Everywhere tints childrening, innocent spontaneous, true.

So today is two important things. The first is Mother’s Day. I’m a bit ambivalent about the Mother’s Day thing. In general, I loathe holidays that are the product of American commercialism and it seems to me that marketers have been especially insidious about making this particular day a guilt-ridden festival of six dollar greeting cards and shitty supermarket bouquets. They don’t do “Mother’s Day” in France, and none of the mothers I’ve met here seem particularly bothered by it.

That said, I have a pretty terrific mother. The best mother, you might say (others have, besides me, that is). I have a mother that other people envy. She’s smart and witty and some of the best company that you’ll ever keep. She gives excellent, seasoned advice without being invasive or judgmental. She’s an incredibly savvy businesswoman who somehow build a successful accounting firm from the ground up while always managing be there when her kid got home from school. She bought me big stacks of books for every holiday and is the reason that I do what I do for a living. She’s a great cook, a better hostess, and always cheats at board games. She’s quick to kick her shoes off if there is sand to be walked in or water to be waded in. She’s the best, really, and I’d be a shuddering pile of mud if it wasn’t for her. So happy mother’s day, Mom. If anybody deserves their own Hallmark holiday, it’s you.

Secondly, it’s my best friend MT’s birthday today. I met her my sophomore year of college when we were randomly assigned to live together after we had both ditched our disastrous freshman year roommates. I didn’t know if we would get along at first – MT is almost inhumanly beautiful and pulled together and I was terribly intimidated by her when I met her. But she proved herself immediately to be as equally smart and funny and silly as she is gorgeous and we’ve been friends ever since.

What kind of friend is she? Well, she’s the first person I want to talk to when something goes wrong or right in my life and I never feel bad about calling her when I’m crying hysterically with snot running down my face. She’s a great listener and while she is able to give well-tempered, level-headed advice, she also knows exactly when I just want somebody to be on my side, no matter how ridiculous my side might be at that particular moment. Last year, I had bizarre experience that consolidated all my love for MT. A woman I barely knew threatened to beat me up out of the blue (there was a guy involved, and a lot of alcohol, surprise, surprise). Chicken-shit dork that I am, I didn’t even know how to handle the situation, except to sputter something like “We’re in a PhD program!  I didn’t even think physical fighting was on the table!” as I scampered away in fear. About a week later I was at a party with MT. Another friend came over to talk with us and to let me know that it was possible that the threatening woman might show up later that evening. My other friend asked if it would be a problem if the threatening woman showed up. I started to hem and haw, but MT immediately snapped to attention. “Uh, yes, there’s going to be a BIG fucking problem if she shows up!” MT announced as she put her arm around me protectively. I suddenly realized that MT wouldn’t even hesitate to get in a fight for me, or at least make a lot of noise in that general direction. I tell this story not because I want you thinking that my best friend is anything short of a class act (she isn’t, and she’ll probably hate me for recounting this). I tell you this because I realized that night that she’s got my back in a way that I didn’t even know that my back could be gotten, and every time I think about how protective she was of me I get kind of teary and emotional. It’s nice to have a friend that makes you feel like you always have somebody on your team. It makes you feel like you can take on anything. I’d tell you to go get one of those friends for yourself, but I know firsthand how hard they are to find.

So happy birthday, chickadee.  You’re my ever after favorite.  While I’m a total wimp when it comes to my own confrontations, I’d totally take out anybody who ever messed with you.

Final news!  It appears that despite the suspicions I’ve aired here that I’m a pretty lousy English teacher, the university where I teach in Paris has nevertheless renewed my contract for another year. This means I will be in France through the summer of 2011, and I couldn’t be happier. I can’t believe I have another year to keep badgering you with an inappropriate level of information about my diet! Just think how many anachronistic idioms I’ll be able to teach the youth of France in another two semesters!

Now all you punks that promised that you were coming to visit might actually have time to do so.  Just saying.

