Back in the USA

Thanks for following our blog of Berlin.

We are now living back in the US.

Bottoms Up

A few weekends ago I went to the major department stores here in Berlin in search of possible American cuisine to serve up at our Thanksgiving dinner. At KaDeWe, I found an exotic assortment of food from all around the world under glass cases and being prepared right in front of your eyes. The gourmet food section is located on the sixth floor of the department store that requires an almost maze-like approach past boutiques of Louis Vuitton and Prada, Yves Sain Laurent and Tom Ford. This store housed riches from all across the world and is drug den for global shopaholics, or maybe just their most dependable dealer.

I was a bit light headed myself walking through the forest of luxury goods, eventually stumbling onto the gourmet food floor. Here in the American food section I found Mountain Dew cans that sold for €5.25 a liter, or €1.50 a can. Boxes of Swiss Miss, jars of Marshmallow Fluff™ and the largest selection of Salsa in Germany. As I wandered further I was dumbstruck by the price tag I saw on this bottle of liquor. It was priced at €17,500! That is enough to buy a car, or a boat, or enough scotch to last you a life time. It must taste A-M-A-Z-I-N-G, and almost makes the €1,595 bottle of Remy Martin Louis XIII next to it sound like mouthwash.

If you want to learn more about The Macallan Lalique, bottle on the right, click here.

Feasting

We brought the American day of Thanks to Berlin where we hosted several of our closest friends, and their friends, for a Turkey feast and movie watching.



Thanksgiving seems to have originated from a very DIY spirit, making the most out of what you have. The Indians brought corn and fish and fowl and the Pligrims brought their refined turkey carving skills and cans of cranberry sauce. So in this spirit we asked our American and European friends to prepare dish or two, and bring forks (because we only have four). S cooked our 5900 gram turkey and I felt like we needed something to announce the event so I created the banner to hang at the end of our table above our very American poster.

It is not easy to find all of the familiar Thanksgiving dishes here in Europe so many of our guests had to improvise their recipes and bake to taste. There is no Stove Top stuffing, pumpkin pie mix, or pre-made pie crust. I thought I saw cans of cranberry sauce a few weeks ago but they seemed to have disappeared. Everyone succeeded in creating substitutes and the meal was amazing, with an additional European accent from dishes provided by our Danish and Swedish guests.



Dinner menu:

Red Wine
White Wine (Riesling)
Ice Tea, with grapefruit flavor

Deviled eggs
Green salad with pomegranate and walnuts

Dinner rolls
Mashed potatoes
Vegetable medley (orange & red peppers, carrots, and celery root)
Red cabbage, arugula, and rasin salad
Homemade stuffing
Spinach quiche
Turkey & gravy

Pumpkin pie
Pumpkin cheesecake pie & whipped cream
Fudge walnut brownies
Licorice candies



We hope each of you had a great Thanksgiving and we should now say what we are thankful for, well, we are thankful for each and everyone of you that keeps up with us and that reads this blog.

Preview, Bridge, Forum, Liste...

This past weekend several art fairs all converged on Berlin. One was held at the historical Templehof airport, serving as the location for Allied air aide to West Berlin and officially closed last Friday. Another was held at Messe, a large conference center on the western side of Berlin. Two others were held at hotels in Berlin. Ultimately art fairs are exhausting and often not the most exciting places to see artwork. There is usually a lack of cohesion between the art presented in the gallery's booths that is mostly on display for collectors and sales.

However, we thought this would be an opportunity to see a lot of art all at once and took the marathon trip to visit these over the end of last week.


Entrance to Preview Berlin at Templehof hangar


Preview overview

There was a free shuttle service provided from the Preview Berlin fair to Artforum Berlin across town. We had managed to obtain a free professional pass to Preview and were able to ride in a Toyota Prius across town. At Artforum we were expecting to have tickets on hold. The tickets were not there when we arrived but somehow we managed to talk them into giving us a free VIP pass.




Albert Weiss work on paper

I could not get very many good angles of the Artforum booths but the architectural features of the building were amazing for their 1960's kitschy German style.


Coatroom


Lounge (w/ mirror and glass terrarium)


Chandelliers

We also attended an opening in a pavillion on Karl-Marx-alee held in an old building that was built by the East German gov't to house communist art in the 1960's.


Capitain Petzel opening