw online somewhere that it has essentially been snowing for six weeks and I believe it. The sidewalks are now covered with weeks of accumulated snow, snow that partially melted and then refroze as dirty slush, the grit used as traction on the sidewalk, and more snow. If you looked at a cross section it would be like some kind of sedimentary rock formation except colder.

The big excitement here is that the Alster, the lake in the center of Hamburg, is frozen solid enough to walk on - which apparently half of the city has been doing at the weekend. The ice isn't quite thick enough for the Alstereisvergnügen, the festival on the frozen lake that happened in 1996, but the sheer possibility of it is all anyone has been talking about. I haven't actually gotten over to that part of town to see the lake, but we woke up last weekend to about six inches of fresh snow and took a walk around our white, white neighborhood. There is a canal that we walk along quite frequently, and it was frozen - enough to walk on it, which we of course had to do along with other folks from our neighborhood, some of whom were (unsucessfully) trying to ice skate.


The Elbe is also frozen again, and again Zoli and I took the ferry to check out the ice, along with the half of Hamburg that wasn't walking on the frozen Alster.

No sun this time (that has been in short supply lately, it's been snowing too much), but enough ice to make docking at the ferry stops a multi-try operation and waiting for the ferry a multi-shiver one. Thankfully the cold and the grey are somehow ameliorated by swimming in a toasty-warm outdooor pool with snowflakes falling on your head.

Not only is it shiver-in-your-underheated-office season, it is also Berliner and Heißwecken season. Berliners are probably familiar to you, the good old jelly doughnut, though depending on where you are in Germany they aren't always called Berliners. In some areas they are called Krapfen and (ironically) in Berlin they are called Pfannkuchen - particularly confusing because in many parts of Germany Pfannkuchen means pancake. (There was a very spirited discussion at lunch one day between people who use the word Pfannkuchen to refer to completely different things.) I have to say that I was never a fan until I ate the Berliners here. They fall firmly in the category of sweets you will only find between Christmas and Lent (also eaten for New Year's apparently), and when you find a good one, well my goodness. My favorite at the moment is filled with Apfelmus (essentially apple sauce), in part because at our local (fantastic!) bakery they are coated in both regular sugar and powdered sugar, so you make an unholy mess eating them. (Don't do it on the U-bahn, you'll regret it. As will your neighbor.) But also the apple filling just fits - it feels wintery and comforting, but also has enough of a tang to let you know that spring is on it's way.


Heißwecken on the other hand say no such thing. They're more of a wallow-in-winter deal, a sweet roll studded with raisins, almost like stollen in texture, split in half, filled with whipped cream and dusted with powdered sugar. There is often a little dot of cranberry compote underneath all that cream, but that too says winter. Heißwecken are a Northern German treat, something I had never heard of before I came here. They seem to be related to the Swedish semla and are really only here until Fat Tuesday, and if you've done your duty by eating a Heißwecken every day leading up to it, it will indeed be a Fat Tuesday.

Sliding through

I really love snow. Even though I don't get snow days anymore it is still a thrill to wake up to falling snow. We have had quite a bit of it recently, by Hamburg standards anyway. It was beautiful and white and never mind that the shoveling was spotty and the steps up to work treacherous. It was snow!


Today it melted. Not entirely, but enough that the un-shoveled sidewalks are either sheets of ice with water on top or four inches of dirty slush. Slush that is most definitely not snow. So to console myself, and those of you also having uncooperative weather, here are some photos from where the light was nice and there was no slush to be found, except in the form of granita.

walking and eating

Venice is not one of those places I always wanted to visit. I knew very little about it except that it is Historically Important, you can get the itty bitty clams from the Adriatic that are unlike any other clams anywhere (thank you, Marcella Hazan) and, well, canals. So while I was excited to visit I really didn't know what to expect.


Despite warnings, I didn't prepare myself for giant crowds of tourists in teeny tiny alleyways. I also didn't prepare for getting utterly lost on the way from the bus station to my hotel, which was about as much of a straight shot as one gets in Venice. I blame the tour group in front of me. I was heading the same way as they were, but everyone said "Don't follow the tourists! Get lost!" So I did exactly that, to the nth degree. I went the exact opposite way that I should have, was off of my map for the first half an hour and only very, very belatedly realized what I had done. On the upside, I got a rather nice tour of some of the outer neighborhoods of Venice before coming to the monster crowds at the Rialto Bridge. And at least I only had a backpack for luggage.


Despite that rather rocky navigational start, walking around the city was mostly really pleasant. Our hotel was in San Polo, very close to the Frari church and within easy walking distance of just about everything. And we did what we generally do on vacation - ate, walked, saw some art (the Biennalle, actually, which was fun), walked some more and then ate. To the walking and eating we added vaporettos and traghettos (1 euro ferry gondolas, my favorite) and some high-quality people watching.


Much of our time was spent figuring out where we would have our next meal. Normally when we go on vacation we have a PLAN, both in terms of restaurants and specific things to eat. For whatever reason that wasn't as much the case this time and we did a fair amount of random restaurant seeking that devolved into being hungry and crabby. Basically, we are indecisive. We keep walking and looking and then we don't eat lunch because we never find a place that looks just right. And then we get cranky. It's not pretty.


But despite all of that, Venice was...fabulous. We found fantastic gelato, a few lovely restaurants and even some unfiltered Prosecco for an afternoon drink. (I also found the most vicious and enormous mosquitoes I have ever encountered.) Mostly though we just relaxed and enjoyed being in the same place.


And now I would love to go back. I would plan it differently this time (stay in an apartment instead of a hotel, make time to swim, bathe in DEET before sitting beside a canal to eat an espresso granita con panna) but there was so much we did not get to see, and so many foods we weren't able to try. Next time.