Clarence in Berlin: Rogacki

Rogacki

Wilmersdorfer Str.145/46

10585 Berlin-Charlottenburg

U-Bahn:  Richard-Wagner Platz

My wonderful friends C and D happen to live in the Charlottenburg area of Berlin, only a few blocks from Rogacki, making them the luckiest people in the world.  When we all first arrived in Berlin in 2008, a visit to Rogacki for lunch seemed super-special.  Now C and D are decidedly blasé about their culinary good fortune: “Oh, hey babe, can you pick up some bread from Rogacki on your way home?”  “Oh, hey babe, can you swing by Rogacki and get some of that sausage I like?”  You would think they were talking about any old grocery store, not a national treasure.

So what’s the deal?  Rogacki is straight-up German delicatessen heaven.  Gorgeous baked goods, cheese, meat, and fresh fresh fish counters in the front, with heavenly prepared foods in the back of the store along with a cafeteria-style restaurant.  We’re talking a serious stretch of pickled fish phantasmagoria here, people.  One of my favorite Rogacki specialties is the pickled mackrel rolls stuffed with vegetables.  While a ubiquitous Deutch treat, at other places the veggies are often limp and the mackrel too fishy.  Never ever at Rogacki, where the fish is always tender and flakey and the veggies crunch like a perfect pickle:

The cafeteria is a huge draw.  It seems like the crowd favorite is the killer deep fried battered white fish (halibut? cod? Mein Deutsch ist schlecht) served with a choice of one of three German-style potato salads (this means tart, salty malt vinegar is the binder, not mayonnaise).  It’s an amazing plate of food, and like everything else it will set you back less than six euros:

Unfortunately, I never end up with more than a bite of the fish because when I’m at Rogacki, I’m going for the big guns:

That’s a straight-up divine plate of Blutwurst (blood sausage) and Leberwurst (liver sausage) nestled in a bed Sauerkraut and whipped potatoes.  I have concocted untold number of lurid fantasies about this dish during my food porn time.  As we walked to Rogacki during my visit to Berlin a few weeks ago, I was panicked and sweaty with anticipation of my treat.  I could barely handle looking at the other parts of the store before ordering.  The store was about to close (they don’t really do dinner) and for a minute it looked as though the Blutwurst had been put away.  I almost cried.  Fortunately, the kindly Rogacki employee understood that this wasn’t just a wurst, this was holding the addict back from their visit to the methadone clinic.  My needs were accommodated, much to my abundant glee.

There’s few things that I would describe as a MUST-DO should you ever visit Berlin, but Rogacki is certainly one of them.  The lovely, low-key neighborhood that surrounds it isn’t necessarily on many tourist itineraries, but you could make a lovely afternoon of lunch at Rogacki followed by a visit to the Schloss Charlottenburg or the Museum Berggruen.  The largest castle in Berlin, the Schloss Charlottenburg is a great specimen of Baroque and Rococo style with sprawling grounds that are free to the public.  The Museum Berggruen has one of the most dazzling collections of Modernist art in Europe, including a veritable clusterfuck of impressive Picassos.  But, let’s be frank, with a belly full of the delights you’ll find at Rogacki, the rest of the day is just icing.

Details:  Busy, busy all the time, but busy, busy, busy at lunchtime.  I like to go in the late afternoon, but caveat emptor, when they run out, they run out (unless of course you start hyperventilating at the prospect of not eating Blutwurst, in which case accommodations might be made).  Open Monday through Wednesday from 9-6, Thursday from 9-7, Friday from 8-7, and Saturday from 8-4.  Don’t even think about visiting Berlin and not making a stop here.  I’m talking to you, Ms. M.

Photos courtesy of C and D. Like M’s photography, I think this post is proof positive that a decent camera and an actual eye can go a lot further than my usual nonsense. You can follow C and D’s enviable life at D’s great blog 50 percent of my DNA. D’s got a lot to say about expat living and she does it with much more wit than I can ever muster. Bonus: you can see many pics of C and D’s sweet, smart, and funny kid B, my favorite child in the world bar none. I can only go to D’s blog so often, because it sends my ovaries into throbbing overdrive.

Chaos reigns!

Today I’m wearing the same dress as the one Charlotte Gainsbourg wears during a dream sequence in Antichrist. I bought it a year before I saw the film, but regrettably I can’t think of it now as anything other than “the clitorectomy dress.”

where our heads lived and were

I’ve been in a spring break haze of long sunny days in the park followed by Aperol spritzers (one part Aperol, two parts Prosecco or other dry sparkling wine, a splash of soda or citrus juice, and a slice of lemon over ice).  Delicious. I finally managed to locate a bottle of Aperol in Paris. La Grande Epicerie saves the day, again. You can do the same thing with Campari if you’re in a place where Aperol isn’t readily available and you’re not a nutjob that will hunt to the death for the sake of a cocktail. But man, Aperol is pretty amazing and worth the extra legwork. My friends BC and J also snagged themselves a bottle at La Grande Epicerie and lugged it to Buttes Chaumont with a bottle of sparkling limonade as a mixer.

I find it good to have friends with similar interests to mine.

Also, I’ve discovered that in Italy, there’s apparently an Aperol girl!  What I lack in legs for this gig, I think I more than make up for in enthusiasm:

* * *

Some other lovely things as of late:

Cherry blossoms in front of Notre Dame.

Poppies in the Jardin des Plantes.

Apple blossoms in the Jardin du Luxembourg.

Macarons from Ladurée (clockwise that’s rose, pistachio, lemon, blackberry violet, lily of the valley (!), and lemon).

I don’t like sharing my lemon macaron, obvi.

My new windowbox full of yummy herbs (from the top, that’s rosemary, Moroccan mint, basil, Italian parsley, and chives).

* * *

Finally, early on in this blarg experiment, I made plea to the universe when confronted with some annoying home improvement problems.  I believe it went something like this:

“…if the universe wanted to send me a guy capable of doing anything other than telling me how capable he is, I wouldn’t exactly spit in its face.  Did you hear that Universe? I’d literally trade all the hyper-verbose, hyper-articulate guys I’ve dated in the past five years for one soft-spoken handyman.”

Apparently somebody in my life took this as an incitement.  About a month ago B started quietly fixing things in my house. Well, it wasn’t always quiet, in fact, some times there was some rather loud pounding. But now all my chairs have four stable legs, I don’t have to cook in the dark, and a particularly gnarly cabinet hinge problem has been resolved. B only had to ride the métro with a hack saw once or twice. I figure that all of this manly manliness requires at least a restitutive shout-out, so thanks Universe, and thanks B. I didn’t know that it was possible to be so hyper-verbose, hyper-articulate and wield a mallet quite so well.

More deliciousness on the interwebs…

My ex-boyfriend Spencer was the first guy I ever dated that cooked me dinner, a revelatory sundried tomato pesto pasta that made me realize that there are few nicer things in the world that a good-looking guy making you a delicious meal.  He’s a terrific vegetarian and vegan cook, one who regularly bamboozled me into being happily sated without any meat whatsoever (no small feat). He grows much of his own produce in a community garden and is really committed to healthy, locavore, minimal-impact living in a way that I deeply admire. Well, most of the time. Actually, it really got on my nerves that he refused to use the air conditioning in his car.  And I felt pretty lousy about myself when I would just be waking up and he would have already biked forty-six miles and cooked an entire batch of buckwheat pancakes made from flour he ground himself that morning. I joke. Sorta. But at any rate, a few years ago Spencer sent around a cookbook that he had compiled of his best recipes and holy shit have I used it a lot.  He has a great knack for punchy spice combinations and making ho-hum vegetables into something sublime. He now has a blog, the aptly named Spice Island, which you should visit if you are in a dinner slump. Bonus points:  he’s funny and has excellent politics. Can you believe I let him get away?